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“I… remember you shooting me. Disruptor?” That plus all the booze he’d drank would explain the monster hangover.

“God’s Wrath.” Marchey watched the woman’s face harden. It was not a pretty sight. “You will feel it again if you give me the slightest trouble.” She held up one silver arm. A bracer—a detachable weapons package interfaced with the exo’s systems and her own nervous system—was wrapped around it. There was another one around her other arm. This meant she was almost as heavily armed as a small platoon. He got the message.

“Perish the thought.” He tottered toward her. “Can I have one of those, please,” he asked, reaching for the pak. “Or is torture part of this package tour?”

She stared at him a long moment. “I am no torturer.” She flipped it at him. “To rely on such things is weakness.”

Somehow he managed to catch it. He popped out a derm and pasted it over his carotid artery. He closed his eyes, waiting for the high-powered analgesics to work their sweet magic.

Hangovers were business as usual, but the aftereffects of being shot with a disruptor made him feel as though every neuron were nearing nuclear fission. After a few moments he slumped and sighed as a soothing tide washed through him. He opened his eyes, moved his head experimentally. The brain-slop was gone. Once more he was nearly capable of what passed for rational thought.

Well, that could be remedied easily enough.

He managed a wan smile. “Thanks. I hope you didn’t have to break any Kidnappers’ Union rules to do that. I just can’t rise and shine the way you do.”

Although the tattoos made dragonesque fury its natural expression, Marchey found that he could still tell real anger when it appeared on her face. It showed in the curl of her black-webbed lips, the flare of her scaled nostrils, in the cold flash of that one green eye.

“Do not take me lightly, little man,” she warned, her voice brimming with unmistakable menace. “I will make you regret it.”

It was no mental feat to deduce that being feared was of cardinal importance to her. It explained the face, the teeth, the combat exo, the attitude. He supposed he should be more careful about what he said to her. But when he got right down to it, he just didn’t give a damn. Screw her if she couldn’t take a joke.

Still, he could be polite. After all, how often did he have company?

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t doubt that you could tear off my head, squeeze it flat, and eat it like a brain sandwich. I don’t plan on trying to overpower you. I’m a surgeon, not a fighter. Besides, I interned in a UNSRA military hospital for a while, and helped install a couple shock troopers in exos like yours. I know how they work and what they can do.”

His kidnapper glared at him. “You spout nonsense again. I told you before, I am an angel. Do not forget it.”

Marchey shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He slid into the seat across from her, ordered a cup of coffee. There was a bottle of brandy in the condiment well next to the dispenser. A liberal dollop went into his cup, then he offered it to her. “Want some breakfast?”

She shook her head, looking displeased by his offer. Probably a teetotaler

“Suit yourself.” He put the bottle down within easy reach.

“Do you spend all of your time drunk?” she demanded.

“Define all.” He took a cautious sip of his laced coffee. “Define time. Define drunk.” Another sip, peering at her over the rim of his cup. “It’s a semantic minefield. You could lose a foot just thinking about it.”

Not even a hint of a smile. If she had a sense of humor, it was better armored than her body.

“Are you really a doctor?” She made the word doctor sound like it described something strange and hideous, perhaps even evil and perverse. Are you really a lycanthropic necrophile?

He hunched his shoulders in a stillborn shrug. “Depends on whom you listen to, I guess.”

That wasn’t a subject he particularly wanted to get into this early or this sober.

“What kind of kidnapper are you, my angel?” he asked to change the subject. “What do you expect to get for me? And are you going to tell me your name, or should I just call you Madame Shanghai?”

“Only one question has any meaning. My name is Scylla.”

Marchey’s ears pricked up at her name. “Ah, were you once a fair maiden, now changed into a monster?”

Scylla’s frown deepened. “What do you mean by that?”

“Greek mythology.” No reaction. Apparently not a devotee of classical literature. Not many were.

“Homer’s Odyssey,” he explained. “Scylla was a fair young maiden who was changed into a monster. Twelve legs like tentacles. Six heads, each with a triple row of fangs, and a taste for sailors. Let’s see… ‘God or man, no one could look upon her in joy.’ That was poor Scylla after the sorceress Circe was done with her. Circe saw her as a rival for the love of a merman named, um, Glaucus. Turning her into a monster made her a lot less lovable.”

Scylla said nothing. There was no way for Marchey to tell what—if anything—she was thinking. His spiked coffee had cooled. He took a long swallow, then asked, “Did someone give you that name?”

“Brother Fist,” she said, an instant later looking confused. All expression drained from her face, and she sat there staring sightlessly past him like a robot which had encountered circumstances outside the scope of its programming.

His curiosity mildly piqued, and the brandy beginning to bring back the familiar comfortable buzz, Marchey settled back to see what happened next.

* * *

“Brother Fist.”

His name was the center of all Scylla was and did. She had uttered it a million times or more. But the moment she spoke it in answer to the infidel’s question—a question no one had ever asked her before— a sudden wrenching duality swept over her, her solid sense of self inexplicably straining in two directions and leaving her lost in the middle.

She had always been Scylla.

Brother Fist named me.

She was an angel.

{—a blurred glimpse of a face. Small. White. In a… mirror?}

She served Brother Fist.

{—another face. Bigger. Beautiful.} (I love you, Angel. Love you.)

Brother Fist spoke God’s Will.

(Remember, Angel. I love you. Love you.)

His voice was God’s voice, His words God’s words.

(ANGEL IS DEAD. DEAD. YOUR NAME IS SCYLLA. SCYLLA. YOU ARE AN ANGEL. ANGEL. YOU WILL LOVE ME. LOVE ME. YOU WILL OBEY ME. OBEY ME. WHAT ARE YOU?)

An angel! she screamed silently, trying to drown the bewildering cacophany of voices inside her head. She was and had always been the angel Scylla! All else was deception!

Life is an endless battle against the lies and deceptions cast by the forces of darkness to lure the weak in faith and spirit from the One True Path.

Brother Fist had warned her of that a thousand times. Unholy evil was everywhere, made in the very flesh and marrow of every man and woman. Even an angel was human enough to be prey to it.

Doubt assailed her. Was she too weak for the task Brother Fist had given her?

He had ordered her away from her place at His side. Commanded her to leave the safe Eden of Ananke and venture into the Profane World to bring this infidel Marchey back to Him. The impious temptation to argue with His edict had been terrible. It went against her every instinct to leave Him vulnerable and unprotected.