by eden Hudson
For a few seconds she basked in the memory. Then she continued, “So I get up, shake the blood off, and go after Nick again. I don’t remember much about that round besides picking myself up off the floor when it was over. People told me there was a third round, too. To hear Nick tell it, you would think I’d been possessed. He claims he was struggling just to defend himself. We were both in the Knights Hospitaller’s wing when I woke up.”
“So you did kick his ass,” I said triumphantly.
“Still no,” Carina said. “Nick was there because he was afraid he’d killed me. He wanted to make sure I woke up.”
“That points to a serious lack of control,” I said.
“We were six.”
“People don’t change, they just get taller.” I mulled the story over, wishing I had that washer back to roll along my knuckles while I thought. “So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that what you want in a man is someone who can kick your ass?”
“More like someone who respects me enough as a peer to kick it when it needs kicking. But also someone who cares whether or not I’m okay when the kicking is over.”
“All right. That’s total nonsense, but okay. Time for the most important question: On a scale of one to Jubal Van Zandt, how hot is he? You can be honest, I won’t tell him.”
Carina pulled one of those long silences.
“I don’t know how to answer something like that,” she finally said. “So much of how I perceive Nick is based on the kind of person he is and how it makes me feel to be with him. When I look at him, I think he’s gorgeous.”
I nodded. “So about a six, then. Not bad, Bloodslinger, not bad at all.”
***
The arrival in Soam went a lot less smoothly than the one in the war-torn turd of an island nation. Whereas Nytundi was desperate for foreign tourism dollars however they could get them, Soam was fine with everybody else on the Revived Earth fucking off and leaving them alone.
The Entering Soam/Inendas Soam line was not moving.
At all.
“I need to pee,” I said, looking over my shoulder in the direction of the bathrooms.
“You’ve already been six times,” Carina said. “Can you seriously not stand still for a few seconds?”
“It’s been an hour if it’s been a minute.” I stared down a local guard who was patrolling the line of inbound travelers with an automatic rifle. He stopped long enough to mumble something into his collar comm, then started walking again. “Also, I’m hungry.”
“Feels like I’m on a field trip with a five-year-old page.” She dug into her pocket and came out with the washer I’d been flipping on the flight. “If I give you this back, will you shut up?”
“Probably not. It smells like unwashed feet in here.”
“Do you ever get any repeat business?” Carina asked. “From the clients you accompany over an extended period of time, I mean. Do they ever hire you again?”
“That’s a little uncalled for, don’t you think?” I said. “It’s okay, though. You’re tired of growing old in this damn line, and you’re saying things you don’t mean. I forgive you. I’m magnanimous like that.”
Carina rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “No, I’m not taking a crack at you for your unhealthy levels of impatience. Not entirely, anyway. In your file—”
“The electricity is about to go out,” my flame kigao said. I tried to remember if she had been floating there the whole time.
I craned my neck and tried to look around without being too obvious. “Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying, Carina. You make a lot of salient points.”
Carina took a breath, maybe to keep expounding on whatever stupid shit she’d gotten hung up on, but I didn’t hear what she said because the kigao squeezed my shoulder with one delicate, fiery hand and told me, “The electricity is about to go out.”
A pair of armed guards were approaching us from behind, flanking an older guy in a pinstriped suit. The older guy was smiling.
I don’t trust any fucker who comes waltzing up behind me smiling.
“The electricity is about to go out.”
“Yeah, I see them.” I nodded at Smiley and the guards so Carina would follow my line of sight. “What do you want to do about those?”
Carina assessed the situation. After a second, she slowly removed her hands from her pockets so that anybody who looked would see that they were empty.
“Comply,” she said to me.
I blinked. “Who now?”
“I said comply. We don’t know what their intentions are.”
“Are you seeing the same slippery, grinning eelfucker I am? Guy looks like he was built with ten too many teeth. Nobody who smiles like that is up to any good.”
“Those are Soam SecOps flanking him,” Carina said. “If I even look like I’m reaching for a weapon, they’ll drop us. We need to bide our time, find out what their intentions are, and watch for an opening.”
Meanwhile Smiley and his goons were closing in.
“The electricity is about to go out,” the kigao said, resting one fiery hand on the back of my neck.
I laughed. “Try telling The Good Knight that.”
Carina stared at me like I was crazy. She almost said something, but Smiley McEelfucker was too close to us.
“Mighty nice day, ain’t it?” Smiley said, his accent stretching out the bastardized Soami Anglish with a slow and practiced ease meant to sound charming. To me it sounded like he’d swallowed a fistful of cotton balls. He didn’t wait for an answer, which was too bad because I was pretty sure I could come up with a good one. “Wy L’uxe, Head of Immigration and Security here’t the airport. Hope the flight treated y’all all right, not too taxin’?”
While he spread that spiel on us, he stuck out his hand.
Carina shook without even looking to see if he was wearing a slapdeath ring. “The flight was great, thank you. Sir Carina Xiao, Knight of the Guild.”
So there went any possibility of subterfuge.
“Well, now, that’s wonderful to hear.” Smiley Wy pumped her hand a few times, let go, then offered it to me.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I never touch a—” The bony point of Carina’s elbow dislodged my spleen. I choked on what was left of it.
“Please forgive my friend,” Carina said. “He’s simple and doesn’t always realize that he’s being rude.”
“It’s nothin’.” Smiley Wy waved his hand in dismissal. “Now, y’all, I hate to be a pain in the backside, but I gotta ask both of you to come with me.”
“Can you tell me why?” Carina asked. “My friend is liable to make a scene if I can’t explain the situation to him.”
“As y’all probably know, the concordat ’twixt our countries allows for a certain number of Guild members in Soam at any given moment, with the strictest limitations placed on career combatants. We don’t like to inconvenience folks—I’m sure y’all ain’t rabble-rousers or anything like that—but it is national policy to check with Registration and Immigration before we allow new Guild members entrance.”
“Of course,” Carina said.
Smiley Wy began to lead us away from the Entering Soam line.
“Simple?” I said.
Carina followed Smiley McEelfucker Wy without acknowledging that she’d heard me.
“Carina!”
She didn’t look back.
One of the guards gestured with his rifle as if I wasn’t catching the drift of this particular shit tsunami.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud. Fine! Fine. I’m going. Simple.”
The guards fell in behind me. A cold spot on the back of my skull screamed Soam Welcome—the traditional bullet to the brainstem sported by the majority of bodies recovered from the Soam jungle.
“The electricity is about to go out,” the kigao said, floating along beside me with her arms hugged around her stomach.
Smiley Wy opened a door marked AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY in a variet
y of languages, then led us down a long hall. The scuff of our shoes on the industrial-grade carpet and the swish of our pant legs were the only sounds. The noise must’ve bothered Smiley Wy because he started talking.
“Might as well go on ahead and get the preliminaries out of the way while we’re walkin’,” he said. “What exactly is the nature of y’all’s business in the country?”
“I’ve been meaning to get down here for a while now, but this is the first chance I’ve had,” Carina said. “I’ve heard the scenery here is beautiful.”
If we hadn’t been surrounded by the enemy, I probably would’ve pointed out how carefully Carina had stepped around outright lying this time when not thirty seconds before she’d told that grinning cottonmouth that I was simple.
Smiley Wy puffed up with national pride. “It is damn beautiful country, Sir Xiao. Damn beautiful.”
But he didn’t follow this up by suggesting any ecotourist destinations; he knew we weren’t really there to gawk at cavern lakes, blue holes, and dark ponds.
At the end of the hall was a heavy steel door with a first-generation electronic lock, the kind with five unmarked buttons. Smiley Wy punched in the code, careful to keep his body between us and the keypad, as if not being able to see what he was doing made it so much more secure. Obviously this fishshit moron didn’t realize that the lock beeped the tone of every button he pushed.
I played back the series of tones in my head, assigning them higher or lower positions based on that first beep. Once he’d entered the code, the lock beeped three times in agreement, then snicked open. Smiley Wy held the door for Carina, then me, then took the lead again, leaving his guards to bring up the rear.
Another hallway. This one was lined with steel doors, and there wasn’t any carpet. The sharp smell of Xek’s Amazing Cleaning Powder curled into my nostrils and down my throat. Sweat stuck my shirt to the middle of my back and my pits.
My flame kigao hugged herself tighter and started shivering. “The electricity is about to go out.”
As if I hadn’t noticed. You could’ve drowned a small dog in my shorts. To top it off, I had to pee for real now.
“Exactly how many executions do you guys carry out in the middle of the damn airport?” I asked.
Smiley Wy ignored me.
“It just seems like a separate terminal for executions is an unnecessary expenditure. The number of people you’d have to dispose of in one calendar year to recoup these kind of losses—”
“Shut it, Van Zandt,” Carina whispered.
“It’s not financially sound! They’re going to dump the bodies in the jungle anyway. Why not just execute them there and save themselves the cleanup?”
“You really oughtn’t be readin’ so many horror stories, friend,” Smiley said.
“Why not? Do they take away the fun of your big reveal at the end of the hallway? I know what blood smells like, brother. Dowse it in as much bleach and Xek’s as you want, but that stank don’t wash out, and it is all over you.” I looked at Carina. “Bet you’re sorry you paid that little snitch now, aren’t you? By the way, that bankroll is going on your bill. As well as the cost of burning these clothes.”
“What?”
“The smell!” I said. “Did you think I was just spouting nonsense? You can’t launder Xek’s out of clothes. The smell sets into the natural fibers.”
“No, I mean the bankroll,” Carina said.
I threw my hands up. “Oh, sure, it’s the money that gets her attention! You’re fine following some slimy Soam goon right into a shallow grave, but the money—”
“I assumed that came out of the incidentals account.”
“Yeah, no. I only dip into my incidentals accounts for personal charges like room service and the naughty-spanky holochannel.”
“Why would you pay an informant with your own money?” Then she realized what she was asking. “Because you weren’t going to pay him.”
I raised my eyebrows at her like Duh.
She sighed. “I’ll reimburse you.”
“Good,” I said. “Let this be a lesson to you. Nytundian informants can’t be trusted. They’re always playing both sides. Case in point.”
In front of us, Smiley Wy chuckled.
“Laugh it up, eelfucker,” I said.
This didn’t faze him. And why should it? We were still following him like happy little catfish to the fryer.
“I’m going to pay the next informant, too,” Carina said.
“You would,” I sneered.
Smiley Wy opened a door on our right. “After y’all.”
I took a peek inside. Yep, standard concrete floor with in-room hose and drain combo. Your best defense against dried blood splatter is a good offense.
“Naw,” I drawled, hoping he was bright enough to realize I was mocking him. “Y’all go on ahead.”
“The electricity is about to go out.” The kigao flickered across the killing floor.
In the hall, Smiley Wy grinned at the guards and switched to a more obscure Soami dialect that I couldn’t remember the name of. “Hell with it, kill her out here. They can hose down the hall. He’ll tell us whatever we ask once she’s out of the picture.”
“Carina, they’re—”
I didn’t get the rest of the warning out. Carina pushed me into the killing room. I stumbled, but didn’t fall. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a pair of glass knives in the fingers of her free hand. Her hand flicked and one was gone. The guard she’d chucked it at flinched. Before he could raise his head again, Carina was on the other guard, one hand grabbing his rifle, the other planting that knife in his eye.
The guard who’d flinched raised his rifle again. Carina shoved his dead buddy at him. He backpedaled to avoid the corpse, squeezing off a wild shot.
I crouched and threw my arms over my head. In theory, I was out of the direct path of any bullets, but you can’t be too careful where precious, precious gray matter is concerned.
“Drop it!” Carina yelled in the same obscure dialect Wy had used.
I looked up.
Carina and the guard were staring at each other down the barrels of twin rifles. The guard didn’t drop anything.
A red stain was spreading on the outer thigh of Carina’s jeans. That guard’s wild shot must’ve winged her.
“I said drop it!” Carina repeated.
Rather than ask for pronoun clarification, which is what I would’ve done, the guard’s eyes flicked over Carina’s shoulder. I looked, too. That slimy eelfucker Wy was pulling an old-fashioned revolver out of his suit jacket. The guard started to raise his hand and rifle as if in surrender.
“Carina, Wy!” I was afraid she wouldn’t get turned around before he shot her in the back, and afraid that even if she did, that other SecOps guard would shoot her the second she took her eyes off him, but she reacted before I finished yelling.
She shot the guard in the face, then dropped to a crouch and spun around. Wy’s shot went over her head and pinged off the door we’d come in through. Carina’s shot knocked the revolver out of his hand.
“Shit!” Smiley Wy cursed in Soami. He clutched the stumps of his index and middle fingers. Blood ran down his arm, into his suit, soaking the elbow like a patch.
I stood up and pulled my fingers out of my ears.
“Hearing damage is cumulative, you know,” I told Carina.
“Don’t move,” Carina told Wy.
He didn’t.
I slipped back into the hallway behind Carina, careful not to put myself between the business end of the rifle and Smiley, Bloody Wy.
“Grab his gun, Van Zandt,” she said.
I looked down. It was lying on the floor in the growing pool of blood. Wy’s index finger was still curled through the trigger guard.
“Nah,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said, misinterpreting my reticence. “All you have to do is hand it to me. Or kick it down the hall away from him.”
“That sounds like a lot of steps,”
I said. “Probably too complicated for your simple friend. I might get confused and upset. Make a scene.”
Carina glared at me. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m going to level with you, Carina, my feelings are hurt. Additionally, it’s not my job to hand you shit.”
“Y’all really think you’re just gonna walk outta here?” Spit hissed through Wy’s gritted teeth as he spoke, but his grin was wider than ever. From Smiley to downright Manic-y. “That your arrival was some kinda secret? That you could keep somethin’ like that quiet?”
One of the dead guards chose that moment to evacuate his bowels with a wet, rippling fart.
Smiley wasn’t deterred. “We know your line, Bloodslinger. Daughter of Sir Cormac, the Raven of the Battlefield. A name held in such high regard by the Guild. Wanna know what we call him down here?”
“Shoot him and let’s go,” I said. “It reeks in here.”
Carina didn’t look away from Smiley Wy.
“Child Butcher,” Wy hissed. “Cormac the Innocent-Killer. You inherited blood and death and now blood and death shall inherit you. When we heard that the Butcher finally got what he deserved, we declared it a national holi—”
Finally, Carina took my advice and pulled the trigger.
SEVEN
As we raced back down the hall toward the door we’d come through, it occurred to me that I hadn’t done much research into Carina’s family tree before taking this job, RE: Why a group of aguas brujahs would want to kill a Guild knight. I’d been too excited about trying to get around their magical lockdown to even think about it. Pretty stupid, but kind of hard to regret since I was getting around their lockdown, thereby proving that I was the best thief in the history of the Revived Earth. Also because I’m not capable of feeling regret or most of the other emotions people claim to feel.
In spite of the bullet hole in her leg, Carina outpaced me and made it to the door first. Her hand left a bloody smear across the knob.
“Locked,” she said.
“Automatic mech,” I puffed, not really in the mood to come up with a more clever way to say duh. “Out of the way.”
I hit each button on the keypad, listened to the tones, then waited for the reset flashes. On those first-gen electronic locks, if you type in the wrong code the first time, the lock waits fifteen seconds before flashing three times to let you know it’s okay to try again. You can’t just keep punching in wrong numbers all day long or it’ll shut itself down.