by S E Zbasnik
Marek's mouth hung from her dropping her real name as if it carried less than a cosmetics case of baggage. The dwarf lord glanced from the hang dog man to the woman clearly in charge and made a calculating error, "Siblings?"
"Yes," Variel said, elbowing her husband in the stomach lest he waste time correcting her. "Now, who might you be?"
The dwarf laughed, "Your 'brother' failed to brief you on all the details. I am Umai." The trolls joined in the laughter at her ignorance. Apparently he was a big fish in a little pond.
But Variel didn't back down, her thumb covering up one half of the dwarf's head, then the other as she closed an eye. The silhouette didn't match up. "Oh, I know your name. What I want to know is what you are."
The trolls stopped laughing, the gravel slide skittering into death glares. Marek shifted on his feet and whispered, "What's it matter? Let's pay them and get out of here."
Only the dwarf didn't shift away from the woman writing her own death sentence, he was unable to. The programming didn't allow for extreme episodes of shock or rage. That's what the trolls were for, to enforce the emotions the projections couldn't handle. "You are quick to notice things," Umai said, filing it away as a bit of important information to add to a scry for Terrwyn Yates.
"It's a gift," Variel said, shrugging her shoulders in mock self deprecation. She'd suspected before landing on the planet that this was no ordinary dwarf lord. For one, they'd never set foot on a low grav planet. Bouncing that high was a sign of disrespect and ill breeding.
Umai didn't look at the pair of boulders he brought for protection, his eyes tracked the woman who didn't seem as comical anymore. He brought his hand down upon a small bracelet and the air around him shimmered. False reflections, imaginary shadows, and a fairly convincing forcefield fell away. Where a dwarf once was, a six and a half foot tall creature now stood. His nose was long and wide, jutting out further than even a gnomes and joined with the reaching chin and sharp teeth. Red eyes, as perfect an almond as most nuts dreamed to achieve, reflected in the heavy shadows. But it was the rows of ginger fur clinging from the pointy ears, off the black nub of the snout and poking out from his black, skintight morph suit that tagged him for what he truly was.
"A kitsune," Variel said, leaning back in surprise. She hadn't expected that.
"A what?" Marek whispered into her ear, even more terrified than he'd been before. Dwarves were okay, one of the hard working races that you could trust. Okay, you wouldn't want to bring one home to mother, but they weren't bad to have move into a neighborhood. This upright creature coated in fur yanked on every xenophobic bone in Marek's soft body. "It looks like a fox."
"Or perhaps your foxes merely look like kitsunes," Umai said, the rows of sharp teeth gnashing as he ended the sentence.
"Only two tails," Variel said pointing to the twin bushes sprouting out of its tail bone. They whipped together at the attention, but there was no friendly wag about it. "Not the brightest bulb in the class I take it."
Umai's blood red eyes narrowed, but he repeated a phrase that served kitsunes well in such situations, "Two more than you, Human."
"Touché," Variel said, nodding to his jibe.
"Your companion appears confused," Umai said, his eyes landing on Marek whose mind wandered off around the time the dwarf transformed into a two tailed giant fox.
"With kitsunes you can measure their intelligence and cunning by how many tails they have," Variel said loudly. "Two is below average."
Marek nodded at the exobiology lesson then turned back to the not-as-smart as the other kitsunes, who still bared those dangerous teeth at them, "And you're pissing him off because...?"
"Just stating the facts," Variel said. "Nothing wrong with a little honesty is there?"
Umai grinned, a curious pull of the lips to revel even more of his teeth, "Of course not. And as long as we remain fully honest you do not appear to be carrying the agreed upon dwarven currency."
Variel tapped the briefcase and asked, "Are you certain?"
Umai chuckled, a huffing sound like a rat scurrying under leaves, "You do dishonor to my intelligence."
"Not as much as your tails do," she said under her breath.
"We scanned your case when you set foot upon this planet. There is nothing suspicious inside. A curious choice in bedroom technology, but that is all," Umai said, causing one of the trolls to break into giggles.
Variel nodded her head slowly and passed the case to her husband. Her eyes upon the kitsune, she extracted the black box from the clumsy old lady and pressed down upon it. A small blue laser zipped out from the end, hissing as the dust of the alley struck its skin. Umai leaned back from the display as the trolls both unearthed hidden pistols out of their skirt bags. But Variel didn't lunge towards their drug seller, instead she lifted her shirt to display a very black and blue section of skin. As she jumped up and down a bit, her skin began to glisten with the familiar glow of dwarven bits. The kitsune nodded, impressed at her ingenuity and also how she put herself in an incredibly teetering position.
"Now, show us the drugs," she said as she dropped her shirt back down.
"Pyotr, the case," Umai said motioning to his troll henchman who yanked a black box from somewhere not in his skirt bag and held it in his granite palm. The lid slid back and the illusion evaporated. A thick pile of glittering powder rested inside.
Variel stepped forward, her fingers out, but the troll snapped the lid shut. "May I test it?" she asked the kitsune.
Umai blinked his eyes slowly before nodding the furry head. This should be interesting. The lid slid open and Variel took a pinch of the dust. Rather than lay it upon her tongue, she dropped it into a microvial in her pocket and shook the liquid.
It took a second, but after the powder absorbed into the acid mixture she lifted the vial to the waning street lamp and a prismatic rainbow bounced onto her face. It was genuine.
"Now, may I see your coin?" Umai asked, waving his claws at the woman stepping back.
"Right," she said, having prepared herself for this bit. She restarted the laser, letting it warm up to an in theory painless slice. The blue light bounced off her harsh features as she slid the scalpel through the glass vial, scattering the contents of pure anti-MGC across the ground. It hissed as it absorbed into the dirt.
Closing her eyes, she felt for Monde's stitches. In theory, she only had to snip those. In reality, she knew her stubborn skin already began repairing itself despite her continued instructions to hold off for a few days. It was just like yanking out an arrow head or removing barbed wire, Variel told her brain as she inserted the scalpel into her skin.
The smell was the first thing everyone shuffled away from, like a barber burning hair, then a small trickle of blood began to ooze from her self inflicted wound. The troll's nubbly eyes grew three sizes as the human chewed on her lip burying down a scream. She'd had to refuse any anesthesia, a local wouldn't have lasted long enough and carrying a syringe to inject later would arouse suspicion.
A controlled gag caused Variel to pause, the laser nicking into more than just her wounded flesh. "Fuck," was all that slipped from her paling lips as she continued the exercise when her leading finger felt the last stitch pop. "Marek."
Her husband tried to swallow the bile rising in his gullet as he answered, "What?"
"Grab the pocket."
"Oh no, no, no, no. I can't, you do it," he said backing even further from the woman trying to hold her guts together.
Her eyes snapped open, and the fire returned, the red blazing below a barely contained sheen of calm. "My fingers are too slippery, you grab that pouch. And do it now."
He dry gulped, his saliva rushing away in terror as he reached forward. His fingers trembled like kittens caught in an ice storm as he leaned in towards his bleeding wife. Her skin was cold as death, and he jumped back when her warm blood dribbled across his fingers. Variel grabbed his wrist, the laser scalpel drifting dangerously close to his chest.
For the fir
st time ever, Variel let him inside her. While guiding him like a child, she tried to keep from bleeding to death on her feet. Marek pinched his eyes closed and wiggled as much of his body away from her side as possible but his fingers parted her gaping flesh. She snorted, swallowing down the pain and mumbled something no one else could make out.
Gods, if she was getting delirious he was really on his own! Marek cursed, his bloodied fingers poking for that tight bag. At first he only pushed it deeper in, his fat sausages failing again. But Variel held his wrist tight, trying to steady the trembling in his hands. "Okay, okay, okay, okay," he repeated the mantra as a narrow edge of the bag slipped between his fingernails. Pulling as gently as possible, he removed the foreign object from Variel's side.
A rectangular bag, no larger than a postage seal, rested in his hand. The blood from her body seeped into his lifelines and a clot glistened on his ring finger. Marek watched it wobble as the shaking increased. Beside him Variel slipped the first aid suture out of the protein bar packs and, with her bloodied hand, tried to close the gaping wound. She slipped a bit, bundling and puckering up some of her excess wound into the hole. Monde was going to never let her hear the end of that infection travesty, but she slapped a hefty roll of sterilized cotton onto the still tender wound while leaning on her husband's shoulder.
He turned to Variel, her face paler than a non-corporeal and her form fragile and shaking, and then he vomited all over his shoes. Variel patted his back, comforting him as best she could in her state. This was not the kind of work for anyone. As Marek wiped the remains of whatever space faring bar food he ate off his lips with the bloody hand, she extracted her hidden cargo and cracked open the seal. Two dwarven bits fell into her hand.
She held up the red rectangles for the kitsune who appeared to come the best out of her little display. Both of the trolls were still shielding their eyes from the spill of human mortar all over the ground. Umai pulled the black box off of his henchman and raised it up as well. "On the count of three?" Variel suggested, limping near the Kitsune.
"Humans," he muttered, but moved away from his guards to join her, "very well, I shall indulge your counting game."
"One," she dropped her hand into his and he in turn into hers. "Two," both stared each other down, a question passing across each others brow. "Three," they released their hold on their bounty and stepped back.
Variel handed the box back to her green husband and whispered, "In your pocket, now."
The kitsune rolled the bits upon each other in his hand, listening to the clink of plastic. Then its ears turned, shifting at the lack of a sound no one was ever able to forge. It lifted one of the bits, a bit more maroon than the other to the light and shook. No glow emanated and the fox glared, throwing the false currency down onto the ground in disgust, "This is a fake!"
"Marek!" Variel shouted, turning back to her husband.
"Uh..." he said, shrugging his shoulders and trying to still push the black box of drugs deeper into his pocket.
Umai tsked his tongue as the trolls lifted their pistols aimed for the two human's vital bits. "I had intended to kill you after the transfer was made, regardless," the Kitsune said, whipping its tails in tandem, "but now I shall enjoy this."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Variel had stared down the wrong end of more than a few guns in her life -- most were Orc based and bore a blade half the length and twice the width of her arm. For sentimental value. In each instance, the squad therapist would ask if she'd mentally run back through her life questioning every major decision she'd made, every life she'd lost, every love she'd failed as the final bullet stared her in the eye. She'd put in a good show of faking flashes of her life before her eyes, once creating a favored pet that was lost due to a slip of the leash and a careless driver. Never once did she let on to the truth; as death stared her in the face, she failed to stare back. She was too busy trying to find a way out.
"Hey, now," Marek said, raising his hands. "You don't want to do this. We just give you back the stuff and forget we ever knew each other. Right? No problem."
Variel sighed, and lifted her hands along with her husband, "He's not going to do that."
"Why?" Marek's knees began to tremble as badly as his fingers.
Her eyes rolled towards the calm kitsune clicking his claws against the bits, "Do you wish to tell him or should I?"
"You're a statistic, a stand in. What do you humans say? A fall guy," Umai said the teeth fully bared in a smile. "Unicorn is worth three times the amount I cited you."
"Then why..." Marek started.
"He can't get it off world. Not without a lot of questions. But kill off a tourist, an off worlder, and get one of your smugglers to ride along with the undertakers. She has all the time in the world to remove the box," Variel said, not blinking in the glowing red light of the gun with the safety off.
Umai clapped its claws and the dwarven bits together, "You are a curious human. Far too shrewd for your typical kind. I believe I shall kill you first." He nodded to the troll named Pyotr.
"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Variel asked, her voice as steady as an engine's plasma stream.
"Groveling now? You disappoint me so, but fail to surprise."
"I take it that's a yes, then?" she said, her eyes shifting away from Pyotr to the creeping shadows of night falling across the railing above them.
"Yes," Umai said, bowing deeply. "That is a yes. I will kill you."
"I wouldn't be so sure," she said as a black mass leapt off the side of the building and wrapped its gloved arms around the Troll's thick neck. Pyotr flailed his arms up, firing two shots into the air. A blade shimmered in the light as it worked into the impossible groove where troll head met troll body.
The other troll turned to assist his companion trying to pick off the monster clinging to his back, but Variel pushed open the laser scalpel, and -- holding the broken scrap of mirrored floor up -- cast a beam of light directly into the troll's eyes. He reared back, shaking his head to escape the blindness already settling in.
Pyotr roared, rushing backwards towards the wall to try and scrape whatever fell on top of him off, but the monster only scurried higher, his blade working into the groove. Troll fingers groped to grab onto its attacker, dropping his gun, just as elven feet jumped down upon the embedded chef's knife. A crack reverberated through the alley, sundering the spine, and the troll's rocky head slid off his split vertebra and crashed into a pile of garbage.
The kitsune shrunk back from his roaring henchmen, afraid one of them might smack him on accident, but he spotted the gun and reached for it. Variel followed suit, hoping to beat him to it, but her side screamed as she went from zero to reaching and her fingers missed. The scalpel swung wide, trying to dice up anything that got in the way, but Umai danced away, his tails gifting him a balance no one else had.
Variel tried two more stabs with her scalpel, each time getting little more than air, as the kitsune fired one shot wide of her shoulder, then another a lot closer. Out of ideas, she threw the piece of broken glass at his head, which he dodged easily and lined up a shot.
Smoke burst at his feet filling the kitsune's lungs and smothering his trachea. He clawed at his eyes, tears springing as the heat from the smoke bomb seared across his face. Variel tumbled back from the unexpected plumes into her husband's dumbfounded ass. Marek vaguely caught onto her arm and pointed towards the ground.
She made 'cover your mouth with your hand' gestures as her own bloody arm tried to clear the smoke, but he kept gesturing at the invisible ground. The hefty body of Pyotr -- minus one head -- tumbled to its knees and the figure in black rolled off in a rather impressive somersault, his legs partially splayed as he landed. A mask of black covered his mouth and nose but the eyes were a hauntingly familiar yellow.
Taliesin grabbed onto Variel's elbow and cocked his head to one side. The smoke leeched down her own trachea despite her attempts and she nodded. The elf scooped her up easily into his arms and tugged on Ma
rek's jumpsuit so he'd follow suit.
Rather than listen to the trained assassin, the human dropped to his knees, inching his hand for something in the smoke. Taliesin turned back and kicked him hard in the leg, getting the man's attention. Scrambling to his feet, the three ran out of the alley filling with lung-wrenching smoke. None watched the kitsune and his remaining troll body guard tumbling out of it.
They ran blindly down the street, Taliesin trying to skirt around the shadows while the talking beacon of light stumbled upon every bit of detritus strewn on the ground. Taliesin had a plan of sorts, it mostly involved running very quickly in a direction away from people trying to kill him. It lacked the subtlety one expected from an official assassin, but he was in a bit of a hurry. He had a beautiful exit strategy laid out around the church involving scampering up some scaffolding from the reconstruction, carefully inching across cracking gang planks, and shimming down the rope of the rather fetching, perfect postured bell ringer that lived in the tower. Improvisation was not his strong suit.
There was also the woman in his arms who every third step kept insisting he put her down. "Taliesin," Variel said, getting a burrowing of the elven eyebrows, "look behind you."
He did and spied the human slowing to a crawl, his body unused to either the low gravity, the trauma of a fight, or -- most likely -- the moderate exercise. Taliesin returned to Variel's face and she shrugged, her pale lips squinting to the side in that very human expression of "What are ya gonna do?"
Taliesin decided it was best to let her down, her form slowly falling to the ground and bouncing as it took in the cobblestones formed from the bones of an ancient concrete road. "Marek!" she shouted before doubling over to try to catch her blood.
Marek's wheezing echoed down the alley Taliesin turned them down, a small cul-de-sac of abandoned warehouses built on the ruins of an ancient town home. It was rumored the ghosts of the HOA still haunted those very streets. "What?" the human finally gasped as he toddled towards them, his tongue a bloated sea slug dangling from his mouth. One of the straps on his outfit tore in the struggle and dangled like a lone bungee chord off a pack mule's load.