"You'll be challenged. You'll need protection."
I smiled. "No. They will."
His indecent smile mirrored mine.
"One last thing, Minoj. I want you to give Lang a message." I felt sure Minoj had some way to contact him. What arms dealer couldn't source a big client in an emergency?
"No, Parrish. Claiming salvage is one thing. Taking on Lang is something else. I won't back you on that." He lowered his voice. "He is not what you think…"
"Tell him I figured out about the wiper and I have a copy of the research. I want to negotiate at Tor-ley's. Directly."
Minoj sighed.
* * * *
I placed three more calls. One to Pas.
"Oya. You have ended the war. The people are rejoicing."
I cut quickly across his religious fervor. "I need you now, Pas. Bring some men to Torley's."
He beamed. "Of course. We leave immediately."
"One thing, Pas. Tell me. The Feather Crown… was it chicken blood?"
There was silence, as if the question surprised him. "No, Oya. It is part of our custom that the Crown is dipped in human blood."
Human blood. My heart sank. It had been a futile hope, and now even it was gone.
* * * *
My next call was to Teece.
"Parrish!" He looked relieved. "Why the hell did you run out on me like that?"
"Had to take care of some things. Have you got anything for me?" I hung on his answer, trying not to hold my breath. Was Teece with me or not?
"Yes. I saved what looks like some gene sequences. I'm not sure exactly. And some of her diary."
"What did the diary say?"
"Looks like she didn't trust Loyl's scientist. She had her watched. Seems Dr. Schaum must have some sort of conscience because she had a regular visitor to her place. A preacher."
A preacher!
My adrenaline spiked as a bunch of suspicions met and melded. I could barely keep the tremor from my voice.
"Teece, I owe you something for this. Bring the disk to Torley's pronto. I'm claiming salvage on Jamon's stretch."
"You're what?"
I cut him off before he could rant. A shiver ran deep through me. Thrill. The parasite liked what I was doing. But it didn't know the half of it.
I placed my last call.
"Parrish?" Loyl's face lightened. "Where the hell are you? I'll send someone—"
"I don't need your protection, Loyl. I'm claiming salvage on Torley's, the Shadoville stretch and everything Jamon owned. If you want to do business with me, you'll find me where we first met."
His expression was nearly worth the heartache he'd caused me.
Nearly.
I cut the comm line and armored up.
There was hardly anything left in my weapon stash. A couple of throwing knives, a garrotting wire and a real old-fashioned Luger with two packets of ammo. I holstered it to my thigh. Now was not a time for subtleties.
* * * *
Hein's bar looked pretty untouched by the war.
Larry Hein spotted me the instant I entered. He gave a nervous, beckoning wave and I strolled over.
"Larry."
"Parrish."
His acknowledgment was short and loaded with angst. I wondered what had twisted his panties. His deep-set eyes were hard to see on the best of days. Now only the clumps of mascara along his lashes were visible.
"Just passing through?"
"No, Larry, I'm claiming salvage."
He swallowed hard. "The 'goboys are prowling. Riko says the place is his now. He's trouble. Using my place as his office and Mondo's not even cold."
I didn't know Riko particularly, but I could read Larry's displeasure like a beacon. "Get me a tequila! And send Riko my way."
I took a seat, back to the south wall. The usual.
Sipping on the tequila, I swallowed a tab and tried not to jitter. I'd cast my net wide and I prayed to the great freaking Wombat that I could haul it in when the time came.
In less than an hour the smell of 'goboy interrupted my nervous reverie. A waft of Larry's chiffon-clad arm sent his servitors scurrying to secure the tables. Battening down.
Still edgy, punters saw the drill and clasped their drinks. Things quietened.
A howling followed hard on the 'goboy scent as a handful of them sauntered through the doors. The patrons at the bar shifted. Magically a clear path opened between the 'goboys and me.
That was the best thing about The Tert. People understood the rules.
Riko was easy to pick, dressed in red synthetics and smelling like carrion. The others wore synths in blues and grays and stooped just a fraction lower so that he appeared to be the biggest, even if he wasn't. Dog rules.
Saliva glistened on their chests like beads.
Larry leaned across the bar to talk to Riko. In a matter of seconds their untidy heads swiveled in unison in my direction.
Group snap, guys.
I swallowed a private laugh and pushed back from the table.
Not hip to the art of polite conversation, they converged on me in a mass of stinking fur and wet, gaping mouths. Five of them, with Riko reclining at the bar to watch the fun.
I had a knife in each hand as the first one leapt across the table. I could have used the Luger but I wanted to make them bleed—for show—and, if I was honest, because they could repair themselves more easily from knife wounds than a hole in the head.
Yeah, OK, I didn't really want to harm the dog part of them. It was the human bit I was after.
I sliced the first one in a thin line across his stomach, dodging his poisoned finger- and toenails.
Number two was nearly on my back when I launched upward and sideways. He collided with number three coming in. I creased their necks with blade and scrambled away. The remaining two came at me from different sides, but I dodged between them as if they were standing still and headed for Riko. I'd been born with quick reflexes and the parasite seemed to be sharpening them. The tab helped too.
A vision swarmed.
I realized suddenly that my real problem was the smell of their blood. I held my breath as I lunged across the room. An arm's length away from Riko I took a quick gulp of air, just to clear my sight.
But Riko rolled a second before I contacted the space he was occupying. Quicker than I expected, his fist caught me on the corner of my jaw.
I stumbled and spun awkwardly. He was baring his teeth, pleased with himself. Sprouking. Flanked by the pair I'd dodged.
"This place is mine now, girlie."
Girlie! The term raged like a scrub fire through my brain.
He stretched his hands out, beckoning. "You work for me. I pay you. I look after you. Not like Master."
A garrotting wire was in my fingers before I knew I'd even reached for it. I bridged the gap to Riko in one blurred stride, looping the wire around his hand, twisting, severing the skin like it was jelly.
Blood spurted and Riko howled. The wound gaped, baring the wrist bone. I could have sliced that as well but I didn't want him to lose the hand permanently.
"Bitch," he screamed.
Then he began to cry.
The 'goboys clambered around him, pressuring the wound, licking his face in comfort and, I suspected, for the taste of his blood. They carried him out. If they didn't hurry up and find him a medic, he'd bleed to death.
From the corner of my eye I could see Larry sending his Pet cleaners to deal with the mess. Larry didn't like blood. In ten minutes Hein's would be like nothing ever happened—the beauty of running a bar you could hose out.
I glanced around at Hein's silent patrons, some pinch-faced and scared, others grimly entertained: all careful.
My voice rose harshly. The wire stretched taut from one hand to the other. "I claim Jamon Mondo's territory. Any disputes will be settled by me. Larry Hein will post new lore and act as my broker. Spread the word."
Some punters cheered. Others stayed silent.
I could feel Larry's conc
ealed pleasure. He'd warned me about Riko, I'd remember that. Besides I needed some allies.
Parrish Plessis. Twenty-first Century Warlord.
Shite!
I waited in my room for Larry's call. Tremors racked my body—a combination of gut-deep fear, the bad end of the speed and the parasite's gluttony. Partially severing Riko's hand had made me nauseous, and the parasite ecstatic.
All up it didn't make for sangfroid.
Possible outcomes of the next few hours frayed my mind. Timing would influence everything in the end. And I had no damn control over the timing at all.
Lang would come, because he couldn't risk me having a copy of the research he had gone to such lengths to destroy. But how would I know him? His shape-shifting made him the most dangerous of all.
Daac would come. Out of aggravation with me and concern at what I might do with his bloodlines register.
Pas and the Muenos would come because I was Oya.
Teece would come—because he loved me.
Poor Teece.
* * * *
I dozed on the bed, shivering, and listened as The Tert came out of hiding. Gunshots sounded occasionally still, but it was mostly just shouts of drunken, celebratory relief.
Once or twice the Angel swarmed across my vision but I breathed it away in slow meditative breaths. The effort left me with a tearing headache.
To distract myself I dialed into Infonet and read what I could about the adrenal glands. Where they were. How they worked.
Larry's call came a little before midnight.
"Parrish, there's a guy called Daac here demanding to see you. He's got half an army with him. They're making the punters real edgy."
"On my way, Larry."
I stood and stared for one long moment at Merry 3#, wishing I could change places with her. Then I swallowed my last tab.
* * * *
Hein's was stinking Fishertown sardine material. Torley's punters shoulder to shoulder with thirty or more of Daac's men.
I could pick them now. They had a lean and hungry look, like the war would never be over.
The hum of conversation persisted when I entered, but like before a gap opened for me to the bar. It seemed my days of going unnoticed had gone the same way as my finer feelings toward Loyl Daac.
And there he was. Drink in hand with a face like hell. Stolowski was next to him, pale-faced and jumpy. On his other side, to my annoyance, stood Anna Schaum.
I stopped a couple of paces away, feeling the weight of his men around me.
"Loyl. Sto." I nodded toward Anna. "What's she doing here?"
"She wanted to come."
"To check out the lab rats in their natural habitat?" I looked her over casually. Something about her seemed different. Not right. I heightened my olfaugs but alcohol and body odors and the smell of fear crowded in, confusing me.
Daac slipped a protective hand on her shoulder. "She's safer with me."
Somehow I didn't think so but I hesitated at spoiling his delusion—yet.
"Parrish, I'd like to talk. Privately," said Daac.
"Here's fine." I stood, legs apart slightly, one hand on the Luger.
Irritation flashed across his face. I was forcing his hand publicly—he hadn't expected that. He looked around uneasily, gauging the situation.
The Muenos hadn't arrived. Some of Hein's punters might back me in a fight—but not all. I hoped I wouldn't have to find out how many.
"Jamon Mondo is dead. I've claimed salvage on his territory."
"Mondo stole information of mine. I want it back."
I shook my head. "My insurance. I'll keep it safe. You stay out of my face."
"It belongs to my family."
"And the Cabal wants it back," I said calmly.
My words stopped him dead. "What do you know about the Cabal?"
"She's bluffing, Loyl." The girlish voice turned my attention to the slim woman next to him. She seemed unusually composed for a scientist in the same cage as the lab rats.
"Does she even have what she claims?" she said. "Get her to prove it."
Daac nodded slowly. "I could take this place now, Parrish," he said. "Give me a reason not to."
I took two steps closer. I could almost reach out and touch him. Wanted to, really. "An army of Muenos." Pas, where are you? "And if you touch me, I've arranged for the entire contents of your bloodlines register to be wiped."
"What do you want?" he whispered dangerously.
Outside Hein's, shouts erupted.
The word "Mueno" rippled through the bar like a menace. A dozen or more of them forced their way inside, hair braided for action, knives on parade. I looked for Pas, frantic that he didn't start anything—or worse, prostrate himself in front of me.
I underestimated his savvy, because they fanned out in front of the doors, blocking escape.
The tension in the room reached roulette. My vision swarmed and blood pounded in my head like metal rock. A mistaken gesture could send us all to hell.
Or were we already there?
"Stop your experiments, Loyl," I told him. "They're endangering everyone."
His eyes flicked from me to the Muenos, calculating risk. "What are you talking about?"
I lowered my voice. "The side effects you found are symptoms. You've released something inside those people. A parasite that alters human biochemistry."
"What would you know about biochemistry?" Anna Schaum scorned me.
"I don't have to know about it, I've seen the proof. You see, Loyl, I did save Razz's files. She knew who wanted them and why. That's why she's dead."
The enormity of my lie sent me spinning toward a hallucination.
Not now! Not…
I never got there.
Anna lunged at me with precise, unnatural speed.
Somewhere in my hindbrain, I was waiting for it. Had been from the minute I'd identified the smell on her as caustic.
I shot her point-blank in the torso. Right about where the adrenals nestled onto the kidneys.
She keeled over and spasmed at my feet.
I made myself watch, gripped by an unholy fear that I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake. Please, please let it be…
Around me guns and knives jacked out in all directions.
But as the convulsions subsided so her appearance altered.
Instead of Daac's precious scientist, Lang lay dead at my feet, as Jamon had only hours before.
The tension drained from the room, replaced by a grim reality. Shape-shifters. Non-humans. The whispers, the stories… were true…
This time I couldn't control my reaction. I'd killed someone. Something.
I turned away and threw up my insides until they threatened to desert my abdomen for good.
Some warlord!
"Parrish."
I stared up groggily, through blurred eyes, to Loyl. There was no compassion in him. Only stiff shock. And anger.
"How did you know?"
I straightened. "Razz's diary. She was having Anna watched at the compound. Seems she had a regular visitor you didn't know about—a preacher. I guessed it was Lang. He made the mistake of using the same form with me."
"You knew he could shape-change?" His wire hand convulsed like he might strangle me with it, but I plowed on.
"That's why you must end your work. It's loosed something vicious. The shamans can't fight it. Nor can the Cabal."
I searched for an appreciation of the danger in his face. But I got cold and calculating—obsession meeting opportunity, how he could use the knowledge.
My resolve to stop him hardened.
"Where is Anna?" A tinge of awkwardness crept into his voice.
I looked away. I didn't know the answer to that. And, frankly, I didn't care. How long Lang had been in Anna Schaum's form was Daac's problem.
"You took a big gamble, Parrish."
"I cast out the bait. I knew he'd come. I just didn't know what shape it would be in."
I didn't tell Loyl that I'd rec
ognized Lang by his scent. And by instinct—the way one parasite can recognize another in its human host.
Nor did I bother to explain how the Eskaalim are similar to us. That they like to dominate, and fight, and they'll sacrifice each other to get what they need.
"I made a mistake about you. You're dangerous and you're ambitious," he said softly. "But you'll give me what I want—in the end."
"Then you've just made another mistake," I promised.
He turned his back on me without another word and took his men with him.
* * * *
Hein's suddenly seemed enormously empty. I told Larry to feed the Muenos and put it on my tab. Then I thanked Pas—who bowed and mumbled worship-type utterances. I put up with them because he'd come when I needed him. I patted his shoulder awkwardly and told him that as long as he kept feeding the ferals I would, on my oath, make sure he supplanted Topaz Mueno.
He bowed again and went to find food.
Some of Hein's punters came up and shook my hand, Tert-style. Others just came up close and stared at me. So they'd remember who I was.
I bore it for as long as I could and then, just as I decided the floor looked as good as any place to pass out, my prayers were answered.
"Parrish? What the—"
"Teece!" I whispered.
He hurried to my side, tired and filthy but, I hoped, in better condition than me.
"Mondo?"
"Dead. And Lang." I nodded to the body that Larry's servitors were busy removing. "You missed the show."
He spat. "Good riddance! Wish I'd been here, but I had a little bit of trouble of my own. There's been Priers out everywhere shooting LTA," he admitted sheepishly. "You're all over the Common Net. Breathing down Jamon's neck. Forcing his surrender."
I noticed the blood on his arms. "You're cut?"
"Yeah. But the fighting has stopped. Everyone's talking about this Oya. They're saying Oya has saved The Tert—even though it was really you." He laughed. "I guess it's about time we had a savior."
I didn't have the energy to explain to him that Oya was me. Instead I let him help me to a tactile. Around us Hein's recovered its rhythm. People in The Tert liked to get on, but they wouldn't forget.
Someone put a drink in my hand.
"Where are you going now?" he asked, gently slipping an arm around me. "You look like shit."
I laughed weakly. "I'm going with you."
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