Arrested in Peace (The Complex Book Series) Read online

Val nodded as she went on and grinned with her. She turned to Dag'on when the witch finished her rant. "Well then, I suppose there's only one thing left to do with you then," Val said. She stepped up to him and then glanced back at Davina. "May I?"

  Davina gestured. "Please! What's mine is yours. It always has been."

  Val smiled and turned back to Dag'on. She stepped up until only a few inches separated them. "I have some bad news for you," she said.

  "Fuck you," Dag'on growled.

  "I saved your life once, and because of that you are bound to me," Val continued. She reached out and stroked the back of her fingers and excessively long nails along his masculine jaw, taking care not to cut him with the near monomolecular edge of the her synthetic talons. "By sacrificing you to Davina, I bought enough time to set things right. Perhaps that saved my life and freed you from your contract. I'm not sure if that would release you or not, honestly."

  Val leaned in closer until she could feel his breath on her lips. Her hands continued to caress his skin by moving down to his neck and across his shoulders and up his arm. "I don't regret never giving in to my urges that you caused. It would have been fun, but I just wasn't ready. I hope you understand."

  "Understand that you're heart is as cold and dead as the monsters around me?" he taunted her.

  Valerie smiled. "Far from it," she whispered. "Somehow I became rather fond of you and it doesn't look like you're going to be leaving my service after all. Not for a while, anyhow."

  Davina giggled behind her as Valerie tortured the incubus.

  "Are you ready for this? Do you think you can handle being around me that long?"

  He opened his mouth to respond but Valerie stopped him by pressing her lips to his. She watched the hate in his eyes and felt her soul burned by it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fool herself into believing the situation was different. That the kiss meant something. Something from him, at least.

  Valerie's hands slid up his arms past his elbows and brushed against the cold hands of the orcs holding his wrists against the wall. She kept going, pushing her hands over theirs only this time she let the razors on her fingers come into play.

  She broke the awkward kiss and blinked her eyes open. She saw the betrayal and hate and had to slam shut the armored wall she'd built around her heart over the years. "You're free," she whispered. "Help me."

  He blinked, confused. "What?"

  "Tango left!" she snapped as she turned to her left and threw herself onto the zombie orc that was only now beginning to realize she'd severed the tendons and muscles in his wrist. She hooked the zombie with her right arm around his neck and pulled him away from the wall while she swung around him.

  The zombie resisted, twisting his head back to the left. Val let her right arm slip across and down his face. She dug in with her nails and tore through his muscular neck along the way. Her left arm replaced her right and grabbed the orc's chin, slamming it shut hard enough to make his teeth crack and break. She yanked with her arm and pushed with her knee into his back, twisting his neck and overpowering the shredded muscles. The crack of his neck snapping was louder than his teeth.

  Dag'on recovered from his shock by the time Val fell to the ground with the now motionless corpse of the orc. He turned on the other orc and tugged on his arm. The zombie's grip was weak but growing stronger as the tissue knitted itself back together. He tugged again, pulling his hand free, and drove his fist into the orc's nose.

  The zombie felt no pain. Instead it reached for him as he backed up a step and tried to shake the pain from his hand. He ducked and stepped to his left, keeping away from Davina as she watched in utter shock.

  The necromancer found her voice at last and shrieked, "Stop! Stop it!"

  Time was not on Val's side. She looked up at Davina and saw the witch's fury directed at Dag'on. He'd bumped into the wall again and trapped himself. She flung her hand out and twisted her wrist to release her potion in an arc. Most of it splashed onto the orcs arm and back but enough splashed onto his bare chest and shoulder to cause him to be staggered by the heat of the liquid. The orc grabbed him and drove him into the wall, holding him against it and pinning him there while the potion began to battle its way through his resilient skin.

  "No!" Val shouted, distracting Davina from the incubus. She pushed herself off the zombie's corpse and lifted her hands as she saw the witch's power gathering. The nanobots flowed down her arm and spread out in a shield to block the elemental magic Davina threw against her. Flames struck the shield and deflected off it, although not without raising the temperature enough to cause sweat to run down Val's body.

  Her nanobots were redirecting the energy they gathered but they were being destroyed by the hundreds and thousands from the witch's power. Davina ground her teeth and called for reinforcements. The energy was shunted, running through the army of miniscule machines on her body and raising her temperature even more. Her jumpsuit dissolved around her, deconstructed by the supercharged machines in an effort to acquire raw material and bolster their forces. Her skin crawled with the wave of nanobots that swarmed to reinforce the sundering shield.

  Val's concerns of Davina's power were well founded, the flames kept coming in burst after burst. She was nude now and had nothing left to give save her flesh, but that would weaken her more and prove her undoing. Her only recourse was to stretch her leg back to touch the fallen zombie. Her nanobots swarmed down her leg and began to devour the corpse.

  Her disgust at using dead flesh was a secondary concern. She could shower and purge the tiny machines later on. For now she needed to live.

  Except the shield was weakening and she was getting hotter. Her breath came in pants and the puddle of sweat on the rocky floor beneath her was steaming as it dried. She could smell her hair burning as licks of flame slipped through. She had to do something, but what? Any move would expose her and she would be seared by the flames. Judging by Davina's power, the flames would do more than blister he skin, they'd consume her.

  "You lying whore! You do have magic! Have you had it all along and you only mocked us?" Davina hissed as she split her concentration between her spell and being able to talk. "We would have ruled together! You could have had anything! You could have had me!"

  Val struggled and waited, fighting to endure the flame broiled sauna she was being subjected to. If Davina kept babbling she might screw up. She might make a mistake and then Val could take her.

  "Now you'll have nothing!" Davina seethed. "You will be my puppet. Tark has his freedom, you will not. You will worship me and beg to do my bidding! I will have you, Valerie. If not willingly then with my power!"

  "I'll die first," Valerie countered. She forced herself up and stood on trembling legs. "Burn me to ashes, you'll get nothing from me!"

  Davina stopped the magic for a moment and smiled. The manic gleam had taken over her eye. "You're right about one thing. You will die first."

  Val raised her shield as a new magic rushed out at her. She saw the dark energy hit her shield and then roll over it. The nanobots couldn't expand fast enough to keep it from overflowing the edges and rushing into her. The spell made her skin tingle and then go numb as it worked its way into her arms and up her body.

  "No!"

  Davina howled. The spell was interrupted and dissipated back into the ether while she was picked up off the ground and caught up in a crushing hug from behind.

  "You said you wouldn't harm her!" Tark growled.

  Davina thrashed in his arms and tried to escape. She panted and sputtered as she struggled. "Fool! She'll be like you. With you forever. With us!"

  Val straightened and suck in a breath so she could talk. "She's evil, Tark. Don't believe her! She won't stop until she controls us all!"

  "Harm me and you will die!" Davina hissed.

  "I'm already dead," Tark said and squeezed his arms tighter around her.

  Davina's scream was cut short as he pressed the air from her chest and stole her voice. A few seconds later h
er ribs began to pop one after another. She convulsed and contorted, suffering involuntary spasms from the constriction. Her mouth opened and her tongue stuck out in a desperate bid to get more air or speak. A final ripple of cracks announced the separation of her spine as she went limp in Tark's arms. He gave her a final shake before letting her body crumple to the ground in a broken heap.

  A second thump made Val twist around. The second orc lay on the ground with Dag'on half on top of him. The zombie was finished, his animation gone now that the magic that sustained him had been cut off.

  Dag'on's mouth was open and his breath was hissing in and out. His lips were pulled back to reveal his gums and his cheeks were unusually white for his normally tanned skin. His tendons on his neck stuck out.

  "Help!" he managed to hiss before a new shudder racked his body and contracted his muscles.

  Val stared at him, at a loss for what was wrong with him until she remembered the potion. The orc had been fine but Dag'on had been affected almost instantly. Valerie spun around and saw where the glass vial rested on the ground. She strode over and bent down to look at it. She didn't need to pick it up to see the thick liquid collected around the rim. It was the same magical compound she'd used to restore her undead. The same potion Val had touched. The same potion that appeared to be overwhelming Dag'on and trying to take over his body.

  "Not going to happen," Valerie hissed.

  She twisted as she rose up and walked back to Dag'on's side. She knelt down beside him and let her hand hover over his chest. She hesitated and looked up to his face. Fear and pain shown in his eyes. Val bit her lip and nodded. "I'm sorry, Dag'on, but if we make it through this, you're going to owe me again."

  She pressed her hand to his chest and willed her army of machines to obey. They swelled and swarmed across his flesh in pursuit of the magical potion that was racing through his body. The magic surged through the nanobots, building up and rushing back into Valerie's body. She stiffened and let out a gasp as the heat built to unbearable levels. This time instead of being roasted from the outside in she was going to be cooked from the inside out.

  She needed to direct the heat elsewhere. To spread it out and let it cool. For that she needed more nanobots. A lot more.

  Her swarm spread across Dag'on's body and onto the dead zombie. Just like the partially ravaged corpse a few feet away her nanobots began to tear into the zombie and use the flesh to create reinforcements. Sweat ran from her skin and dried from the heat before it could drip off. Her flesh was burning and blistering. Her stomach tightened and cramped and her muscles ached. Her vision dimmed and grew dark no matter how many times she blinked.

  "Valerie!" someone said in the distance. It might have been Tark, she couldn't tell. The air was so hot it burnt her lungs to breathe it, or maybe her lungs were burning the air inside of them, she couldn't tell. All that mattered was building nanobots and disbursing the heat. She struggled on, splitting her attention between the growing fins that extended from her back and the need to seek out every last bit of potion in Dag'on's body to purge it forever.

  The fins began to glow as more and more heat channeled into them. Valerie collapsed, falling on top of Dag'on's body and pressing her face to his chest. The shallow pants of breath she could take tickled his side before they wisped away to nothing. Her last thoughts before her breath stopped was not of her childhood or the love she'd lost, but of the pain and how she couldn't give up. She had to prove that she wouldn't abandon Dag'on. She had to prove it to him, and to herself.

  Chapter 16

  "Valerie Washburn?"

  She heard the sounds and wondered at the familiarity of them. They were words, she knew that. More than words. A name. It was a pretty name. Valerie. The name of a woman that was beautiful and strong. A magical being. One capable of—

  "Valerie, wake up."

  Valerie was her name. She was Valerie. Yes. Yes that's right. It made perfect sense! The images in her head were her. She was the pretty woman. The strong woman. But was she? Was she really? She hadn't thought she was as beautiful as many people, but the way she'd just felt... maybe she was.

  "Val," a deeper voice spoke, invoking her name and making her heart leap in her chest. She knew that voice. It was Dag'on.

  She blinked her eyes and looked around. Darkness. There was no light. No sense of up or down. She blinked again and tried to see the magic around her. Still nothing. "Dark," she mumbled and winced at the pain in her throat and the raspy quality of her voice.

  "You've been through a lot, Miss Washburn," the first voice said. "We've had you heavily medicated for a few days now. You seem to have friends in good places, both spiritual and otherwise. No expense was spared in your treatment."

  "What—" Val had to pause and swallow, causing more pain even though it seemed to ease the dryness. "What happened?"

  "A significant portion of your body was, well, cooked. Combining magic and medicine most of it has been recovered, although how is, quite honestly, beyond me. You possess a natural rejuvenative ability that has astounded all of us, Miss Washburn. I would assume magic except none of the magical healers that attended you could find any."

  "Why can't I see?"

  "Ah yes, that. Well, as I said most of your body recovered. Your eyes did not."

  Val gasped. "I'm blind?"

  "Temporarily," he said. "Bear with me, you've been outfitted with new eyes. I wanted to make sure you understand and were comfortable before I turned them on."

  "New... eyes?"

  "Yes, the latest in cybernetic design. There was considerable damage to the optic nerve but the leading edge of merging biological and electronic systems uses nanotechnology to splice into the affect region and perform a seamless integration. Have you heard of nanotechnology, Miss Washburn?"

  Val almost laughed. "Yes, I've heard of it."

  "Oh good. Well, there should be no pain, but it might be a little awkward at first as you become accustomed to processing and converting the signal. I assure you, it will take time, but your vision will be better than ever."

  "Okay, I'm ready," she said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Do it," she snapped.

  "Well," he said, put off by her tone. He fell silent, allowing her to hear his clothes rustle and then his fingers tapping against a keyboard. A few second passed before a white light pierced her brain. She sucked in her breath and would have screamed from the sudden assault except it faded back to darkness. Forms began to take shape in the darkness, brightening in some places and remaining dark in others. Soon the forms resembled patterns she was used to, though they remained blurry for a frustrating amount of time. At last they sharpened into clear lines, though everything seemed piled on top of each other. There was no depth to her vision.

  The changes didn't stop. The contrast in darkness continued to changing, shifting into colors that drew a gasp from her. She hadn't even realized she was seeing black and white until the colors returned. Following the colors her field of view enhanced, broadening and extending to give her depth.

  She saw the bald doctor that was looking down at her. She smiled back at him and then turned her head to look at the rest of the room. She'd heard Dag'on's voice. He was here, wasn't he? Or had she imagined him?

  Dag'on sat in a chair on her left. His hand was next to hers on the bed. He picked his head up when he saw her. She smiled and him and glanced down at his hand again. She moved her hand, sliding it over his and giving it a squeeze. He returned her smile.

  "By now you wouldn't think I'd be surprised anymore," the doctor muttered. "Miss Washburn, it normally takes patients days to become accustom to a cybernetic eye implant. Weeks for a double replacement. Based on your actions and these diagnostics, you achieved it in minutes."

  "I'm a fast leaner," Val said without taking her eyes off of Dag'on.

  He snorted. "I suppose so. I'll need you to—"

  "Doc, give us a few minutes," she interrupted him. "Then you can make me do whatever you want."
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  The doctor's brow furrowed and his lips twitched back and forth before he grunted. "Ten minutes," he said. "I can't have you being over stimulated."

  Val smirked. "We wouldn't want that."

  The doctor pressed his lips together and turned away from her bed. He walked out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Val turned her attention back to Dag'on. She blinked a few times, trying to become accustomed to the eyes. She felt a touch of a pressure in her head, like a memory of a headache, but other than that everything seemed fine. She smiled at him again. "You made it."

  Dag'on grinned and then smothered his smile. "We both made it, but you were close."

  "I was?"

  "Tark said your heart stopped. It started again, but he said there was something slow and unnatural about it."

  "Nanobots," she said. "They did that before, keeping me alive beyond when I should have been. I recovered fast then too. So what happened?"

  "Well, Tark carried you out and took you to a doctor in the Warrens. That guy provided some first aid and then gave up. He said you were cooked, literally. There was no way to bring you back."

  "Well I showed him, didn't I?"

  Dag'on smirked. "Only because a Climintra patrol busted in and grabbed you. They whisked you off to this hospital and sent a couple of others to get me."

  "Lennox," she hissed. She didn't know how, but somehow that son of a bitch kept tabs on everything— above and below ground. "Wait, so you weren't awake for any of this?"

  Dag'on shook his head. "I was in bad shape too."

  "So how do you know? Did Tark..."

  Dag'on nodded. "We talked. He told me everything."

  Val bit her lip. "Where is he now?"

  Dag'on shook his head. "I don't honestly know."

  "You don't? But... he survived Davina's death, so he's still around, right?"

  "Maybe."

  "Maybe? Don't fuck with me, Dag'on. What aren't you telling me?"

  Dag'on hesitated and then let out his pent up breath. "He destroyed her supplies. All of them. Her potions, her research, her spell books, everything."