Making Peace, page 16
The humming sound reached a higher pitch, and the crushing pain in my body became unbearable. I couldn’t draw breath; my air passages were squeezed completely shut. My eyes bulged in their sockets. I kept them focused on the only person who could save us.
Vapor’s body began to ripple through changes. I watched all of her hair fall out in clumps, sprout again from the root, grow to ten feet long, fall out again, grow again. Her skin aged horribly, then reversed itself and became smooth like a baby’s flesh. Fingernails grew, cracked, fell off. Steam rose from her body, sweat vaporizing the instant it hit the energy crackling over her skin. She twisted, knees shaking as her body tried to collapse but the orb held her upright. She tried to scream again but only light poured forth, the sound of her scream lost in the terrible humming that was pulverizing our ears and our bodies. Red steam leaked from her nose as her sinus began to bleed. The lights pouring forth from her began to flicker through the entire color spectrum, now bright blue, now crimson, now lime green, now fuchsia, now aquamarine.
Her teeth clenched shut on the light from her mouth, and she hunched over the orb. Teeth gritted, she looked furious. Lights from her pores began to wink out. Instead, her pores, her eyes, every part of her grew darker. Her body drew in the light, sucking the energy from the air around us. The crushing pain in my chest eased, and I could breathe again. The vortex of wind drew down into Vapor’s body as she lowered her forehead to the glass of the orb, drinking the energy.
At last the hum began to die down. The darkness covering Vapor’s body brightened and then disappeared. Her hair fell limp, the black strands now grown to her ankles. The whole process of powering back down took about thirty seconds, and we stood silent as the machine quieted. Vapor lowered herself from the balls of her feet to stand flat and let her hands slide off the orb. She gave Ugly a wan smile and in a weak voice said, “Not so bad.”
Ugly and I shared a look, then went back to staring at her. “What did you do, exactly?” I asked.
She looked at me and blinked twice before answering. “Sort of a sponge effect. I drank it all up. In theory, I figured it could work. It’s just energy. I swallowed what I could and let the rest course through me. Almost burned me up but I managed to regenerate the cells as it was burning them.” She grimaced and looked down at her feet. I could see blood running down over her ankles. She looked back up at me and shook her head. That was a bad idea, and she almost fell over. She braced herself against the pedestal to stay standing. “Magical energy overload. Forcibly reset my brain chemistry, body chemistry, neurotransmitters, hormones…” She trailed off, then wobbled and collapsed.
Ugly rushed forward and caught her just before she hit the floor. Her eyes stared vacantly at him, without recognition. Ugly stroked her hair, whispering, “Come back, girl. You did so well. Come back.”
Vapor’s vacant eyes blinked hard. They rippled with a strange, fleeting color which retreated out of sight faster than I could track it. She blinked several more times, eyes coming into focus, and motioned that she wanted to stand. Ugly lifted her up and set her back on her feet next to me, and I put my arm around her waist. She gave me a grateful smile.
The door we wanted to head through clicked and retracted its locking bolts. Its trap sprung, it was ready to cooperate. Ugly tried the knob, and the door opened. We went through, Vapor leaning heavily on me.
The next room was simple: ten feet by ten feet, straight walls four stories high. I craned my neck and saw a ledge three floors up. The assassin stared right back down at us. His body posture was relaxed. I hoped he was surprised to see us. Coiled at his feet was a rope ladder. Above his right shoulder I saw what looked like a trap door with a ladder leading onto the roof. We couldn’t reach him, and he could escape whenever he wanted. Instead, he watched us.
Finally, he spoke. His voice, slightly muffled by his mask, was in the higher range, though not feminine. “’Ow’d you follow me?”
I detected an accent, perhaps from Neskin? I wracked my brain for information on that planet. Harsh. Mostly desert. Chances were good he wouldn’t think to check for tracks in snow, if he had ever even seen snow before.
None of us answered him. In the tense silence, I could feel Vapor panting quietly. Her body would periodically spasm, and she’d clench her jaw against it. It had to take a monumental will to keep herself upright. My respect for her rose considerably.
The assassin cocked his head. “Down to three. I could make thees work. But, I’m not being paid for you, and I ‘ate doing work for not’ing. Don’t follow me, and I won’t keel you.” He turned and put his hand on the ladder.
Vapor squirmed against me and pushed off to stand on her own feet. She pointed with her right hand directly at the trap door above the assassin. She screamed, and a stream of ice poured forth from her finger with so much force that her body shook with the recoil. The assassin ducked as the ice splattered all over the escape hatch, forming a massive barricade several inches thick. He darted up the ladder and pounded against the ice but barely made a dent.
Next to me, Vapor grunted and collapsed, this time for good. I caught her and lowered her to the floor. She was out cold, but still breathing. Muscles all over her body went into spasms without rhythm. Blood continued to stain her skirt, and new blood began oozing out of her right nostril. I shut her mouth so she wouldn’t choke on it. I looked up at Ugly, who had never looked more grim. “We need to get her some damned treatment,” I whispered. He scanned my face as if looking for something, then nodded.
He and the assassin turned to look at each other at the same moment. They stood in absolute silence for over a minute. My teeth ground out the tick of each second. Ugly finally broke the silence. “We’ve got you backed into a corner. Surrender.”
“Two men and an eenjured girl,” the masked man replied. “I have already proven myself more capable than your entire team.”
“In an open space, yes,” Ugly said. “In a tight closet like this?”
The assassin cocked his head. “I could keel your girl from here. You would not like thees, I think. It is what you call a ‘bargaining cheep.’”
Ugly bared his teeth.
The assassin went on, “And… I can wait for the ice to melt.”
Ugly’s eyes flicked to the ice cluster overhead. It had indeed begun to drip, but Vapor had done her work well. “You’ve got at best forty-five minutes before you can get through the ice,” Ugly told the assassin. “In that time, I can summon my people and station them all over the roof. You’ll never make it out alive.”
The assassin folded his arms and put one finger to his mask’s chin, cocking one hip. “You would ‘ave also said I could not defeat your squad tonight, I theenk.” He seemed to consider us. Without warning, he stood up straight and grabbed the sleeve of his raised left arm. He drew it down and showed us the outside of his forearm. There, in vivid black ink, was the outline of a black skeleton in a gentleman’s hat, holding a cane. He tapped the mark. “Bargaining cheep number two. You keel me, and my guild will seek revenge.”
I held my breath and glanced at Ugly. The set of his face told me he recognized the symbol, too. It was the tattoo of a member of Dancing Cadaver, one of the most famous assassin guilds in the galaxy. Their name, and symbol, came from a famous kill from at least fifty years ago. A noble on Earth in the Emperor’s court had fallen down dead during a waltz. When the doctors examined him, it was apparent he’d been dead for over an hour. Many attributed the deed to a young woman visiting the city at the time, though there was no proof. She had escaped the city during the investigation, and it was said she’d fled to the planet Neskin, where she’d disappeared.
Shortly thereafter, the Dancing Cadaver organization made themselves available for hire. They were known for creativity, guts, and holding grudges. I had considered doing an investigative piece on them before my editor gave me an emphatic “no.” He was sure I’d end up dead, and the rest of our publication group as well.
So, yes. Odds were high the Cadavers would seek redress if we knowingly killed one of their operatives. They wouldn’t mourn him, but their pride would be on the line, meaning they’d probably send a replacement assassin to finish the first agent’s work, and to exact a toll for impeding their contract.
All of this seemed to occur to Ugly as well. He narrowed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. The assassin never covered his mark, still holding his arm up for us to get the full implication of that tattoo. Having seen Ugly’s brutal handling of these contests over the last few weeks, I steeled myself for this to blow up into a fight to the death. I started to lower Vapor to the floor, thinking I would cover her body with my own and buy Ugly time to get in a killing strike. But Ugly’s next words stopped me.
“How much to buy your contract?”
If an entire body could grin, the assassin’s did. He lowered his sleeve and gestured wide with his arms. “Ah, you know the game. Allow me to begeen the memory sequence.” He slipped off his left glove and rubbed the back of his hand with two fingertips. A small purple flash of light reflected off the eye lenses of his mask. “Very well. My guild clerks are receiving thees verbal contract as we speak. If we agree to terms and you break them, eet will be recorded. As to our arrangement… Eet so happens I am under two levels of contract: one ongoing to be concluded at the leisure of either party, and one for specific targets. My specific target contracts are all concluded at thees moment and I ‘ave not received any more as of yet.”
Ugly nodded. “I wish to engage your services under the authority of the First House.”
The assassin chuckled.
Ugly continued: “The terms are: you will leave the planet and not return for a period of one year. None of your guild will take any contract on this planet for at least one year. We will leave the contract open for extension after the first year. You will neither commit to nor fulfill any other contract before leaving the planet. Lastly, you will tell me who took out the ongoing contract.”
The assassin cocked his head. His voice was serious. “Thees last one cannot be done. But you know thees, I theenk.”
Ugly shot him a crooked grin. “You’ll never get what you don’t ask for.”
The assassin burst out laughing, a strange sound when filtered through his mask. “Allow me a moment.” He turned his head away to the left and seemed to be listening to something. After what felt like an hour but was probably only a couple of minutes, he turned back. “The guild agrees, pending a contract fee agreement.”
Ugly nodded. “I can guarantee a fee agreement, on the life of the Hegemon, on whose authority I make this deal.”
I almost choked on my own spit. I had thought facing the assassin would be the rough part, but things were gonna get nasty later when the Hegemon found out.
“The conditions are accepted,” the assassin said after a pause, “with the addendum that the Keeper order ees added to the collateral until the fee agreement ees conducted and paid. Consider our contract forged.” He kicked the rope ladder over the side of the ledge and climbed down. Ugly and I stepped back to give him space to land. When he reached the ground, he and Ugly shook hands.
“And now,” the assassin said, “let us get your girl some help so we can conclude our business, eh?”
We took Vapor to headquarters. A healer was already on-site tending to Shield. Tavel vowed to stand guard over both of them, which seemed unnecessary but he was probably still angry about missing the fight earlier. The assassin waited in an alley outside headquarters and rejoined us when Ugly and I walked back out. Then we went back to the ball to finish negotiating the contract. The ballroom had mostly emptied out after the killing, but the Hegemon remained on his throne. Ugly and I approached the throne, the assassin hovering in the shadows behind us until we explained the situation.
As I had figured, the Hegemon was nearly apoplectic with rage. He ripped into Ugly for over an hour, screaming in his face, waving his fists, spittle flying. He did the same with Captain, who ended up backing Ugly’s plan. The assassin, meanwhile, sat on one of the comfortable couches and filed his nails. He kept his mask in place. In the end, the two Keepers convinced the Hegemon this was the best course of action, unless he wanted to be hunted down as a contract breaker. The assassin named a staggering sum of money for the arrangement fee. The Hegemon tried to engage him as a personal bodyguard instead, but of course Ugly had made sure that couldn’t happen either. In the end, the Hegemon had no choice but to pay the fee and let the assassin walk. Captain gestured for me to leave the hall and go outside as they were counting out the coin. There was another furious tirade coming and I certainly didn’t want to sit through it.
The assassin was the first to come outside, nearly ten minutes later. I called out to him and he stopped, looking at me through the lenses of his mask.
“What do people call you?” I asked. I didn’t really expect an answer, to be honest, but he surprised me.
“Locust,” he said. Then he walked away into the city, whistling and casually swinging a black leather satchel which held enough money to finance the entire government of Iris City for five years.
CHAPTER 23
PICTURE THE DIRTIEST, smelliest, most unsavory tavern your mind can summon up. Moisture oozing down the walls from the crush of bodies on a busy night. The stink of sweaty leather and sweatier flesh. People with mud dried on their faces drinking from smudged glasses, the mud flaking off their cheeks into their ale and they don’t even notice. The maidens plying their trade in corner booths are the most hygienic folks in the crowd, and only by a hair.
Tavel said he needed a drink, badly, “as far from the upper class as possible.”
Sen said he knew just the place. Half an hour later, the three of us found seats in Tavel’s requested tavern. We perched on mismatched chairs around a wobbly table, trying to flag down a barmaid. The dying light of dusk crawled in through grimy windows to splash across the dingy room.
“This place is horrible, Sen,” Tavel said, eyeing the scarred surface of the table and keeping his hands folded in his lap.
Sen, for his part, looked genuinely puzzled. “You said you wanted a place away from the upper crust. You can’t get much further than Come Drink.”
The writer in me groaned inwardly. “Couldn’t they come up with a better name?”
Sen grinned and shook his head, still trying to flag down a barmaid who passed us by, again. “Don’t get much creativity in Low Town, Bel. Doesn’t pay enough. And besides, it saves on money. The sign doubles as an identifier and an advertising pitch at the same time.”
I was willing to give him that one.
Sen gave up on the barmaids for the moment and turned in his seat to watch the corner nearest the door. In a pool of light spilling in from a greasy windowpane, a young blonde woman in a blue dress sat plucking at the strings of a harp. The harp, upon closer inspection, was missing a few strings.
Sen snorted. “I will grant the taste in music is pretty atrocious, though.”
I tried to filter out the loud chatter and groans of the dirty people around us and tune my ears in to whatever she was playing. I was surprised to find that, despite playing on roughly two-thirds of an instrument, the minstrel wasn’t half bad.
It’s the sunlight on your face
Makes me catch my breath
Sunlight tangled in your hair
You’re the sunlight through the window
Sen scoffed and turned back to us. “Poets today! It doesn’t even rhyme. Look, it’s not that hard: ‘There she sits, with her tits.’”
Tavel gave him a frosty look. “That’s inspired Sen.”
Sen, not catching on, beamed.
I caught the sleeve of a barmaid as she tried to brush by our table again. She turned to me with her teeth bared and one raised hand already holding a slap with my name on it, but she paused when she saw the silver coin in my other hand.
I looked into her eyes. “I need enough ale to forget what I just heard. So does my friend here. And the other guy needs enough to shut him up.” She didn’t even respond, just snatched the coin from my hand as fast as she could and headed back toward the bar, all swaying hips. Sen pointedly watched her go. Tavel pointedly did not.
During our second round, Tavel finally broke the silence which had been hanging over us. “We’re down two Keepers tonight. I heard it was a damned close thing, too.” He clenched his fist around the handle of his mug, gritting his teeth. “I wish I had been there.”
Sen looked serious for once. “That’s true. That assassin could have killed any one of us if things had been even slightly different. And now, Shield’s down with a head wound. And Vapor…” Sen trailed off.
The silence came back for two more rounds.
“Damn, but I wish I’d been there,” Tavel said.
I looked at him over the rim of my wide, round clay mug. Give me a tall Garden tankard any time over these local containers. “It turned out okay, more or less. Everyone is being treated and should recover.” I remembered Vapor tied down to her bed, her body arcing with spasms, eyes wide open and the irises fluctuating wildly through the entire color spectrum. “…should probably recover,” I amended lamely.
Tavel didn’t miss it, and rounded on me. “And you let the assassin walk away.”
I spat a mouthful of ale back into my mug in surprise and opened my mouth to retort, but Tavel wasn’t finished.
“All of you let him walk away. And the other monster is still on the loose.” Tavel put his elbows on the table and slid them forward, hunching over his cup. His narrowed eyes scanned the room back and forth, and the vicious look on his face made me close my mouth and swallow my words. “I should have been there.”
I shared a look with Sen who shook his head and said, “Lady’s Tits, Tavel, you’re not a one-man army. And the rest of us are doing what we can. Don’t you think—“
Tavel slammed his mug on the table so hard the mug shattered. The cheap crockery splintered into shards and tinkled across the dirty pine floor. Silence fell again, not just at our table but at all the tables around us. Tavel just sat there clutching the broken handle of his mug, his face hidden behind his long hair. After a few heartbeats without blood sport to watch, everyone else turned back to their own business.
