Perdition (Dred Chronicles 1)

By the time she finished, all the casualties were either resting comfortably or being hauled away to the recycling chutes. Einar came back to her when the corpses were gone, looking troubled. “I’ve been thinking about what you said in your quarters.”

“About the rat in our walls?” So had she.

Little else, too.

He glanced around, then lowered his voice. “Could Wills help us figure out who?”

“His prognostications, so far, have been just vague enough to stir up trouble without giving us any real information.”

“But you think he’s got a real gift.”

Dred lifted a shoulder, by which she meant anything was possible. “Something drove him crazy, and he was like that when I met him. Could be a real gift.”

“Or it could be the bad things he did to end up here. Or life inside.” Einar sounded disappointed, as if he wanted to solve her problems with a simple suggestion.

If only it could be that straightforward—summon Wills, roll the bones, find the traitor. Then I could make an example of him and turn my attention to defeating two dangerous enemies.

“It couldn’t hurt to ask him,” she decided aloud.

Einar seemed gratified. “I’ll go get him.”

She sank down on her throne, wondering if her people thought she was as crazy as Silence. It wasn’t a question she’d considered before, but the new fish’s presence brought it to mind. Dred surveyed the scene, trying to picture it through Jael’s eyes. This enormous scrap-metal monstrosity didn’t exactly proclaim mental stability, and then there were the chains she wore everywhere—

“Is it true?” The speaker who had approached while she pondered was a deceptively young-looking woman: slim, tan skin, with a very pretty face. Martine also had her teeth filed to sharp points and a tendency to shove a blade through people’s eyes if they annoyed her.

“What?” Dred asked.

“That we’re in bed with Silence’s crew?”

“Call it a working arrangement until we deal with Priest and Grigor.”

Martine spat. “We should just go kill the motherfuckers.”

“Feel free. If you can get past all their traps, the automated defenses Priest has co-opted—and I think he’s got some of those Peacemaker units running again, too—plus all the men? Then you deserve to run all the territories.”

“Those sound like excuses to me. Artan would never—”

“Artan’s dead,” she said icily. “So will you be if you keep questioning me.”

Dred pushed slowly to her feet, unwinding her chains from her arms. She leveled her coldest look on the other woman, knowing Martine wasn’t as susceptible to her legend as the men. This woman saw through the stories Tam and Einar circulated to inspire awe among the troops. Fortunately, she could perform just enough magic tricks to lend them credence.

Martine took a step back, but she didn’t drop her eyes. “My man went down the chute today. What do you intend to do about it?”

I’m sorry seemed like the wrong response—insincere besides. She hadn’t known Martine was shagging anyone particular and wouldn’t have cared if she did. So Dred answered honestly. “I’ll lay plans. And when I’m sure we’ll win, we take the fight to them. I’m not Priest . . . I won’t squander personnel just to test them. I didn’t take Queensland by playing against long odds.”

The other woman nodded. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

Martine stormed away as Einar approached, with Wills wriggling in his grasp. “It’s not time for the spots!”

That was as normal as the man got. Dred signaled her lieutenant. “Let him go.”

“Please don’t let the darkness win,” Wills pleaded.

Hell. That sounded almost coherent.

“I’ll do my best not to,” she said gently. “But I need you to roll the bones for me. Can you manage that?”

Wills stumbled toward her and clutched her hands. “He’s still here.”

“Who is?” The danger of dealing with crazy people was that their delusions started sounding all too plausible.

“Our enemy.”

She wanted Wills to root out a traitor, and it sounded like he might already be glitching on some psychic irregularity. Pity he couldn’t just point and say, That’s him. But Dred wasn’t sure she’d believe it even if the man were sane. Anyone in here might lie for his own gain or to settle a grudge. At least she could trust that Wills was a full-on nutter with moments of helpful clarity.

This just wasn’t one of them.

“Can you cast for me?” she repeated.

Finally, the request penetrated. “Yes. I can.”

The rodent bones came out of the sack, and the man slit his fingertips, smearing blood all over them. Once, twice, three times, then he spat and cradled the mess in his palms. He rattled the ivory, blew on it as if it were lucky dice, and cast it out so that it bounced on the ground. Dred had never seen a pattern before; to her it always looked like a random assortment, but this time, she swore she saw a pattern in the long arrangement of red-smeared bone.

“Beware the knife in the dark.” For a moment, lucidity burned in Wills’s eyes, and the man looked genuinely frightened.

She hid her reaction, the sickness roiling in her stomach. None of the precog’s glimpses had offered a look at the past before, so this must be a coincidence. Or history will repeat itself.

Dred forced herself to ask, “Are you saying it’s someone I trust?”

“I’m saying. Saying. Saying.” Wills jerked his head to the left three times.

When he started in with the tics and the repeating random words, it was impossible to talk to him. It only came on when he was really agitated, too. “Thanks. Go . . . fix something.”

Wills raked his beloved bones back into the tattered sack and hurried away; Einar watched him go, a crease between his fair brows. Then the big man shook his head.

“He makes my skin crawl. You know what he did to end up in here?” Einar’s voice was a low rumble, the question soft.

“I don’t ask. You know that.”

“Neither did I. He was on one of his tears and wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

Dred knew she would regret it, but she asked anyway. “And?”

“He killed a whole building full of people. Day care, restaurants, office workers.”

“Mary,” she breathed. Even in here, that was saying something. “How many?”