The Starter

  “You no fight heah!” Chucky Chong screamed. “You go now!”

  Jesper Schultz rushed at Quentin. Quentin side-stepped the big HeavyG’s swing, then brought his own fist around in an overhand right that caught Schultz on the left cheek. Pain shot through Quentin’s hand. It seemed to hurt him more than the HeavyG, who turned and swung a backhand left that caught Quentin in the mouth and threw him backward. He crashed through a table and landed on his back amidst broken wood and plastic, looking up at the pair of Sklorno dressed in all black.

  “Quentin Barnes eats dinner with us!” the one on the left screamed. The one on the right simply sagged in her seat, shaking in rapture. Great, he’d been recognized.

  A massive hand grabbed his foot and yanked him out from the wreckage. Now he found himself looking up at the HeavyG.

  “No red jersey for you here, you pansy quarterback,” the enormous Schultz said as he cranked his fist back to deliver a crushing blow. A blow he never landed, because Rebecca Montagne dove in at top speed and put her shoulder into Schultz’s exposed ribs. Quentin heard a crack and a deep cry of pain from the man. Schultz stumbled and sagged. Rebecca landed on top of him, then started kneeing him in the face.

  Quentin saw that Ju Tweedy was just standing there, smiling, watching it all go down.

  “Ju is in there!”

  That voice came from outside the diner, and Quentin recognized it — Jake Bible.

  Quentin looked past the brawl, out the door. He didn’t need to recognize individual sentients to know gangster enforcers when he saw them. Two Humans, a HeavyG, and three Quyth Warriors, all dressed in expensive clothes, rushing across the street toward the diner, and all holding something in their hands.

  Jake Bible had sold them out to Villani’s goons.

  “Krakens!” Quentin screamed. “Back door, now!”

  “Don’t you dare,” the flapping Creterakian said. “The great Warlord Yashahon will—”

  The bat didn’t finish his sentence, because Chucky Chong flew into him and knocked him through the restaurant’s front window. Glass shattered and scattered.

  Chucky turned and screamed at the Krakens players, his voice now fuzzy and distorted. “You forrow me, now!”

  Chucky shot through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. The Krakens responded instantly, running or limping from the fight, following the flying Chucky Chong. Along the way, Quentin grabbed Ju’s thick arm.

  “You ready to be a Kraken now, Ju?”

  Ju saw the gangsters rushing in, then looked at Quentin and nodded quickly. “Turns out you know how to negotiate after all.”

  “Then come on!”

  Quentin followed his teammates, who were following Chucky Chong. He heard gunshots, felt a bullet whiz past his head as he ducked through a door and into the kitchen.

  • • •

  QUENTIN SPRINTED DOWN THE ALLEY of an alien world, armed gangsters not far behind. He jumped piles of rubbish. When he couldn’t run over divider fences, he ran through them — not that many were left with his bigger teammates clearing the way. Every now and then he was just a little too late turning a corner and a bullet would hiss past his head or smack into a wall, sending up a shower of blue crystal shards. He kept everyone in front of him, including Ju, urging them on. Then he was out of the alley-maze, sprinting across traffic. Grav-cars extended street brakes, soft claws digging into the street surface below with a rubbery squeal. Some didn’t stop fast enough and smashed into each other. A four-passenger cab hammered into Quentin’s right hip, sending him careening across the street. He hit and rolled, started to come up, then threw himself flat on his back as a grav-truck roared overhead just inches from his face.

  A strong hand grabbed his and yanked him up hard enough to dislocate his shoulder.

  Rebecca. “Quentin, come on!”

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “We got separated, but come on, we have to move!”

  She was bleeding from the left temple. Her right eye looked swollen, but these things did nothing to hide her animal intensity. This girl was a warrior.

  She yanked him and he moved with the momentum, running off of the street and onto the packed sidewalk. He heard police sirens coming closer, then heard more gunshots. Just in front of him, a bullet connected with an elderly Quyth Leader’s head, entering through the big, softball-sized eye and exiting out the back in a cloud of whitish meat. The Leader fell to the ground, already dead.

  Quentin had to jump over the twitching body.

  “Quentin, this way!” Becca ducked into another alley. He followed her in. They had to slow down thanks to a curly tangle of thick, blue crystal. The sculpture-like curves sliced into his Orbiting Death jacket as he picked his way through.

  He stepped over one thin curl of blue only to put his foot down right on top of another. He felt the crystal slice into his foot just before he saw it poke out from the top of his shoe, bloody and gleaming in the thin light that filtered into the back alley. He bit back the scream — he didn’t have time to bleed.

  Quentin pulled his foot off the shard and started running. Bullets smashed into the blue crystal curves behind him, filling the alley with a cloud of flying splinters.

  Suddenly, Chucky Chong flew next to him.

  “Your friends are thees way! You run now!”

  Chucky whizzed down a smaller alley on the right. Less crystal here, as if something had knocked it all down not long ago. Quentin saw boxes, blankets, more trash — a place where homeless and transients slept.

  Chucky flew through the alley to an abandoned building. Quentin knew it was abandoned because of the plastic plates mounted over the doors and the windows, and the blue crystal spurs that curled around the openings and even through the plastic. An abandoned back alley apartment, or store, or whatever it was, quickly forgotten in a city where even the walls had to be constantly trimmed.

  He ran, felt a hand grabbing his arm.

  “How do we reach Gredok?” Becca said. “We’re running out of options, where is he?”

  “He’s coming,” Quentin said, and prayed to High One that he was right.

  He ran for the crystal-choked door, wondering how he would get in without cutting his hands to ribbons. Just before the door, he saw movement to his left — Choto, waving from an open window. Blue shards coated the ground below the window. One of his teammates had broken in and cleared the way.

  Limping and trailing footprints of blood, Quentin ran to the window and climbed through.

  • • •

  QUENTIN STOOD INSIDE the abandoned storefront. His teammates had fared little better than he. Mum-O was clutching a lower left-arm wound that dribbled black blood through his thick fingers onto the dirty floor below. Choto the Bright bled from a gunshot wound to his shoulder, John had a fairly severe cut on his left thigh, Becca’s eye had swollen shut, and Sho-Do-Thikit’s front right foot was a shredded mass of orangish flesh and wet black blood.

  Ju Tweedy, of course, looked fine.

  Blue crystals grew up from the floor like budding trees. Quentin and the others had to watch out for the sharp edges.

  “Quentin,” John said through heavy breaths, “where is Gredok?”

  “He’s coming. We have to keep moving.”

  “Move where?’ Becca said. “Choto, you’re from here, where do we go?”

  “My family’s bar,” Choto said. “The Dead Fly. It is on the other side of the city. We need to steal a vehicle.”

  Ju rolled his eyes. “You guys call this a rescue? Are you kidding me? Damn, John, thanks for messing things up again.”

  Quentin lost it. He limped the three steps to Ju and threw a hard left cross. Ju bobbed back a fraction of an inch. Quentin’s punch sailed through empty air. He never even saw the fist that smashed into his nose.

  Quentin fell on his ass as the room blurred. He tasted blood. Wow, Ju Tweedy was fast.

  John grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet. “Yeah, Ju is kind of like the best fighter
ever,” John said. “Taking a swing at him isn’t such a good idea.”

  The crack of a gunshot.

  Ju Tweedy looked down at his leg. Blood started to spread from a spot a few inches above his knee.

  “Ouch,” Ju said, then his legs gave out.

  “Everyone stay real still,” said a voice from the window. Quentin and his teammates turned ever so slowly to look at the small, Human gangster crawling through the window, his gun trained on the Krakens players the entire time. Four of his well-dressed associates followed him in.

  “You guys shouldn’t have come here,” the little gangster said.

  “We have diplomatic immunity,” Quentin said. “You can’t touch us.”

  The little gangster shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t have come here. To this building. You should have stayed out in the public eye. You know, where there are witnesses?”

  The gangsters stood there, each with a gun trained on a Krakens player.

  “So?” John said. “So you can do whatever you want, what are you gonna do?”

  “We’re gonna wait,” the gangster said. “Miss Villani wants a word with The Mad Ju.”

  Ju let out a moaning noise, then sat up and jammed his thumb into the new hole in his leg. He grimaced as he did, yet the move seemed as perfunctory as drinking a cup of coffee in the morning.

  Ju smiled at the little gangster. “Hey, Smitty. How about I give you an autographed jersey and we call it even?”

  The short gangster shook his head.

  “Season tickets?” Ju said.

  Smitty laughed, then shook his head again. “I’m gonna miss you, man. You always did crack me up. Now shut your mouth.”

  They all stood in silence. A couple of minutes later, Quentin heard two sets of footsteps coming down the crystal-strewn alley. One heavyset with big feet, and one that sounded different — the click-clack of high heels.

  Quentin saw those heels — a sexy, dark red with six-inch stems — slide through the open window, followed by long legs clad in black stockings with a repeating pattern of skulls running up each side. A red leather skirt that clung tightly to wide curves below a narrow waist. She seemed to float through the window, until he realized her effortless movement came courtesy of the two gigantic hands holding her sides.

  The big hands put the woman down. She stepped forward, resplendent in dark red leather and black lace. She wore dangling, black earrings and a small pin above her left breast — metalflake red with a flat-black circle, the team logo of the Orbiting Death.

  The dark outfit accentuated her white skin. Not pink, not tan, but white, as pale as fresh snow. She wore metalflake-red lipstick on big lips. Heavy black eye shadow covered her eye sockets and extended to her temples. The hair was jet-black, but that was a dye job — women with Tower heritage had hair as white as their skin.

  By the numbers, she might have been the hottest woman Quentin had ever seen in his life, hotter than Somalia Midori, possibly even more beautiful than Yolanda Davenport. But there was something disturbing about this woman, an aura of coldness and lethality. If it was the person inside that really counts, he was looking at a walking corpse.

  “Hello, Julius,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Ju stared at her, sadness and hatred in his eyes. “Why did you kill her? She didn’t do anything.”

  Anna’s perfect lips stretched into a soulless smile. “She betrayed me, Ju. You thought you were safe, could flaunt it right in my face, but you didn’t think long-term. And for that, you both have to pay.”

  For some reason, Quentin looked at Becca. She met his gaze, gave him a small nod of understanding — she had been wrong, Ju was innocent.

  Anna walked around the room, looking at each Kraken in turn before her made-up eyes finally landed on Quentin.

  “Ju,” she said. “I see you brought me some new playmates. How considerate of you.”

  Quentin wiped blood away from his nose. “Miss Villani. Maybe we could just slow down a little bit, talk this out.”

  She walked toward Quentin, walked slowly, letting her high-heel echoes ring off the curled, crystal shards and empty walls. Quentin took a step forward to meet her and instantly realized it was a mistake when three more barrels pointed his way.

  She wrinkled her nose and nodded. “You should probably stay still and all that Barnes. Don’t get... twitchy.”

  She reached up a red-sleeved white hand, let her metalflake-red fingernails trace down the right side of his cheek. He stayed perfectly still, ignoring the tingle her fingertips sent through his skin.

  “Quentin Barnes,” Anna said. “My goodness. You’re even more of a specimen in person than you are on the news. Let me guess, you organized this ill-fated rescue attempt?”

  Quentin looked at John, then back at Anna. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “We wanted to save John’s brother. We really didn’t mean any disrespect, Miss Villani.”

  She smiled, now running her fingers through his hair. “No disrespect. Tell me, Quentin, how stupid are the women in the Purist Nation?”

  Quentin didn’t know how to answer the question, but he knew he’d said something wrong. “Uh... well, they’re as smart as other women, I guess. I mean people. They’re as smart as other people, I mean.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Anna said. “Because I bet a pretty set of lips like yours can say anything to the girls back in the Nation, and they’d believe it. But out here in the rest of the galaxy? Maybe we girls aren’t so malleable. Maybe we don’t believe your lies.”

  “But Miss Villani, I—”

  He stopped talking when her left index finger rested on his lips.

  “Shhhh,” she said. “Quiet now. Best if you let me talk. You tell me you mean no disrespect, yet you come into my city, without so much as a hello, let alone actually asking for my permission. You come after a man that you know has wronged me. Wronged me so, so badly. Yes, Quentin, that is disrespect. You disrespected me. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

  Quentin looked down into her cold eyes. “I... I don’t know, Miss Villani.”

  She pulled her finger away from his lips. His red blood coated her white fingertip, almost matched her metalflake-red nail polish. She slowly traced the finger across her full lower lip — his blood gleamed on her lipstick.

  She slid her finger under his chin. “Maybe if you give Anna a nice kiss, she’ll forget all about this and let you go.”

  Quentin stared at her for a second, then looked at his teammates. He could discern no reaction from Sho-Do and Mum-O. Becca shook her head, while John violently nodded.

  Quentin looked down at Anna, saw the corners of her mouth lift up in a controlling smile. He bent, and kissed her.

  She only looked cold. Her lips were soft, warm, and strong. She kissed him back a little harder than he kissed her. He felt every muscle in his face simultaneously relax and tingle, felt a warmth in his chest. He’d lost himself in the kiss when she gently pulled away.

  Quentin opened his eyes. His blood had smeared across the pale white skin of her chin, the corners of her mouth. She stared at him with a quizzical look in her eyes, as if she were working out a puzzle.

  “Hmmm,” she said, then patted him twice on the cheek. “Sorry, Quentin, not good enough.”

  She turned on one heel and strode toward Ju. Quentin noticed that she stopped well out of Ju’s reach. Even though he was wounded, Ju Tweedy was a big, dangerous, fast man.

  “You flaunted her in my face, Ju,” Anna said. “And for that, I’m afraid you have to go. Smitty? Take care of this for Anna.”

  Smitty walked forward, slowly raising his gun toward Ju’s head. Ju took a deep breath. He didn’t look away — he was going to watch his death coming. Quentin tried to think of something to say, but he had no words. Anna Villani’s cold confidence made it clear that there was no talking to her, no getting Ju out of this. The Krakens would be lucky if they got out of this.

  Smitty leveled his weapon, arm slanted down until the ba
rrel was only a few feet from Ju’s head.

  Everyone jumped when a shot rang out.

  Everyone, including Smitty, who took a half step to the right, then collapsed. He landed on his butt, fell to his back and lay flat, a bloodstain spreading from a spot in the center of his chest.

  “Drop your weapons.”

  Quentin and everyone else in the room looked to the window. There stood Virak the Mean, a smoking handgun clutched in his left pedipalp. Also in the window, down to his left and to his right, two Humans each holding handguns, aiming them into the room, three weapons ready to take out anyone that moved too quickly.

  Anna’s gangsters tensed, seeming to weigh their odds.

  “Villani,” came a voice from behind Virak. “Tell your people to put down their guns, and there will be no further issue. You have my word. If anyone points a gun at Ju Tweedy, they die.”

  The voice belonged to Gredok the Splithead.

  • • •

  ANNA’S EYES NARROWED. She drew a slow breath in through her nose and held it. Quentin could feel the rage radiating off her white skin. She let out the breath through her thick, lipsticked lips.

  “Boys, drop the guns.”

  Her gangsters immediately complied. Quentin noticed that there was no backtalk, no debating — when Anna Villani spoke, her sentients snapped to action.

  With the two Humans covering him, Virak the Mean stepped through the window. The two Humans came next, followed by another Quyth Warrior Quentin didn’t recognize. Finally, Virak reached back through the window, lifted Gredok the Splithead, and gently set the Quyth Leader down inside the room.

  Anna Villani walked up to Gredok. At five feet, eight inches tall in her spike heels, she towered over the well-dressed, well-groomed Quyth Leader.

  “Gredok,” she said, venom dripping from her voice. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Protecting my property,” he said. “The situation I saw is your sentients pointing weapons at my players. Of course, I can not allow that to happen.”

  “They came into my territory! That means I can do whatever I want.”

  “I believe you are getting ahead of yourself, Villani,” Gredok said. “The Council has not yet recognized your authority.”