“So that was a yes.”
“That was a yes. You are afraid.”
I refill his glass, my hand trembling only slightly. He notices and thinks it’s from desire, not zoladone withdrawal and sack-shriveling fear. “I’m curious, Ephraim. Why did you come back so soon? You have all the money you could ever need.”
“Can people like you and me ever have all we need?” I ask.
He smiles. “You’re insatiable. I love it. The best thing about this new world…” He waves to his trophies. “There’s always more to take. But you didn’t answer my question.” His eyes go cold and he ignores the wine I poured for him. “Come now. Answer it.”
“I want more.” I pander, praying he can’t see through this two-bit bullshit. “More than contracts. More than filling a bank account. There’s no satisfaction to it. I want more out of this life than just money.”
“And what do you think we make here?”
“After the kidnapping, I see there’s more than money at play. You make power.”
“Yes. Yes. That is a good reason to return.”
“That and to visit the kiddies,” I say with a laugh that comes out too loud.
He smiles, but watches me, the comment arousing his suspicion. Dammit, Eph, stick to the script. I glance at the ant colony.
“What do you imagine my role would be here?” I ask, deflecting.
He drinks his wine and plays a finger on the edge of his glass. “Well, you would work under me, of course. The rest would depend upon your imagination.” I look past him to the patio outside. The glass is smoked, but I see the obscured outline of his personal yacht. The keys dangle from a gold chain on his neck. There’s my exit.
“And professionally?” I ask.
He smiles. “As you have no doubt noticed, the era of the freelancer, the prowler, is coming to an end. What an era it was. So much art, so many treasures ripe for the picking. It gave birth to you. To me. But now most of the treasures are consolidated and hoarded by a small enclave of individuals. We must turn our gaze outward before we cannibalize ourselves. Find new ways to steal. That is where you would come in.” He pours himself more wine. “I will need an architect who can create new unconventional streams of income. And I think that man could be you.”
It’s going to go like this for hours, I realize. The dance is more than half the fun to a man like him. But that still won’t take the Obsidians from the room. If I ask about the children again, it might cost me my hands. And I’m not a good enough liar to keep pace with this prim courtesan. So instead, I lean back and slide my leg under the table to the inside of his right calf. “Bored now,” I say. “Let’s change topics.” He watches me, eyes sparkling. He wets his lips, small, warm breaths escaping them as I slide my foot up his leg to the inside of his thigh. I feel him harden, so I push my foot gently down, encouraging him. Then, with a sigh, I pull my foot back to its original position on the floor. “But I don’t play with an audience.”
“Hvardin, Jorlnak…” He snaps his fingers at the Obsidians and they leave the room through the double doors. The Duke smooths out his robe and moves his fingers along the controls of an audio system. The deep percussion of synth music thuds through the room like the heartbeat in my chest, but the lights stay bright. He leans back. “Come around the table.” I walk around the table, my body numb with trepidation, my gut grumbling for zoladone. He’s moved his chair back so there’s room for me. He reaches for the tie to his robe, a bright, hungry look in his eyes as I stand over him, blood thundering in my ears. The ghost of a smile plays over his lips. His slender hand runs from my knee up to my hip. The music beats faster, and I realize it’s synced to his heart rate. “Go to your knees.” I stand there looking down at his soft face and see the predatory selfishness there. It eats the beauty like a cancer. “On your knees,” he says in irritation. My heart sticks a beat, like I stand on the edge of a cliff. Time to jump.
“Nah. I’m good.”
“I said…”
I flatten my hand into a blade and lurch it forward into his nose with a locked elbow. My basic instructor would applaud the strike. The base of my palm pulverizes the bottom cartilage of his nose. Afraid of killing the Pink, I don’t use all my strength. Still, the blow rocks him back in his chair, stunning him. He reaches up to his face. I snatch up my Omnivore and point it at the door. No Obsidians come through. Knowing he must have some sort of panic device, I grab both his hands and slam them down on the table. I frisk him and pull his datapad from his pocket. I wipe blood from his face on the pad for the DNA lock and rip the keys of his ship from the chain on his neck.
“Move your hands or scream, I shoot you in the head,” I say under the music. His nose is shattered, flayed up like a pig’s. I grab it between my fingers. “Are the children here?” I squeeze. He gasps and nods. The music is throbbing now with his heart. I dial the number Holiday gave me. Her face appears in the air above the pad.
“Ephraim, where the hell have you been?”
“I’m with the Duke,” I say over the music.
“It’s been hours since you were picked up!”
“How long?”
“Four. The children…”
“They’re here. Come save my ass.”
Four hours?
“Tracking your beacon,” she says. She curses under her breath. “Eph, you’re on the far side of the moon. You’re in Endymion.”
The dread that I feel whenever I hear the name wells up in me, formless and absolute, threatening to pull me down into the darkness. I hear their screams. The whir of the laser scalpel…
“Endymion…” I whisper. While I was in the hood, we must have gone suborbital. I thought I was still in Hyperion. How did time pass so fast? “Don’t you have local assets?” I ask.
“Not to punch in there. And none that have been vetted. I’m with Team One in Hyperion. Team Two is closest to you. They’re already in the air.”
“How long?”
“Two hours.”
“Two hours,” I repeat quietly. The adrenaline killed my nausea when I struck the Duke. But it comes slithering back now, accompanied by horrifying flashes of what the Duke’s men will do to me. I can’t keep him for two hours without his men knowing. They find out I have him, they’ll move the kids or kill them, then make me wish I’d never sucked down air. Then it’s a long goodnight for Volga. I look around the room with its trophies and thudding music and I laugh. Slag it.
“What the hell is so funny?” she asks, annoyed.
“Life. Same as always.” I sigh, knowing I’m going to die, and knowing I made my peace with it hours ago. But maybe I can get the little shits out and Volga will walk free. Maybe. “If you gotta leave the field, best to do it in style, Holi.”
“Ephraim…”
“Tell those bastards to fly faster.” I force a smile. “Be seeing you.”
I close the connection. The Duke was listening and he’s recovered his senses if not his looks. “Why…”
“Where are the children?” He spits blood at me. I wipe it off my face. “Stay.” I train the Omnivore on him and fetch the bonesaw from its table. Its shape is an acute triangle. “Now, how does this work?” I toggle the switch. The teeth saw the air with a low hum. A cauterizing laser glows above the teeth.
“You rat…”
“Sorry, slick, can’t hear you. Speak up!”
“Gorgo!” The music drowns out his voice. I slap him anyway and turn up the music with his datapad so his screams won’t be heard outside the room. I come close to his ear and hold his right arm on the table. “You killed one of mine. You owe a debt, Duke.”
He looks up at me. “Kill me, and she will skin you alive. I’m a Duke of the Syndicate!”
“Where are they?” He just stares back, madness clawing out from inside his eyes. “All right. Time to collect.” I lower the bonesaw into his wrist. The saw shakes in my hand as the tiny teeth serrate flesh and bone. Blood hisses as the cauterizer burns closed the capillaries. He thrashes
and drools, screaming like my friends did all those years ago.
Being on the other end of the saw doesn’t make the screams any better. I clap a hand over his mouth.
“Shh. You weren’t meant for this sort of pain,” I say in his ear. “You feel too much. Your nerves are too raw. There’s no shame in telling me. Where are the children?”
“In the vault,” he whimpers.
“Where is the vault?”
“Two floors down…East…wing.”
“What is the combination?”
He hesitates.
“You have only one hand left, Sir Duke,” I say.
“It’s biometric.” His teeth chatter. “Voice and retinal.” Shit. I was betting everything that he’d have them nearby as part of his collection, but I gauged him wrong.
He sees me doing the mental math. “You need me.”
“You’re right about that. Anyone guarding the vault?”
“No. That’s why we have a vault.”
I let him go and he cradles his arm to his chest, whimpering in pain. “There, there,” I say. “Let me see.”
Tentatively, he shows it to me, and as I bend to look at the damage done, he lurches up at me with something long and sharp emerging from under the skin of his left hand. I twitch my head at the last moment. Blade misses my throat but goes into my face, through my cheekbone, rattling along the upper right molars and sticking into the gums. He twists it. I grunt and stumble back as he tries to pull the wrist blade out and stab me again. I grab one of the spent wine bottles and swing it at him. The bottle hits him in the right cheekbone, collapsing the frail bone. He grunts and falls down to the ground, his body heaving from shock.
I pull his blade out of my gums, hissing when it grates along the teeth and then slips out through the cheek. A subdermal blade. I hurl it to the ground and drool blood out of my mouth. The Duke is crawling away from me, his face bloody, stump on his right arm weeping blood from the charred skin.
Stupid, Eph. Stupid.
I grab him by the back of his robe and hoist him up. He’s featherlight. I shove the gun under his jaw. “You try anything again and I peel your head off at the root,” I say through the blood. “You’re going to take me to the kids. Then I’m going to leave with them and you can go back to your life. Do you understand?” He looks at me with wild eyes. I slap him in the face. “Do you understand, Duke?” He nods.
I drag the man to the door. I don’t know how I convinced myself this would go more smoothly. Can’t believe the extent of the plan was to “call in the cavalry.” Rolling in my own self-loathing, I tear off a piece of my shirt, ball it up, and stick it into my mouth against the wound. My eyes tear up. Be slick. Calm down. But I can’t stop the hammering of my heart. It feels like I’m going into cardiac arrest. Gotta move. With a finger trembling from adrenaline, I unlock and open the door. It hisses back.
The hall is empty. No sign of thorns. I stare down the barrel of my trembling Omnivore. Nothing moves after a minute. “Guess they went to get a drink,” I say with a laugh. “Never trust a crow to do a Gray’s work.” I push the Duke forward, letting him lead a little through the halls. We pass a doorway where his bodyguards are watching a race and smoking. I grind the pistol into the back of the Duke’s head in case he might call out to them, then we’re past and to the lifts. My body is pulsing with adrenaline. I press the button and wait for the lift, my bloody fingers leaving a smudge. I’m about to wipe it off when voices come from around the corner. I drag the Duke hard away from the lift to the hallway adjacent and hide around the corner just as the men come to the lift bank.
“—they say she’s coming tomorrow.”
“Not just sending the Collector?”
“Thank Jove, no. I hate that pervert. Something wrong with him down to the bone. Word is she’s coming up from Lost City in the flesh to pay the Duke a call. Something to do with the big prize he just scored.”
“I heard it was missiles.”
“Idiot. It’s not missiles. It’s a Howler.”
“It’s missiles. The Howlers have all disappeared.”
“Not all of them. Arrested a few on Mars and Earth and out on Mercury. Don’t you watch the news?”
“Why? You watch for me. What do you reckon she looks like? Big tits?”
“Obsidians don’t have tits. They have pectorals.”
“I heard she was a White—”
The lift arrives and they disappear inside. When the doors close, I drag the Duke back out. The blood is still smeared on the call button. I wipe it off as I call another. Sweat slithers down my armpits. The next lift arrives, no one inside. We enter and I press the button to carry us down. The doors take forever to close. My mouth aches with pain. The cloth is already saturated with blood. I spit it out and stick in another swab. The Duke stands quietly facing the doors.
“How do you think this ends?” he asks.
“Probably with me in a furnace,” I admit.
“They will catch you. The things they will do…”
“If I’m caught, you won’t be around to worry about me.”
“She won’t just torture you, Gray. She takes her time.” His voice has caged the madness, but its fingers work at the bars. This job was supposed to end with me dead. If it comes down to it, I’ll put the pistol in my mouth and eat iron. Better my way than theirs.
I position myself behind the Duke and the doors open. I push him out and down quiet halls. Blood drips from my chin onto the floor. We come to a set of double doors, through which, ostensibly, is the vault. “Remember, keep your head,” I tell the Duke. He makes no reply. I lean past him to open the door and push him in.
Three men lounge outside the vault, smoking burners in the windowless room. Their guns are on the table. They turn from their Karachi cards to see us and they freeze. I shut the door behind me. “Not a move or I kill him,” I say, just a little less surprised to see them than they are to see me. One twitches toward his weapon. He stops when he stares down the barrel of my Omni. They watch it like it’s the head of a snake, eyes darting to me, their guns, the Duke. “Not a move,” I say, inching forward. “Tell them to get on their bellies,” I tell the Duke.
“Get on your…” With a sudden scream, the Duke rears his head back into my nose. I hear a wet pop and see stars. Then I’m pitched sideways as the Duke throws himself onto my arm, wresting the Omnivore sideways. “Kill him!” he’s screaming. “Kill him, you fucking halfwits!”
I punch the Duke in the side of his head and wrench myself away from him so that he sprawls out in front of me. The Obsidian has picked up his railrifle and is raising it. I shoot wildly and miss. I stare down the barrel of the Obsidian’s railrifle. I shoot again. The bullet lances forward at two kilometers a second, sparks off the tip of his rifle, and carries on to take off the top half of his head. The other men grab their guns. One crouches and fires a pulseRifle. The sound consumes the room. I fall to my belly as a stream of fists of rippling translucent energy spew over my head, raining debris down on me. I fire from my belly on full auto. The bullets eat into his knee and torso, chewing half his body into a flopping, oozing mass. The last man drops his gun, surrendering.
I stand, my eardrums throbbing. The smell of ozone thick in the room. Holes from the hot metal smoke in my suit’s long tails. The last man, a Brown with tattoos consuming the left side of his face, holds up his hands. I shoot him in the chest. He flies back into the wall and drips down, his suit catching fire at the edges of the entry wound. The barrel of the Omnivore smokes, so hot I can feel it on my knuckles. Sounds come to me like I’m underwater. Numb, I haul the Duke from the ground and push him past the ruined bodies to the door as the Brown’s burning suit fills the room with smoke. My Omni has one slug left. I strip open the magazine on the dead Obsidian’s rifle and push the larger-caliber rounds into the hilt. I close the bottom and the autonomous forge heats the handle as it forms new slugs for the hungry gun.
“Open it!” I push the barrel to the back of the Duk
e’s neck, singeing his flesh.
He presses a series of commands into the door with his good hand. I’m out of my own body, numbed even to the pain of my mouth, the barbarism of the scene and what the gun in my hand did bringing back the hell of the block battles. I don’t know how far the sounds went. A scanner slides open on the huge doorframe. The Duke presses his eye to the little light. It flashes and a green positive code flickers on the door’s display.
“A murder of crows is nary a flock,” he says hoarsely. The light blinks yellow and requests he try again. He clears his throat desperately. “A murder of crows is nary a flock.”
This time it takes: a second light blinks green on the display and deep inside the door the tumblers begin to rotate and metal bars roll back. With a satisfying thunk the massive door unlocks. I edge past the Duke and haul it open. I push him through.
The inside of the vault makes me stumble.
It’s like the dragon hoards from one of Volga’s little storybooks. Mountains of cash and jewels and priceless works of stolen art fill the cavernous metal chamber. A fifteen-million-credit diadem lies errant beside a stack of Titians and Renoirs and Phillipses. A chest of Gold razors lies open; signet rings are heaped together like a child’s collection of pebbles from an ocean shore. Samurai masks and framed documents in illegible cursive and real ivory tusks and precious gems as big as duck eggs.
And amongst all this, in a cleared space on the floor, lies a cage with a single mattress inside and plates of chicken bones, a half-empty jug of water, a bucket of human waste, and the most valuable children in all the worlds.
I RUSH TO THE CHILDREN’S CAGE. A curtain of humid, urine-filled air hits me as I enter the unventilated room. Throwing the Duke down on the ground, I look through the cage to the boy and girl. The singing of my eardrums is fading. “Hello, little humans, you might remember me.”