A Singer of Thrace: K-Nurse Book Three (K-Nurse, The Knight-Nurses of the Order of St. John 3) by Mark Leo Tapper

Author:Mark Leo Tapper [Tapper, Mark Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sousa House Press
Published: 2022-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

We shambled back to the Beast’s lair, Aurora hunched over and clearly frustrated at our lack of speed. Zephyr appeared and took point doing that weird neck thing every time we turned a corner. We passed a group of cogs weaving their way home, no doubt from a bar. At first, they looked like any other gaggle of drunken lads, except that they made no sounds. No singing or yelling or laughing, just trudging and weaving in silence.

“That was grim,” Aurora whispered.

“It looks like that to you and me, anyway. That’s how they live,” I replied.

When we had safely gotten Aurora through the door to the lair, we stood still and slapped our hands on our sides, the cog equivalent of a big sigh.

“Dad?” said Aurora, looking at Beetle.

“Over here,” I said, raising my hand.

“We cannot hold space for conversation right now,” Beast said, beckoning for Zephyr, who rummaged in a closet at the back of the room before pulling out a collapsible cart. He snapped the rolling legs in place while Ant unfolded a gray sheet.

“I’m never going to fit on that,” Aurora complained.

“Your legs go through the holes at the end. You will dangle from the knees down under the cart. That’s what the sheet is for, so no one sees the legs.”

“It will also cover your facial aspect,” Beetle added.

“As if your life function metrics are unfavorable,” finished Ant.

Aurora stared at the cart, hands on hips. She looked to be calculating something, then suddenly stood up straight.

“Did you hear that?”

We all looked at each other.

“That humming sound,” said Aurora. “It’s getting louder. It’s magic. I can feel it. Hell, I can smell it.”

I couldn’t smell or hear anything out of the ordinary.

“If the bosses successfully execute the search piece, can you use magic to defend us?” Beast asked.

I shook my head.

“Not in this body, I’m afraid. Aurora is still in her original form, so, like the Returned, uh, the bosses, she can conjure illusions,” I finished.

“I suggest you operationalize that playbook,” Beast said, and, although it was a monotone, I could hear tension in his voice.

Aurora got on the cart, and Beetle placed the sheet over her, which extended to the ground. Not ten heartbeats later, the door was flung open by a cog in uniform. He peered at the four of us surrounding the cart.

“My brother,” Beast said, tilting his head toward the cart. “We were decanted under the same policies and procedures.”

“Your community is youth adjacent,” said the uniform.

“Yes,” said Beast, “I have done the analytics and PBD rate for this community is rare-ish. It informs my current life activity.”

“Achieve emotional efficiencies,” said the cog in uniform.

“Moving forward,” we all replied.

“What’s PBD?” I asked after the uniform left.

“Perished Before Dotage,” Ant answered.

“Ah.”

“For real?” Aurora said from under the sheet.

“Deliverables don’t speak,” said Beetle, and we all made the grunting cog laughter.

We rolled the cart out the door and along the street. It was smooth and narrow, made for bicycles, so Aurora wasn’t jostled much. We

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