I'd never bothered to learn any of their names. I also hadn't realized that there were cameras inside the kitchen. Thank goodness there weren't any in the pantry, and those in the kitchen were vid only, with no sound. Grish hadn't bothered with upgrades. When the women refused to admit to anything, Arvil played the vid. I saw at least three of the women, one of whom was their dead co-conspirator, placing a powdery substance inside the flour canister. I was more than thankful it showed me dumping out the flour and then walking into the pantry to get more. If I'd skipped away to buy flour while still inside the kitchen, Arvil might have tried to kill me, too. I'd skipped from inside the pantry, after learning there wasn't any more flour inside it. I schooled my face into the best non-expression I could.
Reah, you have to stay or Arvil will think you're weak, Tory sent mindspeech later. Arvil had tied all five women to the rail fence Astralan and I had sat on only the day before, and then blindfolded them. He'd then accepted a ranos pistol from one of the warlocks and shot each of the women in the head from close range. A ranos pistol from only a hand or two away will blow a large melon into microscopic fragments. Every one of those bodies was slumped against the fence, headless and bloody, when Arvil was done.
If his remaining wizards had any thought as to their potential sentence if Arvil found them guilty of conspiracy with Delvin, they were all gulping nervously now. I knew they knew about it, I just didn't know how much they knew or how far they'd gotten involved. Even if Arvil didn't know, I think the Hardlows and their warlocks did.
"Reah, baby," Tory's hand was cool against the back of my neck as I vomited the contents of my stomach in my bathroom shortly after the executions. Ry was standing nearby, handing me a cold, wet cloth. Of course, my comp-vid was going off right at that moment. Tory moved back and Ry handed it to me. Teeg was calling again.
"Teeg, I'm a little busy right now," I managed to gasp before dry heaving again.
"Reah, I've gotten communication from Arvil so I know what happened."
"You didn't see it happen, I did," I muttered.
"Sweetheart, come on. Wash your face and stand up. You can't show them any weakness."
"Teeg, go away," I moaned.
"Reah, get up and walk out of there now. You can't do this."
"Teeg, someday we'll have a talk about this, all right?" I hit the terminate call button and the screen went blank.
"Come on, he's right." Tory came back and lifted me off the floor.
I'm going to slap Lendill Schaff into next eight-day, I sent the mental grumble to Ry and Tory before rinsing out my mouth and stalking out of my suite.
I cooked dinner as if nothing had happened. The only good thing to come from all this was there were fewer to cook for. Farzi was watching me closely, however. Nenzi, too, as were their brothers. Arvil wanted another sit-down with me after dinner. I wanted to huddle in my room. Even though the courtesans had all been trying to kill me, their deaths were too horrible to contemplate.
"Reah, I haven't failed to see how Farzi and the others act around you." That had me jerking my head up to stare at Arvil. What was he getting at? Was he accusing me of something?
"Reah, what I'm saying is that I want Farzi and the others to act as your bodyguards. I'm taking Tory and Ry."
"That's fine," I said. It was, although I'd miss Tory at night. Tory and Ry could watch out for Arvil and listen for his deepest secrets. Honestly, if Lendill Schaff and the ASD didn't have an inescapable grip on me, I'd have skipped away and Arvil would never have found me after the killings earlier.
Tory and Ry replaced Delvin and Carthin in Arvil's suite later; he had three bedrooms inside his suite. Tory and Ry got the rooms leading up to the nice, large one belonging to Arvil. Farzi, Nenzi and the other reptanoids moved into the two smaller bedrooms inside my suite. If I worried about spending my nights alone, I shouldn't have. Farzi and Nenzi crawled into bed with me as lion snakes.
"You should not worry that we try to couple," Farzi told me the second night. "When we were made, we were neutered."
"When we not turn out like they want," Nenzi added sadly.
"Nenzi, I am so sorry." I pulled his head against mine.
"We learn to deal with this," Chazi said. He never talked much, like most of his brothers.
"I still love Reah." Nenzi had his arms wrapped around me.
"And I still love you." I kissed Nenzi's cheek. "I think we have a lot in common, don't you?"
"Yes. We know Reah different when we see her first time," Perzi nodded his head.
"And we keep secrets," Farzi said.
"I know." I placed a hand around the back of Farzi's neck and bumped his forehead with mine.
Two days later, Nenzi drove me to the city, accompanied by Farzi, Yanzi and Perzi. We saw what the two warlocks had done when we arrived. Entire housing districts had been burned to the ground. The warlocks had hit a centralized natural gas station that still supplied fuel to an ancient portion of the city, none of which had been upgraded to solar power. The resulting fire had spread swiftly, and some residents hadn't made it out before the fire swept through. So many homes burned at the same time that the outdated fire departments nearby had been unable to handle it.
I'd heard some of the news vids—they were blaming the fire on a huge gas explosion, with no explanation as to the cause. If Celestan and his brother had found a way to do that so that fingers wouldn't be pointed in their direction, I had to marvel at their efficiency. Just because Zephili belonged to the Alliance didn't mean they couldn't have crime or uprisings. I was surprised that Lendill hadn't sent anyone in to investigate. Or perhaps he had and left me out of that loop.
"They knew where to hit this, didn't they?" Lendill examined the crater that formerly housed the hub where natural gas was pumped in and then sent through smaller pipelines into an older housing district. This one still had natural gas lines instead of the upgraded solar power relays. The pipes were insulated well—they should have been impervious to anything short of a very large bomb blast. Of course, nobody had factored in powerful warlocks when the thing had been designed.
"Yes." Norian crunched over blackened rubble. Surprisingly, only fifteen people died in the explosion and subsequent fires. But we'll hold off on the true cause of all this until we finish this with San Gerxon and the Hardlows, he added mentally. We'll just say our findings are inconclusive and we're still investigating.
Lendill nodded, not sending a reply. He considered sending mindspeech to Reah but held back. His last communication with her hadn't gone very well. Had he known it, Reah was less than half a tick away from him at that very moment.