Page 135 of The Mask Falling

A Rephaite had appeared at the other end of the hall. Golden hair, long and unbound. Hooded eyes, hot as the ninth circle of hell, the yellow of molten steel.

“XX-59-40.” His voice, and that number, froze my blood. “What an unexpected delight.”

Thuban Sargas. I snapped my arm up, aiming my revolver at him.

He stepped closer, cloak grazing the floor. Even in the half-light, I could see that his gloved hands were slick, and that he was holding something. Something like a dead animal.

“Your friend had a pitiful tolerance for pain.” Darkness dripped from his trophy. “I put him out of his misery once he told me who he had brought with him. Such is my mercy.”

That thing in his hand was no animal. It was cinnamon hair, still attached to a bloody lappet of skin.

Malperdy.

Thuban had scalped him.

“I wasn’t sure you had any more marbles to lose, Thuban.” As I spoke, I was searching the æther for Malperdy. Nothing. “I thought you liked to play for a while before you killed.”

I had to keep Thuban occupied. If he was talking, he wasn’t chopping pieces off me.

“I no longer have a great deal of patience for thesoundof human beings,” Thuban confessed. “Once I relished your screams, your pleas, your weeping. Now I find I prefer your absolute silence. Even the cadence of your breathing is a vexation.”

Something had come unhinged in him. Even the façade of his restraint had evaporated.

“I will make an exception for you, fleshmonger.” He started to close the space between us. I backed away. “Your screams will ring in every corner of this palace before I present what remains to the blood-sovereign. Perhaps I will give her that lovely hair . . . separately.” He cocked his head. “If you are here, then the concubine is close. Unwise of him to leave you alone. I wonder how many fingers I will have to remove before he hears your cries.”

I kept moving, trying to maintain a safe distance. “You couldn’t beat Arcturus at a game of cards, let alone a duel.”

“We shall test that theory when he comes.” A mockery of a smile. “Tell me, now. Is 24 with you?”

At this, I stopped.

“Ivy,” I said, my voice full of loathing, “is alive and fighting. She survived you, Thuban.”

“Did you expect to disappoint me with that news?” he asked. “No. It pleases me. What a pity it would have been if she had succumbed after our games. We have so many more to play, she and I.” He let the scalp drop to the floor with a wetslap. “What passed between us in the colony was nothing. When I have her back in my possession, you will wish you had slit her throat.”

“You will never lay a finger on her again, you twisted hellkite.” I clicked back the hammer. “I’m curious, Thuban, if you’ll indulge me. Why haven’t they made you the blood-heir?”

Taunting him was a dangerous game. The sight of him filled me with such revulsion and anger that it made my hands shake.

“I have one idea,” I went on. “Nashira finds you embarrassing. Your clairvoyance is nothing special. You torment humans—who stand no chance against you—because you have nothing else to recommend you.”

I had touched a nerve. His eyes burned hotter.

“To be a Sargas,” he said, “is to be power.” Another step. “I do not care to be blood-heir. Pleasure would then have to bow before duty, and there are such pleasures to be tasted here. I learned where to cut a human to make it bleed, but not to let it slip away into death. I learned how many pieces I could slice. Which bones cause most agony when broken.”

As he spoke, memories pounded through me. Flux warping my mind. The branding iron on my shoulder.

“I wonder why you look at me with such disgust,” Thuban said, “when humans have invented so many creative ways to inflict agony on each other. I would never have thought of some of them myself. Have you heard of a brazen bull, or a breaking wheel, or keelhauling?”

“Medieval brutality,” I said. “You’re nothing, Thuban. Just a low grunt who does filthy work, so pathetic he has to prey on the helpless.”

“You will come to regret each word that just left your rotting mouth.”

He flew at me.

A ringingbang, and the first slug pierced his chest. The sound barked against my ears. I fired again and again, the shock of the recoil shuddering up my arms, but Thuban kept coming, impervious to the onslaught of hot lead. He was a colossus, a god, his sarx like metal. After five shots, I lashed out with my spirit.

Power crested in me like a wave. Thuban stopped in the face of it, his teeth set against the pressure of my dislocation. I retreated as fast as I could toward the doors, just about keeping him at bay. Then his features morphed, and he was Suhail Chertan, and I was strapped to the waterboard, at his mercy. A spasm of terror made me lose my grip.

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