Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  “Ow,” I say mildly, although the pain is anything but mild.

  “I enjoy your gift for understatement, Mister Snow.” He pushes down on my wrist and the pain subsides to a throb, then a tickle. He looks up at me. “This will complicate matters. You are healing extremely quickly. Granulation tissue has already started to form. When you withdraw the knives, that new tissue will tear.”

  “Yeah.” Great. Tearing tissue sounds messy, and painful.

  “If you produce dendrites at a rate similar to your fibroblast proliferation, it may be quite painful.”

  “Fuck,” Kez breathes beside me.

  I shrug my opposite shoulder. I figured that after the tearing tissue bit.

  “There will be some bleeding as well.”

  As long as it doesn’t fuck up my aim, I’m okay with that. I only have one shot anyway. “Anything life-threatening?”

  “No, it will only be capillaries, as long as you remove the blades within a few hours.”

  “Snow—” Kez begins.

  I silence her with a shake of my head. “Anythin’ else?”

  “No. Shall I do the other one?”

  I nod.

  Kez gives me the stink-eye as she and Doc Gray switch places and he sets up the sterile shield. I wait for her to settle down on my other side, before I reach out and loop my arm around her waist. She glances down at it. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “Nope.” It might once the anesthesia wears off, but for now it feels fine.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “So you’ve said. You’re givin’ me a complex.”

  She snorts. “I doubt that.”

  “Well, how ‘bout we get back to what you were talkin’ about before?”

  “The mood’s gone.” She shakes her head.

  Not for me, but maybe it’s better if she doesn’t keep on, since Doc Gray’s sitting about ten centimeters from the little monster where it’s tucked down my left pants leg. I lie back on the hard workbench and try to ignore the tugging in my left arm.

  “Do we have time to go back to my place before the meet?” Kez asks. Her expressive face is drawn. She’s worrying again. Whether it’s about what’s happening to my arm or something else, I can’t tell.

  “Sure.” I’ve left three hours for Doc Gray to implant the blades and the first one’s taken him less than a half-hour, so we’ve got a comfortable window. “How far’s the warehouse from your place?”

  “Fifteen minutes by board. Less if we take your trike.”

  “That’ll work.”

  We’re both silent for a moment. The only sound is the fizz of the sterile shield. And a faint sucking sound, which is probably Doc Gray sucking out some of the subcutaneous fat that Kez found so amusing, to make the groove for the sheath. Then Kez scoots closer, tucks her face down into my neck and wraps her arm around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my ear.

  “I’m not, kitten.” I’ll gladly save her ass any time. Particularly if she’s gonna offer it to me afterwards.

  Chapter 32

  Kison Tyng is a small, thin man. He sits in a plaz wheelchair. Bundles of tubing flare around the back of the chair like angel wings. Liquids burble quietly through the tubes. The straw yellow of lymph fluid, the darker yellow of urine, clear saline, dark blood. I could guess at what each bundle of tubing does, but I don’t have to. The whole contraption is keeping him alive, keeping him clinging to life, when otherwise whatever is slowly killing him would already have finished the job.

  Mike-the-Merc stands next to Tyng’s wheelchair. He’s in bodyguard pose, hand on wrist. I was right. He wasn’t Ass Hat’s bodyguard. He’s Tyng’s. He was there for the glands because Tyng himself needs them to stay alive.

  I bury that knowledge and give Mike blank face as Kez and I stop behind a pair of lacquered chairs positioned a few meters away from Tyng’s wheelchair in the otherwise empty warehouse.

  Tyng bows his head, first to Kez and then to me. I nod in return. Kez makes an awkward little curtsey. Play nice, be respectful. Until the moment comes when I can create the chance.

  “Miz Kerryon,” he says courteously. “Mister Snow. Please have a seat.”

  Kez sits down on the chair he indicates. Her body language is tight. Arms drawn close to her sides. As soon as she sits down, she crosses her legs. Her face, carefully scrubbed during our quick trip back to her place, is blank.

  I ignore the second chair, move behind her and rest my hands on her shoulders. If she still had her mane of dreads, they would hide my arms, and the weapons buried in them. As it is, Doc Gray’s done such a good job that I don’t need any concealment. The only telltales, the protruding edge of the hilts, are tucked under soft wrist guards. Whatever the guard at the warehouse door saw when he scanned us didn’t alarm him. Maybe the knives aren’t the only extra bones I have. If we get out of this alive, I’ll ask Doc Gray.

  Tyng folds his hands in his lap and studies us. “Miz Kerryon, I have thought on the dilemma your family presents for a very long time.”

  “Yes, Mister Tyng,” she says quietly. She’s trying to keep the strain and fear out her voice. Not quite succeeding.

  “I was most gratified when you offered me flesh for your brother’s crimes. And I have been pleased to receive Michael’s reports on the success of your runs. Although your insult to my nephew, Mister Snow, presents a fresh problem.”

  His nephew? Ass Hat. I shrug. “No means no.”

  “But did she have any right to say no, when she had agreed to give me flesh?”

  Kez bows her head. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t realize that was it.”

  “Personally, I am pleased you resisted, Miz Kerryon.” He smiles, showing small, white teeth. But it’s a predator’s smile, as much as if he’d had a mouth full of fangs. “If Kincaid or my nephew had had their way with you, I would have had to count your debt to me satisfied, in all good conscience. Now I do not.”

  Kez hunches slightly under my hands and I know what she’s thinking. If I hadn’t stopped Kincaid, he’d have raped her, but the nightmare would be over now.

  “So, back to the heart of the matter. You offered me flesh. I accepted. I asked you for two runs and you performed them admirably. You are everything I have come to expect from the reports I have received about you over the years. You are determined, clever, resourceful. Michael reports that you even display a great deal of loyalty, in your own way. I have no doubt that you would fit admirably in my organization, if that is what you choose.”

  I rub my thumb over Kez’s shoulder. The Überbitch said he might try this. “Are you offerin’ her a job?”

  “That’s one choice. Six years of service. A year for each month that her brother has defiled my daughter.”

  “Service,” Kez says. “Not a job. You want a slave.”

  Tyng watches her for a long moment, then nods.

  She stiffens under my hands and I know she’s going to tell him to fuck off. Her and her issues with authority. “What’re her other choices?” I ask before she says anything.

  “Flesh, Mister Snow. Hers or that of those she loves. Michael has prepared a very comprehensive list of possibilities. Would you care to read it?”

  I meet Mike-the-Merc’s blank, brown gaze. The likelihood of him and me finding out who’s faster, who’s stronger, jumps a notch. “Sure,” I say slowly.

  “Michael, would you kindly summarize for Mister Snow?”

  Mike-the-Merc uncrosses his hands, moves them around to his back and crosses them again. His hips rock forward slightly. What’s he doing, showing me his dick? “If she offers her own flesh, I recommend breaking her kneecaps and severing her hamstrings. Her hamstrings might be successfully reattached, but she lacks the financial means for extensive regen therapy to repair her knees and would likely be crippled.”

  Whether he’s showing dick on purpose or not, he’s excited. And pretty soon it’s not just going to be a contest of who’s faster, who’s stronger, but also who can stretch
out the dying the longest.

  “If she will not agree to her own flesh, then I recommend burning down her house. Her animals are unlikely to survive.”

  Kez makes a tiny, strangled noise. I don’t look at her, but keep my gaze steady on Mike-the-Merc.

  “Thank you, Michael,” Tyng says.

  I tilt my head to the side and watch the two of them. Calculating distance, angles.

  “Mister Snow intends to kill you,” Mike says, in the same flat voice that he delivered his report on how to destroy Kez’s soul.

  Tyng chuckles. “He is hardly the first to do so. And from his expression, or lack thereof, I would say that he intends to kill you first.”

  That’s the first thing he’s gotten wrong.

  “So, Mister Snow, those are the options,” Tyng continues. “Unless, of course, you’d like to offer me an alternative.”

  I chuckle, just as humorlessly as Tyng did a moment ago. Mike’s pitch was just the warm up. Tyng’s the closer. “Yeah, I figured this was coming.”

  “Did you? That would be remarkable of you. But you are a remarkable man, Mister Snow.” Coming from anyone else this would be a compliment. Tyng lays it out like the specs of a ship he’s looking to buy. “Or should I say, Sergeant Hauser? Sergeant Halemano Kamé Hauser.” My stomach drops like I’ve just leaped off the top of a tether. “Late of the Deep Frontier Space-Air-Water-Land forces. Even more lately of Tol Seng Penal Colony. You were quite an enigma at first, Sergeant Hauser. Even Michael failed to recognize you.” Tyng slants a dark glance at his bodyguard.

  “The difficulty,” Tyng continues, “with anonymity, is avoiding coming to the attention of those with the resources to identify you. You did so for an exceptionally long time, which is a further credit to your skills. But Kuseros is my world, and Hemos is my city, and I watch its inhabitants closely. I have to, of course, to identify potential risks to my organization. Also, I will admit, to identify native talent, such as Miz Kerryon’s. With an organization such as mine, there is a high degree of turnover. I must constantly plan for the replacement of key personnel. So when you arrived on Kuseros, I had you tested. Discreetly, of course.”

  “I remember,” I say. I swallow to get my stomach, and my nerve, back where it should be. Get on with creating the chance. That’s why I’m here. Doesn’t matter what Tyng says or does. I shift my hold on the back of Kez’s chair and lean over her, concealing the movement as I draw one of the bone knives out of my forearm. Warm wetness wraps around my wrist: blood soaking into the wrist guard. A hot needle jabs up my ulnar nerve. Doc Gray wasn’t kidding about the pain. I exhale to keep it off my face, and put it to my growl. “I failed.”

  “On the contrary, Sergeant. You passed. You asked the right questions. And when you discovered the truth of your employment, you avoided any further entanglement with my organization. You are the only one in the past several years to do so, in fact. It would have been a clever move, and protected you from further notice, under other circumstances. Under these circumstances, of course, it made you stand out from the crowd.”

  “Tough luck,” I say.

  “Indeed. Even when Miz Kerryon began showing such an interest in you, and I have been watching you, Miz Kerryon, for a very long time. Even then my network failed to identify you.” Another dark glance at Mike-the-Merc, who I’m guessing has lost a few pay-grades over the last couple of days. “Fortunately, I received a call from a . . . concerned citizen. She’d had a recent encounter with you. A very distressing encounter, I gather. It left a strong impression, and made certain connections in her mind. She is a devotee of violent entertainment, you see, and she recalled something she’d seen on wanted men. Your exploits on Tje Dhos featured prominently on this program.”

  Ma Quaak. I figured I’d be outed at some point in this fucking charade, but not by her. Feels like a blow to the solar plexus. If I walk away from this, I’m going back and having a long, sharp talk with Psycho Granny.

  “No,” Kez whispers. I stop in the middle of drawing the other knife, slide my hand around the nape of her neck. Hold her the way a mother cat holds a kitten. This stopped being her show as soon as Tyng said my real name, and became mine.

  “Once I realized who you were, Sergeant Hauser, I made enquiries. Discreetly, of course. I have no interest in exposing you. Not yet, at any rate. Your record is very interesting. You’re a killing machine. Extremely effective when unleashed. How unfortunate that those who trained you did not discover the correct mechanism to control you.”

  “Not for lack of tryin’,” I say mildly, keeping the pain of drawing the other knife out of my voice.

  “Military minds always underestimate the value of leverage. Violence is what they understand best. But you understand leverage, do you not, Sergeant?”

  I nod. He’s done a good job of getting leverage. He’s got Kez nailed down nice and tight, and from the way his dark eyes drift down to her and then back up, he’s figured out what she means to me.

  “So, Sergeant Hauser, back to my original question. Is there something you would like to offer me?”

  “Looks to me like you already got plenty of hired help.” I flick my eyes to Mike-the-Merc for emphasis, but I’m really gauging distance. Angles. Once I’m sure I’ve got them, I begin rehearsing the movements in my mind. The angle of my arms. The flick of each wrist. The amount of force to put behind each throw.

  “Ah, true. But none of them have your level of investment. As I mentioned, my organization suffers from high turnover. A problem which plagues all organizations. Training can only get you so far. Financial incentives are worthless. Some competitor can always offer more. Loyalty is illusory, easily shattered under the right pressure. No, Sergeant Hauser, it’s blood. Family. The ties that bind. And you, conveniently, have allied yourself with my blood.”

  His statement wipes all calculation of how to kill him out of my mind. There’s a long moment during which Kez and I both try to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about. Kez gets there a second before I do. “But Chi wants nothing to do with you.”

  Tyng snorts delicately. “What does it matter what Chiara Mae wants? It’s what she will do to protect those she loves. Her family. Your brother. What she can be compelled to do. Just as I can compel you by threatening your brother, and Sergeant Hauser by threatening you.” A slow, satisfied smile spreads across Tyng’s skeletal face. “Chiara Mae will succeed me. You, Miz Kerryon, with your contacts throughout Kuseros, will assist her in promoting my family’s business interests. And you, Sergeant Hauser, will protect them both. That is the flesh I require.”

  “You got it tied up nice and tight, don’t you?” I ask, focusing again on angles and distance and force. I begin moving into position, sliding my hands down Kez’s arms, holding the bone blades between us. I feel her trembling under my hands, whether it’s with fury or fear, I don’t know. Probably both.

  “An example to you, Sergeant Hauser. Remember this, in the months and years to come. This was not my first succession plan, or even my second. But I saw the possibility months ago. All that was required was that the bond between you and Miz Kerryon be sufficiently cemented, which it has under the trying circumstances of the last several days. That your competition within my organization be neutralized, which Miz Kerryon’s sister has finally accomplished. And that I survived to this moment, which you have facilitated as well, for which I thank you.”

  “No, no.” Kez starts shaking her head, muttering under her breath. “This wasn’t all a set-up.”

  “Of course not,” Tyng says, proving his hearing hasn’t been affected by his illness. “It was an exploitation of circumstances. Far more powerful. A lesson to you, Miz Kerryon. You need not twist those around you. Leave them to their own devices. Their natural weaknesses will give you the keys to control them. You, for example. I could have brought you under my thumb at any time. Your brother is one key. Your sister another. And your addict friend, yet another. Why would I ever need do something so crude as set you up? I
have held the keys to control you for a long time.”

  I clamp down on Kez’s arms to keep her from launching herself out of her chair at Tyng. She twists against my hands, her breath coming in sharp bursts of anger and frustration.

  Tyng looks up at me slowly. The roll of a predator’s eyes right before the kill. “I believe our business is concluded.”

  “Not if I tell you to go fuck yourself.”

  Tyng chuckles dryly. “That would be most unwise. Miz Kerryon still owes me flesh, which I will collect, one way or another. Acquiescing will spare Miz Kerryon a great deal of pain.” He taps his fingertips against his chin. “You might also consider the benefits of my offer. I have no illusions about my daughter’s abilities. The two of you will control my organization. That you have no love for the business will make you better stewards of my family’s interests. And, finally, I suggest that you consider inevitability.”

  “There’s nothing inevitable here except your death,” I growl.

  “On that, Sergeant, we are in complete agreement. As I have allowed you to learn, I am dying. Today, tomorrow, or next year, it makes no difference. I am going to die.” He waves his hand and I see I was right. Erin did pick up that gesture from him. “The inevitability of my death has become yet another problem of corporate turnover. Sergeant, you know what will happen on my death. You warned Miz Agosante to flee to avoid its repercussions. Wise counsel, which I am sorry to say she hasn’t heeded. But then, she lacks her sister’s humility.”

  I don’t need Tyng to spell out what will happen on his death. His enemies won’t just target the higher-ups in his empire like Erin. They’ll go after his family. And after Kez’s, since Baby Tyng is now part of it. This isn’t about revenge, or at least, it’s not all about revenge. It’s about something far more powerful.

  I lean down and kiss the top of Kez’s head. “A man can be measured by how he cares for his women,” I say, repeating Acker’s phrase.