Part 13
They'd returned days ago, but not to New Orleans, instead they took Pierre to Tante Mattie's cottage in Slidell and there they stayed, waiting for the right time.
"De Assassins be meetin' tonight," Belle said. "Are yo' wit' me?"
" 'M a'ways at your back," Singer confirmed without hesitation.
Lapin just nodded grimly, his high spirits and occasionally questionable sense of humor left behind at the lab complex along with Remy.
Delores bit her lip, looking toward the bedroom where Pierre lay, still far from recovered. " 'M sorry, I can't," she said.
Belle nodded, "Tonight ain't your sort of t'ing anyways," she said, forgiving the other girl for not standing with her.
"I'll see this through to the end," Nathan said. Belle took his decision in stride, after getting over the initial shock of his not leaving as soon as he dropped them off nothing the big mercenary did could truly surprise her.
"Yo're not goin' to interfere? No objections or tryin' to protect me neither," Belle checked.
"If I had someone to hold responsible for my son's death I'd do the same," Nathan replied.
"Lapin make shor he has somet'ing 'ppropriate to wear," Belle ordered.
" 'Course," Lapin said shortly, getting up to leave.
"Don' let anyone see yo', not yet," Belle warned.
"I know what 'M doin' Belle," Lapin snapped. "Don' tell me how to do m' job an' I won' tell yo' how to kill dat bastard brother of yours!"
****** ****** ******
Several hours after nightfall the foursome arrived at the Assassin's meeting place. Belle gave the sentries an imperial look coupled with a sharp gesture and they fell back letting Belle and her entourage pass unobstructed.
The daughter of the Assassins' Patriarch shoved open the doors and strode into the center of the meeting without ceremony. Lapin and Singer flanked her with Nathan covering their backs.
"M' mission was compromised, I was betrayed, two of de united clans died for dat betrayal," Belle announced glaring directly at Julien.
For a moment shock held her audience silent then their gazes followed Belle's.
"T'ink what yo're sayin' Belle," Marius objected. "Yo' start dis an' one of yo' won' walk out of dis room."
"An' if de Assassins cared for justice we'd a'ready know which one it'd be," Lapin said.
"Silence T'ief, yo' got no voice here," Marius barked.
Lapin aimed the crossbow he carried. "Dis gives me voice wit' yo', neh? 'Cause of your practices an' your murderin' son Remy be dead."
"Lapin!" Belle reprimanded sharply, shutting the young thief up. " 'M doin' dis Daddy. Julien cost me too much."
"I can't stop yo'," Maruis said as people began clearing the center of the room.
Julien stepped out into the make shift arena. "Yo're a fool Belle an' yo're goin' to die for your T'ief lover."
Belle drew a short sword and a knife then stood waiting. Julien met her with a rapier.
Brother and sister circled one another, tentatively testing the other's defenses.
Belle went on the offensive, attacking with a series of brutal cleaving blows designed to shatter Julien's narrow blade.
He danced back dodging her blows, looking for Belle's efforts to open a hole in her guard that he could take advantage of.
Belle lunged forward, Julien parried, trapping her blade against the ground. A moment before he could kick it out of her hands Belle sliced at him with her knife driving him back.
Julien took advantage of the sudden distance between them to raise a hand in preparation for firing an energy blast.
Knowing what was coming thanks to Remy's warning Belle dove under the blast. Executing a front roll she came to her knees at Julien's feet, before he could counter she drove her knife under his rib-cage and into his heart.
"Yo' nevah were as good as yo' liked to t'ink yo' were," she said as he died.
****** ****** ******
Remy woke with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Through a shroud of black death Remy could faintly see a glittery tapestry of potential energy that filled his senses with meaningless patterns. He staggered to his feet, hands stretched out in front of him he stumbled to the nearest wall. It felt slimy beneath his hands. A dark premonition made him bring his hand to his mouth. Remy wasn't surprised when he tasted more blood.
Running his hands over the walls Remy felt more and more blood, interspersed with globs of flesh; the walls were practically painted with the stuff, because of what he'd done. Remy pictured it in his mind; "What had he done?" …He'd reached out with his power and charged the potential that gave structure to the emotional cores he'd sensed around them, he'd charged their bones, turned their skeletons into bombs that had ripped their bodies apart spraying the room with blood and flesh, he'd killed them.
They'd never had a chance, never known what had hit them. He'd felt their pain, their surprise, their horror as they died. He felt ill, the slaughterhouse smell of the room wasn't helping him, nor was the lingering fog of death emotions clogging the air.
Remy felt his way to the door, when it didn't open for him he groped for a doorknob and eventually found a keypad attached to the wall beside it. Remy pulled the keypad off the wall, charged it and threw it at the door. Then he stepped through the hole he'd created out into the hall.
Gradually, awkwardly, he made his way from the lab where he'd been held captive. Vaguely sensing another mind Remy stopped in his tracks, he'd started to think he'd killed everyone in the facility. Crouching down against the wall, making himself as small a target as possible, Remy ran his hands over the floor searching for something to use as a weapon.
Then it occurred to Remy that the other person was wandering randomly, purposeless. Straining to 'see' through the fog of death clouding his empathic abilities Remy realized that the emotional energy he sensed was unfocused, unlike any mind he'd sensed before. Rather than being a smooth, spinning continuum of feelings it was shattered, random shards overlapping and grating against one another, jumps from feeling to another without rhyme or reason. Broken. Remy could only imagine it was his doing, a side effect of the wave of destructive emotions he'd released into the astral plain.
Once he was looking for them he found others. Some of them he'd walked right by, their minds were so destroyed he hadn't recognized them as human. They didn't move, they didn't think, they were little more than empty shell.
Remy found a woman sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth, shrieking in terror. He could see the spear of emotional energy that wasn't hers skewering her mind, a left over splinter of death-emotions he'd caused disrupting the normal ebb and flow of her feelings, trapping her in a nightmare. It occurred to him that she might heal if he eased the alien emotions out of her mind. "Dis be your fault Remy," he told himself when he hesitated at the thought of touching a mind infected with such devastation. Biting his lower lip, he put his hands on her shoulder and stared into where he thought her eyes must be then reached.
Remy screamed, it was like being plunged into lava, pain, searing pain washed over his nerves and to his horror he realized he hadn't even made contact with the woman's mind yet. The pain was coming from his own mind, the black fire he'd released was clinging to the outside of his shields like napalm, laying in wait for him. Wanting it's revenge for what he'd done.
He wrenched himself free of its grasp and retreated back into the sheltering coolness of his shields. Helplessly Remy stared down at the woman, understanding exactly what she was feeling, she had no defenses against the thing he'd set loose, no place to retreat to and he knew he didn't even dare try to repair the damage he'd done, not now, not when he knew he'd been standing at ground zero when the damage had been done. His mind survived, safe in the astral plane equivalent of a bomb shelter, alive, whole, but trapped by the fallout from the explosion he'd set off.
Painstakingly Remy tried to gather the survivors together, realizing as damaged as they were, they'd die if left to their own devices. It wasn't easy, the less braindead ones followed whatever whim was top most in their minds and a few of them had been security guards who carried machine guns. Remy decided they could go wherever they liked. The empty ones didn't do anything. They sagged limply in his arms when he tried to move them, dead weight to drag through the spinning void of black veiled sparkles his world had become. He eventually gave up on them as well.
In his efforts Remy stumbled on a break room. He filled cups of water and took them back to the survivors he'd found. He left them where the dangerous ones would hopefully find them, put them in the hands of the more docile, unarmed ones, and finally tried to pour water down the throats of the empty ones.
Feeling his own stomach growl, it occurred to Remy that his wards would need food as well. He spend hours searching for a kitchen or cafeteria.
When exhaustion claimed him he curled up in a cul-de-sac and fell asleep on the floor.
Between the sensory deprivation tank and the loss of conventional vision Remy's time sense was completely distorted, he knew he woke up later. Minutes or hour later he couldn't have said. Morning, noon or night he had no way of knowing. He was less tired and more hungry so he went back to searching for a kitchen.
As time wore on, Remy developed a routine bringing food and water to the survivors. Discovered a cot to sleep on. Memorized the turns between the kitchen and empty ones and the places were he left food and water for the others.
Flashes of vision slowly returned, showing him the bloody tracks he'd left all over the facility. He thought about leaving, but the oppressive weight of the broken minds surrounding him sapped his will and guilt at his responsibility tied him to his routines
****** ****** ******
Lapin paced restlessly around the barren containment… no 'waiting' area he, Belle, Singer and Nathan had been consigned to since Belle's duel with Julien days earlier. "Anyone evah tell yo' your trial system be backwards," he complained to the two girls. "Firs' yo' fight to de deat' den yo' look for evidence, what gives?"
"Julien was guilty, he los'," Singer said serenely. "Dey're jus' lookin' for who he b'trayed us to."
"If that's the case why are we locked up?" Nathan asked.
Belle shrugged. "If dey don' find anyt'ing his friends, family, what have yo' got de right to claim I leveled false accusations, we 'ssume dat trial by combat works, mais we do have checks an' balances. Dat's why I needed yo' for seconds, if anyone does challenge m' claims all of dem fight all of us. Don' worry, it won' happen. Daddy won' fight me an' Julien's friends won' have de nerve to go up 'gainst me long as I got 'nough support dat dey can't overwhelm us, which I do."
Nathan shook his head in disgust. "It's a wonder you people haven't decimated yourselves before now."
Belle squirmed under Nathan's disapproving gaze. "Mos' de time we try to have evidence wit' us 'fore it goes dis far," She admitted. "No one wants to start a civil war, mais I know it's Julien, he tried to kill Remy de day of de weddin', he said de bebe wouldn' be born, he knew what was goin' to happen."
For a moment silence reigned in the room then Singer said. "S' what's nex'? I mean after dey let us out of here."
Belle sighed, relieved at the change of subject. "Firs' we gotta find a way to kill Candra, an' where she's at. After dat we should find who Mary White an' Jane Donis really were, dey were involved somehow. Den we kill dem too."
"Count me out," Nathan said. "I wanted to see this finished, to see you find justice for the loss of your child. You had one person you blamed, now he is dead and you have three others to take his place. When will this be done?"
"When I feel bettah!" Belle snapped. "An' I didn' ask for your help anyways."
A knock at the door announced the arrival of visitors a moment before the lock turned. Maruis followed by two members of the Assassin's Council entered.
"We found evidence Julien b'trayed us… yo' to Candra," Marius said. "He went crazy when she came to him, started b'lievin' dat she be a real god 'cause she didn' die. She had him t'inkin' he could take over de Guild, mebbe bot' Guilds, bring dem back into her thrall."
"Why would this Candra target Belle?" Nathan asked.
"She dictated who we be 'llowed to marry," Singer explained matter-of-factly. "She didn' give Belle an' Remy permission to have chil'ren, didn' give her blessin' to Remy's bein' born neither, dat's obviously why."
"Why Candra acts as she does don' mattah, we a'ready wanted her dead," Marius said. "Yo're all free to go now."
Lapin slipped past the Council members and out into the night, heading home to parents he hadn't seen in weeks.
"See yo' tomorrow Belle," Singer said. "We'll start work on dat project yo' mentioned."
Nathan walked out, then paused. "It'll be a few days before I move on," he said. "Try not to undo the effort I put into saving your hide until after I'm gone," he said.
"Merci for helpin' me dis far," Belle said, her voice holding an apology for her earlier comments. "G'night Daddy."
"Belle we need to talk," Marius said as the others left them alone.
"Not tonight Daddy, please," Belle said looking at the floor.
"A'right, later," Marius sighed.
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