by Rhys Ford
“So this thing you bought from Sparky doesn’t have any guns on it?” Jonas cocked his head. “That’s not like her. She usually has to be talked out of mounting a machine gun on a tricycle.”
“Yeah, it was off. But could be there’s no hard points for any real firepower. Ports are there, though. So I’m hoping to get a good deal on some heavy weapons and call it a night. We’re leaving in the morning.” I hitched my leg up, resting my foot on the Rover’s dashboard. “You sure Jimmy knows we’re coming? I don’t want to get my ass handed to me because we didn’t knock first.”
“He knows you’re coming.” Jonas’s chuckle boomed in the cab’s broad space. “I’ll take care of you, son. Have no fear. Pity you’re doing this job for him. I’d like to see you shake him off like a piece of wet shit from your shoe. Say the word and I’ll crack his head for you.”
Despite the width of the vehicle, Jonas’s wide shoulders were nearly brushing mine, and I knew from experience he could easily reach across the Rover from where he was sitting and slap the door lock down with his right hand. Practically seven feet tall and built like a minotaur, he was a good person to cover me while I bought weapons from an illegal arms dealer. He was a man I’d trust with my life, and seeing as I seemed to stick my face into a hornet’s nest every time I walked out of my front door, Jonas seemed like a good bet. He’d been one of the Stalkers who had a hand in raising me, an enormous black man with more than a few wives, a couple of husbands, and so many children I gave up trying to remember all of their names.
I’d also tried to gnaw his nuts off when Dempsey first brought me home, but he’d forgiven me that.
He turned the other cheek and became the first person to ever feed me chocolate, and if I hadn’t already been willing to follow him into the fires of hell before that happened, I sure as shit was after I’d taken my first bite. I was easily bought when I was younger, and not much has changed since then.
“I’m kind of stuck with him—Ryder, I mean,” I explained softly, nearly ducking in habit when we passed under a sheet of runoff coming from the upper level. “SoCalGov practically gift-wrapped me and handed me over. I can’t shake that damned diplomatic attachment off. Sarah at the Post said unless I had a case for force majeure, I was pretty much screwed.”
“I don’t even know what that is, boy,” Jonas rumbled deep in his chest. The neon lights from the tight, busy street played teal dots over his dark skin, catching the white of his grin and tinting it with an aquamarine wash. His massive hands gripped the steering wheel, and he sighed. “But I’m guessing that means there’s no way out of it for you.”
“None whatsoever.” I ignored my stomach’s growl as we passed a char siu bao cart. The promise of future food didn’t seem to calm it, especially when it was a handful of sweet, spicy Cantonese pork wrapped in a fluffy white dough. “Thanks for doing this with me. Seems kind of chickenshit on my part—”
“They pulled one of those skin-job boys out of the sewer a couple of days back. All of his leg bones were missing, and his ears were cut off.” Jonas interrupted me. “I’d sooner not have to come identify you from that ink you’ve got crawling on your body. If it means I walk a bit behind you with a shotgun, then I consider it a pleasure.”
“The humans-only assholes are ramping shit up, then.” I hadn’t heard about the kid they fished out of the sewer, and I’d have liked to say his death and whatever else some asshole’d done to him before he died surprised me. It didn’t. Cynical and jaded was part and parcel of being a Stalker. If I hadn’t already been well versed in what people could do to one another before Dempsey got a hold of me, I’d have learned that lesson soon enough. “Where exactly did they find the kid?”
“Down over by the end of the Red Line. Routine maintenance crew found him. Don’t understand those kids who carve themselves up to look elfin. What’s wrong with being human, right?” Jonas glanced at me, catching the grumble from my stomach. “Something for you in the glove compartment. Why don’t you grab it and take care of that belly of yours? Only person I know who can get hungry over a dead body.”
“Dempsey. Learned it from him,” I pointed out, opening the compartment latch. The sweet whiff of chocolate hit me in the face, and I drooled. Literally drooled. The bar was a small one but heavy, dark, luscious, and wrapped in the faux-silver foil of a company on the East Coast. “Shit, Jonas, this stuff’s expensive.”
“Got it off a guy with a truck of ’em. Don’t get too weepy. Most of it went to the wives and family.” He jerked his head to the side, pointing in the general direction of the barrio he lived in. “Got six. Scored you one.”
I nibbled, letting the candy smooth over my tongue. Swallowing slowly, I sighed, happier than if I’d been a part of a five-day orgy. “Iesu, that’s nice. I could kiss you right now.”
“Don’t. I have enough marriage troubles. Gods, it gets wetter and wetter down here. Glad I moved my clan upside,” Jonas growled, the Rover caught in a string of red lights. More water coursed down between the raised streets above us, a sure sign it was raining on the upper level. A young hapa girl dressed in a blue slicker danced across the street, barely keeping to the sidewalk. Her mother trudged behind her, arms laden with groceries, face worn and pale from living without the sun. Jonas wiggled his fingers at the girl, and her mother shot us a filthy look, scurrying them both across the walk. “Sad day when you can’t laugh when a baby laughs.”
“Yeah, it’s called weird.” I let myself have one last bite, then folded the chocolate back up and put it back into the compartment. “You can’t wave at someone else’s kids. It’s weird.”
“Well, it’s wrong. And don’t forget that there or it’ll be gone,” Jonas warned. “Tell me what you think about someone offing the fake elfin. I’m waiting for some of us to be tapped by the Post for street recon. Not like the San Diego Finest are going to go down under here with anything less than a tank.”
“Like I’ve ever forgotten chocolate,” I scoffed.
“We’re here,” Jonas said, pulling up in front of an old closed-up garage. It didn’t look like much, more of a relic from a time when the city’d been interested in providing cell recharging throughout the lower levels, but much like the sun lamps, that plan fell into disrepair soon after. Jonas’s frown was not comforting, and he peered at the darkened windows. “He should be here. I called him a couple of hours ago, and he promised he’d—”
“Wait, I know this place. Didn’t this guy used to run with Dempsey a long time ago?” I tried to recall the man’s face from the ocean of people Dempsey probably screwed over. “Doesn’t like elfin. Or at least didn’t like me.”
“We’ll just park here for a little bit, and I’ll ring him up. He knew I was bringing you,” Jonas assured me. “Said it was okay. Even asked about you. What runs you made and everything. Didn’t sound like one of those crazies cutting ears off of kids or anything.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s the ones who sound excited to see me are the ones I worry the most about,” I said. “I’ve got to admit, the kid in the sewer’s a worry. I’m hoping someone’s not picking off some of Bennett’s Diamond Kitty freaks.”
“Could be some idiot trying to bring back their glory days during the war. Plenty an asshole made a bounty or two on scalping elfin ears.”
I didn’t need that explained to me. I’d met a few people who’d told me I’d have been ripe for a killing if only the war hadn’t ended. For all of the truces, love fests, and human-elfin sing-alongs on the beach, the three races still hadn’t quite buried the hatchet. “Brent’s heard people are jumpy because a few unsidhe have slipped in from Tijuana.”
“God, the last thing we need is the unsidhe slithering up into San Diego. Ryder would be out there recruiting them to that Court of his. Some of those guys from TJ would murder their own mothers just for their teeth.”
“Not the first time those bastards have come knocking on our back door. Hold on a second. I’m going to go park over there under the light. Kin
d of dark in this corner.” Jonas started the Rover slowly across the intersection, narrowly avoiding a blue cab edging in the lane. “Been a long time since they’ve come up to the city to snatch kids for their Court, but doesn’t mean they’re not desperate. I’d skin anyone—human or cat-bastard—that came for my own, but I’d take my time with those damned unsidhe.”
There was a two-second beat; then I got what I was waiting for.
“That… um… cat-bastard thing,” Jonas mumbled. “That wasn’t about you, boy.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’ve got to work on that. I’m going to work on that.” He straightened up in his seat. “I’m better than that, and you deserve better than what I’ve been giving you.”
“You’ve given me a lot, man.” I patted the glove compartment’s hatch. “And sometimes… well, a lot of the times… I kind of agree with you about the elfin.”
“Maybe you’ve got to work on that too.”
“Probably,” I admitted. “Actually more than probably.”
Any promises to work on our mutual prejudices were lost in the whine of the minirocket launched straight at Jonas’s Rover. I couldn’t see where it’d come from, not really. I only had a split second of sound. and then my focus shifted, falling on the slender piece of white metal death headed straight to the Rover’s radiator.
I had a chance to take a breath—a short gasping, halting breath—then the Rover was blown to Kingdom Come.
Six
WE WERE tumbling. Caught in a fiery pinwheel of pain and screaming metal, I could do nothing but hold on and pray the Rover’s old seat belts held. Gods were fickle things, while Death was a constant presence, his skeletal hand always tapping at my shoulder.
Death was tapping more than my shoulder right now.
Streaks of neon scratched across my eyes, long threads of pink and blue caught in the spin of the Rover’s scramble. I heard shouting—probably mine—because Jonas was being tossed about the cab, his long arms flailing, heavy, fleshy trunks slapping at my face and chest. The smoky air frizzed with electricity, the copper sting of open wires and explosive hitting me nearly as hard as Jonas’s right hand across my face.
The Rover bounced, once on its nose, then on its side, snagging a fire hydrant along the way, and the burst of water sent us spinning all over again. The metal sides let loose a wailing keen when the Rover flipped off of the geyser shooting up from the broken line and was forced into a long slide across the road’s thick, greasy black asphalt.
I blinked, blood in my eyes, and my head threatened to explode, my skull throbbing from its recent battering. We’d landed driver’s side down, and some unbroken part of my brain panicked, scared Jonas’s arms or head were caught beneath the crushed Rover’s side through the broken window. The seat belt cut across my throat, choking me, and my fingers were unwilling to find the latch, fumbling about on the release until I felt the button. I pressed hard, waiting for a snick to tell me I could pull free, but nothing happened.
“Shit.” There was too much pain to think straight. “Get loose, Kai. Move your ass.”
I smelled blood, and it was too much to hope that it was just mine. Someone was shouting something indistinct, but the sound was muffled, and the ringing in my ears grew louder with every passing second. Jonas was moving, moaning silently next to me. I hung over him, my right leg twisted up over the dash, but a shift of my weight anchored me against the middle console, and I lodged my left foot against the steering column so I wouldn’t fall on Jonas once I got free. I could see both of his arms, and while the gash on his head was worrisome, there didn’t seem to be a break in his skull.
Of course I could only see one side, and my brain galloped toward scenarios I didn’t want to entertain. Shutting down, I concentrated on getting loose. The Rover crackled around me, loud enough for me to hear through my explosion-induced deafness. Smoke ghosted over me, oily black threads worming into my nose, but I couldn’t find any flames. Like the unseen side of Jonas’s head, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a fire.
“Knife,” I mumbled. The belt latch was broken, but I had to get free—get us both free—because the sting of smoke filling the cabin was a great incentive to get moving. “You’ve got a knife, idjit.”
It hurt to think, hurt more to talk, and there was something swollen pressing up against the roof of my mouth. It took the sharp sting of my teeth on meat for me to realize it was my own tongue. The Ka-Bar strapped to my right shin was easy enough to get to. Pity my hand wasn’t responding like it should. A second or third swipe of my fingers and I grabbed the knife’s hilt and jerked it free of its sheath.
There were few gods I asked for help. None really replied, or at least not on a daily, how-are-you-doing-Kai kind of way. Dempsey prayed to the dead Catholic god and a few of the more noteworthy saints when he needed something but nothing formal, so my exposure to religion mostly came from other Stalkers. Jonas cleaved to some nature goddesses, and well, everyone knew Pele, Ganesh, and Morrígan, but my mind was drawing a blank on who to reach out to when escaping a fiery vehicle with its underbelly blown out for good measure.
It wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in this kind of situation and probably wouldn’t be the last.
The knife cut through the seat belt with a quick snick, and I almost lost my stomach when the lap belt jerked against my ribs. I grabbed at the window frame to hold on, but there was already a hand there, long fingers scrabbling at the edge then digging into the rubber seal around the window channel.
“Oi, grab the cat-bastard and yank him out,” someone called from the shadows around us. The sun lamps were dim, either catching up to the right time or just shot out. I couldn’t tell which. “Grab him now, and we….”
The hand was soon followed by a man’s face, pale and long boned, a sharp jerk of white against the dark overhang above the car. It was a lean, squirrelly visage, a faint straggle of hair on his bulging upper lip and a sloping chin determined to become a part of his neck. I didn’t know him, but he certainly seemed like he knew me, judging by the way his hands reached in and grabbed at my chest.
I didn’t like people putting their hands on me, especially when I wasn’t in the mood for sex or socializing. And since I couldn’t think of a worse time to grope at a guy’s nipples than when he was wedged against parts of a Rover’s cab so he didn’t tumble down on top of the man who’d pretty much taught him how to be human, I did the only thing any etiquette book would recommend for the circumstances.
I stabbed him in the shoulder, just enough to get the blade in but not too deep I’d lose it when he fell off the upended car.
And while he was screaming, I kicked out the front windshield, then cut Jonas free of his restraints.
The glass flew everywhere, easily bashed out because of the cracks from the roll, but getting Jonas out was going to be a bitch and a half, especially since it felt like someone was climbing back on top of the Rover to get to me. A woman was shouting about calling the police, but I didn’t have the time or the energy to laugh. If any cop showed up, it was going to be someone on the take and looking for a handout to either look the other way or shoot whoever needed shooting.
The SFPD and CSiP were never fond of Stalkers like me and Jonas, so I was hoping the woman’s shouts were more optimism on her part than prophetic.
“He’s comin’ out the front!” The rat-faced man was back, still bleeding, but he’d had the good sense to grip the spot where he’d been stabbed. He took one look at me, then ducked his head back out of sight. With any luck, he’d blow up once the gas tank caught and not bleed to death, but I didn’t want to be around for either to happen. “The other guy’s pretty bad.”
“Keep him there. I’m going round,” shouted his accomplice. I heard wheels rattling across the cement, fuzzy but definitely wheels. “Curb’s too high!”
We were in a span of empty lots and ramshackle buildings sold by the room to people barely scraping by. Most of the cars on the side of the road w
ere either in the process of being built or torn apart. No one was going to call the cops. Not really. The best thing for anyone in the area would be us dying so our bodies could be picked clean, perhaps even chopped up, depending on the black market returns on organs. Mine would be useless, but Jonas’s would fetch a few coins.
There was no damned way in any hell Jonas’s heart would beat in anyone’s chest but his own.
I was entertained with a round of how-to-keep-the-damned-elfin-from-escaping while I struggled to get hands under Jonas’s arms. He was semiconscious, fighting me when I tried extracting him from behind the steering wheel. After the third slap at my head and an escalation of arguing from outside, my charitable thoughts toward Jonas were slimming down to knocking him out with the butt of my gun and dragging out whatever piece of him I could carry.
A boom from the back of the Rover took care of nearly all of it for me.
The second blast was small, probably because Jonas rarely ran gas in his dual engine, but even a cup of the stuff was enough to tear through the Rover’s underbelly, and then a moment later, the flames hit the fuel cells. Even through the cotton-burr left over from the rocket, once I heard an all too familiar pop-pop-pop of cell casings beginning to crack, I said to hell with any injuries Jonas might have and hauled him out like he was a sack of rice and I was seven days hungry.
A giant heave and Jonas was out, clear of the Rover but probably not out of harm’s way.
“That’s ’cause he’s lying in the middle of the road, you asshole,” I reminded myself, painfully dragging Jonas out of the way and up against the back of a dumpster. “Well, the sidewalk. Mostly out of the way. Going to have to do because—”
A gunshot pierced the plasti-steel dumpster, blowing a hole out of its paint-smeared green side. Quickly peeking around the edge, I spotted Ferret and a curled-up thin, bearded man in a jury-rigged scooter, fighting to get the transport off of the curb and into the street. Crouching back down, I checked my link connection, only to not be surprised to find it black and dead.