LITMIR.BIZ

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obligingly released the man’s arm and stepped back. Grimacing, Daramurti pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet. He worked his shoulder up and down and took a menacing step toward Brigid.

      Saragayn spoke a single sharp word and the man picked up Brigid’s fallen weapons and took them to him, then retreated to the doorway. Captain Saragayn briefly inspected the guns but said nothing. Watching him, Brigid knew she should have felt fear, or at the very least, apprehension, but instead she felt the tingling warmth of excitement as the prospect of danger spread through her.

      For a very long time, she was ashamed of that anticipation, blaming her association with Kane and Grant for contaminating her. Now she had accepted the realization that their own desire for thrill-seeking hadn’t infected her, but only forced her to accept an aspect of her personality she had always been aware of but refused to consciously acknowledge.

      In the years long past during her life as a baronial archivist, Brigid Baptiste had prided herself on her intellect and logical turn of mind. She was a scholar first and foremost. Back then, the very suggestion she would have been engaged in such work would have made her laugh. Now she was a veteran warrior, and at some point during her time with Cerberus she realized the moments of danger no longer terrified her but brought a sharper sense of being alive.

      Her life in Cobaltville’s Historical Division had not been fulfilling, but merely a puppet show she had performed so the string pullers wouldn’t become displeased and direct their grim attention toward her. Of course, eventually they had. Over the past few years, she had left her tracks in the most distant and alien of climes and breasted very deep, very dangerous waters.

      The man on the throne showed the edges of his teeth in a vulpine grin. “I am Captain Saragayn, if you haven’t guessed.”

      “I had. I am—”

      “Brigid Baptiste,” the man broke in. “A chief field operative for the group known as Cerberus, based in Montana, in the former United States of America.”

      Brigid smiled with a confidence she did not feel. “Very good. How did you know that?”

      “Would you care to guess again?”

      Brigid presented the image of pondering the question before replying calmly, “The emissary of the Millennial Consortium either described me or showed you a picture.”

      Saragayn clapped his hands together in delight. “Excellent. Mr. Book said you were very smart…and very dangerous.” A frown suddenly replaced the smile on his lips. “I’ve already witnessed the dangerous part.”

      “What else did Mr. Book tell you?”

      Captain Saragayn shrugged. “Many things. Mostly about the bit of bad blood between your two houses. Very interesting.”

      “No doubt,” Brigid responded flatly. “Was Mr. Book alone?”

      “Yes,” a male’s voice said from behind her. “Due to a personnel shortage, thanks in large part to Cerberus.”

      Brigid turned quickly, just as a slender man stepped around the guard in the doorway and entered the throne room. He wore a one-piece zippered coverall of a neutral dun color. A small button glinted dully on the collar of his garment, and she didn’t need to see the image inscribed on it to know she faced an agent of the Millennial Consortium.

      “My name is Mr. Book,” the man stated coldly. “It’s about time we met.”

      Chapter 4

      Brigid’s first impulse was to shoot back with a witticism or an insult. But when she looked into Book’s eyes, she saw the glint of cruelty in their pale depths, glimmering like the fires of a furnace that had only been banked, not extinguished.

      Although of medium height, Book was so excessively lean he appeared taller. His hair was cropped so short it resembled a gray skullcap of bristles. His rawboned, leathery face was deeply seamed, as if it had been cooked by the sun and leached by acid rain until only bone, muscle and sinew were left.

      His posture and attitude reminded her of Magistrates she had encountered, and she realized that Book was quite possibly a former Mag, one who had been recruited by the Millennial Consortium. Her mouth went dry as she experienced a rare moment of fear. She opted to remain silent.

      Book regarded her broodily. “Brigid Baptiste. And where you are, so are Kane and Grant. The question is why.”

      Brigid frowned. “What do you mean?”

      “You people from Cerberus are enigmas, Baptiste. Oh, I know your names and your histories—renegades from Cobaltville, baron blasters and all that overblown bullshit told about you in the Outlands.”

      Brigid forced a taunting smile to her face, but she didn’t reply. Over the past five-plus years, the Cerberus warriors had scored many victories, defeated many enemies and solved mysteries of the past that molded the present and affected the future. More importantly, they began to rekindle of the spark of hope within the breasts of the disenfranchised fighting to survive in the Outlands.

      Victory, if not within their grasp, at least had no longer seemed an unattainable dream. But with the transformation of the barons into the Overlords, all of them wondered if the war was now over—or if it had ever actually been waged at all. Brigid privately feared that everything she and her friends had experienced and endured so far had only been minor skirmishes, a mere prologue to the true conflict, the Armageddon yet to come.

      Seeing the smile, Book challenged, “I amuse you?”

      “To a point. If our reps are overblown bullshit, why has the consortium black-tagged our files?”

      Saragayn stirred in his chair. “What means this ‘black-tagged’?”

      Staring levelly at Book, Brigid declared, “It means that my friends and I from Cerberus are high-priority targets for the millennialists. There is a big bonus paid to any of their agents who manage to kill us.”

      Saragayn angled at eyebrow at Book. “Is this so?”

      The man nodded and then glared at Brigid. “Why are you here in Pandakar?”

      Brigid smiled defiantly. “Take a guess, Mr. Book.”

      “The cheap heroics of you Cerberus people nauseate me,” Book said harshly. “But let’s be frank with each other. The consortium’s enterprises in America are imperiled by the continual interference of Cerberus. You’ve destroyed our satraps, killed our personnel and disrupted our operations. You’ve forced us to move farther and farther from the American shores, yet you keep coming after us. Why?”

      Brigid cast a glance at Saragayn. “That’s an example of the bad blood you mentioned.”

      Saragayn nodded. “I gathered as much. I’m interested in your perspective.”

      Brigid made a dismissive gesture. “Is there any point in that? You’ve already made up your mind.”

      Saragayn chuckled. “You severely over- or underestimate me. I am responsible for nearly a thousand people, most of them related to me. Pandakar is surrounded by tides of change, and I do not want my island to be swept away. Therefore, I don’t make decisions rashly or choose sides until I’ve gauged every advantage and disadvantage.”

      Brigid nodded as if she agreed, although she surreptitiously looked around for another way out of the room. Daramurti still blocked the doorway. “Do you know what the Millennial Consortium really is, Captain?”

      “I only know what Mr. Book told me—a union of organized salvagers and traders.” Saragayn cocked his head at her in an exaggerated pose of puzzlement. “Is that not the truth?”

      “To a point,” Brigid admitted, pinching the air between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. “A very small and very blunt point.”

      The Millennial Consortium was, on the surface, a group of very well-organized traders who dedicated their lives

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