Even in Coldheart, a scream so full of terror was a curiosity worthy of further investigation, so Cadaverous hunted it down like he’d hunted all those idiotic co-eds through his house of horrors, finally turning a corner to see Razzia leaning over the barrier.
“Are you throwing people off again?” he asked, walking up to her.
She didn’t look round. “He’s the last one,” she said.
“Did you get him to apologise?”
“He got down on his knees and begged me to forgive him. He said he got confused in all the excitement.”
“You didn’t forgive him, obviously.”
“We let them out of their cells to attack Valkyrie and the skeleton. They should have known better than to attack me, too.” Her voice was low, her face expressionless. Then she brightened, her unhinged smile returning. “You should’ve seen the way he evaporated, Caddie. The moment he hit that energy field he just went zzaap,” and she clicked her fingers.
“I’m sure it was lovely.”
“It was, actually. Very pretty. I might write a poem about it later. What rhymes with evaporated?”
“Not much.”
“Maporated. Is that a word?”
“Not a real one.”
“It’s not easy being a poet.”
“Stick to what you’re good at, Razzia. Extreme violence and making people uneasy in your presence.”
She sighed unhappily, and took a crumpled ball of foil from her pocket. “I want to try new things, though. I want to stretch myself.”
“You’re bored, aren’t you?”
“Dunno,” she said, opening the ball. “I’ve never been bored before, so I don’t know what it feels like. I’ve always had someone to kill or hunt or torture. I don’t even view it as work, you know? Is it even work, when you’re doing what you love?”
“It’s a vocation, is what it is. But even someone like you needs direction, and I don’t think you’ve been getting that lately.”
The foil contained a few small pieces of raw meat. Razzia brought her other hand close. “Things are different,” she said. “Before we got Abyssinia back, it was non-stop, you know? We were always busy. Always focused.”
“But now that’s all changed,” Cadaverous said.
“We still have our plans, though. Abyssinia has her people in place, and First Wave are getting ready to strike.” Razzia’s palm opened slowly, and the parasite poked out. A black tentacle with a head slightly thicker than its body, it had no eyes but plenty of sharp, tiny teeth. It hovered over the foil, then dipped down, snatching the meat into its jaws.
Cadaverous couldn’t take his eyes off it as it fed. “But is that enough to keep life interesting, Razzia?”
“No, it ain’t. She won’t even send me on the simple jobs because she thinks I’ll do something crazy and kill a bunch of people for no reason.”
“I know.”
“I always have a reason, Caddie.”
“I know that, too.”
“But she sends Skeiri instead, because apparently she has more ‘self-control’. What’s so good about self-control?”
“Nothing that I can see.”
“I hate Skeiri.”
“I know.”
“She’s basically just a sane version of me. We even have the same pets!”
“What are the odds?”
“Her pets aren’t as well-trained as mine, though. And see this guy? He’s longer than Skeiri’s, and he’s not even fully grown yet. And her pets are green. Can you imagine it? How ugly.”
“Very ugly.”
“Can I tell you something? And promise you won’t tell anyone else?”
Cadaverous dragged his eyes away from the parasite. “Of course.”
“I’m not sure that I have any friends here. Like real, actual mates. Nero makes me want to stab him every time I talk to him and Destrier’s always working on his little projects, and he’s a weirdo anyway … For so long, Abyssinia was my friend, a voice in my head that only I could hear. But she barely does that any more, and when she does it just feels … weird.”
“I’d like to think that I’m your friend, Razzia.”
She smiled. “Yeah. I reckon you are.” She looked down at the parasite as it ate. “But you’re a psychopath, so I don’t think you count.”
“Do you want to know a secret?” Cadaverous asked. “I’ve been having the exact same thoughts as you. I’m bored. It’s as if all Abyssinia wanted was for us to bring her back to life, so she filled our heads with all these wonderful ideas of an anti-Sanctuary and getting revenge on the people who’ve wronged us … and, now that she’s back, all she cares about is herself and her son.”
“You really think she was fooling us?”
“I don’t know,” Cadaverous said, shrugging. “I hope not. But that’s how it seems. That’s how it feels.”
The parasite finished its lunch and retracted into Razzia’s palm. She crumpled up the foil and tossed it over the side. “I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”
“We just need to remind Abyssinia that we’re here, and we’re valuable. We just need some way to impress her again.” Cadaverous gave a little shrug. “Oh, well. If anything occurs to you …”
He let his words hang, and started walking away.
“What about …” Razzia said, and her voice trailed off.
Cadaverous turned. “Yes?”
“Nothing.”
“No, go on. What were you going to say?”
She hesitated. “Well, if all Abyssinia cares about is getting Caisson back, then she’d be, like, super happy with us if we found him.”
Cadaverous frowned. “But she’s assigned Avatar to that job, and, from what I gather, he is mere hours away from finding the ambulance route. He’s going to get all the praise. He’s going to get all the fun jobs.”
“Yeah, but we could, you know … kill him.”
“Kill him?”
“Just a little,” Razzia said quickly. “Just slightly.”
“So what you’re suggesting is that we wait for Avatar to find the ambulance’s route … and then we kill him, sneak off ourselves, and rescue Caisson.”
“Well, I mean, yeah,” said Razzia. “Why not? We bring her son back, Abyssinia’s gonna love us.”
Cadaverous smiled. “You’re not as insane as you seem, are you?”
Razzia laughed, then turned deadly serious. “Oh, no, I am, but. I really am.”