Mad Lizard Mambo

by Rhys Ford

  “That’s what the professor said. There’s a woman in Mercury who does supply runs to a few miners, and she got caught up in a dust storm.” Malone traced an area on the map I’d taken down. “There’s natural caverns in the area, and she went into one to wait out the storm. That’s when she found those walls and sigils. I asked the professor if she wanted me to have someone from Elfin Linguistics to look into helping her fund the run, but she told me no, she was going to see if you’d be interested in the find.”

  “Because everyone knows you’ve got baby making on the brain,” I muttered. “And this woman just happens to know the one professor looking for stuff in that area?”

  “The professor was from New Vegas. Lots of people from that area knew her.” He shrugged. “And she paid them for stuff like this.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this, kid?” I asked him. “I don’t know what kind of runs you’ve been on, but this one’s going to stink. Worse than any Pendle run.”

  “I kind of have to.” Malone grimaced, squaring his shoulders as he sat up in his chair. “Don’t leave a job unfinished, do the contract—isn’t that what Stalkers swear to? Professor Marshall made it her life’s work to find the truth about what happened to our world. I need to finish what she started. Even if I die trying.”

  “Well, that’s good, then, because that’s pretty much what we Stalkers sign up for with every contract that we take. Just a word of advice, though,” I said, jerking my thumb toward Ryder. “Just don’t take tea with his grandmother or any shit from him, and do everything I tell you to as soon as I tell you to. It’ll make your chances of surviving go way up.”

  Nine

  “IF THAT boy was a Stalker, I’d eat my hat,” Sparky spat, leaving a fleck of clear saliva floating on the dry, dusty cement walk.

  I leaned against the fender of Ryder’s sleek sports car. “You don’t have a hat, Sparky.”

  “I’ll buy one.” She sniffed, thumbing her nose. “And he’s wearing a red shirt. No Stalker worth their damn wears a red shirt on a run.”

  “Yeah, that was the first thing that tipped me off.” I grabbed my packs out of the car’s hatch. The sun wasn’t up yet, and the metal was cold, frosty from the brisk predawn wind.

  One of Sparky’s graying eyebrows lifted, her mouth pursing into a wrinkled, disapproving clench. “And what was the second?”

  I started off toward the transport, shouting back over my shoulder, “He didn’t bring any guns.”

  A couple of days ago, we’d packed the drover for a three-week trip, mostly rations and potable water, and I’d spent the time driving it about, learning its quirks and speed limits. It handled better than I’d expected, its engine sitting above its front wheels while its laden-down back took corners sharp enough to cut a beard. Sparky’d outdone herself, packing as much power into the machine as she could while not skimping on maneuverability.

  The lack of weapons in her design still bothered me, and she’d been reluctant to mount anything on the outside of the drover. Instead we’d punched a few openings out on each side, installed pre-slit membranes, then sealed them tight with pressure lock portholes we could open from inside the transport. I’d have preferred an array of bone-cutting machine guns across the front and rear of the drover’s roof, but the ports were as good as I was going to get.

  Sparky followed me into the transport, ducking her head around the side door’s frame. The vehicle barely rocked when she stepped in, its suspension absorbing her added weight. She was silent as I stashed my gear, only cracking a little bit when I retested one of the port membranes by hitting its opening with a shotgun barrel.

  “Fine line between too loose and fighting the opening to get the gun out, but it’ll have to do,” I said, frowning when she peered over my shoulder to look out the window. “What?”

  “You don’t got a lot of visual there, do you?” She grumbled a bit under her breath, and I caught a few bits of Mandarin curses she’d been saving up for a rainy day. “It’s shit for turning….”

  “Be better with something mounted on top, but we don’t have time.” The shotgun slid out of the port membrane with a glooping noise. “Someone broke into the university last night. Trashed the professor’s office.”

  “Just her office?” She smacked her lips together, chewing on a piece of licorice gum, its salty blackness scenting her breath.

  “Yep.” I made another slide through the port. “Just hers. Don’t know if they took anything. Place was a mess before she was killed. Didn’t get any better with us trying to figure out where she’d wanted us to go. Malone’s on a death quest to bring back Marshall’s Holy Grail, and Ryder wants the elfin to pop out babies like antlered bunnies.”

  “And you’re against that?” Sparky took the shotgun from my hands, easily handling its heft, then set it back into the rack below the window.

  “Kind of. It feels like he’s trying to give mouth-to-mouth to a dying donkey.” I shrugged. “I just don’t… know.”

  “Ever think that maybe you’re not wanting the elfin’s numbers to increase because you hate them?”

  Her question poked at my thoughts, assassinating my resolve.

  “Because of what was done to you?”

  “You think that’s it, then? I’m against it because the elfin’s brought nothing but grief to me?” I didn’t want to pick at the scabs riddling the surface of my soul, but Sparky already got them bleeding.

  “I can see the word bullshit hovering there on your tongue, boy,” she said, patting my back. “Think about it a bit before you let it out. You can’t go hating your own kind just because of what was done to you, because trust me when I tell you, that’s the shortest way of becoming what you fear the most.”

  “You don’t know what they did, Sparky—what he did to me.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “Hell, there wasn’t even a me there. You saw what Dempsey was dragging around back then. I was less than a fucking dog.”

  I still had dreams about my time in my father’s workshops. Sometimes strung up through my spine and hung from the ceiling or slowly being skinned, a little strip at a time for spell components. When the guard took me that day, he didn’t steal Tanic’s son; he crippled the Lord Hunt Master by taking his most powerful and practically endless source of blood magic resources.

  Or at least that’s what I’d guessed. I wasn’t exactly going to go around asking for confirmation.

  “No, I don’t, kiddo,” she replied softly, a garrulous croak to her voice. “But I was the one who helped Jonas and Dempsey cut that iron out of you, and not one damned time did you bite us. You lay there, crying and squirming a bit, but you knew somewhere inside that wild, savage brain of yours that we were trying to help you. And it hurt. God fucking hell, I could see it hurt you.

  “I was scared of you, Kai. Scared shitless because you’d already opened up my arm and leg with those sharp teeth of yours and my face was scratched to fucking hell from your nails. I might even have bled out if Jonas hadn’t sealed up my wrist.” Sparky took a breath, her body shuddering from the effort. “I’d been in the wars. Hated the elfin with every damned bit of my soul, and when I saw you for the first time, I wanted to bash your head in with a rock like you were a rabid possum bent on killing everything in front of you.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” My throat closed, tightening around something thick threatening to burst from my chest. “Would have saved you guys a shit ton of trouble.”

  “Because someone did that to you, and it made me puke thinking about it.” Her hand was still on my back, her fingers lightly pressing into my barely healed ribs. “Because when Jonas made that first cut, you screamed and fought when the blood ran out of you. It was so thick and black and rotten. The stink of it was horrible, but once he made the cut and we got that first tiny piece out, you curled into me and cried into my hands. How could I hate the elfin after that? I could hate what was done to you… how so many of us died in the wars, but right then, I didn’t care if you were human or elfin. I
fell in love with that young boy lying on my workbench as still as he could so we could undo what a monster did to him.”

  “I love you too.” My arms were around her before she could pull away, and I gave Sparky a tight hug, whispering into her silvery hair, “Doesn’t a day go by when I don’t think about how much you guys gave to me. What you’ve done for me.”

  “Then you go and do it for others. Be the man your father isn’t.” She thumped at my back, unerringly finding each and every bruise lingering under my skin. “Go help Ryder find a way for the elfin to make babies. Then you go and be someone those babies look up to. Pass on the good people’ve done for you. That’s what I taught you then, and that’s what I’m saying to you now. Make me proud, Chimera Gracen, and we’ll call it all even.”

  SPARKY’S LANDING was far out enough from the city I couldn’t see anything but San Diego’s faint glow on the southern sky. Ruins of old buildings and streets were slowly being consumed back into the hills, beaten down by the elements, ungulate herds, and the occasional wayward dragon looking for someplace safe and quiet to die from its battle wounds. The recent rains left grasslands a rich verdant, but Sparky’s place was mostly dirt, cement, and asphalt, especially near the fuel tanks. A pipeline rig sat on one of the upper mesas, its triangular pumping head poised at the ready to pull up any oil Sparky might need from the tanks buried in the hillside.

  She’d set up shop at an old storage facility, first as a mechanic, then adding in a refinery for Stalkers and travelers with combustion or dual-use engines. Expanding to developing new mixes and a place to stash cars and vehicles since a gas vehicle couldn’t be run inside of city limits, Sparky’s Landing was a neutral zone, a place where grudges were to be left at the main gate and pulling a gun on someone meant a lifetime ban. I’d spent a lot of time scrambling around the buildings, hiding from Dempsey or curling up with the dogs under the clear sky during the cold high desert nights and staring at the stars. I knew the smell of the place, a hint of oil and the sweet burned tickle of sunbaked dirt and grasses mixed in with a liberal amount of exhaust, welded metal, and dog.

  It was early enough we could repack the hatch and still get a full day’s ride in. I’d lost Ryder to Sparky, who wanted her accounts settled before we headed off into the vast wasteland of nothing and more nothing with a chance of being gnawed on by woodland creatures who would be singing us a good morning. The supplies were the last thing we needed to get into the transport, and Malone was moving a little bit too slowly for my liking, because when I came out after my talk with Sparky, there were still boxes stacked up along the drover’s front wheels.

  Crickets was apparently the first cross I was going to have to bear before sunrise, because I found him in the rear of the transport, loading in the ammo I’d tagged to go into the back cabin. Other than the red shirt, which damned him as an amateur, it was just another less subtle cue about Malone’s lack of extensive Stalker experience.

  The least of which was his damned nickname.

  There was no damned way in any god’s hell I was going to call a grown man Crickets.

  I didn’t blame him for not hustling. It was too early in the morning to do anything other than the bare minimum of thinking, and I’d already been wrung out to dry by Sparky, so I wasn’t firing on all cells either. Rapping the side of the transport, I got Malone’s attention.

  “Hey, ammo goes inside. We’ll need it if we run into problems on the road.” I tried to keep my tongue civil, but I heard Dempsey hovering at the edges of my tone. “See? Box is marked inside. Food crates are marked hatch.”

  “Oh, of course.” Malone stumbled over his own tongue, clicking it against the roof of his mouth. “I’ll move them into—”

  I’d been in Malone’s presence for the past few days, and every time I asked him something, he stammered then shuffled away. Since I’d bathed at least once every day, I didn’t think I reeked, and Ryder assured me I smelled fine. After sniffing my ear—but fine was the verdict.

  But something about me was making Malone nervous, and it rankled me. He was young—too young to have gotten more than a few jobs under his belt before he was out on injury—but he could have made his way through the Post with small hops and retrievals or ainmhi dubh pelts. His face… haunted me. I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.

  “How about if we’re straight with one another, Malone?” I leaned against the hatch, blocking his way. “You’re not much on guns, are you?”

  “What makes you say that?” Lack of coffee probably made his voice reedy, but it quivered and danced around when he spoke.

  I made him nervous for some reason. Could have been anything, from knowing I was Dempsey’s to something more serious like a dislike for pointed ears and teeth, which made no sense after I’d considered he’d enrolled into the university to study the Underhill and its races.

  “You didn’t bring any of your own,” I pointed out.

  For a split second, I thought he was going to deny the truth, even though it was as clear as the Carlsbad sky he’d lied through his teeth, but he shook his head, giving me a lopsided grin I’d come to see a lot on his scrawny face.

  “No, not really. I mean, I shoot just fine, but I’m more of what you call—” His brown eyes flicked about, searching for something around us or a word inside of his head. “—a tracker. I’m good at hunting down things. Like digging out clues. It’s why I went into research once I left the—”

  Malone was going to go on. I could see it. He had that same beatific look on his face Ryder got when he was about to launch into a long diatribe or lecture me about the cultural significance of some small little scribble he’d found on the edge of a rock tablet. I was going to give him five minutes to talk himself out then hurry him along.

  We were burning daylight.

  But that wasn’t the only glint on the horizon.

  Something shiny flashed from a stand of trees on the ridge next to Sparky’s driveway. I wasn’t sure what light caught on the metal or if it was actually metal, but it grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. Malone was still talking, a buzzing noise of nonsense weaving in under the rush of breeze in my ears. What I didn’t hear were birds. It was early—way early—a time when the plains and hills were normally awash with every tweet, chirp, and squeal of avian variety, with a few mammals tossed in for good measure.

  Instead we were surrounded by silence—a very deadly silence.

  Until the gunshots started and the ground bounced with ricocheting bullets.

  “Chi wo de shi.” I grabbed Malone and swung him behind the transport.

  He was light, barely Cari’s weight for all his height, and he flew easily. The hatches opened out, but there was a foot of clearance under the doors, not enough to give me cover, but it was as good as I was going to get. My Glocks were out of their holsters and in my hands, and I shouted over my shoulder at Malone as I began to fire up at the hill.

  “Rifle. In the long blue ammo box.” Whoever was on the hill had something much more lethal than my Glocks, and either Malone or I needed to return their fire with something with more of a kick to it.

  “What do you want me to do with it?” he shouted back.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I had to reload, ejecting the clip then scrambling to open up one of the boxes to grab another. They were fitted into foam, making it hard to get one out with one hand. Kicking at Malone’s foot, I turned away to duck as far into the transport’s cover as I could when another volley cut up the side yard. “Load up and shoot back!”

  The transport was taking heavy fire, rocking slightly when something big hit it. I heard one of the dogs yelp, and my heart twisted, hoping it only took a bit of shrapnel and got out of the way. Whoever was on the hill was after either me or Malone, and since I hadn’t pissed anyone off in a couple of days, I was going to put my money on Malone. My gut told me whoever’d taken Marshall out was now gunning for our red-shirt-wearing plebe.


  I heard Malone click the shells in, and I kept my head down, trying to give him as much clearance as I could to use the hatch as protection while shielding my hearing. I thought I’d covered all my bases, but I hadn’t counted on Malone really not knowing how to shoot. Especially since he didn’t seem to know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle.

  Not until shotgun pellets peppered my ass and calf and Malone’s startled screams when I knocked the weapon away from my legs and cursed him out. There was blood, not a lot of it but enough for me to taste copper on my tongue. My jeans leg flapped, torn in places, and my skin was pebbled with dark holes, puckers forming over the heavy gauge blasted into my calf. My boot protected my ankle, but my knee creaked a bit, maybe taking a pellet or two, but I wasn’t sure.

  Mostly because whatever Malone’d hit me with, it was like someone’d shoved firecrackers under my skin and lit the fuse with a flamethrower.

  “Diu nei ah seng! Are you trying—” More gunfire and I dove down, dragging Malone with me. The shotgun tumbled out of his hands, and I resisted the urge to kick it under the drover so he couldn’t get his hands on it again. “Rifle! I said—Kāne’s balls—what did you load that with?”

  My leg burned, and I wasn’t looking forward to the time spent digging each and every single bit of buckshot out from under my skin. The fire spread, turning to agony, and my leg muscles weren’t responding like they should have. Clamping my hand on the open hatch, I pulled myself up, hoping I was out of sight of the shooters.