by Sam Ryder
The first guy heard the sound and managed to stop, somewhat off-balance.
I shot him in the kneecap and he howled, falling to one knee and then toppling the rest of the way over. I strode over and stepped on his bloody leg, gaining another squeal of agony. “Today, you can live so you can deliver a message to your boss. Tell him I’m coming for him.”
I kicked him in the face and then turned away.
When I reentered the marketplace, no one so much as looked in my direction. The clamor of the high-traffic area had hidden my lone gunshot. I turned right and hugged the edge of the buildings, eventually finding my way out of the area, sticking to the shadows between the torches and lanterns, which became less frequent the further from the market I got. I didn’t know which direction the women had gone, but I was trusting their own instincts to be aligned with mine. It turned out my trust was well placed.
Just as I passed an entrance to another dark side street, a voice hissed, “Cutter!”
I glanced up and down the street, which was empty once more. I backed into the shadows. “Were you followed?” Hannah asked, her presence comforting as I felt her warmth at my side. She was safe. They both were, though Gehn was crouching, looking bad.
“Elias’s men are hunting us,” I said. “He’s being paid too much to walk away from this one.”
“Is that all he said to you?” Hannah asked.
It didn’t feel like the time nor place to mention what he’d said about Gehn. “Pretty much. Once we find a place to hunker down I’ll tell you all the gory details.”
“Do you know which side paid him?” Gehn managed to ask, rather breathlessly.
“He confirmed it was the Rising,” I replied. “Assuming I can trust anything he says.”
“You can’t,” Hannah said. “He lies as easily as he breathes.”
I figured as much, but to hear her say it nailed the point home. “Right. Trust nothing from Elias. Got it,” I said. “Now, back to business. Should we find a place to stay the night, or should we search for the dream reader?” I preferred to continue going, but I didn’t want to make the call given the state Gehn was in.
Hannah deferred to Gehn too. Gehn took a deep breath and fought to her feet. “I prefer to search while it’s dark. The market will close soon and then we can search in peace.”
“Good.” I liked that answer and the calm logic in which she’d come to it. In another life, I suspected she would’ve been recruited by the Guild to be a First too.
Hannah said, “I still know people here. People that are technically in the Rising, but not really a part of it, if that makes sense.”
It did. But I still had to confirm. “You can trust them?”
“Maybe not all of them. But this one person, yes. He’s solid. His name’s Dirk.”
“Dirk?” I said, trying not to laugh. “Is his last name Diggler by any chance?”
She looked at me quizzically. “No. Smith actually. Why?”
“Never mind. If you think he can help us, then let’s find him.”
“Good. Just as a head’s up…Dirk knows Atticus.”
“Wait…what? You mean, like, the Atticus?”
“Uh…yeah. Is that a problem?”
Atticus was the leader of The Rising—basically the king of Rome. I had never met the man, but I heard stories. He was brutal. A small, well-dressed, well-groomed little man with an easygoing and charming public persona but a short-tempered tyrant behind closed doors. He beat people who disagreed with him. Or worse, they vanished without a trace. Atticus was not someone to mess with.
And yet that was sort of our ultimate plan, though we hadn’t thought that far ahead. We needed to mess with the dude in a very big way. “As long as you’re sure this Dirk Diggler guy won’t hand us over to his buddy, Atticus,” I said.
“I can be persuasive,” Hannah said simply.
I didn’t doubt that. Hannah’s hips alone could sway a man’s opinion. Everything she did could persuade.
Hell, the fact I was standing there with a First was proof of that.
“Okay, I’m in,” I said.
We picked our way through the city, avoiding the well-lighted main streets that had led to the marketplace I’d seen Elias, making our way toward the city center. In the middle of the city was a large, two-story building with lots of windows. During the daytime it would likely glisten with sunlight, but in the dark it looked like a sleek, slumbering monster.
“Atticus’s stronghold,” Hannah explained. “Notice there are no buildings anywhere near it. No shadows cast down on it. Atticus believes that the sun never sets on his power, so he had a fortress built to reflect that.”
What an asshole.
“Where is Dirk?” I asked.
Hannah grinned, like she knew the punchline to a good joke. “He lives in their too.”
“What the fuck?” I said, unable to hold back. “Are you serious? We can’t exactly just waltz up and ring the doorbell and say, ‘Hey, we’re the freakshow trio everyone has been talking about. Can Dirk come out and play and commit treason with us?’”
“Do you trust me?” Hannah asked, taking me by surprise.
It was a question I’d been thinking about ever since the guy at the last oasis called Hannah’s trustworthiness into question simply because she was a First, or used to be one and still happened to wear the bracelet. Meeting her eyes, however, I had to trust my instincts. “I do,” I said. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.”
She nodded and I could see what it meant to her. We approached the fortress slowly, clinging to the cover of the night shadows. Gehn looked like she was ready to puke with nervousness, although I now knew it was a sign of fear at what she might do if her back ended up against the wall. Before we got too close, I pulled both women aside.
I turned to Gehn. “What are you feeling?”
Her pale white face created a lighter circle in the darkness. “I sense danger, but it’s not imminent. I think I would feel this way in Rome no matter what the situation.”
I nodded my thanks at her honesty. I’d trusted Gehn so far. If Gehn felt confident enough, then we were probably as safe as we could be in this snake pit.
“Wait here,” I said to Chuck and he sat on his haunches in the shadows. I hated leaving him, but entering with a dog at our heels would only make us stand out even more.
Chapter 29
Dirk
I held my breath as we entered the Rising fortress. I immediately realized why Hannah wasn’t worried about walking straight through the front door. There were no armed guards, no barriers, no security at all. Locked doors did the trick. I guessed it was Atticus making a statement that he was untouchable. It was so damn pretentious, I could feel my blood boil. A big, sweeping lobby greeted us when we walked through the doors. A front desk with a single employee sitting calmly in a chair awaited us. It was a young, attractive woman with shiny black hair pulled severely into a bun. Narrow glasses adorned her face, which was highlighted by high cheekbones dusted with pink blush and primly painted lips. She gave off that whole hot-librarian vibe and I almost felt like I was having a weird dream about a bachelor’s party where she was about to start stripping. If only. There was no such thing as bachelor’s parties anymore.
Hannah led the way forward. She deliberately waved at the employee, holding her wrist up so that she could easily see the bracelet.
“How are you doing?” I whispered to Gehn.
“Okay,” she replied tentatively. “I just want to get in and get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“You and me both,” I said.
Hannah stopped in front of the desk and we held back, half-hiding behind her. Not out of fear, but to ensure the employee didn’t get a good look at our bare wrists. “I have an appointment with Dirk,” she said.
The employee blinked, taken by surprise but barely showing it. “Hmm, this late? I don’t think…” She ran her fingers across a book with notes scribbled in it. “No, there’s nothing here about it.
”
Hannah leaned closer to the woman and said something so softly I couldn’t make it out.
“Oh, yes, Miss Lace, my apologies. Right this way. Your friends are coming too?”
“Yes, they are part of the package,” Hannah confirmed.
Package? I mouthed to her but she shook the question off, following the woman, who’d left her position behind the desk and led us to one of two doors that exited the lobby. The woman had legs for days, accentuated by short skirt that only fell halfway down her thighs, and black stiletto heels that sculpted her calves. It was obvious: Atticus liked beautiful women in his employ. She raised a key, pressed it into the lock and turned. The door opened without a creak, well-oiled. Two guards stood behind it, staring out with frowns. So that explains the lack of security in the lobby, I thought. Clever. It was all for appearances. With one scream by the front-desk employee, I was guessing dozens of guards would pour into the lobby and take care of business.
“Do you know which room?” the woman asked as she gestured us through the door.
“Of course,” Hannah said, like it was the dumbest question in the world. The guards stepped aside for her and we passed between them. I noticed their knuckles whiten as they gripped their weapons harder, but they didn’t make a move to stop us, though I could see their eyes roaming up and down our bodies, lingering on our weapons. Gehn clutched my arm tightly, leaving fingerprints in my skin.
When we were well past them and halfway down the hallway, I hissed to Hannah, “What did you tell that employee?”
Hannah smirked. “That Dirk hired us for the night.” I cocked my head to the side, a little slow on the uptake. Hannah explained. “Let’s just say that though Dirk is a good guy, he also has certain fetishes. He swings in all kinds of ways.”
Oh boy. What am I getting myself into? I wondered. Still, it had gotten us through the door, so that had to count for something.
Hannah continued her methodical pace down the hall, the guards’ stares burning into us from behind. Eventually, we reached the end of the hall, where a door stood ajar on the right, almost as if we were expected. Hannah knocked hard enough that the door pushed open.
A man looked back from where he was lounging on a couch. His gray eyes immediately lit up. “Hannah?” He stood, which made his body go up and up and up. The dude was tall and broad, at least six-five, two-fifty. His hands were Christmas hams that looked like they could crush stone. He wore a thick beard on his chin and cheeks that gave him a distinctly lumberjack appearance. He was shirtless, his muscles bulging in places I didn’t even know muscles existed. “I thought…I thought you might be dead,” he said as he approached.
Hannah embraced him in a tight hug, her arms not able to reach all the way around him. Her head didn’t even reach his chest. Holy shit, this guy’s huge, I thought.
“These are my friends Gehn and Cutter,” she said, pointing to each of us. I found it interesting that she trusted this guy but not enough to reveal that Gehn was her sister. And yet she supposedly knew him fairly well?
He extended his hand to shake. I hesitated for a second, but then accepted his hand. Not surprisingly, he had a firm grip, and yet he offered a warm demeanor. To Gehn, he bowed slightly. She blushed. Damn, a real charmer, I thought. “It’s nice to meet you both,” he said. “Any friend of Hannah is a friend of mine.”
Hannah flashed us a quick, knowing smile. So far, so good.
Dirk reached past us and closed the door, which I appreciated. He was being discrete.
“How’d you get past Nina?” Dirk asked.
“I told her we were here to fuck your brains out,” Hannah said.
Dirk slapped his knees, laughing boisterously. “Shit, you know me too well. I do like my appetites of the flesh. Are you making an offer?”
Oh…crap.
“You wish,” Hannah said. “But we’re more than even you can handle.”
“Try me.”
I was quickly tiring of their flirty conversation but I also trusted Hannah to say the right things to this massive dude. If she needed to push a few of his buttons, so be it.
“Maybe next time,” she said. “The truth is, we’re looking for someone,” she said. “Someone we think is in Rome.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. There aren’t many squatters in this city I don’t know about. But don’t I get an update first? Like where the hell you’ve been for all these months? Last I saw you, you were glued to Elias’s hip.” I didn’t like the imagery, but kept my mouth shut. I figured I didn’t have much to offer that would help our situation at this point.
“It’s a long story,” Hannah said.
“We’ve got all night, baby,” Dirk said. God, this guy really is a flirt.
“Actually, we don’t,” Hannah said. “It’s somewhat urgent. Lives may depend on it.”
Dirk’s demeanor changed in an instant, suddenly becoming deadly serious. “Whose lives?”
“Ours, for one. And the lives of thousands of Enders across the Ends.”
He eyed the door, gesturing for us to move away from it, as if it might have ears. We moved inside. Dirk took up residence in a large easy chair while Hannah and Gehn sat on the broad couch. I took a wooden chair that looked sturdy but not too comfortable. I wanted to be ready to move if necessary.
“Tell me what’s happening,” Dirk said once we were settled.
“Gehn here has been having dreams,” Hannah said, as if that explained everything.
“Holy…” Dirk said, seeming to get some hidden message right away. “She’s an Ender?”
Hannah nodded. My hand went to my weapon, but Dirk waved me off. “Don’t worry about me, fella. I’m one of the good guys.”
“Interesting company you keep then,” I said, finally speaking.
“You know what they say about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Interesting. If he was being honest, then he was an amazing spy. The question was, however, what were his motives? Still, I shifted my hand away from my weapon and the slight bit of tension in the room eased.
“Tell me about these dreams,” Dirk said, turning to face Gehn.
She shifted, looking uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “They’re hard to describe, but they led us to Cutter here,” she said. “It’s like I can see the future? Or a possible future? I’m not sure. Only that the three of us needed to travel to room to locate a dream reader.”
“Ahh,” Dirk said, his exclamation coming out in a low rumble. “You’re looking for Lydia. She’s been gaining quite the reputation as of late. People are saying she’s a clairvoyant.”
“How do we find her?” Hannah asked.
“She’s not far. Two blocks west. A single story, white-washed building. You’ll know her door because she has a beautiful red rose plant growing from a pot in front. Can’t miss it.”
“Thank you, Dirk,” Hannah said, standing. I guess the visit was over already. “Are you safe here?”
“Don’t worry about me, gorgeous,” he said, also standing. Once more, they embraced. “When the time is right, know that I’m with you.”
Hannah nodded. Although it felt strange that this man had managed to play ally to the Rising when really he was a traitor all this time, it was a good feeling knowing a gargantuan like him was on our side.
Still, I didn’t fully relax until we were past the guards and out of the lobby with the supermodel assistant well behind us. “That was quick,” the woman called to us as we pushed through the doors.
“I’m good at what I do,” Hannah replied over her shoulder, using that same flirty voice. God, she could be tantalizing when she wanted to be.
The courtyard was even darker than before. The torches that had limned the area had been extinguished by some Rising employee while we’d been meeting with Dirk. Everything was still and quiet. I gazed at the sky to get my bearings, the stars glittering in a cloudless firmament. It was unnecessary, because this was Hannah and Gehn’s turf, and both
women immediately led me in the direction that must’ve been west. I called for Chuck, but he was already loping in my direction, tail going nuts. He licked my hand as I stroked his neck fur. As usual, he was acting as if he hadn’t seen me in a year, rather than just a very short half-hour or so. Dogs are the best.
A few minutes later, we stood in front of a small building matching the description Dirk had offered. Sure enough, a large white pot flanked the door, red roses sprouting from the dirt. Without hesitation, Hannah walked up to the front door and knocked. A few minutes passed with no response. Was she out or just sleeping?
Hannah knocked again, louder this time. In the silence, it sounded like gunshots echoing off the buildings. This time, we heard footsteps inside. The door opened.
A little old lady stood before us, looking completely unperturbed to find a strange trio such as ours standing on her doorstep in the dead of night. “Lydia has been expecting you,” the woman said. “Right this way.”
The fuck?
The three of us exchanged a look, but then followed her inside. A staircase led downward, and she gestured to it. “Lydia is waiting for you.”
“How do you feel about blindly walking into a stranger’s basement?” I asked Gehn.
“The logical part of my brain is telling me to run away screaming,” she whispered. “But my stomach is not turning. We’re okay here.” That was good.
We descended the stairs. A door painted with roses stood at the bottom. The stems were full of thorns which seemed to be dripping a wet substance that could only be blood. It was freaky. Hannah raised an eyebrow but then lifted a hand to knock on the door. Before she could, it creaked open. That might not be strange, except there was no one on the other side to have opened it. Double freaky.
I was done with Hannah leading us. If something was on the other side that meant us harm, I was going to take the hit. I stepped through quickly, hand ready to draw my firearm.
It was unnecessary.
We entered a stark room with moonlight streaming in through a high, ground-level window near the ceiling. A young woman about Hannah’s age sat on a gray mat. She was reading a book, with dozens of other books stacked around her.