Holly took several deep breaths. “I’m not sure if I should be grateful to who did this or afraid of them.”
“Yes, I can see that it would be sending mixed signals,” Voss agreed, arching an eyebrow.
“Are they traveling together today, or was this a chance-reunion?” Shiro asked over the earpiece, which Odeon relayed for him. It was a good question to ask, and Holly’s only excuse was that she was distracted by seeing her attacker again, though this time he was quite undisposed.
“Chance, darling. You know that I prefer to work alone,” Voss said.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten that small detail, Aimee. There’s no shortage of loners in this field. And you, Macav?” Holly asked the Constie, specifically.
“Oh yes, I usually work alone. And rarely leave Helo. I had . . . Specific reasons to check on this signal,” he said, hinting that there was a grand design to his purpose.
Voss flashed a look at him as though this was a revelation to her. “And what was that reason?”
Macav smiled, though it didn’t touch his dark eyes. “Ah, I rarely reveal my purposes, but thank you for the inquiry. You know me. Enigmatic. Mysterious.”
“Deceitful,” Voss said, adding her own spin.
Holly brought the conversation back to the pressing topic. “Surprise, there’s nothing here but a message that none of us can decipher.”
“The message is clear, Ms. Drake,” Shiro said over the comm. “It’s a warning.”
“They’re messing with us,” Charly inserted, having been silent all evening. It was still morning back at the Bird’s Nest.
“The Shadow Coalition?” Holly asked, touching her ear. Voss and Macav noticed that she was conversing with someone else.
“Yes. Messing with anyone who’s been watching them,” Charly stated.
“Right, broadcast an SOS, have everyone converge in a location that their actual members were forewarned would always be a false meeting, so they wouldn’t show. And if they did, they’d have their enemies at their mercy,” Holly finished, saying it aloud so that Macav and Voss could hear. Voss was already nodding in agreement.
“That is also what I was thinking,” Macav admitted.
“We’ve been waiting for the clean up crew to show up,” Voss said.
“And deciding whether or not to leave this body here.” Macav gestured at it. “Poor fellow. Wonder if anyone read him his last rites.”
“Poor?” Holly said with a scoff. “He tried to stab me through the throat with a giant knife as I slept.”
Voss’s eyes glimmered appreciatively. It wasn’t clear if she admired Holly for escaping or if she regretted that the man had failed.
“There’s also a very good chance he sabotaged our zeppelin ride here. Someone murdered the captain and the bridge crew in exactly this way,” Odeon said.
“I was thinking something similar,” Holly admitted. “Or whoever did that, did this.”
“Murder can be such a confusing way to communicate discreet messages,” Voss said, shaking her head. “There’s simply not enough room for subtlety and nuance.”
“And what was your purpose in following the very obviously fake signal?” Macav asked Holly.
“The Heart. What else? Even if it was a lie, I thought there was a chance we’d find out more about where the Heart is.”
“He’s a slippery one,” Macav said.
“I won’t rest till I find him,” Holly answered.
“Well, I do have a tip for you on that subject,” Macav said, rubbing his large hands together. “And it is yours, for a price.”
Odeon exchanged a look with Holly.
“What is the price?” Holly asked. “Novas? We don’t do murder.”
Macav touched his chest, “Me, ask for murder? I don’t deal that way. What do you take me for?”
“Then name the price,” Odeon said. He leaned against his Ousaba, looking bored.
“Yes, Macav, I’m also interested in this tip.” Voss stepped closer to him, her feet in a wide stance and her arms crossed. She looked ready to begin fighting.
“Get through this, quickly now, Holly. We have company. An auto just pulled up full of people,” Grant said over the earpiece.
Macav continued after a smirk over what Voss said. He hadn’t heard Grant’s encouragement to hurry due to the arrival of the auto full of people. “I came here hoping to get something I made and sold to the SC. The organization seems to be dissolving and I want the device back. It was very expensive and difficult to make and there’s only one like it. Get it back for me.”
“They’re Shadow Coalition, Ms. Drake,” Shiro said. “They have the tattoo.”
“How many?” Holly whispered.
Grant answered, “Two women and three men.”
Voss picked up on what Holly said. “How many what?” The cat burglar’s eyes narrowed.
Macav noticed Doss’s agitation and lowered himself into a ready stance. “Someone’s here?”
“More Shadow Coalition just showed up.” Odeon answered. He gripped his club in both hands, his eyes checking all the entrances.
“How many more of your friends are here? Please say something like ten. Though I know it’s likely to be less. Two? Three?” Voss asked.
“Just two. They’re outside, guarding one of the entrances.”
“Fight or flee?” Voss asked.
“You like to flee, if I remember right,” Holly said. “Grant, Shiro, stay hidden. Wait until the SC come into the hangar. We’ll pinch them in.”
“Very funny,” Voss said about Holly’s jab.
“Tell us the tip, Macav,” Holly said urgently. “We haven’t got time to wait.”
“Check Itzcap. Last I knew, the Heart was there,” Macav said.
“I knew it,” Voss said.
* * *
Holly and Odeon were leaning against a ship, inspecting their fingernails when the Shadow Coalition thugs rounded the corner and approached the area where the dead body was.
“Hi,” Holly said, when they stopped in their tracks. There were five of them, like Grant had said. A Constie male held an aether gun at the ready, a female human drew a long knife, two more human females carried swords, and one particularly large human male raised his fists. “You guys know who this dead body belongs to? He tried to kill me once. I’m just wondering if I should be thanking you or, if not you, then who? Though, I left him alive for a reason back on the Copper Nebula. I don’t believe in murder. I’m a pacifist, I guess.”
“You’re an idiot, is what you are,” a woman said. “We left that body for you. And you walked right into our trap.”
“Odeon, did you know this was a trap?”
Odeon pushed off the hull of the ship he’d been leaning against and spun his Ousaba, then touched the end to the ground. “That depends. Can something be a trap if one knows it’s a trap?”
“Good question. You guys have an answer to that? What if we knew it was a trap? Are we still idiots?” Holly pulled her aether gun out of its holster. Then took an experimental aim at the cluster of SC thugs. “Or would that make you the idiots?”
The woman responded. “You’d still be an idiot. Because you still don’t know where the Heart is. And we know you’re looking. Everyone knows.”
“Ooh, that smarts.” Holly said. “I so want you guys to think I’m smart and clever. You’re really crushing me with the insults.”
“We’re going to crush you with more than just insults,” the woman said. “Get them.”
“Wait,” Holly said, and all the thugs who’d moved to do as she said stopped. “I feel like I owe it to you, in the name of fighting fairly and all that, to tell you that this will not be a fair fight. You’re outnumbered. Oh, and we have you surrounded.”
Shiro and Iain appeared down one lane between hangar debris, Shiro holding his sword at the ready, and Grant with the aether whip glowing and swirling around his legs as he walked. Holly had to admit, it looked rather cool as a weapon. Down the other lane, Macav
and Aimee appeared. Macav’s gun was drawn and Aimee held a long-bladed knife ready in her hand.
“See, six to five. Do you feel like a fight still?”
“Flair for the dramatic. My favorite trait to squash with brute force,” the woman said. “Get them.”
Holly cursed mentally, but, well, it was a chance to try out her knives again, and she had kind of missed the Equalizer.
She aimed at the ground in front of the two thugs that were coming after her and Odeon, and squeezed a shot off. There was an explosion, which left a gout of violet aether burning on concrete. When it burned itself out, there was a charred hole. The SC thugs paused, shielding their eyes from the bright color, and when it was smoldering, they walked around it and continued toward Holly and Odeon. One had a gun, the other a sword.
“So, when did you guys start carrying guns? I thought all the disposable ones carried knives. The higher-ups like it when you die easily? That’s what they say.”
“I’ve heard you were kind of a bitch,” the gun-toting thug said. He leaned toward his companion. “Did you hear that? She’s worse than the rumors say. Got a mouth on her. The kind of mouth I want to shut with a fist.”
That spiked her ire. Holly grinned, brushing it off. She had a way to deal with men like him, though this time she didn’t think killing was on her agenda. Maybe just a maiming.
The two were close enough that Odeon was able to take a rapid swing his Ousaba and clocked the thug in the face, knocking him out. “Sorry, Holly. I know you wanted to take care of him, but a Yasoan can only stand so much vitriol before having to intercede.”
“Thanks. When he gets back up, I’ll take care of him. You take the one with the sword.” The fun was over. Their goading wouldn’t turn the idiots away, plus she didn’t trust them to not track her down if she didn’t do something now to keep them in check.
Odeon smoothly stepped into the dance of battle with his Ousaba, bearing down on the woman with a sword. She was graceful and skilled. Holly watched, waiting for her own quarry to stand up and dust himself off so that she could knock him down again. She was being sportsmanlike, though she highly doubted the Shadow Coalition encouraged that in their own ranks. We can’t all be animals, she thought.
She glanced across the hangar floor, taking stock of her crew as well as Macav and Voss. She knew there was a strong chance that more SC members were coming to make sure the job got done. They didn’t have time to dally. “Grant, you doing OK?” Holly asked, using the comm to reach him. From where she stood, she could see that he’d dropped the whip and was exchanging blows with the large thug that didn’t have a weapon.
“Got this, Holly,” Iain grunted. “He’s a big boy, but I think I can take him down.”
“Good. We need to wrap this up. I know you’re all aware that they could have more on the way. So let’s not dawdle.”
“So we can’t toy with them?” Shiro asked over the earpiece. Holly caught sight of him in the midst of a sword fight. He made it look effortless, though Holly noted that his female Constellation opponent was also strong fighter.
“No, disable them. Tie them up. Knock them out. Whatever we need to do to make a clean getaway.”
Holly’s back-talker groaned and began to stand. He saw her and began cussing her out, goading her with terrible comments about her heritage and the state of her various body parts.
Holly approached him and kicked his gun away as he tried to close his fingers around it. “I should have just taken it already, but some weird sense of fair in me made me wait.”
He grunted and swung a fist at her. The blow connected with the side of her thigh. It knocked her back. She cursed herself mentally for not seeing that he’d do that.
She jumped away before he could hit her again. He flipped on his back, trying to reach her with his legs.
“You guys in the middle of a fight now?” Charly’s voice came over the comm. “Damn, I wish I was there. This is my favorite part. I could really use a few fights to get back my groove and let off some steam.”
When Holly turned, Odeon was in the process of hitting the thug in the head. It knocked him out.
“This time let’s finish and get out of here,” Odeon said. “No more ‘fair-play.’ Fights are never fair and I refuse to give them the advantage by attempting to follow a code they don’t observe themselves.”
“You finish up with yours?” Holly asked.
Odeon’s answer came over her ear piece. “Yes.”
Macav and Voss were both finished with the human female swordfighter. She was tied with a rope they’d scrounged up out of a derelict ship. There was just Grant, who admittedly had the worst one to take out. Meanwhile, Shiro was in the midst of fighting the remaining swordswoman.
“Don’t kid yourselves,” Grant said. “I’m under no delusion that I need to take care of this by myself. Please, by all means, have a piece of him.”
Odeon complied, moving in with his Ousaba, which he quickly used to sweep a leg out from under the SC member. Grant leapt onto him and clocked him ferociously in the head. The thug’s head lolled to one side.
Grant rose, wiping sweat from his face. Blood trickled from a cut near his eye and his graying hair curled where perspiration had gathered. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Macav, Darius will contact you to gather more details on this device you’re looking for,” Holly said.
“Good.”
Holly followed up. “And we’ll be asking for more information about whatever you know regarding Itzcap.”
“Shiro,” Voss said, greeting him.
“Ms. Voss, lovely to run into you,” Shiro said. The tone in his voice reminded Holly why she’d been smart to stop that kiss in its tracks.
“Odeon,” Holly said, ignoring their conversation. “Lead the way out. We’ll follow you and trust your ears to alert us of anything we can’t see.” Though the hangar was lit, there were many dark areas where someone could hide.
The group followed him, some of them conversing in hushed tones. They made it out to the tarmac without incident. The auto that had dropped them at the withering shipyard waited just beyond the perimeter. Before they got there, Macav and Aimee both disappeared to whatever transportation they’d used to get there.
* * *
Though Holly had feigned a casual air about seeing her attacker again, it had unsettled her. Back on Kota, she hit the Lion’s Training Center even harder than before, aware of her many weaknesses when it came to battle. Aeolionaias didn’t know that she’d gotten her own whip, but little good it did her. She’d balked somewhat back on Paradise and she’d resorted to the comfort of the familiar aether gun.
No more. She entered the training sessions with Aeolionaias focused and determined to develop her sparring, knife-throwing, and aether whip skills into something reliable and trusted.
Odeon came to the sessions with her and sparred with her in the ring as well. Both Yasoan were graceful fighters, and Holly eventually learned their moves. Sometimes she could anticipate them. Shiro came into the ring as well. His fighting was different, and there was something suppressed in him that he let fly in the ring. She suspected it was frustration or resentment for having turned him away.
She countered it with her own calculated emotions, using them like spurs to fuel her jabs and kicks.
She was in the ring with Shiro when Iain Grant showed up, three days after their return to the City of Jade Spires. She’d just recovered from a blow from Shiro that put her on the ground, when she heard a voice at the edge of the ring.
“Well, look what the scree-cat dragged in.”
Holly jumped to her feet. “Gabe?”
“Hey kiddo,” Gabe said, laughing.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m more curious about what you’re doing here,” Gabe said.
“I don’t have a gym all to myself like the police force does,” Holly said, realizing that Shiro was waiting for her. “Oh, this is Shiro, a friend. Shiro, this is Lucy
’s dad and myself sister’s ex-husband, Gabe Bach. He’s a detective on the police force. You may have heard of him.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Shiro said, throw Gabe a little wave.
“And what do you do, Shiro?” Gabe asked, his eyes glittering, as though he knew. “You know what I do. Detective, remember? You’re an, uh, what, a teacher?”
“Man about town. I was born into money, so I do nothing but enjoy luxuries and sometimes spar with Ms. Drake,” Shiro said, catching on to Gabe’s attempt.
“And how does the sparring go?” Gabe asked.
“You caught me at a bad moment,” Holly said. “I’ve been here three hours already.”
“Wow, you’re really hitting the mats hard, kiddo.”
“Yes, but why are you here, Gabe? Following me? Checking on me? If you want to ask me to do something, you can just call me on my communicator?”
“Scotch trains here sometimes. He asked me to meet him to spar. He said he got into a scrape recently and regretted how rusty he was. Embarrassed himself in front of some woman he’s hoping to impress, I guess. Honestly, when is a woman ever impressed with fighting?” Gabe laughed.
Holly froze, feeling Shiro’s eyes on her. She flicked a glance in his direction and saw that he’d heard the implication in what Gabe said.
“Perhaps he’d like to spar with Ms. Drake? Or you would?” Shiro said. “I’ve suddenly realized the hour. I have a previous obligation that can’t wait.”
“What? No, no, I can leave you to your match,” Gabe said, beginning to back away.
“Sincerely, lad. Ms. Drake is too good a fighter for me. I’m afraid she’s won too many times. My ego has been crushed and a chap like me knows when to leave the ring.” Before Holly could say anything, Shiro had stepped through the ropes and was heading for the locker room. “Ta ta,” he called over his shoulder.
“Ta ta?” Gabe echoed. “He always talk like that? That was odd.”
“Yes, it was. He’s wounded.”
Shadow of the Colossus Page 15