Four Dead Queens(20)

Another zap.

The henchman jerked in the water, and my skin tingled from the close contact. His arms stiffened by his sides, releasing me.

“Come on,” the messenger said, appearing beside me, the destabilizer in his hand.

He didn’t need to tell me twice.

When we reached the shore, I pulled myself onto the sand and coughed up water. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the stars winking down at me as if tonight were some kind of joke. I hoped it amused the dead queens watching from above.

The messenger loomed over me, blocking the stars. Water glistened on his defined cheeks and full lips, his black hair twisted like seaweed around his face. His eyes were milky pearls in the low light. While I felt like a half-drowned sewer rat, he looked like what Torian seafarers called a lure, a mythical creature who seduced men and women from their boats and into the waves, never to be seen again. My father used to call my mother and me earthly lures, persuading him to live a life on land. I wished we had succeeded.

“Are you all right?” the messenger asked.

I rolled onto my side, then tentatively stood. “I think so.” I patted myself down. “Yep, all here.”

“What in the queens’ names were those things?” he asked.

“Mackiel’s henchmen.” I shuddered. “They’re from your quadrant. That’s the ugly side of trying to create a perfect world.”

He grunted. “Eonia is hardly a perfect world.”

Coming from his perfectly shaped lips, I found that hard to swallow.

“Eonist scientists were trying to create a replacement for HIDRA,” I said. “They thought if they could cure death, then it wouldn’t matter when all doses of HIDRA ran out. To test their serum, they destroyed certain parts of the henchmen, hoping they could revive the cells.” I shuddered thinking of their ruined bodies. “It didn’t work.”

His eyes brightened. “You know about HIDRA?”

“Of course I do. Everyone does.” That wasn’t true. I knew about HIDRA because of Mackiel and my father, but I wasn’t willing to talk about that.

“But what are the henchmen doing here?” he asked. “In Toria?”

“Mackiel knows the wall guards between Eonia and Toria, or rather, he knows all the guards’ secrets and blackmails them into providing information about Eonist technologies that might be worth stealing.” Extortion is another form of trade, he liked to say. “He forces the guards to let desperate Eonists cross illegally into Toria to become part of his employ. And there was no one more desperate than the henchmen.”

Unfortunately, the henchmen hadn’t realized that in deserting Eonia, they had merely stepped from one nightmare into another. Mackiel now controlled their every move. And while he provided lodgings, the henchmen weren’t paid for their “protective services.” Being alive in Toria, or mostly alive, was the only payment they’d get. The alternative was death.

“They do his dirty work and frighten the pants off of anyone who has the unfortunate pleasure of meeting them,” I said.

“That’s really sad.”

I huffed a laugh. “Sad? Did you not see them? They’re disgusting!”

“Yes, I saw them.” A shadow cast over his face. “But surely they were men once.”

“Yes, but not anymore.” They’d wanted to improve their standing in Eonist society by volunteering for genetic testing; now they weren’t even allowed out of the auction house in the daytime, in case they were seen by Torian authorities. Before the henchmen had fled Eonia, the scientists had planned to exterminate their failed experiments. If Mackiel was found harboring Eonist fugitives, it would be the end of his business. He had power in Toria, but not that much.

The messenger nodded. “I assume you want this back,” he said after a moment. He handed me my lock pick.

“Thanks.” I reattached it to my dipper bracelet, although a part of me wanted to throw it into the sea. I’d known something was increasingly off with Mackiel, but I’d never thought he’d turn on me.

I shoved my icy hands into my pockets. It was a little warmer, though still soggy in there. “And thanks for helping me.”

“I wasn’t about to let you drown.” The way he said it was as though he wished he could have. He was still angry with me.

He began peeling off his Torian clothes to reveal his dermasuit. And while I shivered in my wet undergarments, the snug material of his suit already looked dry.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wringing water from my hair. “Mackiel told me to steal from you.” I shrugged. “So I did. It’s nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?” he muttered. “Because of you, and Mackiel”—his voice hardened on the name—“I’ve lost my commission and—” His hand stilled near his ear. “No,” he whispered.

“What is it?” I glanced behind me, expecting to see the henchmen approaching from the water like half-drowned ghouls.

“My comm line.” He ran his finger around his ear. “I must have lost it in the water.”

“Shame.”

“You don’t understand.” He looked at the sea as though he’d find it floating out there. “I need to check in with my boss. I need to tell him I failed.”

I held up a finger. “From my experience, bosses don’t deal well with failure. He’s better off not knowing.”