Warsinger by James Baldwin (most inspirational books TXT) 📗

quick, polite exit, ride back to Vulkan Keep, and fuck like rabbits before we fly to Kalla Sahasi and you get your spawn point.”

“I like the sound of that.” Suri’s lovely mouth turned down, and her eyes darkened from gold to amber. “But… I dunno. You got any idea how surreal it is to be standing here in a big poodle dress with a glass of champagne right now? We were still in Al-Asad barely an hour ago. I’ve been fighting non-stop for weeks, and I just… yeah. I dunno.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t sure I’d get out a second time, to tell you the truth.” Suri looked down at the plate of lacy little sandwiches she was holding. She normally ate like a rhino, but she’d hardly touched any of them. “I know we’ve got this shit with Baldr going on, but I’m warning you now. I’m not gonna be able to rest until I get my hands on those bastards, Hector. It’d have been one thing if I'd gone back and they'd changed their tune. But they hadn’t changed. Or, they had, but they were WORSE. They'd killed a bunch of the other women they kept in there. The others... Jesus Christ. They were mutilated, Hector. Like, they'd been cut up and shit.”

The bile rose in my throat. I took a sip of champagne, but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't help.

“You pulled up any memories on those names? Jacob and Nicolas?”

I wracked my brains. They were definitely familiar real-Earth names, but I just couldn’t place them. “Give me some hints? Tell me anything you know about them – maybe it’ll jog my memory.”

“Well, one of them was a big tall bastard,” Suri said. “Half-giant. He was always the one in charge of everything, really. The little guy we called Rat was always taking orders from him. The Giant used to call him Rat, so that’s where the nickname came from. We didn’t know it then, but after knowing Rin and seeing the weird corona she has, I know now they were Architects…”

“That’s it!” I exclaimed, loudly enough that a few people glanced in our direction. I waved them off and set my glass down before dropping my voice again. “Fuck, now I remember. Rat as in Ratzinger, as in Jacob Ratzinger… Rin mentioned his name to me during a call a week or so ago. He’s a member of the OUROS programming team, which means… uh…”

I trailed off, not sure how to explain to Suri what an Artificial Intelligence programmer was. The only way I could potentially describe them was as the Architects who had quite literally created this reality and everything in it. But even my emotionally immature ass figured that telling Suri that her torturers were some of the most powerful entities in her reality would not be good for her mental health.

“Which means…?” She cocked her head.

“They, uh, made the Words of Power that mages here use,” I said weakly. “Rin told me they created magical languages. She didn't know them personally, in case you're worried she's been holding out or something... she just knew OF them.”

“Nah. I don't think Rin is in on any of this.” Suri shook her head, and a curl from her hastily pinned hair slipped over her cheek. “Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna hunt ‘em down, and do something to stop them before they hurt other people. They're just as bad as Baldr, Ororgael, whatever the fuck his name is. They’ve gotta pay.”

“Yeah. They should.” Even as I agreed with her, I found my mind going back to the massive list of chores, quests, repairs, and expenses Myszno required. Guilt pricked at me. “No one hurt you this time, right?”

“Nah. All words and bad memories.” She snorted, tucking a scarlet curl behind one of her dark ears. “First thing the guards said to me when I spawned back in my cell was ‘Welcome home, Princess’. Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

“Princess? You?” I gestured across the room with my glass to where Queen Eevi had pinned Ignas beside a piano, boxing him in with a strategically placed daughter. “You see that over there? The girl watching Ignas with the shark eyes? THAT is a princess. Her mom probably started drilling her in how to snag a king as soon as she squirted her out of the royal cooter.”

“Oh my god, Hector.” Suri rubbed her eyes.

“Ooooh yeah, hey there daddy Ignas, what a big throne you have oooh ooooh yeah”.” I put on my weirdest nasally girl voice, even as the princess gave a fluttering little laugh at something Ignas said and conveniently thrust her chest up toward him. “Ooohh yeah baby, you wanna see these princess nips?”

Suri coughed on her sandwich, and fumbled for a glass. She took a great big heaving draft of it.

“Fuck you,” she gasped. “I'm going to go read my bloody journals and let you embarrass yourself here.”

“Want to meet Rutha first? She's cool.” I motioned to her. She was sitting in her chair in a quiet corner of the room, talking to someone who had come with Rupert of Gilheim: a handsome young dude in elegant, close fitting black clothing and a very stylish hat. When I looked over at her, she caught my eye and smiled.

“I will. I'm not ready yet.” Suri shook her head. “Once I’m out of this fucking dress and I’ve caught up on sleep, sure. I’ll ask her out for a girl’s night out, have a couple of drinks or something. I don’t know if she’ll be up for it, though. You know she's still sweet on you, right?”

I winced. “Yeah. I wasn't sure I was reading her correctly, but... yeah. I don't know what to do.”

“Easy. Be honest with her and me, and Karalti,” Suri replied. “Don't say you’re gonna do one thing but then go do another, and we're all good.”

Some men would probably have found Suri to be too blunt for comfort, but