A Mutiny of Marauders

by Daniel Coleman

  Ratings weren’t talked about in the open. You could ruin a perfect scene by bringing it up, and cost yourself a lot of money. Not to mention irritating producers who had half a million other wannabe stars to air if you proved too annoying. Or so people on Hollow Island theorized.

  Back to her normal voice, Livi said, “I don’t know how, but the Reaper crossed over. If people on the Hot side were unprepared, imagine how those sissy saps over there are going to deal with it. Probably run into the ocean like a bunch of lemmings.”

  It was the only thing that made sense. If they waited a day, rumors and news would arrive, but they didn’t have time to waste sitting around in Krete. Nash and Livi were all over the hollows, even though nothing exciting had happened to them in weeks. Which meant they’d reached a crossroads.

  “So we cross over and go to Ponce,” said Nash.

  “Uh, not we.” With a barely-audible zhing her fangs activated. It hit Nash that she could control the volume. “Vamp. Remember? Not welcome.” The fangs silently retracted.

  Nash cursed his fate. This was the moment he had dreaded since they had teamed up back in San Juan. Just when he’d started to depend on having her around, he was going to be back on his own. He crossed the space of the porch and leaned against a supporting pillar. Under the guise of adjusting his holster, he changed the setting on his gun to Barbs, wondering if he’d put enough distance between them. “What’s it worth to you to go to the Cold side?”

  “What’s it worth? How about my life? Any Ranger over there would probably kill me on sight, and that’s if the gate guards don’t skewer me on principle alone.”

  “You owe me one from Troy Fest, remember. If I dare you to go, would you do it?”

  “Not funny, Nash. This is not something to joke about.”

  He couldn’t believe she was saying that. “Do you hear yourself? I’m pretty sure your Hollow Island profile says, ‘Does not recognize appropriate times for humor.’”

  “You want me to go to the Cold side. On a dare. What am I, a teenage boy trying to impress the girl he likes?” She smirked wryly. “Oh wait, that’s you.”

  Nash blushed but kept his gaze on her. “So you’re just gonna go back to your alley?” If their partnership was over he didn’t really have any choice. It made him feel hollow inside to think about going on in this without her, but they’d both known it was coming. “Isn’t one hundred kills enough, Livi?”

  He went for his gun.

  Before it had even cleared the leather, Livi lunged and put a knife up to his throat while pushing the wrist of his gun hand back down into the holster.

  Where’d the figging knife come from? He’d been watching for it, and hadn’t seen her draw.

  Her fangs were bared. Nash was stronger than her, but speed trumped strength in hand to hand. The blade might have already pierced his skin, he couldn’t tell but he knew she kept those things sharp. If he so much as thought about throwing a punch, she’d slit his throat. Staring up with that threatening grimace, she looked more terrifying than ever. She smelled great too, and somehow that just made her even more scary.

  “I heard a theory once about something called numerous de anjos. Angel numbers.” Her voice came out hissy and throaty through the fangs. “When you see certain numbers, it means angels are communicating with you. Whenever I see the number one hundred and one, I feel like Vitória is talking to me. And guess what. I’m only one away and it sure feels like a sign right now.” She made a deliberate feint toward his neck with her mouth open, then drew her face back far enough to look into his metal eye. “And how do you know that number?” The hand holding his wrist went to her neck and felt at the charm at the end of her gold chain tucked into her bodice. Satisfied it was still there, her hand went back to his wrist.

  As hard as he tried to keep info about the eye secret, he slipped up every time things got stressful. Careful not to answer how he knew how many she had killed, he said, “I can’t do it by myself, Livi.”

  “Two seconds ago you tried to pull a gun on me and now you can’t live without me? Go find some of your precious Rangers to help.”

  “You already know, there’s no way they’ll help.” He had to speak calmly, afraid that if his Adam’s apple so much as bobbed, his throat would be sliced.

  “You keep saying that, but I haven’t seen you ask any of them for weeks.” She moved the dagger up to his face. It took as much self-control as he could muster to refrain from blinking as she tapped the tip against his titanium eye.

  They stared at each other, neither willing to give in and look away.

  Nash said, “You have to admit that if the right reward, partner, or incentive came along, you would sell me down the river.”

  Livi’s eyebrows lowered. “What does that mean? Sell you out? Betray you? If you think so little of me, why are we still partners?”

  “You aren’t denying it,” said Nash.

  “No.” Livi’s eves narrowed and she looked capable of anything at the moment. “I’m not denying it. But who’s the one who just tried to draw a gun on me?”

  “You know where we stand. You know what this is.”

  The skin on her forehead pinched momentarily and her eyes took on an injured look, making Nash wonder if he had hurt some actual feelings she had for him. “I do now,” said Livi, her features becoming hard again. “So tell me why I shouldn’t sever your spinal column right now and go about my life.”

  “Like you said in Troy,” he told her. “Together we’re unbeatable. I’ll risk anything for a shot at the Reaper, but not by myself.”

  Like a hawk trying to figure out a riddle, she gazed between his real eye and his metal eye. “Are you going to shoot me if I let you go?”

  “Uh-uh,” muttered Nash, remembering when he’d asked her a similar question in San Juan that first night.

  “Good, because I swear on my sister’s grave that next time you draw your gun on me, I won’t pull up short.” She leaned in and took a deep breath near his neck. “I can smell your blood, filho. Test me again and I won’t have to wonder how it tastes.” Licking her upper lip, she made the knife disappear and took a step back.

  Moving slowly but breathing rapidly, he pulled away and sat down on a bench, hoping it would remove some of her temptation, if she truly felt any. I’ll have to shoot her in her sleep one of these days, he thought and immediately felt guilty, while at the same time knowing he could never do that.

  Without her knife at his throat and her rich perfume in his nostrils, his head began to clear. “You know I have to turn you in if I can’t keep you with me.”

  “You and your stupid white hat,” said Livi.

  “It’s not a white hat,” snapped Nash. “It’s not some act, it’s what I came here to do—be a Ranger. You can’t tell me you enjoy living with a price on your head.”

  “Beats prison. Beats the executioner’s block.”

  “Go and make your self-defense case to the magistrate like you did with me back in San Juan. I’ll even give you a written affidavit about the time you spent hunting the Reaper, but you know I don’t have time to escort you all the way back and wait for a magistrate to hear the case. I have to find a way to finish this.”

  Livi was glaring at him, but he refused to feel like the guilty one in this. She was the one who had killed a hundred people.

  “It was our deal all along,” said Nash.

  “The Cold side wasn’t part of our deal.”

  “It could be,” said Nash.

  “Oh, really? You think you can push around the soldiers at the border like you did those Legionnaires in Troy? Do Rangers outrank one of the five laws now?”

  “The Reaper found a way.”

  “You’re serious about this.” Livi stood directly in front of him. Her pale blue eyes drilled into him. “You’re figging serious.”

  “You know I can’t stop until I find him,” said Nash. “And I can’t beat him by myself.”

  Livi looked away, staring a thousand miles o
ut.

  “You can’t tell me you’ve never considered going to the Cold side,” said Nash. “Big bad Vamp who doesn’t care about anybody’s rules?”

  “I care about staying alive,” she said, still staring off.

  “You also care about … fame.”

  “True.” She nodded.

  “And deep down somewhere in that black heart of yours, there has to be someone on this island that you care about enough to want to stop this monster.”

  Her gaze flashed to him and it was as sharp as her blade. He’d obviously struck a nerve.

  “No.” She forced out breathy words. “Another monster killed the only person on this island I cared for fifteen years ago. And it wasn’t some psychopath Jennie that did it.” Spinning on her heel, she started toward the hotel door.

  “Livi,” said Nash, rushing to get in her way. She came to a stop right in his face. With every breath, her nostrils flared. Other than swearing on her sister’s grave, she’d never brought up her sister. Until Livi’s talk about angel number, Nash hadn’t even known her name.

  Since that first night in San Juan he hadn’t seen her so off kilter.

  “Livi, if you could have stopped that monster before it killed your sister, before it killed Vitória, would you have?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that?” Her gaze didn’t soften.

  “So, help me,” he said. “Help everyone on this island who loves someone.”

  “Nash.” She was speaking softly, intently. “I don’t care about a single one of them.”

  “Then find something you do care about,” he snapped. “Do one thing in your life that isn’t selfish!”

  She glared at him with her lips parted slightly, like she was ready to strike.

  Nash wondered if he’d pushed her too far.

  “Sweeten the deal,” she finally said.

  “What?”

  “If I were to cross with you, we need a new arrangement.”

  “What else could I possibly offer? Money? Gratitude?”

  “For starters, forget about my alley in San Juan and everything I’ve done there. The minute I cross the border, it leaves your pretty little head. The bounty never happened, except when it comes to keeping other Rangers from trying to collect. Second, tell me your secrets. I want to know everything that eye of yours can do. If you actually think you can get me over there, I think I can lay low enough once we get there.”

  Nash doubted that. They’d been lucky so far and had avoided any overzealous Rangers on the Hot side. Every Ranger that gave her more than a passing glance, which would be every male and most of the females, would see from her bio that she wasn’t a Level 1 and that she had a huge bounty on her head. That was no different than the risk they’d been taking so far, but it would be different on the Cold side. A bounty was one thing, but breaking one of the five laws was a much bigger deal.

  Compared to the threat of the Reaper himself, running into a Ranger or two just didn’t feel that threatening. They’d have to stay even more closely joined at the hip than they had been. If any Ranger wanted a fight over it, then Nash and Livi would stand up and fight.

  However, telling her flat out about the eye was too much, and not just because of personal inhibitions. Maybe it was paranoia, but he felt like if he started blabbing Ranger secrets, his indiscretion wouldn’t remain a secret long and there would be hell to pay. Whether Livi sold him out, or other Rangers suddenly received updates about Nash, it would be out there. There were cameras everywhere after all, with the Corporation on the other end, and Nash didn’t believe in non-interference like he had a few weeks ago. The pair of them already had more attention than normal.

  Livi waited as he contemplated, looking as confident as ever.

  “I’m not going to tell you any of our secrets,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he held her with a significant gaze.

  “There’s no point,” he continued. “Because you’ve already figured most of them out.” Their eyes locked wordlessly for what felt like minutes, Nash mentally pleading for her to play along.

  “You mean how you scan everyone you see, like a teller at the depo, and pull up all their secrets.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Nash didn’t answer, just stared at her, pretty sure she was picking up on the guise. Her quick mind was one of the things he liked most about her.

  “Only an imbecile wouldn’t have picked that up,” she said. “What else?”

  “I’m not telling you anything. Why should I? At this rate you’ll know more than me within a few weeks.” Maybe giving away secrets on ‘accident’ wouldn’t cause as many problems for him. He added, “You already know Rangers won’t mess with the Reaper.” It shouldn’t be too hard to keep feeding her hints; he’d been doing it without trying to since they first met.

  She considered him for a minute. Nash felt like they’d come to an unspoken agreement.

  “Let’s talk about the gate. Can you even get me past the checkpoint? Whenever there’s skewering, I like to be on the dull end of the weapon.”

  Nash escorted her to a fancy bench with a wrought iron back as he went over in his head everything he knew about the gate.

  “You could hang out all day a meter from the guard house and they wouldn’t bother you.”

  “A meter?” she said, back to her teasing tone.

  “A foot, a yard. Whatever you want to call it.” He really needed to internalize the stupid, old-fashioned measurement units.

  “And if I try to cross?”

  This part was all theory, but Nash put on a confident face. “I can probably escort prisoners anywhere on Hollow Island.”

  “Probably? Yeah, that makes me feel super confident.” Livi rolled her eyes.

  “Go with me here, I’m brainstorming. We’ll call that Plan B. I’ve pushed Legionnaires around before, I can probably push past Hoplites if it came to it.”

  “I’m seriously loving all the probablies in this conversation.” Her sarcasm was laid on with the precision of a master. If he didn’t know her, he wouldn’t even pick up on it.

  Nash said, “Easy for someone to gripe who has no actual knowledge to contribute.”

  “Hoplites weren’t real high on my study list before I immigrated,” she countered. “What with that little law about No Escalation.”

  “There’s not a lot to Hoplites,” said Nash. “King Homer was here first and designated his soldiers as Legionnaires. You know, to go with his Greek and Roman theme. When King Drin came a year later, he didn’t want anything formal like that, so he hired regular Joes. They’re called Hoplites and they’re citizen soldiers. Some of them are lifers, others come and go between other professions.”

  “You’re a wealth of information, Boy Ranger,” said Livi. “But what I want to know is any of them going to try to stick something sharp through me?”

  “We can only hope.” Nash smirked. “Based on your theory about the ratings spike, I think the Corporation wants you to cross.”

  That got her attention. “That’s the most intelligent thing you’ve said all day.”

  “I have my moments,” said Nash. “I think we just need to consider you contraband to be smuggled.”

  Livi laughed. “Please enlighten me on your vast smuggling knowledge, White Hat.”

  “Sorry, but crime is your area of expertise, Contraband.” Even in tense moments, he loved verbally sparring with her. It always surprised Nash that they could do it so naturally because she was more intelligent and independent than anyone he’d ever known, not to mention famous and rich.

  She grinned at the nickname, and it brightened her entire face. With a shrug, she said, “I’ve never had reason to contemplate a suicide mission like this.”

  “Good thing you have people for that,” said Nash. Livi’s face went blank. “Come on, I know you didn’t hire two full-time, personal servants just so you never have to touch a doorknob again. Ahab and Srenners have traveled back and forth across this island h
elping people get places. If they don’t know how to cross, they know someone who does.”

  The light went on in Livi’s eyes. “You got me. That’s the exact reason I have them around.”

  “It’s decided then,” said Nash. “We rely on your footman and goodman to help us figure out how to transport our illicit goods.”

  “Illicit goods?” She gave him a sultry smile. “Now you’re just using flattery.”

  Her smile and tone of voice made Nash feel warm all over. He cleared his throat and stood from the bench.

  With something between a giggle and a chuckle, Livi stood as well. “And once we’re on the Cold side?”

  “We face any threats together. If you leave my side, you’re fair game.”

  “Sounds like an excuse to keep me extra close.” There was that teasing smile again and she didn’t stop there. Coming as close as she had minutes earlier, she licked her lips like she was about to kiss him. It gave being at each other’s throats a whole new meaning.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. “Enough, Livi. We both know you’re not serious.”

  Her veneer broke, for a split second, like she was surprised he’d doubted her sincerity. Like there really might be some sincerity to her advances. At least he thought that’s what it was.

  Recovering, she winked.

  Nash’s heart was racing, but he couldn’t make himself believe for a second there was more to her flirting than mocking him.

  “So,” he said, and cleared his throat again. “You’re coming?”

  She stood in the center of the ornamental porch like a masterpiece statue. In her haughty style she assessed him, apparently giving the impression of gauging his worthiness. The way she studied him, she might as well have a biomechanical eye that saw into his soul. If it came down to Nash’s knowledge or experience, she had no business agreeing to continue with him. But if she could see the fire in his soul to stop the Reaper, there was no way she’d back out.

  “Your speech about caring about someone else for once really got to me,” she said. “There is a group of people I can’t let down. Some people in this world I truly care about.”