Dirty Dealings

by Rachel Harrison

  He laughed then. It was an ugly noise.

  ‘You weren’t quite so good this time. Didn’t plan so carefully. If you had, then you would have killed that former Acid Doll you hired much sooner than you did.’

  ‘Fule?’ I said, as if it came as a surprise. ‘She sold me out?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Drova said. ‘The things people will do for a few credits. Or a promise. Everyone has a price.’

  He gestured at me with my revolver, his grip on it loose and careless.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ he said, ‘I think it’s time you gave me some names.’

  ‘And whose names are those?’ I asked him, because I thought it would get his back up.

  He didn’t disappoint. Drova’s free hand snapped out and grabbed me by the hair. Slammed my head into the steel face of the table. I sat back up with lights dancing in front my eyes like motes of fire caught in an upspin draught.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Those names.’

  I slumped in my seat and spat blood onto the table. I’d heard he had a temper, and he’d just proved it. Tempers are tricky things. Like those Orlocks shooting angry, it is liable to get you killed.

  ‘The gangers call themselves the Punch Hammers,’ I told him, because they were the least valuable to me. Because that las-wound I took in the furnace-hall still burned like several hells and that made me bitter. ‘The one you are looking for is named Tias Runo.’

  Drova shook his head.

  ‘The Punch Hammers,’ he said. ‘They are nothing. Just low-hive trash. They’ll get theirs in time. I want a name that matters. I want your supplier.’

  ‘Finia Cade,’ I told him. ‘You can find her by speaking to a whisper-dealer called Vecks. Him you’ll find playing Dead Eye Five at the Edge.’

  He started to speak into the vox-bead he wore to another enforcer that he called Mace. Her I knew as well. Another bloody reputation.

  ‘I don’t think it’ll do you much good looking for either of them, though,’ I told him.

  He stopped talking and stared at me. Then he reached over and pulled me up off the chair by my throat until the chain attached to the table went taut. His grip put flickers in my vision like the lumens over my head.

  ‘And why’s that?’ he snarled.

  ‘Because they’re both dead,’ I rasped.

  ‘Belay that,’ Drova said into his vox-bead. I could hear Mace curse before the link cut.

  He dropped me back into my seat heavily. Getting air again made me cough myself double. When it stopped, I looked up at him through streaming eyes.

  ‘Terrible thing, that,’ I said. ‘A deal that went badly, from what I heard, though I imagine Cade’s death has saved you some trouble.’

  ‘You seem to hear an awful lot,’ Drova said. He armed the hammer on the revolver with a heavy click. ‘But you really aren’t as clever as you think. If your supplier is dead, and the gang are worth nothing, then what have you got to offer me?’

  I rattled my arm. The one with the bracer.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How about fifteen thousand credits’ worth of exotic weapons?’

  I caught the hungry flicker of Drova’s eyes as he glanced at the bracer on my wrist. It was just that. A flicker. Then he looked back at me and they were dead and flat again.

  ‘You know better than to try and open those crates by force,’ I said. ‘Or to take this bracer off my arm. Torture me, and I’ll fry the weapons. Kill me, and you’ll be the one to fry them.’

  I smiled wide.

  ‘Or you and I can make a deal.’

  Drova said nothing for a moment, then he disarmed the revolver.

  Smiled that crooked smile.

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  That was the other thing I’d heard about Lem Drova. The dirt I’d turned up by throwing some credits of my own around. By hanging around Fule and Baud and Vecks and Finia Cade. By watching Drova closely for months as he built his own little empire.

  ‘I knew someone must have been making deals,’ I said to him. ‘Because no matter how bloody things got, how many gangs got turned over and shipments got intercepted, there were never any fewer guns in the Sunder. Just fewer places to get them.’

  ‘And soon there will only be one,’ he said. ‘Just me and mine. I suppose I should thank you for the favour you did us. Cade was proving tricky to find. Now, what do you want in exchange for those guns of yours?’

  ‘I want to work for you,’ I told him. ‘I want ten per cent. I want immunity.’

  I nodded at my revolver.

  ‘And I want my gun back.’

  Drova did a low whistle.

  ‘Is that all?’ he said.

  ‘That’s all.’

  He got to his feet.

  ‘See,’ he said, still gesturing with my revolver. ‘I know deals, and that one sounds poor to me. I have two dozen loyal enforcers working for me, so why in the hells would I pay runoff like you ten per cent?’

  I had been wondering just how many there were, and that settled it.

  ‘Here’s my offer,’ he said. ‘Open those crates and I’ll put five thousand credits in your hand and walk you out of here myself. Should be enough to get you out of the Sunder, and out of my way. Which is what I’d do, if I were you.’

  ‘And my gun?’ I asked him.

  He laughed again.

  ‘You know, I could nearly like you, Kora Zekk,’ he said. ‘You can have your damned gun back. Thing’s not worth a smile anyway.’

  He looked to the crates.

  ‘And I’ll have plenty of others to sell.’

  That was when I did it. When he looked away and lowered my revolver. Let his finger come away from the trigger. I ran my thumb along the inside of the cheap-looking ring on my fourth finger of my left hand, activating the digital weapon hidden inside it. A one-shot, high-yield las-burst.

  Drova didn’t even have time to curse.

  ‘You’re dead, Kora Zekk,’ Drova says. The words are blood-wet. He’s got one of his big, scarred hands over that wound in his chest. ‘You won’t leave this place unless you’re in pieces.’

  I shake my head at him.

  ‘Who said anything about leaving?’ I say. ‘We’re just getting started.’

  I lean over and pick up my revolver before his blood spreads to touch it.

  ‘And my name isn’t Kora Zekk,’ I tell him. ‘It’s Eva Suli.’

  ‘You think I care?’ he says through his teeth. ‘You’re scum. Soon to be dead scum.’

  I input the code to deactivate the lifebonded bracer on my wrist and the lights on it go dark.

  ‘You should care,’ I tell him. ‘And I’m not scum, either.’

  I unclip the bracer for a moment to show him my wrist. The service number, tattooed into my dark skin in golden ink.

  Just like the one on his.

  ‘I’m an intelligencer, Divisio Integritas,’ I tell him. ‘On special orders from Marshal Vurski.’

  Drova’s eyes go wide, and for the first time he looks honest. The way he might have looked before he started acting like dirt. I click the bracer back in place.

  ‘You are in breach of your duty, Enforcer Drova,’ I say. ‘You and yours. All crimes admitted.’

  ‘To who?’ he snarls. ‘This place is off the record, and so are these words.’

  ‘Not my record,’ I say, showing him another of my cheap-looking rings.

  The one with the miniaturised recording device built into it.

  ‘Do you have anything else to say?’ I ask him.

  He is breathing fast and ragged now.

  ‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Suli. You know that there’s no way to clean the Sunder. Not truly. I just wanted to control it.’

  ‘And making all of those credits was just part of the job?’

 
‘I could cut you in,’ he says. ‘You’d be set for life.’

  I get to my feet, ignoring him. He’s much too weak to get up and fight me and I already took his gun.

  And my own.

  ‘Kill me, and Mace and the others will hunt you down.’ He spits the words at me. They come with blood. ‘You’ll be floating in the sinks by nightfall. You and every one of your intelligencer rats.’

  I point my revolver at his face.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Suli,’ he says. ‘Everyone has a price.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Not me,’ I tell him.

  And I pull the trigger.

  I barely have time to get the vox-burst away to Acker and the rest of my strike team before the heavy door to the room opens up. The enforcer who comes through is already talking, but not to me.

  ‘Hey, Lem, is this nearly done?’ she says, before she sees Drova lying dead on the floor.

  Her eyes track up and she looks right at me. At my revolver, levelled for a kill shot. If I didn’t already know it was Mace, I would have guessed by the murder in her eyes.

  ‘I am Intelligencer Eva Suli of the Divisio Integritas,’ I tell her. ‘Stand down.’

  She doesn’t. She goes for her own pistol, but mine is already drawn and it has much more kick than hers. It kicks her right back out into the hall.

  Three rounds left.

  I hear a shout from the hallway and I turn out into it and fire at the other enforcer just outside the door. He falls down hard and slides down the wall, but not before hammering the alarm trigger. The heavy door behind me swings closed and bolt-locks, trapping me in the hallway. The lumens flicker out and snap back on. Light-up, but flooded red this time. I recognise the build and shape of the place. It’s not the thirty-third’s precinct. It’s an old detention facility. A forgotten, dirty place for Drova to make his deals. Stains streak the walls and floor. Cabling hangs in rotting loops from the ceiling. Wooden crates are stacked up everywhere, their boards blackened by age.

  ‘We are two minutes out,’ Acker says, crackling from the speaker in my bracer. ‘Find somewhere to hold up and wait.’

  When I planned the operation, I knew there would be risks. This moment is the greatest of them. Not the gun deal, or the Punch Hammers, or Lem Drova and his predictable temper, but this. Being isolated as my strike team track the vox-burst to my location.

  My location, filled with people who definitely want me dead.

  Over the blare of the alarms, I hear the ring of boots on metal.

  I have two rounds left, and nowhere to go.

  It’ll have to be enough.

  ‘That’s a negative,’ I say to Acker.

  ‘Suli,’ he says warningly.

  I take cover behind the waterlogged crates as two of them come around the corner at the far end of the hallway. One sharpshooter with a glare visor and a cut down autorifle held ready. One with a shock maul and a tall riot shield that covers him, ankle to throat. He drops it low and crouches behind it so that he’s covered. That’s protocol. It’s so the sharpshooter can fire over the top with minimal exposure.

  Minimal exposure. Not no exposure.

  The sharpshooter fires, splintering chunks from the crates and lighting the hall with bursts of muzzle flare. I answer it with a round from my revolver that shatters that glare visor of his and knocks him over backwards. He clench-fires the autorifle as he goes over, emptying the clip into the ceiling and knocking out half of the emergency lighting. On-off. On-off. Red then black and back again.

  The one with the shield bellows, snap-activates the shock maul and charges me. More flickering light in the hallway. I get to my feet, sticky with blood.

  One round left.

  It won’t go through the shield, and I can’t draw aim on what’s exposed while he’s running, so I meet his charge. Drop under his arm and into a slide along the flagstones. I smell the power field on the maul as it kisses the air by my head, but then I’m sliding and rolling over onto my stomach and I squeeze the trigger and fire that last round at his back.

  Sliding like that throws your aim wild, so I go for centre mass. Big target.

  It goes wide, but not so wide it doesn’t hit him. The round takes a chunk out of his arm and makes him cry out and drop the shock maul on the hallway floor. He staggers.

  With my limbs aching and my heart racing, I get to my feet. Go for the maul. I get my fingers around the haft of it just as he turns to face me. His shield is out of position.

  I swing the maul upwards hard and fast. It’s the only way to use a blunt weapon like that. The impact snaps his head backwards with a flare of light and the cold stink of ozone. It snaps his neck too. He drops the shield with a crash and goes over, armour plates clattering.

  Breathing hard and shaking with adrenaline I pick up the sound of more boots at my back. I raise the maul and turn, ready to swing it.

  And find myself looking at an officer wearing a Divisio Integritas badge. There are nine others with him, armed with combat shotguns and shields of their own. My strike team. Right on time.

  ‘Suli,’ Acker says. I can’t see his eyes for the visor, but his mouth quirks in a grim smile. ‘Thought I said to wait.’

  I put the maul down, the heavy head of it on the flags, then take the flexi-armour one of the others offers me and shrug it on. Acker hands me an ammo belt, and I reload my revolver.

  Back up to eight, and more in waiting.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I say, picking up the shock maul again. ‘We have a lot of cleaning up to do.’

  Acker looks past me, at the mess and dirt.

  ‘You’re damned right,’ he says.

  When we’re done, every enforcer on Lem Drova’s payroll is dead or detained. Acker comes to find me as I’m securing the exotic weapons for transit. They’ll be taken back to headquarters, catalogued and destroyed. That’s protocol. Acker got shot pretty badly, but he’s bandaged up now. I took a couple of strays, but I haven’t had the chance to see to them yet. I’ll do it when I’m finished, and not before.

  ‘All of those weapons you had,’ he says, looking over at the crates. ‘And you took them on with that old pistol of yours.’

  I glance down at the revolver, slung at my hip. It was Proctor Silva’s before it was mine. He left it to me along with his lessons, and his open cases.

  ‘This revolver has never failed me,’ I say to him. ‘Not once. I know the weight of it. The kick and the punch. It’s an honest gun.’

  He glances around at the blood splattered up the walls and the dirty bootprints on the floor and smiles that grim smile again.

  ‘Good to know there’s some honesty left in the Sunder yet,’ he says.

  I nod.

  ‘We’re done here,’ Acker says. ‘With Drova’s lot dead.’

  I put my hand absently to the las-wound across my ribs that Tias Runo gave me before he made his escape. It burns still.

  Like several hells.

  ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I still have cleaning up to do.’

  About the Author

  Rachel Harrison is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 short stories ‘Execution’, ‘Binding’, ‘The Third War’, ‘The Blooding’ and ‘Dishonoured’. She lives and works in Nottingham, UK

  In the underhives of Necromunda, many bounty hunters ply their trade – but none are as successful or infamous as Kal Jerico. This edition collects together three novels in one action-packed omnibus taking you into the darkest depths of the Underhive.

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Dirty Dealings © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Dirty Dealings, Necromunda, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus
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  All Rights Reserved.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-78572-930-0

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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