Page 85 of Alchemised
“Stroud lets you have anyone you want?”
“Well,” the sly voice replied, “it probably depends on your repertoire. She’ll give you a list of room numbers to choose from. There’s this one girl, pretty thing, scars weren’t too bad. Little bitch managed to bite me, but she was very cooperative after I broke her jaw. I told Stroud to let it heal the old-fashioned way.” There was a dramatic sigh. “I’ll go back again this week, make sure she’s knocked up, and if not, I guess I’ll try again. I rather hope it didn’t take, I think I’ll like her better with her mouth wired shut.”
Helena felt as though someone had stabbed her. Pain twisted through her chest and stomach.
“Is that all? I thought from the papers that there’d be more of a process. I’ll have to go see what I can get.”
There was more laughter then.
“You been in, Ferron? With your repertoire, they must have you working through every room.”
Helena’s mouth went dry.
“No,” came Ferron’s cold voice. “I’ve better things to do.”
“Right, no need to commute to the city when you’ve got one here.”
“The prisoner’s not for that,” Aurelia broke in. “We’ll be done with her soon, anyway. And really—she’s nothing to look at. All she does is skulk around like a rat. I had to threaten her just to make her wash.”
“I saw the picture in the paper. Bit feral but I don’t think I’d mind,” the sly voice replied.
There was raucous laughter then.
“Have you noticed the flowers?” Aurelia asked loudly.
A woman’s voice, much softer than the men’s, replied, and then Aurelia’s voice dropped, too. Helena strained her ears but only made out a few words about import taxes.
The conversation returned to the most recent murder.
“Ghastly. Couldn’t even sleep after I saw him. Cut him to bits, sliced so thin, light shines through the pieces. Stuffed it all down his throat.”
“After, though? Right?” A new, nervous voice. “He was already dead when—”
“No, they did it before. He had the alloy in his blood. Blocked the regeneration. Whoever we missed, they’re psychotic.”
“You’ve noticed the pattern, haven’t you?”
There was a pause and uneasy muttering.
“The Celebration Purge,” Ferron said when no one spoke. “The killer’s imitating the executions. Vidkun was a copy of Bayard and his wife.”
“So it’s all revenge, then?” It was the nervous voice again. “Durant, Vidkun, and all the rest, those are the Undying who were there that night. The rest of us are safe.”
There were murmurs of relief.
“Fuck …” came the sly voice. “That means they won’t go after that frigid little bitch. I was hoping she’d be next.”
“Well, I’m not risking it,” boomed another voice. “Just had a safe room built. Inert iron and solid lead for the walls, ceiling, and floor. I’m the only one with the combination. Nothing can get through that.”
They spent a long time describing various precautions they were taking—trick steps and hidden defences within their homes, all keyed to their repertoires.
Helena tried to listen carefully, but the conversation splintered into several smaller ones overlapping into an unintelligible murmur. Finally, there came the sound of chairs moving, and Aurelia saying something about flowers in the hothouse, and the voices dispersed into another room.
Helena slid down against the wall, unable to do anything but sit frozen with horror at the thought of everyone in Central.
There had been so many women in the Resistance. Not many in combat, but everywhere else; they’d staffed the hospital, gone to the front lines as field medics and dragged the wounded bodies to safety, operated the radios and relayed messages, washed and repaired the clothes and uniforms, and cooked the meals. All the ordinary tasks that never ended, not even when a war began. It had been women doing them.
They would have been in Headquarters, and they wouldn’t have been important enough to execute.
