Shades of Dark (17 page)

Something told me I should be very afraid. I didn’t want to think about that right now. Aubry was someone who’d hurt us. He’d tried to kill Sully. And Sully had done this before, this
zral,
this retrieval of information. This removal of a memory.

We could leave Aubry on Narfial. He’d find work as a drive mechanic on some other ship. But he’d never remember Gabriel Sullivan or Chasidah Bergren.

Aubry’s head dropped onto his arms. I looked closely. He was breathing, his eyes closed.

“Sully?” I said his name softly, almost as softly as the word-motes that had raced through my mind.

Sully was still braced against the table but his head was bowed. And he was breathing hard, his chest heaving. I didn’t know if I should touch him. Just like when he’d saved Ren’s life, and Philip’s. His head had been bowed then too, his breathing ragged.

And just as when he’d saved their lives, he edged one hand toward me, turning it, palm up. Asking. Needing. I took his hand. A rush of heat flowed into me then out of me again, back to him.

Still with me? Angel?

You’re stuck with me, Sullivan.

Damn.
Slowly he lowered himself onto the chair.
That’s the best news I’ve had in decades.

I contacted Verno again and he carried the slumbering Aubry back to the small lockup. Gregor had his own cell but we wouldn’t talk to him for at least fifteen minutes. Sully needed water, lots of it. And we needed to talk.

Sully sprawled in the chair, a large bottle of water in front of him that had been full minutes ago. Now it was almost empty.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. I didn’t remember him being this tired after he’d read Philip’s mind on Marker. But he had been drained after the
zrals
he did on Kingswell and Paxton, so maybe reading thoughts and erasing them were different. And he was still healing.

“Who’s Aubry working for?” I asked him.

He huffed out a sigh of frustration. “Gregor. All that work and the son of a bitch doesn’t know a goddamned thing that we hadn’t guessed. Gregor tells him what to do and he does it, for the stated fee.” He shot me a glance. “Aubry’s not exactly a self-starter.”

“But you mentioned Burke!”

“Gregor rambled about a lot of things to Aubry, one of which is the fact that Tage and Burke want me dead. Gregor feels the whole thing’s about my family’s money. He’s fascinated by my money—or Burke’s money, as he sees it. He told Aubry a couple of times that whatever he could get out of me, he could get double out of Burke, if he wanted to. He said he had plans. But he never told Aubry what those plans were, or if Burke was part of them.

“So it could be Burke. It could be the Farosians. It could be someone else entirely. The thing is, Aubry never bothered to ask. He didn’t even know what Gregor had in the duffel.”

“Where were they going with our shuttle?”

“Walker Colonies, for starters. Gregor told Aubry he had enough money to get a ship. Gregor would pilot. Aubry would keep the engines running. They’d split the take on whatever jobs they did.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Whatever Gregor told him to do.”

I must have had a completely incredulous expression on my face because Sully reached over and patted my hand. “Chasidah. I could tell you the man’s a moron, but that would lead you to believe he has more intelligence than he does. I’ve been in his mind. Trust me. Except for what he knows about ship’s drives, it’s all vacant real estate in there.”

“A little more vacant, now.”

The fingers that had been stroking mine stilled. “He’s stupid enough to say something. I couldn’t take that chance.”

“Sully.” I paused after his name as he had after mine. “The man tried to cut your brain in half with a wrench. The fact that you left his with a few new holes is nothing you need apologize for.”

He squeezed my hand then brought it to his lips.

“Was it painful for him? For you?” I knew I was still processing that I’d been part of a
zral
. Despite what we’d been taught at the academy, it hadn’t left Aubry writhing on the floor in pain. Still…

“I’ve seen him drink. He’s likely had worse hangovers.” He was holding my hand tightly. “He was easier than I thought. There was no resistance. So I did everything I could to make sure there won’t be problems. I don’t
like
this, Chasidah. I really don’t. You know that.”

“You want to take a break? An hour?” I was worried how much Aubry seemed to drain him, though the color had come back to his face now.

“I want this finished,” he said. “And I don’t want to have to do this again.”

Gregor said nothing when Verno closed the door behind him. So I decided to give him something to think about. After all, that was why we were here.

“Sit down, Mr. Gregoran.”

Like Aubry, his clothes were torn and stained, his face bruised, and a dark crusted trail over his mouth and cheek suggested a considerable nosebleed. His thinning brown hair was plastered to his head. He stared at Sully, once again leaning against the wall behind me. Then his gaze dropped to me.

He’s wondering if you’re armed,
Sully told me.
He’s delightfully puzzled that I’m not.

Does he honestly think he can make a run for it?

He’s sizing up the situation, getting his lies in line.

Evidently satisfied with what he saw, Gregor eased down into the chair.

“Would you like to make a statement, Mr. Gregoran?”

“What is this, fucking Fleet?”

I gave Sully a mental nudge.
Is he even wondering how I know his name?

I received an affirmative mental nod.

“Meevel.” I used his first name deliberately. “Would you like to make a statement?”

Gregor’s gaze darted around the small room. “Where’s the blue-skinned mind-fucker?”

The tiny whispers of word-motes started again.
Reading me. Another room. Behind me? Fuck them. Bitch.

I was less surprised by their appearance this time and tuned them out, including his various intimate and insulting descriptives of my anatomy. His command of profanity was impressive, but it wasn’t anything I’d not heard before somewhere, sometime on the decks or the docks.

“We have the archivers. We found the snoopers,” I told him. “We know about your gambling debts. It must be difficult keeping up with those, even with what Sully was paying you.”

“That’s my business.”

“It becomes mine, Meevel, when you put the Farosians on our tail. But then you sold them out too, didn’t you?”

He leaned his elbow on the left arm of the chair. “I got nothing to say to you, Bergren.” He all but spat out my name.

“Then talk to me.” Sully’s voice was low, flat, angry. He took one step forward and out of the corner of my eye I could see him standing, his arms still folded over his chest. I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t have to. His voice said it all.

“Sure, Sully.” Gregor’s lips twisted into a sneer. “Here goes. Fuck you.”
Kill. Space me anyway. Alive. This long.

“You think I’m going to kill you, space you anyway,” Sully said, parroting Gregor’s thoughts back to him. “Why have I even kept you alive this long?”

Gregor’s eyes widened briefly.
Ren. Back room. Transmitter.

“Ren’s not on this deck. There is no back room. No transmitter. It’s just you and Captain Bergren. And me.”

A high-pitched sound squealed softly through my mind. It halted. Started again. Halted. I realized Gregor was creating the sound and Sully was stopping it.

“That’s a useless technique,” Sully said, a tone of dry amusement in his voice. “I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for it.”

Gregor’s widened eyes narrowed then he frowned.
Blind. Mind-reader. Can’t kill.
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”

Silver haze suddenly erupted through the room. Gregor flew backward in his chair as if hit by a blast from an ion cannon. His head smacked against the wall, spittle flying from his mouth.

Gripping the edge of the table, I half-rose out of my seat, a surge of adrenaline almost forcing me to my feet. The silver haze evaporated as quickly as it appeared.

Sully hadn’t moved.

“Now you do,” Sully said, his voice deathly quiet, as I sat down again. “Now you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Gregor struggled to right himself, grabbing onto the arms of the chair. His eyes were wild. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Sully said. “We can do it the easy way or the hard way. You’ve just had a very small taste of the hard way. Choice is yours. Make it. Now.”

Sully?
I could fear Gregor’s fear. But I also felt Sully’s anger simmering rapidly. Anger that hadn’t surfaced against Aubry.

It’s okay. Gregor has to be handled differently.

Sully had warned me when I first arrived on the
Karn
that the only thing Gregor respected was physical force. But the physical force of a
Kyi-Ragkiril
was considerable.

Trust me.

We just need who he’s working for,
I told him.
Who’s waiting for us at Narfial.

That’s all I want too.

Gregor gripped the arms of the chair but didn’t pull back to the table. It was a distance of only three or four feet. But he seemed to need that space between Sully and himself. No, not Sully. The word-motes still whispered of Ren.

“Why do you need me to tell you,” Gregor ground out, “if your pet mind-fucker can pull that stuff from my head?”

“I don’t,” Sully replied. “But pulling will entail pain. Lots of it. That doesn’t bother me at all. Captain Bergren, however, objects.”

I do.
Something prickled over my mind, my skin. I could actually feel Sully’s power building. I could feel the dark regions of the
Kyi
calling him, seducing him.

It’s okay.

A wave of warmth tumbled through me, a gentling. This was Sully. Not that seething darkness…

Gregor wiped a hand down his thin face, his eyes suddenly wary. Snippets of
Ragkiril
lore filled the word-motes, popping in and out of my mind like a thousand tiny bubbles.

“Let’s start with the Farosians,” Sully prompted.

“You didn’t know Nayla Dalby,” I added, “but you knew the Interceptor would find us. You helped it find us. Why?”

“I hate Fleet. Fleet hates Dalby,” Gregor said but some of the bravado was gone from his voice. “Simple enough.”

“No, it’s not,” I told him. “Fleet hates Sully. How long have you been feeding the Farosians information about the
Karn
? About Sully?”

Gregor’s gaze jerked up to Sully. “You should’ve listened to them, worked with them.”

“I’m not interested in getting you a bigger bonus,” Sully replied smoothly. “Seventy thousand, was it? Sorry. Your loss.”

Once again, Gregor frowned. Once again, the fear around him thickened. Fear and confusion. The word-motes were running amok.

“And how do you think the Farosians will pay you,” Sully asked, his voice dropping to a menacing tone, “when they learn you’ve sold them out?”

“Fuck you!” Gregor leaned forward in his chair. “I still got things to trade, things you can’t get to. If something happens to me, if I die, that information’s out there, Sullivan. You hear me? You space me, and there’ll be nowhere you can run. They’ll get you. They’ll get your Fleetie whore. All of you.”

The high-pitched tone started again. I waited for Sully to stop it but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled out the chair next to me and sat, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. I didn’t know what information Gregor had. If it was that Sully was a
Kyi-Ragkiril,
he was incredibly stupid to be pulling the stunt he was now.

But I also knew there were things, whole duro-hards of things, I didn’t know about Gabriel Ross Sullivan.

“I’m not going to space you,” Sully said, folding his hands on the tabletop. “But I can make you wish I had.”

Gregor snorted. “Gonna break my nose again?”

I held my breath, waiting for Sully to lash out. He had little patience for insolence—though he was a master at it himself. But more than that, I could feel energy coiling and uncoiling inside him.

Get the information,
I told him, not even sure he was listening.
Wipe his memory of us. We have a lot ahead at Narfial.

Something glinted briefly in the air. The
Kyi,
I realized after a moment. Not the silver haze but the sparkling, hungry version Sully had been wrestling with. It drifted from Sully’s hands, hovering between the three of us, just a tiny eruption of light.

Gregor rubbed at his eyes, telling me he saw it too.

He just didn’t know what he was looking at. Until he focused on Sully’s outstretched hand.

Sully opened his fist, energy mushrooming from it so quickly I sat back in my chair, even though there was no physical sensation.

Gregor jerked back too, but there was nowhere he could go. His chair was against the wall. And the glittering energy stalked him like a fiery silver shadow.

“All that time and money you spent researching
Ragkirils,
” Sully said quietly, his eyes that infinite shade of dark, “and you don’t even recognize a real live mind-fucker when you see one.”

Gregor inched back, his hands slipping off the arm-rests of the chair as he tried to literally climb the wall. The silver energy coiled closer. Gregor lurched to his right, the heel of his boot catching on something, the leg or edge of his chair. I didn’t know what. I just saw his knee come up, I saw his body weight shift in the chair. I saw the stark terror in the death-mask grimace on his face. Then the chair tilted and I fully expected Gregor to tumble to the decking with it.

He didn’t. He launched himself over the small table, his hands grabbing Sully’s throat.