Shepard paused at the last corner and pressed herself against the concrete wall, peering out of her cover at the mansion, rising out of the squalor like . . .. The only image to enter her mind was a giant marble phallus hiding behind its locked gates and hedges.
Garrus stopped just behind her. "It's not too late to change your mind, Shepard."
She nodded, but then took a deep breath and shrugged. "Could you sleep at night knowing that we'd just walked away, or would you curl up in the mako wondering if another young woman was being brought for an interview?" Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw his mandibles drop.
His rumbled response came out with enough exasperated hiss that she didn't need a translator to decipher that he wouldn't feel any better about walking away than she did, but he'd never admit it.
She backed up a step, reaching behind her to grip his talons in her fingers. "Don't leave once we get inside."
"We go in together, we come out together." He cleared his throat and nodded toward the car. "Come on, might as well get this over with and get back to the ship. My head is killing me."
Shepard spun to look at him. "Are you all right?" She stood on her tiptoes and reached up, grasping his face between her hands. "Give me a break, C-Sec and lean down a bit." When he did, she studied his pupils. They were the same size and stayed equally focused on her. "How bad is the headache if zero is no headache and ten is, sweet baby Jesus, someone just split my skull with an axe?"
He chuckled. "A four or five on the Shepard scale of insane pain range. I'll be fine, I'm just ready for a shower and a day's worth of sleep." Patting her shoulder, he broke free and held out his arm. "Those shoes almost make your legs look turian or quarian." A soft grunt greeted her elbow as it found a seam in his armour. "I mean, I'll carry your assault rifle in, just in case."
Shepard slipped on the horrible shoes and leaned into him a little as he latched onto her arm, helping hold her on her feet. She focused, timing her breathing to the beat of the leather soles against the concrete. Five steps breathing in, five steps breathing out. The extra oxygen made her muscles strong and sure, her heart pounding slow and steady. Anderson taught her the trick when she started training for the biathlon her senior year in high school.
"Some people are born warriors, kid," he'd told her, "others need to fool their bodies and minds into believing they were born a warrior." A decade later it still worked as well as it had back then, and she stopped at the car a warrior, inside and out. What awaited her inside that house was just another battlefield.
At the car, Garrus grimaced at her when she tucked her side arm into one of the holes in the dress at the small of her back. "You going to face him the entire time?" he grumbled under his breath.
"It's a little more subtle than the Blue Sun thug who won't leave my side because he's carrying my gun." She sighed and passed it over. "Fine, C-Sec, but if I need to shoot him and you have my gun, I'm going to punch you in the gut."
Garrus chuckled and closed the car. "I'll try to stay as close as I can without being obvious about it." He took her arm again but waited for her to nod before setting out for the gate.
The human Blue Sun at the gate didn't even look up at her, just hit the gate control and grunted in answer to Garrus's nod. Clenching her fists, she reined in the urge to grab him and insist that he look her in the eye if he intended to usher her to her death. Instead, she faked a stumble and reached out to catch herself with a hand to his chest.
"Oh, sorry there, hun." She stroked slow fingers across his cheek and leaned in, her lips brushing his ear lobe.
Garrus pulled her back against him, rumbling an exasperated oath once they'd put some distance between them and the guard. "Spirits, Shepard," he whispered. "Just when I thought you might be regaining a little sanity. You're going after the heart of the beast, don't waste energy tweaking its nose."
Shepard shuddered, not needing his admonition to remind her as the gate closed behind her, a cold, clammy palm sliding down her back. Another Sun opened the front door as they approached. She glanced up, the dark windows along the facade poised over her, hungry eyes eagerly waiting for her to pass through the door and be swallowed whole.
"You okay?" Garrus whispered when the door closed behind them. "You're just playing crazy, right?"
"Sanity is overrated in these situations, Brother C-Sec. Glory hallelujah. Let's get this done and get the hell back to the Enkindlers' light." She focused on her footfalls, but they seemed to mock her, the walls echoing them back three or four times, and her ankles hummed, taut strings under the drawn pressure of a bow.
"Straight through," someone called from a side room.
Taking a deep breath, Shepard slowed her walk, placing her feet one directly in front of the other to exaggerate the sway of her hips. She pushed away from Garrus as she reached the end of the hall, taking her time, letting her entire body sway with each step.
Cool and collected, Shepard. Play the game until he shows you what he is. You can't kill a man because you suspect he's a murdering bastard. You never know, he might be helping girls get off the streets, straighten out their lives. The thought prompted a very unladylike snort that, in turn, earned her a raised brow plate from Garrus.
A beaming, awestruck smile lit up her face as she flipped the switch and Captain Jane Shepard left the building in favour of Jane, small town colonial. Just before she stepped over the threshold, she ran her hands up her body, stretching her arms over her head with a little flip of her hands at the end.
Celebrate it and flaunt it, Janey. Celebrate it and flaunt it.
She strode into a sitting room, a bright giggle bubbling from her. "Oh sweet baby Jesus, look at this place. It's like I died and fell into Forbes magazine. Glory hallelujah and praise the sweet, sweet Enkindler's light."
Smoke drifted over the back of an antique wingback chair. "I don't recall having any interviews booked for this evening," a heavily accented male voice said in English.
What is that accent? Afrikaans?
Two quick steps carried her to a large colorful painting of a garden in winter, asari statues dancing through the twilight snow. "Sweet baby Jesus, I can't believe it. Winter Garden. This is one of the most valuable paintings in the entire galaxy." She turned to look over her shoulder at the back of the chair and grinned. "And it's not a fake, is it? Wow. You are a ruthless bastard." She cut the words with a pointed shrug. "Fitting, I suppose. The asari artist was a complete loon. Murdered people and posed them like statues so that she could paint them. Wrote letters to her lover telling her all about her work." She moved on to a sculpture, her fingers caressing the sleek lines. "Of course, her lover was her first victim. Centerpiece in a fountain if I remember correctly." Letting out a merry sigh, she turned to face the chair as it rotated toward her. "Fantastic."
Smoke drifted in a thick cloud around the human seated within the chair's shadow. For a moment, they regarded one another, his stare so intense Shepard felt as though cold, rough hands rather than his gaze moved over her. Channelling her revulsion into hyperactive moment, she swayed her way over to pictures of a man riding horses. "This isn't Omega." She chuckled. "I think I would have noticed open fields and horses. Where is this? Doesn't look like Earth. Terra Nova? Bekenstein?"
The new angle gave her a better view of the man, but her grin widened when she saw that the lighting and positioning of the furniture had been designed to keep him in shadow. She couldn't make out his face, just the shine of those insanely intense eyes and that he sported a closely shorn beard and mustache. He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit, crisp pleats cutting both legs and sleeves, and wore it easily - a man well used to money and power.
"I've got to tell you, you've got a whole mysterious thing going on that is hotter than hell." She walked over, knocked his knee off the other, and sat on his lap, one arm draped over his shoulder. "I like my men a little dangerous. Are you dangerous? Your Blue Suns certainly seem to think so." Letting out a cheery sigh, she leaned into him. He smelled amazing, except for the cigar smoke. She plucked the offensive thing from his hand and stubbed it out in his ashtray. "I think we can find far better things for you to do with your oral fixation."
Giving him a broad wink, she kissed the end of his nose. "So, I hear you're looking for a housekeeper." In a moment of affected shyness, she tipped her head down and glanced away. A heavy flush heated her neck and cheeks, although more from excitement than any sort of bashfulness. She could feel the rage vibrating through him. Exhilerating.
She puffed out a little sigh. "Although I was sorta hoping that you were aiming more for someone whose skills lie outside the scrubbing floors department . . .." Another bright chuckle. "Although we can totally keep the frilly little uniform if you like."
He cleared his throat and moved to lift her off his lap, but she resisted, looping an arm around his neck.
A hissing, exasperated sigh slithered between his lips, and he cocked his head a little, listening to his earpiece. By the way he stiffened, Shepard knew her jig was up. He closed the channel and stared her straight in the eye. A predator, but one unsure of his prey. "How long did you expect it to take me to identify you, Captain Jane Shepard? Surely you didn't think your thin, albeit alluring, disguise would fool me for long."
She smiled and shrugged. "I didn't expect it to fool you at all. It was meant to fool your men and get me in the door. If you'd asked, I would have told you my name. Lying means remembering way too much. I can't be bothered, especially since I need eighty percent of my brain function just to keep me on my feet in these damned shoes." She reached up with both hands and fluffed her hair.
Shepard turned back to her quarry and leaned in to kiss the end of his nose again. "Now we just have to make sure we aren't interrupted by your pesky guards." She opened her omnitool and keyed in a short range overload. "This is going to hurt and probably deafen that ear for a while, so I apologize for that." With a snap of electricity and a whine of feedback, she destroyed his radio implant.
"I'm on a check-in system," he said, his voice thick with suppressed pain. She gave him credit though, he wasn't giving anything away. That needed to change. Until she had proof of what he was, she couldn't just kill him.
"Let them come. We're just two people having a cozy chat, aren't we? Sure, we're both a little psychotic, but that just makes it more fun." She turned off her omnitool, then ran the backs of her fingers up his neck to tweak his chin. "So, Omega. What brought you here? A large pool of victims whose families will be too terrified to look into their disappearances? Or are you just a bottom feeder getting fat off the misery of others?" A fingertip traced his jawline.
"Omega is merely a place of business. It's not even my primary residence." He looked down his nose at her. "Do I look like I belong amongst the dregs that wash up on this filthy outpost?"
Chuckling, she shook her head. "You really don't want me to answer that, but . . . let me guess . . . your primary residence is a private, tropical island on Terra Nova. No? Hmmm . . .. Horizon is too provincial. Somewhere industrial and self-important, then." She tapped her finger tip against her lip. "That means it's a fantastically huge floating island on Bekenstein." His face and the sudden straightness through his neck told her everything she needed to know. She clicked her tongue and waggled the finger at him. "Now. Now. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you." She cocked her head. "C.S. Lewis, a wise man."
He laughed and shoved her away. "You think you're above me?" Standing, he paced to his wall of art and back. "You think any of this means anything to me? I bring order to the chaos. I wash away the filth and elevate the beggars from the squalor to tower amidst beauty so sublime it would bring tears to your eyes."
Sighing, she settled into his chair and crossed her legs, yanking the skirt down her thighs. "Holy father of light, you're a complete loon, aren't you, Brother Psycho?" A small shrug rippled down her bare shoulders, her skin lifting into gooseflesh, but the reaction stopped as she heard a loud, turian mutter echo in from the hallway - something about pots calling kettles black. She narrowed her eyes in the general direction of Garrus's not-so-subtle reminder to stay on track, then looked back to her host. "So, you were saying how none of this means anything to you?"
Whirling around, he threw up his arms as if lifting everything around them, even Omega. "Omega, the Blue Suns, Eclipse . . .." He laughed, betraying himself a little in its maniacal edge. "Yes, I back several mercenary companies. I even run my own. Business is lucrative out here if one can maintain the correct balance of power." Shaking his head, he paced to the painting of the garden in winter. "But business is merely a means to conduct my true work without interference. I'm an artist. A preservationist of beauty. I would make this entire galaxy my canvas, one perfect sculpture at a time. What better place to begin than Omega?"
A wide, incredulous grin spread across Shepard's face, but a fierce set of teeth began gnawing at her insides. She'd nudged him so close, now she needed to push him over the edge. "When I came into this district, I just planned to sneak in and recruit a surgeon to help save a friend's life, but then the Suns told my escort that he didn't need to wait for me.
"When they said that, I went so cold that I almost threw up on my new shoes, but that quickly changed into anger. Not normal, 'dammit, I stubbed my toe', or 'the Father of Light has been preempted by an infomercial selling supportive male undergarments' angry. No, this was a scalding, righteous fury. Glory hallelujah, and praise the Enkindlers for their divine and burning light, Brother Psycho." She stood and paced over to blockade the hallway, the heels helping give her presence as she ruffled all her spines in preparation for combat. "I strode into your house expecting to work out a few frustrations by putting down some rich, entitled thug who was hurting prostitutes. You, however, are so, so much worse than that, aren't you?"
"Am I to believe that you've decided to spare me from this righteous fury?" He chuckled, but she felt the edge of fear through it, the way his eyes cut side to side a little as if formulating a plan, gauging her weaknesses. He lifted his cigar to his lips, flicked his lighter and lit it, puffing on it a couple of times before drawing deep. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
Shepard laughed, one just as cold and manic as his, and stepped down out of her shoes. "Oh no. No, no, no. I fully intend to end you, and I really don't give a rat's ass what your name is. But that painting right there gives me a little hope for the other applicants who came into this house over the last forty-eight hours." She bent down to pick up the insanely tall, pointy heels. "So, before I gut you like a fish using my high heels and false eyelashes, I want to know where they are."
Turning a slow circle, her hands held out, she peered into the dark corners and behind the chairs. "You're a preservationist." She stopped turning and minced over to a massive bookshelf behind his chair. "That means you've got a gallery somewhere." She pulled out a book. "Is it behind here? A secret passage through the castle?"
Looking at the cover of the book, she raised her eyebrows. "Wow, the Book of Urizen. I suppose you know only six of these still exist? Estimated value: forty-five million credits. Beautiful condition too." She took a breath. "Earth was not: nor globes of attraction . . . The will of the Immortal expanded . . . Or contracted his all flexible senses. Death was not, but eternal life sprung." A long sigh followed the quote. "William Blake. Fantastic stuff. He knew the Enkindlers' light." She tossed it over her shoulder. "Useless to me, however. I need to find the trigger that opens this wall."
Moving faster and with more grace than she expected, the man lunged at her, his cigar scorching a long line up her chest and around the curve of her hairline. One strong arm grappled around her neck while the other tried to capture her wrist, twisting it behind her. Planting her feet, she shoved backwards, the move toward him catching him off guard. They crashed into the wall. Now that she'd thrown him off balance, she flicked her hip and rolled, dragging him to the floor. At the end of the roll, she sat astride his waist, a stiletto in each hand. With a swing and a snap of her wrists, she buried both heels in the sides of his neck.
In the background, Shepard heard the front door fly open and bounce off the wall with a crash that shook the house. Guns fired back and forth for a few seconds, then silence.
"C-Sec, you breathing?" she called without looking away from the man pinned beneath her.
The artist bucked once, but she pulled on the shoes, a warning he clearly understood if the size of his pupils and the cloud of fecal stench that billowed around her could be believed.
"I haven't torn or punctured anything too badly yet," she warned him. "Stay still, tell me where your collection is, and I won't rip them both out the front."
"What do you want?" he asked in a raspy whisper. "Money?"
All emotion but for fury, drained from her expression, and she leaned in, staring into his eyes. "One thing that losing your entire family to slavers does is give you a healthy aversion to selling your soul for cash." She eased her leg over to crouch by his side, keeping her hands steady on the shoes. "Get up very carefully." Movement in her peripherals caught her attention. "C-Sec?"
Garrus backed into the room, his hands in the air. "We have a small problem, Shepard."
She turned, seeing for a fraction of a second, a grizzled, grey-haired figure in battered, yellow armour. "Who the . . .?"
Knowing her mistake the moment she made it, Shepard cursed as the artist leaped up. His movement threw her back and tore her hand from one shoe as he bolted to the bookshelf and then through a small door.
"Hold on a bloody minute," the old merc rumbled in a throaty, bastardized cockney accent, "you're not . . .."
"I'm here to kill the bastard, you moron," Shepard shouted, scrambling to her feet. After staring at the shoe in her hand for a second, she threw it aside and strode to Garrus's side. Snatching Roger from the turian's back, she levelled it on the interloper. "Are you with that psycho? Quickly. He's getting away."
"No, I'm not with that devil. Son of a bitch. I busted in here when I heard the Suns brought the bastard a fifth girl. Thought I'd do the galaxy a favour, kill the bastard, and be a big, goddamned hero." He levelled a pale, milky eye on her. "But I guess you weren't a damsel in distress after all."
"More like a one woman wrecking crew," Garrus supplied.
"Then take your gun off my man, and stay the hell out of my way." Shepard spun without waiting to see if the old guy did as she'd said, trusting Garrus to be able to take care of himself. She ran around the chair to the open portal behind it. Not sparing time for hesitation or caution, Shepard ducked through, finding herself in a narrow serviceway. Dark red, grungy light flickered along the walls, and the sound of water dripping punctuated the shuffle-clump of her quarry's footsteps to her right.
Looking down, she saw a single drop of blood. A few metres further, another. She took off after him, ducking around corners and crawling down ladders, her bare feet coating in a thick layer of muck that rendered the floors hazardous and the ladders deadly.
"Shepard?" Garrus's bellow echoed after her.
"To the right, Brother C-Sec." A few metres further on, she found her shoe tossed into a corner, a blood trail leading her deeper into the bowels of the station. The trail started to get heavier as fear and exertion jacked up his blood pressure, the drips falling closer and closer together, then in small clusters. It didn't amount to a bleed that would end him, but tossing her off had done some damage.
"What a bloody hole," the cockney fellow bellowed, apparently having decided to follow Garrus. "Damned sewers."
Shepard swallowed hard and shoved the idea of what was collecting between her toes as far away as possible. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, passed before she ran through an old metal door into paradise. Plants grew throughout the large chamber, a riot of colour barely contained into plots. A narrow, flag-stone pathway meandered through the greenery. Shepard slowed a little, picking her way silently down the path.
In the center of the first cluster of gardens, a statue stood, frozen in mid-leap. It danced with outstretched arms, a flowing gown of meticulously carved marble swirling around graceful legs set at angles impossible for anyone but twelve-year-old gymnasts. Shepard stopped, dread sinking its teeth into the back of her neck as she looked up. Her eyes travelled the length of the skirt to a banded kirtle, then a swooping peasant neckline that led to a gracefully extended neck. The figure's head tipped back and to the side. Water flowed in a slow trickle over the open mouth, winding its way down the piece. Shepard closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling the trembling roll in her gut the best she could. Still, dread's teeth tore into her like a defeated varren in the fighting ring.
You have to look, Shepard. You have to know.
She opened her eyes and looked up into a pale face, the expression completely at odds with the serenity and joy expressed through the rest of the piece. The face cried out for help, the features contorted with pain, fear, and sorrow.
"Oh sweet baby Jesus," she sighed, her voice burrowing down inside her. Traitorous knees buckled, forcing her into a tottering dance of her own until she wrestled them back under control. A strange, strangled gurgle emanated from the piece, dragging her eyes back to that horrifying face. The statue's closed eyes opened, grappling onto Shepard with hope as sharp and piercing as harpoons.
Shepard gasped, a fish beached by incredulity. "You're alive?"
The trapped, terrified eyes sprang wide as Shepard felt someone rush up behind her. She spun, throwing Roger up between them, deflecting the worst of the blow, the shovel glancing off the right side of her skull. Even at less than half the force, the blow drove Shepard to her knees. Lightning and thunder broke open a pocket of superheated agony and sent it pouring down through her nervous system.
The artist's blood-soaked hands grabbed at Roger, tossing her back and forth as he struggled to yank the assault rifle from her grip.
No. He doesn't get to kill me with my own damned gun.
The thought broke through the eruption of agony and sound in her head. Clutching Roger tight, she rolled into the man, pinning the gun under her as she fell onto her side. The artist clambered to his feet and stumbled further into the garden. Running boots thundered toward her, and she flapped her hand in that general direction as if trying to ward them off. Too noisy. Much too noisy. She blinked, trying to clear her vision.
"Shepard?"
She flapped her hand again. "Shuddub, Gar . . .." She dragged one arm under herself and pushed up off the walkway until she sat, precariously wobbling, braced against her elbow.
"Spirits, Shepard." Blue armour smacked into the stone next to her with a vaguely musical ring, then gentle talons probed at her head. "I'm betting your head hurts worse than mine now," Garrus said, his voice soft, the gentle humour comforting. He injected her with medigel and smeared a thick layer on her scalp.
"She's alive, C-Sec," Shepard whispered, pointing a wavering finger toward the statue. "They could all be alive." She sat up and raised a hand. "Help me up, it's just a glancing blow." As the medigel slithered through her blood and her wound, it pushed enough of the pain back for her to form words.
"How bad is it on the Shepard scale?" Garrus asked, supporting her as she stood and took her first few steps.
"Pretty sure you can see the axe," Shepard replied, still trying to get her eyes to focus, "but it's working its way out."
"Goddamn," the cockney accent said and whistled, the sound bringing Shepard's gun around to point at the old merc again. For a moment, her finger twitched on the trigger, but then she turned to follow the blood trail deeper into the subterranean garden. "Tough little minx, isn't she?"
"Call her that again, and you'll find out." Garrus chuckled, the warm rumble of his voice helping as much as the meds, and Shepard pulled away to stumble forward under her own steam.
The blood droplets doubled and swam before her eyes, but Shepard shuffled rubber legs forward. Time, reason, and sense tangled up, glued together with pain and blood, clogging up her brain functions like a restaurant toilet on three-for-one burrito night. Still, her instincts and reflexes worked well enough to keep her on her feet and moving, gun pointed the right direction.
Three more statues frolicked in elegant poses as Shepard passed, their bodies eerily frozen in time, their eyes following her. As she chased the artist through his masterpieces, she began to see the horrible care he'd taken to keep his statues alive. Water trickled over the face of each, close enough to their mouth that they could lap it up with their tongue. She also spotted holes disguised as pendants at the base of each throat, no doubt disguising feeding tubes.
"There."
Garrus didn't need to point out the movement ahead. Shepard's quarry slowed to a stumbling walk.
"Looks like he tore his jugular when he threw me back," she said. "All this running around and hitting people over the head with shovels has split it open like an overripe banana peel. Imagine that, Brother C-Sec." Shepard sighed. When she'd entered the mansion, she'd wanted him to suffer, but seeing his victims had more than filled her suffering quota for the night. Hell, for the next eighty years. Now, all she wanted to do was end it, get the victims cared for, and fall headfirst into bed.
She stopped, her lips relaxing into a grateful half-smile as Garrus stepped in tight against her, steadying her while she tracked her target through Roger's scope.
She let out a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Blood blossomed from the artist's thigh, painting a crimson starburst across the foliage. "Damn, my aim is hell and gone."
"Hold up!" the old merc called. "I've got a question for that bastard before you finish him off." He brushed past her, a battered old rifle swinging from his left hand.
Shepard raised an eyebrow, but nodded, leaning against the turian as she held the gun ready, but waiting. "Better hurry, Brother Psycho is moments away from joining the light."
The old merc bent down, lifting the artist off the flagstones by the collar of his very fine suit. "Where's Vido? I know you're the money behind him, you son of a bitch."
"Don't know. He changes his base every couple of weeks," the artist said, his voice weak and garbled, "but he knows you're hunting him, Massani. Don't be surprised if he's waiting for you with a battalion at his back when you do catch up to him."
The merc, Massani, laughed dry and rolling, a dry wind over desert rock. "I'm going to give you to the lady to finish off. Burn in hell, you sick bastard." He dropped the artist and stepped around behind Shepard. "He's all yours, sweetheart."
Shepard chuckled, seeing his desert wind and raising him a January ice storm. "This one's for you, Bunny," she whispered. Steadying her shot, she squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet straight through the bastard's skull.
For a moment, she stared at the slumped body, its hazel eyes open and still looking into hers. Fear and denial bore into her as blood seeped in a thin line from the hole in his brow, dripping with a feather's whisper onto the stone. Over the years, she'd shot and killed a lot of men and women. Thousands had fallen before her. Thousands. Always in self-defense. As Anderson had told her all those years before, some people were born to be soldiers, while others had to trick their bodies into believing it. Despite her prodigious skill in the art of death, she'd never murdered anyone.
She turned away from the dead, fearful eyes and stumbled a couple of steps back up the path. The gun in her hand suddenly too heavy to hang onto, it slipped from her fingers to clatter on the stone.
"Shepard?" Garrus called, his voice soft and cautious, his hand never leaving her even as she walked away.
"What did I do, C-Sec? I just appointed myself judge, jury and executioner," she whispered. "Did I just step over a line?"
"If anyone deserved a bullet through the head, it was him. You did what needed to be done," Garrus said, leaning down close to her ear. "You said it yourself. There's no law here to turn him over to. No court to try and convict him."
Shepard turned to look up at the closest statue, an asari maiden swinging on an old wooden swing, a basket of flowers in her lap. Big, blue eyes stared back at her above cheeks blotchy and streaked with blue where tears ate through the makeup applied to match her face to her marble sarcophagus. A living death. How long had these girls and women been tormented, frozen in place, alabaster dolls wasting away?
"Hey, Spikes . . . Minx," Massani called. "Found some more."
Shepard allowed Garrus to support her as they tracked the yell. A wide door opened into a side chamber dominated by an iron cage with five women inside it. Another girl, a beautiful but bone-thin asari, lay strapped to a workbench. Her shoulder had been dislocated, her arm broken and then posed at impossibly graceful angles; splinted and shackled in place to fit to her new form.
Shepard let out a slow moan and stepped up to take the asari's unbroken hand in both of hers. "It's going to be okay now. The man who did this is dead. We'll get you out of here and to a hospital."
A wan smile drifted like a cloud across the pale beauty's face. "Thank you. I've been here . . .." She shook her head a little. "I don't even know."
Stroking the young asari's brow, Shepard smiled as if trying to warm the chill radiating from that frail hand. "In a few days, you'll be right as rain, don't worry."
The smooth, lavender brow furrowed. "Worry . . .. Could you tell my mother where I'm going? She'd never show enough weakness to send people after me herself, but she'll be worried, nonetheless."
Shepard nodded, strong and sure, grateful to be given a mission, something to focus on other than the artist's dead stare. "What's your name, sweety? Who's your mother? I'll find her before I even return to my ship."
"She must be going out of her mind," Garrus agreed.
The asari's eyes drifted closed. "My name is Liselle. My mother is Aria T'Loak."