Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) Read online

  ‘Everyone with a brain. That would be Radio Noise. It can be a quite useful assassination tool in the right hands. Stops anyone calling for help, as you’ve done here, but you can attach it to your target so they can run but not get away from the spell.’

  ‘Huh, you learn something new, I guess. You’re going to learn that taking this job was a mistake.’

  ‘Mm. So, just so I’m clear on the details… You all have alibis?’

  ‘There are eight people all ready to say we were with them when this happened. And our ketcoms aren’t here, so you’ll get no evidence there.’

  ‘And you plan to smash my ketcom in the fight, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You don’t intend to kill me?’

  ‘Beaten and humiliated is enough.’

  Nava nodded. ‘I agree, though I’d imagine that the administration will kick you out of the school.’

  ‘Trying to intimidate us with your oh-so-amazing reputation?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She glanced back over her shoulder quickly at a sound from behind her. ‘Oh, six against one. Hello, Booker.’

  ‘Hey, Captain. Nothing personal, you know? Well, that’s actually a lie. It is personal. You shouldn’t be leading the SSF.’

  Nava nodded and turned back toward Zayden. ‘Are you going to do this or not?’

  ‘Sure, Captain.’ Zayden delivered the word with as much sarcasm as he could muster. ‘Get her!’ He raised his pistol.

  Nava raised her hand and a pulse of energy left it, hitting Zayden in the bicep of the arm holding his weapon. He let out a shriek as the Magic Bullet tore through the muscle, leaving his arm hanging and his pistol on the ground at his feet. Three Concussive Force spells hit her from the left and from behind. None of the damage made it through her Armour spell’s protection, but the impacts were enough to toss her two metres across the clearing in such a random direction that she fell. Yelling loudly, the two men with the metal pipes, probably both running Might spells to enhance their strength, charged at Nava, weapons raised.

  Unfortunately for them, that meant one of them ran through the spot where Nava had been standing. The clearing exploded into a mass of electrical arcs. The only people spared were Booker, still outside the area of the Lightning Mine, and Nava, safe inside her armour. Three of them were now unconscious: Zayden and the two pipe guys. That still left another three, one of them Booker in his armour.

  Twisting on the ground, Nava launched another Magic Bullet, blasting the leg off one of her opponents before he could launch another attack. She heard ‘Shit!’ from somewhere to her left; that had to be Booker. Another Concussive Force spell smacked into her side, this one significantly stronger than the previous three, but still not enough to penetrate her armour. It did shunt her across the ground a couple of metres, which resulted in the Slice spell the other man cast only cutting the grass where she had been. Stabilising herself, Nava returned the favour, slicing through the meat of the man’s thigh and instantly dropping him to the ground where he rolled around, screaming and grabbing at his shredded leg.

  There was no immediate attack from Booker and Nava rolled to her feet to look at him. It was difficult to tell through the helmet, but he looked like he was in shock. He was standing there, one hand raised in her direction, without casting another spell. ‘W-what are you?’ he asked, his voice shaking. ‘Why d-didn’t the mine spell go off when you w-walked over it?’

  ‘Just lucky, I guess,’ Nava replied. ‘Now, I’m going to give you a choice. You can surrender, in which case I’ll arrest you. You can run, in which case I’ll disable and then arrest you. Or you can attack, in which case I’ll treat you as a substantial threat and kill you. What’s it going to be, Booker?’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Turning, Booker started to run back down the track.

  Nava raised her arm. He was in armour. She did not know whether he had also activated his suit’s embedded Armour spell. Her Slice cantrip might penetrate, but she could not be sure. A pulse of energy left her hand, flashing against magical armour but continuing into Booker’s right thigh. A small globe of white light expanded out from the spot where it had hit. Skin melted. Muscle burned. Booker let out a scream of agony and fell as his leg went out from under him.

  ‘Okay,’ Nava said. ‘For those of you still conscious, you’re all under arrest. I’ll make sure your wounds are healed just as soon as I have some backup. I have recordings of this entire incident, so your fake alibis are going to be worth squat. You are all going to be leaving this school in disgrace, but I hope you’re feeling hurt and humiliated. I will be repeating this for those of you who aren’t conscious later.’

  Now all she had to do was figure out where the Radio Noise spell was so she could dispel it and call reinforcements. Hopefully, none of them would bleed to death before then.

  236/6/5.

  Sunday lunchtime and everyone was there. Hoshi and Rochester were looking distinctly pleased with themselves, which likely meant they had just got up. Carina was there, though Trudy was, as usual, absent. Everyone wanted to know what had happened the night before, even if the details were not especially conducive to a nice meal.

  ‘When my backup arrived,’ Nava said, ‘I used Active Recovery on them all. They were back on their feet in a few seconds and we hauled them all in for the administration to deal with.’

  ‘What about the ones who were going to give false alibis?’ Courtney asked.

  ‘We picked five of them up later. They were the ones carrying an extra ketcom to give incorrect locations. The others… Well, no one’s talking, but I don’t see it as a major issue. They weren’t willing to fight last night and I don’t think they’ll be willing to stick their noses out any further than they have.’

  ‘You may be right.’

  ‘The main group of six are likely to be expelled. All of them are suspended until next term. The initial judgment came down more or less immediately.’

  ‘It sounds like justice has been done,’ Carina said.

  ‘Something like that,’ Nava agreed.

  ‘Uh, there is one thing I don’t get.’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Why didn’t their trap go off when you walked over it?’

  Around the table, people looked up from their food at Nava, wondering what she would say.

  ‘I was wondering that myself,’ Courtney said, ‘though I’ve a feeling I know the answer.’

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ Nava said, ‘though you’re to keep this to yourself, Carina.’

  ‘Sure. I’m great at keeping secrets! Uh, I mean, anything you say, I’ll take to my death bed, Champion of the Light.’

  ‘Mm. Well, the trigger for the commonest form of Lightning Mine is when a human comes within two metres of the point the spell was cast on.’

  ‘Yes, but you walked right over it, didn’t you?’

  ‘When a human comes within two metres, Carina,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘Yes, but…’ Carina’s eyes widened with a slowness that spoke of dawning shock. ‘Oh. Oh! Wow, that’s– Oh wow, I knew you were awesome, but this is… You really are the Champion of the Light!’

  Part Four: One-Woman Army

  Shinden Alliance School of Sorcery, Shinden, Clan Worlds Alliance, 236/6/20.

  ‘Do we have any idea how the additional chromosomes will express?’

  ‘We have some idea. He hasn’t given us a precise map. If I’m honest, I don’t think even he really knows.’

  ‘But she’ll look human?’

  ‘The homeotic genetics are entirely human. The general stuff is human, the details may be different.’

  ‘Right. And we believe it’ll boost sorcery capabilities, obviously.’

  ‘Nothing’s certain, but…’

  Nava shifted in her sleep, turning over with a soft moan. The voices faded.

  ‘I’m a biologist, you know,’ Trudy said. She did not look like a biologist; what she looked like was a girl in a rainbow dress with too many frills.

/>   ‘You said,’ Nava replied. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I can tell these things. That you’re not human. You’re not even a little human. Not really. Have you looked at yourself?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a mirror behind you.’

  Nava turned. What she saw in the mirror was…

  Twisting, Nava tossed the bedsheet away from her body. She felt half asleep, half awake, and too hot. The cool air swept over her skin, raising goose bumps. It was too cold, but it was better than too hot. Half awake became totally asleep.

  Light blossomed before her. A quintessence explosion. The Harbinger was not in it and it continued chasing her. She dodged its counterattack, a massive blast of kinetic energy which would have likely torn her in half. She ran, twisting as she got to a corner and firing off another Magic Burst. Not waiting to see whether she had hit her target, she ran on…

  And slammed right into the monster’s chest. Long fingers wrapped around her wrists as she tried to reverse her flight. It stretched her out, crucified her before it, and looked down into her eyes with cold, blue eyes of its own. ‘You’re not strong enough,’ it said. She could not pull away; its grip was too firm. ‘You’re not strong enough,’ it repeated. She screamed into its face, kicked up to plant her feet against its stomach and push. She could not budge the thing’s grasp on her. ‘You’re not strong enough,’ it said again. This time, its eyes began to shine a brighter blue which turned whiter the brighter it got. ‘Let me fix that.’ The light…

  The light was bright enough to blind her.

  The light was burning into her body, her mind.

  The light exploded within her…

  Nava struggled against the hands gripping her shoulders. It was entirely ineffectual struggling and her confused mind initially thought that was because the Harbinger was holding her. But the Harbinger had been holding her wrists…

  ‘Nava! Nava, wake up for God’s sake!’ The voice sounded distant. Familiar.

  There was a clattering noise and another voice. ‘Hell’s teeth, what’s going on?’ That one was familiar as well.

  ‘Is she okay? What’s happening?’ Third voice. Also not an unknown. ‘Something woke me up and then I heard noises.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She won’t wake up. She was boiling hot a minute or two ago, but–’ Back to that first familiar voice and it belonged to…

  ‘Suki?’ Nava opened her eyes to see Mitsuko’s worried expression. She turned her head to find Melissa and Courtney standing just inside the bedroom door. There was no large-scale destruction and no Harbingers of any kind. She did feel a bit weird. Lightheaded. ‘I’m okay. You can let go now.’

  Mitsuko did not let go. ‘What happened? When I came to, you were almost bent in half. Like you were in a lot of pain. And you were hot. Really hot. Humans are not supposed to be that temperature.’

  ‘Not human,’ Nava said. ‘I know I have to remind you at times.’

  ‘You’re not not-human enough to be that hot!’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll avoid jokes since you’re clearly worried.’ Nava looked around at Courtney and Melissa. ‘Did I wake you? Was I screaming or something? I was dreaming about… Not sure. Something bad.’ The dreams were, in fact, fading from her memory rather rapidly. Had there been a Harbinger in them?

  ‘I don’t know what woke me,’ Melissa said. ‘One moment I was asleep and the next I was awake. Like…’

  ‘It felt like something had tripped my fight-or-flight response,’ Courtney said. ‘I woke up ready to run or kill something. Then I heard Suki shouting.’

  ‘Pretty much the same,’ Melissa agreed, nodding.

  ‘Weird,’ Nava said. ‘Well, I don’t think it’s anything to–’ She cut off as a Harbinger materialised in the room right beside her bed.

  Trudy immediately held up defensive hands as Nava raised an arm to blast her. ‘I felt the threshold shift! I came to see what caused it! Don’t kill me!’

  ‘Trudy? Sorry, I had a bad dream. I think there might have been a Harbinger in it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t just materialise in someone’s bedroom like that,’ Melissa said.

  ‘My apologies,’ Trudy said. ‘But–’

  ‘What’s a threshold shift?’ Nava asked.

  Trudy stared at her for a second. It was not an entirely comfortable thing to have happen to you. ‘Young Harbingers can undergo sudden large changes in their sorcery capacity. It’s a developmental thing. We call them threshold shifts because what you call sorcery capacity, we called manipulation threshold.’

  ‘I’m not a Harbinger, Trudy,’ Nava pointed out. ‘For one thing, I’m not blue. Though that may change if I don’t put some clothes on soon.’

  ‘The climate control is still set for sleeping,’ Mitsuko commented, rather pointlessly.

  ‘You’re not a Harbinger,’ Trudy said, ‘but there’s no reason why a human couldn’t undergo a threshold shift, I’d imagine. And your capacity has increased. Markedly.’

  ‘Markedly?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve never bothered to work out a conversion between our units and your Tammys. However, I’d calculate an approximate increase of thirty-seven percent.’

  ‘That’s a lot,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Thirty-seven percent?’ Nava asked. ‘That’s… something like three hundred and seventy Tammys, based on my last test.’

  ‘That’s a lot,’ Melissa repeated. She looked a little wide-eyed.

  ‘I think,’ Mitsuko said, ‘that we should go back to bed. We’ll call Hoshi in the morning. Early. I’m sure she can get us access to a capacity-testing machine. Privately, obviously.’

  ‘That sounds like a plan,’ Nava said. She looked at Trudy. ‘You’re still staring at me, Trudy. Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. Nothing. Just something Carina told me. If it means anything, I’ll let you know.’ And with that, she vanished.

  ‘I hope she’s not going to make a habit of that,’ Courtney said.

  ‘She hasn’t up until now,’ Nava pointed out. ‘I guess whatever happened to me, it spooked her. Maybe she thought there was another Harbinger here.’

  ‘She said that only happened to young ones,’ Melissa said. ‘I don’t think she’d be expecting a young Harbinger to turn up here.’

  ‘Good point. I’m going to get some sleep now, so…’

  ‘Right,’ Courtney said. She turned and walked out, heading for her own room.

  Nava settled down, pulling the sheet back over herself. A second later, Mitsuko was curling up against her back. ‘You were worried about me?’ Nava asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I know. There is one thing that bothers me a little, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well… well, you’re not a Harbinger, but you’re not entirely human either. And you don’t know where those weird genes came from.’

  Nava was silent for a while. ‘They can’t be Harbinger chromosomes, Suki. How could they have possibly got their hands on the genome of a Harbinger?’

  Mitsuko’s body relaxed against Nava’s. The tension had not really been noticeable until it was not there. ‘No. You’re right, of course. It’s not possible. Goodnight, Nava.’

  ‘Goodnight, Suki.’

  Nava closed her eyes and tried to relax into sleep. In the morning, she would find out whether any of this was true. But that would be something for when the sun came up.

  ~~~

  ‘That’s three seventy,’ Hoshi said, looking at the monitor. ‘You don’t think you can go higher?’ She tapped at the screen, just in case, and a new schema appeared.

  Nava stared at it, trying to push her mind into the shape required for the new spell. ‘No. Won’t fit. She was right. That’s a little over a thirty-seven percent increase since my last test. And I think my quintessence reserve has got bigger.’

  ‘That’s a lot,’ Melissa said. Nava gave her a loo
k.

  ‘A “threshold shift,”’ Rochester said. His arms were crossed over his chest. Sort of. He was stroking his chin with one hand, looking like an old professor faced with an interesting problem. ‘I’m not aware of anything in the literature regarding that kind of event.’ He glanced at Hoshi.

  ‘No,’ Hoshi said. ‘Me neither, but I’ll do some research while you lot are in lessons.’ It was seven forty in the morning. No one had eaten breakfast yet. And of course Rochester had been with Hoshi when they called. Aside from anything else, what idiot would sleep in one of the tiny capsule apartments when their girlfriend had a spacious postgraduate apartment?

  ‘Uh, it goes without saying,’ Nava said, ‘but I’ll say it anyway. I’d rather this was kept strictly on a need-to-know basis. And no one else needs to know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hoshi replied.

  ‘My lips are, as usual, sealed,’ Rochester said.

  Courtney gave a shrug. ‘What’s one more secret to add to the long, long list?’

  ~~~

  Practically speaking, Nava’s sudden increase in capacity made little difference. She would find it easier to work spells from scratch, and she could use more complex ones that way. She could use more complex cantrips too. The spells she had memorised, however, had not changed and would not suddenly get more powerful just because there was more space available for them.

  She consoled herself with this kind of thought as she sat in the SSF’s HQ, working through the weekend’s reports from her troops. Another boring task to go with the very many boring tasks the captain had to deal with. Maybe she should take some turns patrolling, just to break the boredom. Then again, the patrol she had done with Sixte had been pretty tedious…

  A slight sensation of pressure on her mind told her a spell was being used on her. This sensation was familiar, however, and she allowed it through without resisting. In front of her, just the other side of her desk, a young human girl in a very frilly rainbow-coloured dress appeared.

  ‘I thought I’d do it this way,’ Trudy said, ‘rather than appearing physically. It’s easier, and it won’t cause problems if someone walks in.’