By a Thread

by Nyna Queen

  The blond giant, still bleeding from his mouth, bent down and broke a leg from a chair, brandishing it like a club. He must have a head of stone to be up after that kick. It would have knocked most men out, but he didn’t seem too worse for wear. Didn’t even sway on his feet.

  Magic tugged on her. She threw a glance over her shoulder and almost lost her head as Blondie swung his club at her. She danced backward, light on her feet. A little to the side, another merc with a black ponytail and a silver hoop in one of his ears, was holding a blood red crystal between his hands, chanting something under his breath. A floris incendi—a fire flower. She’d seen a picture once. High-grade military weapon, close-combat, without a wide range of destruction. Full of surprises, weren’t they?

  The crystal started to glow a deep crimson. Oh no, you don’t. Alex hammered a kick into the chest of the blond man that broke at least a few ribs and made him crash into a table and darted over to the enchanter. His eyes were luminescent with a feverish purple glow. A sneering grin spread on his face. It died, when she punched her claws into his chest.

  The chant ended abruptly, replaced by a gurgling sound from his throat, as red foam bubbled up at the corner of his mouth. The magic object slid from his fingers and landed on the floor, where it burst into tiny shards that sparked like little fireworks and then crumbed into powder and scattered. The strong smell of burned incense pinched her nose.

  She ripped her claws out of his chest and his prone body toppled to the floor, twitching.

  There was movement behind her and she ducked on instinct. Something whooshed over her head. When she came up, she felt the reversed airflow. Ah, shit!

  She jumped up into the air. Not quick enough. Blondie’s club slammed into her side. She hit the wall with enough force to make her woozy. The giant planted himself before her, spitting a dark clump of blood through the gap in his teeth. Sweet Jester, couldn’t this one die at all?

  The club raced toward her face. Alex moved in the last moment, dropping to her knees and delivering a punch to his groin. A high, strangled sound, like that of an unoiled door, issued from his mouth and he doubled over, dropping the club and clutching his nether regions.

  You didn’t really think I’d fight fair, did you?

  Alex jumped onto his shoulders and grabbed his head, twisting. A nasty crack announced the breaking of his neck and they went down together. Alex let go of him before they hit the floor and rolled up like a cat, bloody fangs bared in a vicious snarl, ready to dodge the next attack.

  But none came.

  Five lifeless bodies littered the Jester’s taproom, one or two of them still twitching softly in their final throes.

  There was this tiny moment of shocked silence in the bar, when you could hear a pin drop fall, then the panic broke loose: people started to scream and run, heedlessly bumping into the tables and each other, as they shoved for the door in a pile of panicked feet

  An older man with a gray fringe of hair in stained overalls received an elbow in the face a couple of yards left from her and went down, vanishing from her view. Others just trampled over him in their mindless frenzy to reach the exit.

  Alex rose fluidly. Now that the immediate thrill of the fight left, the metallic taste of blood in her mouth was turning bitter. She spat to the side and ripped a piece of cloth from her torn apron, wiping her bloody lips, while letting her gaze roam through the room trying to locate the children in the chaos.

  There. Still in the same place, two immovable islands in the churning sea of chaos around them. Nobody paid them any attention, all too keen on saving their own hide. Well, that was the Bin for you. Every man for himself.

  Suddenly the boy jerked as if shocked with a wire, a tremble shaking his whole body up from his toes. His head snapped to the back, his spine arched as if he was having a fit and his eyes stared at the ceiling, vacant, as if he was seeing into a far distance. His lips moved. Above the turmoil, Alex only heard fragmented words.

  “… rift … open … will … more.”

  More? More was bad. More was shit.

  She’d been able to handle these guys, but she’d had surprise on her side. No way she’d be that lucky again. She wasn’t so arrogant to think she could take on countless numbers of trueborns by herself, and with those dead trueborn thugs in the field, it was only a question of time until the cavalry showed up. There would be a hell of a lot to explain and she didn’t see any scenario in which that would possibly go out in her favor.

  The boy went limp. With a sigh, his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumbled down. Alex cursed and moved with shaper speed, materializing beside him on one knee and catching him before his head hit the floor. She looked down on his face. Slack. Passed out. Just great!

  Alex whipped around to the girl, who stared at her from eyes so wide they reminded her of a panicked horse.

  “How many more?” She pressed. “Why are they after you? What do they want?”

  No answer.

  “Hey!” Alex snapped her fingers in front of her face. No reaction. The girl didn’t blink, just kept staring from those huge frightened eyes. Her breath came in short shallow heaves. Alex touched her hand. The pale skin was cold and clammy. Shock, most likely. The mind locking down in self-defense, unable to process what was going on around it.

  In the distance, the telltale wail of sirens announced the incoming forces of halfborn Peace Officers. Now that was fast. The station wasn’t that far, but still. Someone must have alerted them before the last of the trueborn would-be-guardaí had stopped breathing.

  Now what? Whoever was after these kids, he was dead serious. Shooting at them in public, that was some announcement. Even in the Bin certain things simply weren’t done, and butchering children in plain daylight was one of them. Those people probably wouldn’t back down because the halfborn PO made its appearance.

  Her eyes wandered to the dead bodies of the guardaí-impostors. For all she knew, more of them could pop up any second and even a dozen POs with automatic weapons were no match for a trueborn combat unit who really wanted their hands on these kids. This would end in an even bigger slaughter than it already was.

  Get your ass away, sugar, as long as you still can!

  The sirens screamed, getting louder quickly. Alex hesitated. Glanced at the kids.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake …

  Alex bent down, hauled the boy’s limp form over her shoulder and grabbed the girl’s sleeve, pulling her with her. The kid stumbled after her like a sleepwalker. She maneuvered them right into the thick of people still streaming for the exit, adding her own pressure onto the bottleneck. Some of them turned to protest, but when they realized who was behind them, the words got stuck in their throats. One look at her true eyes was enough incentive for them to back off. It resulted in people pushing to the sides, opening space for her that helped her getting faster to the exit.

  Nice. She’d remember this as being very handy if she ever again didn't feel like waiting at the end of a long queue in a supermarket.

  There was a bit of a to and fro, when people couldn’t decide what they wanted more: to get out of the deathtrap the Jester had become or to keep their distance from her. Since others kept pressing from behind, there wasn’t much of a choice. They were swallowed by the mob and spit out into the gray afternoon street.

  Like the day before, the sky was overcast with smoldering clouds and despite it being barely past three, it already felt like early evening. Dense fog wafted through the alley in thick billows, the strong smell of rotten fish almost turning Alex’s stomach.

  People were scattering quickly, but some were piling up in groups, sticking their heads together and chatting agitatedly. Oh, the gossip would be spectacular, no doubt. Shapers, gunfire, and dead people—that should keep the neighborhood busy for weeks. A few of them noticed her and the kids and a couple of hands pointed in their direction, but nobody made a move to stop her. Well, after what she’d done to those trueborn suckers inside the bar that was hardly s
urprising.

  The sirens were still growing louder, their shrill wail pummeling her eardrums. The POs must be right around the corner.

  Adjusting the weight on her shoulder and reinforcing her grip on the girl’s sleeve, Alex turned left and headed up the misty alley at a swift pace. It wasn’t her direction, but if people were asked where they had gone they’d point the officers north instead of south, where she really intended to go.

  After a couple of steps, a blue light flashed through the mist behind her. Damn it! Dropping any kind of pretense, Alex dove into the first side street and broke into a run, pulling the dazed girl with her. The kid half-ran, half-stumbled beside her on stocky legs, while the boy’s dead weight wobbled up and down on her shoulder, bumping against her back.

  There was a low rumble like distant thunder and the pavement trembled beneath her feet; the end of yet another magical impact rattling the Jester. So, the “more” had finally arrived, it seemed. No time wasted. They really weren’t kidding.

  Alex pushed even harder, increasing her stride, supporting most of the girl’s weight, who could barely keep up with her. They rushed through the maze of little side streets and shady alleyways. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right.

  It wasn’t the shortest route to her apartment, but this way they would be harder to track.

  At an intersection, Alex halted in the cover of a graffiti-covered stone wall and caught her breath. She pressed a hand to her side. Her skin was on fire, where the poisoned knife had cut her. She knew her body was already burning through the poison, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like a wicked bitch.

  The boy squirmed a little on her shoulder, his bony knees digging into her clavicle. She checked him. Yep, still out. Alex let go of the girl’s sleeve and set him down, carefully propping him against the wall, relieved to rid herself of the additional weight. The kid wasn’t heavy—probably less than seventy pounds soaking wet—but his unconsciousness made him about as manageable as a sack of potatoes. A huge sack of potatoes. Except that a potato sack wouldn’t mind if she accidentally banged it against a wall or jut.

  Bracing her left hand against the wall, Alex preened around the corner, summoning her threads toward her and gently casting them outward like an invisible web, sensing, listening. Immediately, sensations flooded her, giving her a mental image of their surroundings, much like a sonar shortly illuminating the darkness within her mind: a baby screaming. Water streaming from a drainpipe close by into the canalization, its thick drops splashing against a heavy iron gully. The rough bark of a dog, strangely hollow through the mist. And steps. Many steps. Heavy boots, running, sending tiny vibrations through the cobbled stone streets, hitting the ground in a distinct rhythm.

  Her threads picked them all up, sending them into her spider-core, where they were interpreted. She quickly recognized a certain pattern of steps moving in the same directions: they were searching the area in groups of about two to three moving in wide circles, closing in from the outside in a kind of dragnet tactic. A good tactic, that prevented little rats from slipping through their mashes. Well, she wasn’t a rat. She was a spider and she didn’t intend to get caught in their net.

  None of them were too close yet. Which didn’t mean they were safe out here. They had to keep moving.

  Alex withdrew her threads and the world shrunk back to the spot below the moldy stone wall. When she turned around to the children, she was faced with two pairs of huge brown eyes. Very conscious brown eyes. Ah, welcome back among the living.

  They stared at her. Alex raised a finger to her lips, just in case, although that hardly seemed necessary; they looked so rigid with fear they probably couldn’t have made a noise if they wanted to.

  “They are searching for you,” she whispered. “We have to move. Come. Follow me.”

  They didn’t move. Really, a stone would have given her more reaction than these two. Alex almost rolled her eyes. Without further ado, she grabbed both of them by their arms and pulled them with her. They stumbled along, either because they were still too much in shock to resist or because they finally got the gravity of the situation. It didn’t really matter at the moment. All that mattered was getting away. And quickly.

  Dirty buildings replaced one another as they pelted through tiny passages and slink ways, the soles of their shoes slapping the soggy asphalt. The mist cut the world into small, isolated pockets of silence, sucking up most of the sound they were making. Well, who’d have thought she’d once be thankful for its smelly wet embrace?

  An underpass loomed in front of them like a dark, gaping maw. The strong stench of piss greeted them as they drew closer. The Bin was truly keen on giving them a guided tour that left nothing to be desired. Usually, she’d give such a place a wide berth, but today she couldn’t be picky. She hauled the reluctant kids forward and the tunnel swallowed them in damp darkness.

  This must be what it feels like to be digested in someone’s gut, Alex thought, repulsed, gaining more speed. At the other end of the tunnel, the exit winked at them like a silver coin, promising fresh air.

  Their steps echoed along the concrete wall, incredibly loud in Alex’s sensitive ears. The end of the underpass quickly grew and they were almost out, eager for a clean breath, when Alex heard male voices. She stopped dead in her tracks. One of the children, surprised by her abrupt stop, bumped into her. A sound of protest rose, but Alex dashed around, pushing them both against the wall.

  “Shhhh!”

  They froze, becoming rigid again, like two stone statues, eyes wide, hearts beating with such a force that Alex was almost sure it could be heard atop the passage.

  She listened. Steps. Very close. At least two pairs. They must be right above them, perhaps standing directly at the railing looking down at the heap of litter just outside the underpass, where someone had dumped half of his household: empty food packages, bottles, dented cans, a gutted armchair, and a perfectly round car tire—why ever somebody had wanted to get rid of that.

  “… have to be out here somewhere,” a rough, slightly accented male voice growled. It sounded so close, Alex’s heart made a flip. If she closed her eyes, he could be standing right next to them. “Two children of their ilk cannot just vanish into thin air!”

  Beside her, the girl started to tremble, but to her credit, she kept quiet.

  “Relax, Cutter,” replied a baritone voice. “Just a matter of time. They won’t be able to hide out here long. And if they come out …”

  The first grunted. “But what if the halfborn popo’ seizes them first?” Province of Salisburgh, definitely. Her coworker, John, was from up there and she’d recognize the accent anywhere.

  “Afraid of their little toys, Cutter?” Predatory amusement tinged the deep gravel grinder voice. Alex imagined a huge muscle-head of a man. Perhaps he was flexing his biceps right now.

  Someone hacked up something and spat; a wet clump hit the ground only inches from where Alex’s feet were resting. Yummy. Mercenaries in all their glory.

  “Don’t try to bugger me! I don’t give a shit about their popguns but roughing up the halfborn fuzz wasn’t part of the deal. This was supposed to be an easy ride, fast in, fast out. No unnecessary complications. This is getting too hot. I’m not gonna risk me neck just because someone else doesn’t wanna get his hands dirty.”

  “You know how this works, Cutter,” said the deep voice sharply. “They ask, we deliver. And if somebody pisses on our parade, we pour it down his throat and make sure he suffocates on it.” The tone of his voice made it clear that he was going to enjoy it, too.

  Someone shifted on his feet. Alex almost smelled unease despite the stench rising from the dark puddles that slicked the floor around her. Cutter was worried about something, and she didn’t have to wait long to find out about what.

  “Did you see what happened to Santino and his crew? That’s messed up, man! Tis just not worth the pay.”

  A slight growl entered the other voice. “The pay’s good and you know it.”r />
  He must be in charge, or at least the dominant of the two because Cutter didn’t object. There was a moment of silence, before the same voice said, softly, “and we’ll end up just the same way if we come back empty handed.”

  So, someone had them by their balls and was playing ping-pong. Interesting. The steps started to move away from above them.

  “Get the boss on the coms,” the baritone voice ordered. There was a clang, the mad screeching of a cat, a thud, and then Cutter cursed. “Fuck this bloody shithole!”

  You can say that again, Alex thought, while their voices faded away with their steps, until the only sound left was the heavy breathing of the children that filled the silence in the tunnel. They were pressed against the wall, two small pale shapes in the gloom of the underpass. If they had looked scared before, they now were terrified.

  “They are gone,” Alex said softly. She motioned them forward. “This way.”

  Now she didn’t have to pull them along anymore. They were running beside her as if death was at their heels, and that wasn’t so wrong either.

  She led them west. It was a part of the Bin’s treacherous maze she’d never been to before, but her sense of direction told her they were circling around right. And, indeed, a couple of minutes later they burst out of a passageway and right into her hood. Familiar dark windows in whitewashed walls watched them suspiciously as they bolted down the street. Alex herded the kids into the inner yard to her apartment and toward the fireladder. Both of them faltered at the daunting sight of the metal mess that aspired to be a staircase, casting it uncertain glances.

  “Up. Up. Up!” Alex chased them onto the staircase and flinched as they clomped up the metal steps with enough noise to let the whole neighborhood know where they were.