The Razor's Edge

by Seanan McGuire

  This is too easy.

  The epiphany crashed through his thoughts, fueled by intuition and fear. The woman in green was here, hidden by magick.

  He didn’t slow, or say anything to the men around him, but he cast a spell, aimed at her concealment.

  Aufer carmen, he said within his mind, ex gramine evocatum. Remove spell, conjured from grass.

  Through his hands and knees, he felt the conjuring vibrate in the earth. Reg materialized beside him. To Ethan’s relief, the ghost had known to keep low to the ground so that Catherine Percy wouldn’t spot him. He hoped the casting would be strong enough to overmaster whatever spell she had used to conceal herself. He raised his head until he could see past the swaying grass.

  Miss Percy stood on the Neck behind the gate and guardhouses, still wearing green. Even at this distance, Ethan read anger in her stance. As he watched, her spectral companion appeared, bright yellow in the gloaming. Magick growled in the ground.

  He cast again in desperation—a warding that cleared a swath of grass directly in front of him.

  But she didn’t throw her spell at him.

  Flame leaped into the night only a few yards from where the lead soldiers parted the grass. Men shouted in alarm and fell back.

  Ethan cast again, an extinguishing spell aimed at the fire itself. But he knew he couldn’t trade conjurings with the woman. Young as she was, she already had abilities he couldn’t match.

  Fortunately, Danny Roan and his friends chose that moment to spark their riot in Cornhill. Shouts went up from the city. Fires erupted in the distance. Several of the regulars on the Neck spun to look in that direction. Catherine did the same.

  Seizing the opportunity Danny and the others had given him, Ethan tried the only thing he could think of. He pulled his knife from his belt, pushed up his sleeve, and cut his arm.

  “Ignis ex cruore evocatus,” he whispered. A fire spell, directed at the woman herself.

  “What are you doing?” asked the man beside him.

  “Keep moving. Follow your orders.”

  Ethan didn’t bother to check what effect his fire spell had on her. Instead, he slashed at his arm again. “Discuti ex cruore evocatum.” A shatter spell, also aimed at Miss Percy.

  “Mister Dawes!” he called. “Attack now!”

  He cut himself a third time. “Pugnus ex cruore evocatus.” A fist spell.

  “We’re not close enough,” Dawes said.

  “There is no time! Attack!” He drew still more blood and threw a suffocation spell at the woman.

  To his credit, Dawes didn’t waste an instant. He had the men bring the cannons forward and quickly saw to their positioning.

  Ethan cast a blade spell, a sleeping spell, another fire spell. Each time he slashed at his arm, drawing more blood, ignoring the livid red of his skin, the ache in his flesh, the sweat beading on his face.

  He cast, and cast, and cast again, allowing Catherine no time to rest, no time to attack him, and, most important, no time to turn her powers on the colonial militiamen. Her wardings might stop the spells from burning her, or slicing her in two, or shattering the bones in her neck, but what mattered was that each attack would land like a blow, staggering her, stealing her breath. He had been the object of such an assault. He remembered the experience all too well.

  The first cannon roared with a spurt of flame and a billow of pale smoke. The second fired moments later. Both artillery pieces found their marks. Cannon balls punched through the roof of one guardhouse and the wall of the other.

  Regulars streamed from the building, more than he had expected, but still not enough to fight off this company of Colonials.

  “Fire!” Dawes bellowed.

  The dry report of musket fire crackled like a winter blaze. Smoke hazed the evening sky.

  And still Ethan conjured. A scalding spell. A stinging spell. Another blade spell. Binding. Suffocation. Strangulation. Blindness. Submission. Any assault he could imagine. Every attack he had ever used. He threw one after another in Catherine’s direction. Fighting exhaustion, the cramping pain in his blade hand, the agony in his abused arm.

  The woman, he saw, had dropped to one knee. Her own forearm was bared, but her head hung low. Ethan didn’t believe she had the strength to cast. At least, he wanted to hope she didn’t.

  Several of the king’s regulars had fallen under the fusillade from Dawes’ men. Others now ran, retreating along the causeway toward the city. One of the men slowed as he passed Catherine. He helped her to her feet and ushered her back, supporting her when she stumbled along the road.

  Ethan broke off his assault, but still watched her, fresh blood on his arm, ready at the first sign of an attack to whisper the words of his next conjuring.

  He didn’t have to. The British soldiers didn’t stop and neither did she. The militiamen cheered and charged the gate, overrunning the battlements and the wreckage of the two guardhouses.

  Ethan remained where he was, too weary to join in the celebration. But he sheathed his blade and looked up at the glowing form of Uncle Reg, who now stood over him, a rare smile on his grizzled face.

  “Thank you,” Ethan said. “That couldn’t have been easy, even for you.”

  The ghost tipped his head, acknowledging the words. A moment later he winked out of sight.

  “What was that all about, Kaille?” Dawes asked, striding in his direction. “Was that the woman you told me about earlier today?”

  “Aye, sir, it was. I feared she would harm the men and I didn’t know how long I could hold her off.”

  The man extended a hand. When Ethan gripped it, Dawes pulled him to his feet.

  “Well, whatever you did,” the tanner said, “it seemed to work. I gather we’re in your debt.”

  “No more than I am in yours and that of the others.” At Dawes’ questioning look, Ethan said, “I didn’t even raise my musket. It was all I could do to fight her off. Had you not attacked when I requested, she might have killed us all.”

  A grin stole across the man’s face. “I’m not sure I’d call what you shouted ‘a request,’ but I don’t suppose I ought to quibble.” He gazed northward, at his men. They had lit a bonfire using wood from the shattered buildings and they sang the opening verses of “Free America,” a song written by the late Doctor Warren. “You would think they’d broken the bloody siege,” he said.

  “We’ve made a start,” Ethan said.

  “We’ve defeated twenty regulars at most. It will take a lot more than two hundred militiamen to drive the redcoats from Boston.”

  Ethan couldn’t argue the point. Like Dawes, though, he was content for this night to allow the men to enjoy their victory.

  * * *

  A message arrived at the Lyons house two days later. It was addressed to Ethan in a flowing hand. No name or return address appeared on the envelope, but the missive had been sealed with green wax. The parchment smelled faintly of perfume.

  “Mister Kaille,

  I congratulate you on a battle well-waged. Remember, though, this will be a long war and you and I will match wits and spells again.

  Yours, C.P.”

  “That from our loyalist witch?” Dawes asked.

  As a conjurer, Ethan didn’t like to hear others of his kind referred to as witches, even one such as Miss Percy. This once, though, he allowed the word to pass without comment.

  “Aye.”

  “What does she say?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Nothing of consequence.”

  Dawes held out a hand and Ethan passed him the letter.

  The tanner read it and shrugged. “An idle threat. Think nothing of it, Kaille.”

  Ethan nodded, took back the missive. “Yes, sir.”

  But he knew better. He had felt the power of the woman’s magick that day on Essex Street. Her warning carried weight. And as Dawes himself had said, they had more battles to wage before they drove the British from these shores.

  Author’s Historical Note: The skirmish on Bosto
n’s Neck, which took place on July 8, 1775, unfolded much the way I have described it here. Approximately two hundred militiamen did sneak through the grasses on either side of the Roxbury causeway, pulling artillery with them. They destroyed the guardhouses, opened fire on the regulars who fled the buildings, and overran the gate. As for the battle of conjurers that made the Colonial victory possible … well, gentle reader, I will leave it to you to determine the accuracy of that particular point.

  — D.B.J.

  Miller’s Choice

  Gerald Brandt

  I’ve been compromised!

  Ian Miller’s hands quivered as he tried to type a message into his comm unit. He could feel the blood pounding in his temples, drowning out the constant background thrum of the ship’s engines.

  When had everything gotten so difficult? Life must have been simpler once. Back before he was born, before his parents or grandparents had been born. Before the corporations took over and started running—ruining—everything. A simple life was all he wanted right about now.

  His comm unit slipped from his grip, chipping the black plastic casing as it impacted the bare composite floor. He bent over to pick it up, the blood on his fingers smearing across the screen as he finished typing in his message.

  Attacked on way home. Package is safe. One body. Will require assistance after landing.

  He doublechecked that the encryption icon was green before hitting send. Not that it really mattered anyway. There wasn’t a scrap of digital information going through the net that wouldn’t be captured, decrypted, and stored on a corporate server somewhere. That’s why he had a job. He was the hole in the net, along with the tens of thousands of other couriers out there, most of them carrying garbage data. Why the corporations decided he had valid information this time was anybody’s guess. Hell, even he didn’t know what he was carrying. Knowing was way over his pay grade. Then again, he didn’t think his pay grade included killing and hiding bodies, either. But it wasn’t that tough a choice to make when it was your life on the line.

  Now that it was over, his entire body started vibrating. He gripped his comm unit tighter, not wanting to drop it again, before placing it on the bed beside him and resting his face in his hands. He jerked away when he remembered the blood. The problem was he wasn’t sure whose it was—his or the dead operative on the floor. Staring at his trembling fingers, he felt the adrenalin leave him. The shaking slowly subsided, replaced by a feeling of loss and sadness, but surprisingly, not remorse. He drew in a deep breath and stepped over to the first person he had ever killed.

  The man looked smaller now that life had left him. Miller had heard stories of people looking more peaceful when they were dead, had seen it with his own eyes more than once. But that wasn’t the case here. This guy had died with a snarl on his lips and it had stayed there.

  Miller began with a pocket search, before carefully removing each layer of clothing and examining the seams. He came up empty, as he’d expected. Nothing in the waistband of the pants or underwear. There were places on the body he hadn’t looked, yet, and he didn’t want to. He grabbed the shoes he’d thrown off to the side and studied them, holding them up to the dead man’s feet, a chuckle running through him. The shoes were too big. He jammed his hand into the opening, reaching to the toes, and found what he was looking for.

  The memory chip had been shoved in and held in place with a bit of cloth. The other shoe had just the wad of cloth to make both shoes the same size on the inside. He gave the chip’s contacts a quick rub with his thumb, accidentally smearing blood over them. He pressed harder and the blood curled off, leaving clean contacts behind. Sliding the chip into his comm unit, he started a decryption app and waited. It would take some time.

  * * *

  This was Miller’s first flight to Mars and by now he was pretty damn sure he never wanted to do it again. ACE, the anti-corporate movement he worked for, had gotten him on the cheapest flight possible: an outside room with no display mocked up to look like a viewport and no carpet on the floor. It was just a square box with a small hard bed permanently attached to the floor by four legs, a nightstand for his personal belongings, and a metal sink and toilet attached to the wall. It was worse than some of the prison cells he’d been in.

  Deceleration had started twenty-five hours ago, and they still had another sixteen before he was home, back in San Angeles, where he knew how to do his job, instead of in a mining town on Mars where the recycled air stank like unwashed bodies and every step made him feel as though he would bounce off the ceiling. Or on this damn ship. At least the ship felt normal. He thought he could almost hear the hull creaking as it maintained a steady one G.

  From what he could tell, the other passengers were almost all miners, returning home to spend their hard-earned cash. Corporate money spent in a corporate store, taxed by the same corporation. How could people be so blind?

  Mining wasn’t an easy life, but if you saved and scrimped, it had the chance of earning you enough to live on Level 5. If you were really lucky, maybe even Level 6. Very few were. Maybe that’s what kept everyone going, the dream that they could some day make it out of the lower levels. As one of ACE’s couriers, he’d never earn enough to do that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  The remaining passengers were salesmen or management. He was one of the three or four couriers on board. Somehow, he had expected more.

  Couriers were used by almost everybody, from small businesses to the massive corporations, since the net was useless for sending critical information. The problem was that if couriers were used to carry important information, then they were easy to take out. The solution to that problem was to throw more couriers out there. Give ninety-eight percent of them garbage information and no one would know which ones were carrying important data.

  Security through obscurity. The analog hole.

  He did one more quick search of the now naked body before standing and staring blankly at the broken mirror on the wall. It hadn’t been that way when he’d gotten on board. The recent fight had hit every corner of the tiny room.

  What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He had a body to get rid of and no place to put it. He got the clothes back on the man and took another look around his small room.

  Miller’s comm unit gave a soft beep. He picked it up off the bed and touched the screen, bringing the display to life. The memory chip had been partially decoded, enough to get a signature from the decryption key. The dead man had been working for IBC, one of the big three corporations that pretty much ran the government back home. This was a corporate hit, and he—or his package—had been the target.

  It wasn’t unheard of, but it did show that IBC had some information that maybe they shouldn’t have had. He popped the memory chip out of his comm unit and pocketed it. It wasn’t his job to know why or how, it was his job to deliver the package he’d picked up at the Valles Marineris mines.

  He shoved the dead man under the bed, sliding him in at an angle to get around the bed’s legs and then pushing him in as deep as he could. Even if ACE couldn’t get in to do a cleanup, the room was under an assumed name and couldn’t—if he was lucky—be traced back to him.

  * * *

  Miller found it difficult to sleep in a room with blood smeared on the floor and a body under his bed, so he decided to wander the hallways and common areas of the ship.

  There were a few hundred people on board, but this late at night it was as though he had the place to himself. The miners would wait until they were Earthside before partying, and the business folk had to work tomorrow. When he walked into the restaurant hoping to find a glass of water, it really didn’t surprise him to find someone wiping the tables and getting ready for the morning rush. She glanced up at him and smiled, moving to clean the table he’d sat down at.

  Whether she had watched him move towards the restaurant or had simply hoped he would eventually end up there didn’t matter. Her attack was quick and brutal. Miller was face down on the floor befor
e he even realized what had happened. She jumped on his back, driving her knees into his kidneys, and jammed the cloth she’d been using to wipe the table deep into his mouth. He gagged, coughing the material out of his throat and swallowing the contents of his stomach before it filled his mouth. She lifted his head by his hair and smashed his nose into the crook of her arm, clamping his head in a vice-like grip, cutting off his air.

  Red haze filled his vision and he squeezed his fingers between her forearm and his cheek, pushing with more strength than he thought he had. Her arm lifted enough for him to get a quick breath before squeezing down again. It was enough to give him a single clear thought:

  He wasn’t going to die out here.

  He bucked once, twisting his hips so she no longer had her weight on his back. New pain lanced through him as her knee found his ribs. Swinging a leg forward, he used it as a fulcrum point, ending up on his back with his head twisted painfully backwards by her hold. The angle created a tiny gap and he pulled in a few small breaths. She released his head and brought her fist down towards his face.

  He jerked to the left and her fist grazed his cheek and ear. He could almost hear her knuckles crack as they hit the thin carpet covering the composite deck plating. She muffled a yell and brought up her knees to drive them into his gut. Miller twisted again, throwing her off. He jerked the rag from his mouth and crammed it deep into hers. The contents of her stomach bubbled around the edge of the cloth as he drove his fists into her stomach over and over again, driven by fear and anger.

  He only stopped when she did, her glassy eyes staring at the low ceiling. He rolled off her lifeless form and fumbled to his hands and knees. His brain slowly began to process what had happened—what he had just done—and his gut twisted. A string of bile fell from his lips.