by James Maxey
Fate’s kindness, you see, is balanced by a wicked sense of humor. In this unfolding joke, I’m the ghost. In death, as in life, I follow her everywhere.
As a phantom, I’m unseen and unheard. If I could have spoken to Infidel, I would have advised to wear a cloak and cowl into this place, despite the tropical heat outside. Wearing the Immaculate Attire in this city of thieves was the equivalent of walking through a lion’s den wearing a suit sewn from steaks. Worse, someone in this town might be smart enough to ask why she was bothering to wear armor at all. She’d recently lost her magical strength and invulnerability, and if word spread her former enemies would turn out in droves. Plus, as her husband, I wasn’t thrilled with the way the skin-tight armor accented her breathtaking assets. For supposedly Immaculate Attire, the outfit certainly lent itself to dirty thoughts.
Infidel’s silver trimmed boots clicked on the polished oak floor as she walked through the room. Ordinarily stone-faced poker players openly gawked and drooled, though I tried to assure myself they were hungering for the Gloryhammer in all its refulgent splendor. Glorystones are fragments of the sun. They’re rarer than diamonds and twice as hard. The Gloryhammer is literally priceless. All the gold in the world couldn’t buy it. The Tower clan, a family of famous knights, had passed down the weapon for generations. Alas, the last surviving male of the line had recently been reduced to soot. Infidel now owned the hammer under the legal precedent of finders, keepers.
Infidel didn’t look back at the gawking crowd as she arrived at the bar. Battle Ox was bartending. Battle was a half-seed, meaning his mother had visited a blood house to imbue her yet-to-be conceived child with animalistic traits. If the magic was done properly, a half-seed ox child would be big, strong, and tenacious. Do the magic wrong, and you get Battle Ox — a full blown minotaur with horns wider than his considerably broad shoulders.
In more civilized parts of the world, an infant born with a bovine face would have been put to death as a horrid abomination against nature. In Commonground, Battle’s visage seldom merited a second glance. Despite the name inflicted by the pun-happy denizens of Commonground, Battle was a rather gentle vegetarian. While he would willingly eject a rowdy patron if the need arose, his true calling in life was drawing beers with perfect heads of foam. My mouth watered at the smell of the amber fluid.
Battle nodded at my wife. “A lot of people here won’t be happy to see you back” he said, with his gruff, bass voice. “Odds were running ten to one that Greatshadow would fry you.”
Infidel leaned on the bar. “How did anyone know we were going to slay the dragon? The mission was a secret.”
Battle shrugged as he picked up a glass and a towel. “The Black Swan started taking bets on the outcome of your dragon hunt the second you left town. The volcano’s been belching lava for the last week, so we figure Greatshadow was still alive.”
“Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn’t,” she said. “The Black Swan will get the full details. Tell her I need to see her. Now.”
Battle put down the glass he was cleaning. “You ever learn the word ‘please?’”
“Don’t mess with me. I’ve got one hour to get back to the Freewind and don’t have time to waste. I’ve got something the Black Swan needs to see immediately.”
Battle shook his furry head. “No can do. She’s already in a meeting. Going to be a lot longer than an hour.”
Infidel unclasped the top three buttons of her leather armor and peeled it back, showing the top of her cleavage. Battle’s eyes bulged.
“You see this?” Infidel pointed to a black speck the size of an apple seed that nestled in the ampleness of her décolletage.
“Uh...,” said Battle, his mouth hanging open.
“This is Menagerie. What’s left of him.”
Remember the shape-shifter who came into the bar with us? Menagerie used to be the most feared mercenary in Commonground. A blood-magician of unparalleled skill, Menagerie could turn into any of the scores of animals that used to decorate his tattooed flesh. Menagerie had barely survived our dragon hunt. Since shape-shifting into this tick form, he’d yet to change back into a man. A telepath of our acquaintance informed us that Menagerie had been so traumatized by his brush with death that his mind was shattered.
Battle couldn’t know any of this, of course, but Infidel didn’t have to produce any further explanations. Men are willing to believe almost anything while they’re looking at a woman’s breasts.
“I’m the only one that can hear him since he’s latched onto me,” she said while his eyes were still fixed on her. “The Black Swan has a potion that will change him back to human, and he has to drink it within the next five minutes or he’ll die. Do you want to tell the Black Swan she’s lost her most valuable employee because you were too timid to interrupt a meeting?”
Battle frowned. No, no he did not want this, was the message I was seeing in his eyes. But he also looked as if he had his doubts. Infidel wasn’t particularly gifted at lying. If Battle asked any follow up questions, Infidel would probably be in trouble.
Fortunately, Battle was too cleavage-addled to notice any holes in her story. He grunted, “Wait here,” then went through the curtain that covered the doorway behind the beer kegs, leaving Infidel alone. At least as alone as a woman can be with a brain-damaged shape-shifter sipping her blood and her invisible dead husband hovering close behind.
Infidel turned around, leaning back against the bar.
Every eye in the house was staring at her.
Even though the Black Swan was the classiest joint in Commonground, it was still a den where desperate men gathered to try to make an easy fortune. Their already questionable judgment was numbed further by generous tankards of booze. Ordinarily, order was maintained by the Black Swan’s infamous hired muscle, the Three Goons. Even when the Goons weren’t present, their reputation kept most people in line.
Of course, except for Menagerie, the Goons were now dead. If the patrons knew about the dragon hunt, did they also know that the bar’s most feared enforcers weren’t coming back?
Infidel reached over her shoulder and grabbed the Gloryhammer. Instantly, its enchantment kicked in. Her skin glowed faintly as she lifted off the floor ever so subtly. In addition to granting her flight, the hammer also enhanced her strength. The boost was nothing like her former arm-ripping power, but anyone looking at her had to be sizing up their odds of getting their skulls smashed.
The odds were too high even for this room full of hardened gamblers. One by one, all eyes looked back at the cards in their hands. The roulette wheel was spun again, dice were jiggled in cups, and in under a minute the saloon had resumed its normal routine. Infidel slowly drifted back down to the floor.
Then Hookhand and his Machete Quartet walked in from the street. If I’d still had a heartbeat, it would have skipped. I had history with Hookhand. When I was alive, my primary revenue came from locating ruins in the jungle and salvaging lost treasures. Hookhand used to make his living by having an uncanny knack for showing up just as I was climbing out of some god-forsaken tomb with a sack full of artifacts, which I would trade in exchange for not being nailed to a tree and flayed. This arrangement lasted for years until Infidel started adventuring with me. In the intervening decade, there’ve been about seventeen different members of the Machete Quartet. Infidel normally doesn’t let them suffer for too long. Hookhand hasn’t been as lucky. When he first came to Commonground, he was known as Fairchild the Nimble. Now, he’s got one eye, his nose is squashed against his cheek, and he walks with a prominent limp. He’s got maybe six teeth left, and, of course, where he once had a right hand he now has a hook, a big nasty one of the sort you might use to gaff a large fish.
Despite a decade of serving as Infidel’s punching bag, Hookhand was still a feared figure in the city. His gang was made of street urchins he recruited just after they hit puberty, when they’re strong and agile enough to swing a machete like it’s a dagger, but still too young to have any fear o
f life and limb. Once they join the quartet they become Kid White, Kid Blue, Kid Green, and Kid Black, based on the color bandana they wear. Hookhand doesn’t like to waste a lot of time memorizing names.
In theory, the black bandana is worn by the gang member with the most seniority, but I didn’t recognize this kid at all. If I’d seen him before, I would have remembered; the boy was obviously a half-seed, part hound-dog by the look of him. He had an ugly pair of canine teeth, but any air of menace was diluted by his floppy ears.
“Well, well,” said Hookhand as he spied Infidel. “If it ain’t ol’ Ripper herself. I see you killed the knight. Quite a prize, that hammer. Quite a prize indeed.”
Infidel nodded to acknowledge the words. She leaned forward, resting her hand on the shaft of the Gloryhammer like it was a cane. She said, “Surprised to see you back in town. I thought you were up on the mountain, robbing pygmies.”
“The volcano’s been spitting lava ever since we saw you and your friends fly out. Looks like you made the dragon mad. I made the executive decision to place some distance between us and the caldera.” Hookhand looked around the room. “Where are your friends?”
“Who are you talking about?” Infidel asked. “I don’t have time for coyness.”
“Zetetic the Deceiver. He was right by your side, carrying a baby dragon.”
“Your eye’s playing tricks on you.” Infidel shook her head. “Never met the guy.”
“Zetetic has a large red ‘D’ tattooed in the middle of his forehead. He’s easy to recognize, even 200 feet in the air.”
“Your depth perception isn’t what it used to be,” said Infidel.
“True enough.” Hookhand slowly limped toward her. His gang spread out to the far ends of the bar. There was no way that Infidel could keep all four of them in her field of vision. There was a time that wouldn’t have mattered; a machete would have just bounced off her invulnerable hide. While the Immaculate Attire protected her body, at some point in the convoluted chain of ownership from Queen Alabaster Brightmoon to Infidel, the helmet had disappeared. Infidel’s head and neck were completely vulnerable. But Hookhand couldn’t know this, could he?
Hookhand stopped about eight feet away. Infidel didn’t look perturbed. Was this just for appearances, or was she overly confident?
“I want Zetetic,” said Hookhand.
“You want to turn him in for the price on his head? Old news. He’s working for the Church of the Book now. They don’t want him dead any more.”
“I thought you didn’t know him,” said Hookhand.
“I don’t,” said Infidel. “But you know I bounty hunt. I stay informed.”
Zetetic had split company with Infidel shortly after getting back to Commonground. He’d promised Brokenwing, the only other survivor of our ill-fated dragon hunt, a visit with a former teacher who was the world’s foremost authority on dragon anatomy. Since Brokenwing was a rather badly mangled young dragon, they’d departed on their quest with understandable alacrity.
“If you like to stay informed, here are a few facts for you,” said Hookhand. “We saw eight people go into the Shattered Palace. You were part of a dragon hunt organized by Lord Tower and Father Ver.”
Infidel laughed. “Father Ver’s a truthspeaker and Lord Tower’s the most respected knight of the church. I, as my nickname implies, am a notorious infidel. A knight and a priest wouldn’t be caught dead in my company.”
“I think getting caught dead is precisely what happened,” said Hookhand. “You were disguised as some kind of mechanical woman to fool them. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. You and Zetetic betrayed the others. You’re carrying Tower’s hammer and dressed in armor that used to be worn by Ivory Blade. I didn’t see Blade go into the Shattered Palace, but I’m guessing I’d find his corpse if I went poking around.”
Blade had died a good week before we reached the dragon’s lair. But, despite the fact that his conclusions were off, Hookhand had some surprisingly good intelligence. How did he know so much?
I studied his thugs closer. In addition to Kid Black being part blood-hound, Kid Green had distinctly hawkish features, including freakishly alert eyes and feathery sideburns. Kid Blue’s overly long arms clued me in he had some monkey blood. Kid White had some jaguar in him, judging from his cat-eyes and the mottled patches in his close-cropped hair. A hound, a hawk, a monkey, and a jaguar would make damn good spies out in the jungle. By now, Kid Black, the dog-boy, and Kid White, the half-jaguar, were at opposite ends of the bar, machetes drawn. There was no way Infidel could watch both of them at once.
Infidel retained her cool as she pressed a gauntleted fist into her palm and cracked her knuckles. The sound echoed around the room. Half the gamblers abandoned their chips and headed for the door. Infidel’s brawls were sometimes hard on bystanders.
Infidel took the hammer in both hands and once more her skin went luminous. She said, “Lord Tower could fly. He had impenetrable armor made of solid prayer. If you take your accusations seriously, you might tell these children to get where I can see them. If I could kill someone like Tower, what makes you think these kids have a chance?”
“Tower wouldn’t fight dirty,” said Hookhand, snapping his fingers. The Machete Quartet lunged, but Infidel had anticipated the signal. The hammer flared to solar brightness as she shot up ten feet, snapping to a halt just beneath a broad ceiling beam. Most of the machete blows that connected hit her boots, leaving little more than scuff marks that were swiftly erased by the armor’s magic. Kid Blue, the monkey boy, reacted to Infidel’s flight by dropping his machete and hooking his long, skinny fingers into the heel of her right boot. He used his momentum to swing his legs overhead, grabbing her belt with his toes, then flipping up to grab the shaft of the hammer with both hands. Kicking into her chest, he grunted as he tried to pull the weapon from her grasp. The speed and power of the assault caught Infidel off guard and she lost her grip with her left hand, though her right hand held on.
The monkey child placed a foot on Infidel’s face as he struggled to twist the hammer away. Infidel responded by opening her mouth and sinking her pearly whites deep into Kid Blue’s heel. A shudder ran along my intangible spine. Biting the bare foot of someone who’d been walking around the docks of Commonground was the most reckless thing I’d ever seen Infidel do, and I’d watched her dive headfirst into the jaws of a dragon. But, the tactic worked. Kid Blue shrieked as he let go of the hammer, dropping back down to the floor, where he landed on his outstretched hands and somersaulted back to his feet. Nimble little devil.
But, the jaguar kid was no slouch either. With Kid Blue clear, Kid White sprang flat footed from the floor to the bar to the shelf of liquors behind, then shot toward Infidel like an arrow, with a savage swing of his machete. The chiming of the booze bottles as he kicked off caused Infidel to look over her shoulder and she spun in time to block the machete blow with the Gloryhammer. She jerked her knee up to connect a solid blow to the kid’s chin. The half-seed was stunned and fell hard, landing spine-first on the back of a wooden chair, his body folding backward at an acute angle that made me wince.
Infidel pointed the hammer toward Hookhand. Her eyes were narrow slits of murder as she shot toward him. But in her rage she either didn’t notice or didn’t care that a slender tube of bamboo had appeared in his hand. He sucked in air as he raised it to his lips. He blew so hard I thought his eye was going to pop out of his skull. A cloud of red powder caught Infidel right in the face as Hookhand dove to the side. Infidel gasped as she hit the cloud, then grunted as she slammed into the floor. Her armored shoulder took the brunt of the blow, but the impact was enough to topple chairs around the room. She bounced across the oak planks, losing her grip on the hammer. Her eyes were scrunched tightly together as she slid to a halt on her back.
As a ghost, my senses are muted, but even my nostrils burned from the cayenne cloud that hung in the air. Infidel’s face was blood-red with the pepper. She tried to breathe but her throa
t closed after the barest gasp. Even when she’d had impenetrable skin, she couldn’t have shrugged off an attack like this.
Kid Blue, the monkey child, sprang across the room and landed on Infidel’s right hand, pinning it. Kids Black and White followed suit, pinning her left arm and both legs, respectively. If she’d still been super-strong, she could have flicked them off like fleas. Now, her limbs trembled, but her weak spasms couldn’t shake them.
The Gloryhammer hung in mid-air, where it had come to rest after bouncing off the floor. Hookhand snatched it with his good hand. His eye went wide as the hammer’s power filled him. He tilted back his head and laughed. “At last! At last!”
His feet left the floor as he moved toward her. “I’ve watched a lot of machetes bounce off that pretty head of yours,” he said. “I’ve dreamed a long time about seeing your brains splattered across these planks. Considerate of you to deliver the perfect tool to get the job done.”
Hookhand continued to drift toward her, approaching at a speed fairly described as lackadaisical. Was he trying to prolong the moment? Was flight with the hammer harder than Infidel made it look? Or was Hookhand still a little afraid of her?
“Hold her tight, boys,” he said, pausing a few arm lengths away.
“She’s weak as a kitten, boss,” said Kid Black, the dog-boy who trapped her left arm beneath his knee as he ran his hairy knuckles through her hair. She twisted her head away from his fingers, still unable to open her eyes. She’d started breathing again, rapid shallow spasms that had to be filling her lungs with fire. Sweat poured off her brow and bright red snot ran from both nostrils; I couldn’t tell if this was blood or cayenne. Any normal person would have been moved to either pity or revulsion by the sight, but Kid Black was staring at her with barely disguised lust. “Such pretty hair. So soft. So pretty, pretty soft.”