“I’ve told you forever, kiddo, not all men like to have the floor wiped with their bare ass. When you beat them at their own games, you embarrass the hell out of them—it’s like you’ve pantsed them and wiped the floor literally with their bare butt. If you want to impress them, you’ve got to let them win sometimes. They need to be your hero.”
“Spare me,” Holly said, feeling bitter. “I’m never going to do that. A man with those requirements is weak. Grafton was like that. He conveniently forgot that I saved myself in that zeppelin accident. Now get in here and let me beat you at your own game.”
Gabe laughed and climbed into the ring.
Before they could begin a match, Iain showed up at the edge of the ring. “Gabe, you’re here to spar with me. Not Holly.”
“Hey Scotch,” Gabe said. “You’re late. I found a new partner.”
Holly smiled and nodded at Iain.
The ride back to Kota had been blessedly without incident. Most of the trip Holly had spent sleeping in her cabin. The short time outside it, she’d spent in avoiding panic in the dining area, nursing an imperial Kotan style ale. Much of the headway she’d made getting past her fears had vanished due to the near disaster on the way to Paradise.
“Actually, I’m done here, Gabe. You and Iain should definitely do what you came here for,” Holly said, heading to the ropes.
“Hey kiddo, you can’t just walk away from me like that. I’m your brother-in-law. You should respect my authority,” Gabe said, suppressing a laugh.
Holly glanced back at him and rolled her eyes. “You’re almost convincing me to stay here just to kick your ass.”
“Is that what you call it when you fall on your rear because you’re getting your trash kicked? I saw your sparring match before I said hello. That’s right, I’m sneaky,” Gabe joked.
“I didn’t know you trained here,” Iain said to Holly. He cleared his throat. “Uh, so after that incident on Paradise, I realized how out of practice I am.”
Gabe had been paying attention. He caught Holly’s gaze for a moment, then understanding seemed to cross his face. Suddenly, the fraying ropes on the far end of the ring were extremely interesting to him.
“I thought you held up pretty well,” Holly said.
Iain’s color deepened. “I’ve been better.”
Holly raised her voice. “Well, get in there and fight with Gabe. I’m sure you can kick his ass. He’s gotten flabby since he became a detective. He doesn’t have to try as hard, according to Meg.”
“I heard that,” Gabe said.
“You were meant to.”
Iain laughed. “Are you taking off?”
“I’d stay to watch, but I’ve been here for a few hours already. I have to meet my sister.”
He said goodbye and climbed into the ring, while Holly waved to Gabe and went to the locker room. She showered off and dressed quickly. As she left through the front entrance, her gaze strayed to the ring where Iain and Gabe were in the middle of their practice. She stopped for a moment to appreciate the view of Iain, shirtless, before heading out.
* * *
“What are you drinking?” Meg looked expectantly at Holly, pausing with her hand on the fridge door.
“Whatever’s in there,” Holly said.
Meg pulled a beer out and handed it across the counter to Holly.
“How was Paradise?” Meg asked, leaning onto her countertop.
Holly shook her head. “If I don’t take care of this problem with the Shadow Coalition soon, I’m going to end up dead, real soon.” She relayed the story about the sabotage on the zeppelin, followed up by the rescue, and then the discovery of the dead body of the man who had attacked her. Meg drank her beer as she listened, her eyes widening at appropriately corresponding moments.
When Holly finished, Meg sighed. “Yes, you’re right. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I know.”
“When are you going to Itzcap?” Meg asked.
“Who’s going to Itzcap?” Sophia said from the doorway into her bedroom. Their mother sauntered out, her arms wrapped around her. “Meg, it’s so cold in here.”
“Put on a sweater, mom,” Meg said.
“Can’t we turn the heat up?”
“I’m going to Itzcap,” Holly said, answering Sophia’s question. She rose and gave her mother several besos, then sat back down.
“Oh, it’s a terrible place. Beastly. I’ve never liked it, not since George ran away to live there, and I followed him, and then left him,” Sophia said, going to the brewer and beginning to make kasé. “I guess a hot brew will warm up these old bones.”
Meg blinked. “I thought dad lived on Joppa. I thought you lived on Joppa.”
“I don’t know where he lives now. But it was Itzcap he wanted, so we were there for a while. We were ‘trying to make it work.’ George claimed it was a perfect climate,” Sophia explained, absently.
“Come to think of it, I’ve never gone to see him on Joppa. Well, then what were you doing on Joppa?” Holly said, realizing she’d never been the one to instigate contact with either parent. Their calls could have been coming from anywhere in the system.
Sophia huffed. “Nothing. I went there when I got tired of George’s nonsense.”
“What nonsense? And who did you live with? Just traipsing across the moons all by yourself?”
“I don’t see how any of this is your business,” Sophia said, pouring water into the brewer.
Meg exchanged a look with Holly. “You’re our mother, I think we just kind of care about you.”
“If you’d cared, why didn’t you ever come see me on Joppa or Itzcap?” Sophia began the brew cycle and turned to look at Meg and Holly. She blew on her hands and gave the two women a long-suffering smile.
“Maybe I would have if I’d known that’s where you were. Now it appears that if I’d booked a trip to where I thought you were, I would have ended up on the wrong moon,” Meg laughed. Her brow suddenly furrowed. “Wait a minute, mom, you’re being so evasive. You still haven’t answered who it was you were living with. Oh. Wait a minute. Mom, did you have a lover?”
For a moment, a flush crossed Sophia’s light complexion. Then her lifted her chin to a haughty angle and smiled. “What do you take me for? Of course I had a lover.”
Holly laughed. She’d been expecting a denial.
“George no longer deserved me. And other men were interested. I’m not going to spend the twilight of my life waiting for a man to come to his senses. My daughters are grown women. I did my duty.”
“I guess we’d know all this if we’d taken the initiative and had gone to see you, mom,” Holly said. She stood and sidestepped around the counter to get to the fridge. After all the training she’d done earlier and the beer, she needed solid food in her stomach.
Sophia lowered her gaze. “Well, I don’t need an apology.” The brew finished. Sophia poured kasé into a mug and added condiments. “Besides, we all know that it was me who failed you.”
“What?” Holly asked, though she suspected she understood what her mother was insinuating. She found the ingredients to make a sandwich and took them back to the counter. “You’re a great mom. You never failed me.” It wasn’t one hundred percent true. Holly had been crushed that her parents had completely ignored the trial over Graf. Though she resented that they hadn’t come, it was an understandable avoidance. They were both former police. Their daughter was standing trial against the institution that they respected, essentially. Logically, Holly understood it. But it stung in her heart. She felt betrayed and abandoned by her parents. There was no sense in making accusations.
“Nonsense. I wanted to come,” Sophia said, firmly. She sipped her drink, cupping the mug in both hands to absorb the warmth. “George wouldn’t let me.”
“Alright, mom, I get it that you’re mad at dad,” Meg said, “But you can’t expect me to believe that he held you hostage and prevented you from being here to support Holly.”
“But he did
,” Sophia said, plainly. “You’re free to not believe me. I can’t control that.”
Holly frowned. “Why wouldn’t dad let you?”
Sophia waved a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. But I am sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have been here for you. I’m grateful that Meg and Gabe were here to support you.”
The front door to Meg’s condo opened and Lucy and Charm strolled in. Holly said hello, gave a beso to her niece and one to Charm as well, leaning over to inspect the Yasoan girl, touching Charm on the chin and nudging her head from side to side in an exaggerated fashion to raise a laugh in her.
“How are you, Charm?”
Charm held Holly’s gaze confidently. “Wonderful.”
“Ah. You remain my hero, as ever,” Holly said.
“Are we going soon?” Lucy asked her mom. “Grandma’s coming too, right? And Charm? And Holly?”
“Everyone is invited. The more the merrier,” Meg said.
Holly smiled, biting back her disappointment that the girls had interrupted the discussion, but at least she’d gotten an acknowledgement that her mother should have been there for her at the trial. “Where are you guys heading?”
“You’re coming with, Holly. Mom said,” Lucy responded. “To get our toenails painted and jeweled up.”
“Sounds like a party,” Holly said.
“Yes, please come.”
Holly had been about to turn down the invitation, but the simple ask from her niece stifled the refusal. “What the hell, why not?”
* * *
“I have something for you, Drake,” Darius said the next morning at the Bird’s Nest.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Holly laughed.
“Or maybe too good,” Charly added, from her desk chair. “I’m getting details ironed out for the soiree. Three days OK?”
“Not the kind of good I want from you, Darius.”
“Tough, you’re getting it. Come over here,” he said, beckoning her from his little corner in the Nest. She complied, stifling a grin. She was tired and worn from all the training she’d been doing. But it was a good worn. She felt like she could take on the world with all her might.
“Tell me what I’m agreeing to before you do anything weird,” she said.
Shiro had risen from his seat in the armchair, looking through a v-screen. He claimed he’d been going over the numbers of his personal finances. Apparently there was a new suit he wanted that cost more than he dared to tell them. He strolled over to see what Darius was doing.
“Darius is boring, Holly. He’d never do anything too questionable.” Odeon laughed and resumed tinkering on a keytar. He was composing a new song.
“I considered planting this secretly on you. But then I realized how creepy that was, to do it without your permission.” Darius held up a tiny dot with tweezers. Holly could barely see it.
“A freckle? That is kind of questionable. I usually wait for them to show up on their own. And then I zap them.”
“Very funny, Drake. This is more than a freckle. It’s new tech. Doubles as a mic, vid, and geo-locator. Also works for locating in space, as long as there’s something to receive signal.”
She frowned. “Why were you going to put it on me without me knowing?”
“Can I see it?” Shiro asked. Darius let him take the tweezers to inspect it closer.
“Don’t drop it,” Darius said to Shiro. “I just have one for now. But eventually I’d like to get one for the whole team. You’ve done the most disappearing, and not always because you want to disappear. The SC seems to have it in for you. It’s just a fail safe and won’t broadcast anything until it receives a command to.”
She narrowed her eyes at Darius. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because I deserve it,” he shrugged.
“Fine. Hook me up,” she said. “Or stick it to me. However it works.”
“Guys, no one answered me,” Charly cut in. “Three days? Is that soon enough?”
“For the soiree?” Shiro asked handing the tweezers back to Darius.
“Yes,” Charly answered. “The party during which someone steals the statue. Er, takes it back. To give to a one time owner. Who will then pay us money for retrieving what was stolen from him.”
Holly eyed Charly, wondering how honest her friend had been about the statue.
“Hold out your hand, Drake. The freckle goes on your hand, just above your wristbone.”
She did so, still watching Charly and trusting that whatever Darius was doing would be relatively painless. “Ouch, what the hell?” She tried to pull her arm back but Darius held tight.
“Did I not mention that it would hurt?”
“No, you did not. You totally failed to tell me that.” It stung like she’d been bitten by an insect and the pain radiated out like it was burrowing.
“It pulls energy from your body. Sorry. The freckle stays on top of your skin, but it’s got tentacles that burrow in.”
“Hmm, I don’t think I’ll ever want one of those, Darius,” Shiro observed, watching Holly squirm.
“Real brave, Shiro,” Holly said. She held still and smiled at him. “It doesn’t hurt. Did I say it hurt? Feels fine.”
“Too late, Ms. Drake. You can’t fool me.” Shiro grinned at her. Whatever resentment he’d harbored about the kiss had seemed to fade, for which she was grateful. Perhaps it was seeing Voss that reminded him that he would never truly commit to Holly.
Darius turned to his bay of v-screens and activated some kind of software and then looked at Holly. “Alright then, appears to be working. Not that we’ll ever need it. But it’s good to have a backup plan. Shit has been getting super dicey lately.”
“Well, hopefully after we go to Itzcap next week and find the Heart, shit will go back to a more normal level. Not so many near death crashes and fights and murders and knives in faces.”
Odeon paused in his tinkering on the keytar. “I have nearly forgotten what it’s like to not feel like our lives are on the line. Will we like that? Perhaps it would be boring.”
“A fair question,” Shiro said. “I’m quite used to living on the edge. I think a change to less dangerous situations would be dull.”
* * *
“No, no, no. There is no other answer to this one, I’m sorry Holly Drake. I won’t leave you alone again during a mission,” Odeon said. He put the keytar on the empty cushion of the sofa next to him. His face was a vibrant lavender, his normally bright eyes held thunderheads, and he kept running his fingers through his silver hair.
Holly held out a hand, palm down, to calm him. “Odeon. I’ll be here. In our home base. Darius will be here. Charly will be here.”
“I have my own reservations about this plan,” Shiro said. “Just Odeon and myself pulling off the heist. We’ve done nothing like it before. Always work as a team.”
“We’ll still be a team, guys, come on. It’s cover. Two beautiful single ladies, throwing a major soiree. We invite all the rich elites who will be into wooing us,” Charly said. “Getting in our pants, that kind of thing. Of course, none of them will. Torden would not be happy with that.”
Holly glanced at Charly. She hadn’t heard that Charly and Torden had nailed things down more.
Shiro pursed his lips and nodded. “I agree it’s a good cover to make sure we have enough time to pull off the job. You’ll be able to keep tabs on the mark. There will be more opportunities for improvisation if our mark tries to leave.”
“I apologize Shiro, I still don’t like it. After I failed Holly on the zeppelin, I refuse to go into a situation where I can’t have Holly’s back and there are known risks to her safety.”
“That describes all of life, Odeon,” Darius observed. “I hate to say it, man, but I don’t think you’re approaching this from your usual calm, logical place.”
“I’m not. I do not feel calm,” Odeon admitted. “I want to repair my mistake.”
Holly wasn’t sure what she could do to help him. He wouldn’t budge. And
this was the best plan to skirt the issues that arose from their mark’s penchant for staying in his multilevel condo in the Green Jade district. She turned and walked to the window that overlooked the street below. Snowstorms had been exchanged for a vibrant day full of endless blue skies. Snow still covered window ledges and portions of the streets and sidewalks. But there was hope in the sky with Ixion hanging, mute from her elevated throne, and some of the other visible moons mere suggestions against the power of the sun.
“Is there someone else who can step in?” Shiro asked. “Maybe Trip?”
“She’s not back yet,” Darius said.
“Aimee Voss,” Charly offered. “Oh don’t look at me like that. You were all thinking it.”
“You don’t like Voss,” Darius pointed out.
“No one likes her, except Shir,” Charly said.
“She’s entertaining. And mysterious,” Shiro said. “Qualities I always look for when choosing partners and teammates of any sort.”
Holly raised her eyebrow. “We’re not bringing on Voss. Sorry. We tried it once.”
“What about Gabe?” Shiro asked.
Holly laughed. “He’s straight as they come. He wouldn’t even touch a heist this sketchy. I’m having second thoughts about it, constantly.”
“About that,” Charly said. “I was thinking. The payout is big enough that we could give some of it to Elan. For his school. But obviously he can’t ever know where it came from.”
Holly liked the idea of donating some of it to a good cause, though it was clear that Charly was only suggesting it to keep the job happening. Holly let it slip. There was already enough conflict happening.
“There’s always Scotch. Grant. Iain. Whatever we’re calling the chap these days,” Shiro said, though he didn’t seem happy about it. Holly respected that he would throw out options whose interests might run contrary to his own. Fair play to Shiro. Good chap, she smiled.
“Also a relatively straight-arrow,” Charly said. “But, it could work. If he stays here. You’ll need Odeon’s lock-picking skills, so he can’t stay behind. And you, Shiro, might need to pull some of your distraction and con shit. Plus, Grant doesn’t have to know that we’re pulling a heist off while he’s here. Far as he knows he’s here for the party. Maybe he pretends to be my date. Or Holly’s. Since Darius will be up here, manning the comms and whatever other techie shit that comes up and won’t be on the floor watching out for us.”
Shadow of the Colossus Page 16