Twenty
You are really going to have to explain how you two communicate,” Ky says, panting from the run.
“He just talks in my head,” I mutter, peering around the corner.
“That makes no sense.”
“Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers. Shit.” I pull back. “Front door’s broken open.”
“Anyone on watch?”
“Not that I can see.”
Star, how many of them are there?
[Assessment: at least three. I am on the ceiling overhead.]
Is Weslai there? Is he okay?
[Apologies: I believe they have him captive, but I am too far up to observe closely.]
“They’ve got Weslai,” I tell Ky. “Three of them.”
She chews her lip. “Arbiters? Any armor?”
I relay the question to Star, who answers in the negative. “No.”
“Okay.” She slips her sword into her hand. “Let’s go.”
I want to maybe protest that maybe we shouldn’t go, that Weslai isn’t worth the risk, if he’s even still alive.
He’s helped us, but to be blunt, we’ve gotten what we need from him.
But Ky just heads to the door, not even looking back to make sure I follow, which means that of course I have no choice.
The door is splintered where it was crowbarred open; no subtlety here.
We pad quietly through the stacks of crates until we’re close enough to see Weslai’s little living space.
The fixer himself is lying on his worktable, not moving.
A wiry woman in cheap workhouse clothes looks around uneasily, fingering the knife at her belt, while her two male colleagues are deep in whispered discussion beside the table.
“Can Star take the one on watch?” Ky asks.
Take her. Meaning, kill her. Ky’s seen Star kill before, of course. But that was different, somehow, than this cold decision to end someone’s life. I hesitate, but only for a moment. I have no doubt these thugs would do for me in a second if they had the chance.
The woman. Get ready to drop on her.
[Unease: it’s a long fall. Hard to be right on target.]
Do your best.
[Suggestion: I should have glider wings.]
I’ll add some to the next revision. On my mark.
[Ready.]
“Ready,” I hiss.
“Go,” Ky says, and rounds the corner.
Go.
Star releases his BINDs and falls. I catch a glimpse of him in midair, and he hits the thug with all the force of a rock flung from a roof.
Unfortunately he catches her shoulder instead of her skull; she gives a screech and lurches against some crates.
Star gets ahold with his BINDs and clings to her arm, but her thrashing keeps him from getting to her throat.
Instead he slashes his manipulator arm across her ribs, fabric and skin parting easily under the sharp blade. She screams.
Ky whips her sword open, the folded sections snapping out and locking into place to make that smooth, impossibly narrow arc.
The closest thug, looking up at the woman’s scream, just has time to get his arm up.
Her blade lodges in the meat of his upper arm, and he howls.
Ky yanks the sword free and spins into a kick that connects with the man’s chin and knocks him sprawling, then turns to parry a blow from the third thug, who has produced a machete from the depths of his coat.
For a moment I stand paralyzed. Ky is fighting, Star is fighting. I should do something. But all I’ve got is a knife with a blade barely bigger than my hand, and—
The machete-wielding thug drives Ky back a step, though her parries turn every strike before it touches her. The other man has blood pouring from his arm, but he’s coming up behind her with a blade in his good hand. Before I’m aware of the decision, I’m moving toward him.
He doesn’t see me coming. My knife is out. I’m aiming for the small of his back, but at the last second he turns and takes the blade in the side. It goes in quick and easy, no effort at all.
I sort of expect him to fold up and die after I went to all the effort of stabbing him, but instead he has the lack of manners to turn around and try to stab me in turn.
I duck the blade and grab for his wrist, moving on pure instinct born of a hundred tunnel fights against thrashing Twisted.
His fingers are slick with his own blood, and when I pull the knife, it slips through his fingers and clatters to the floor.
He roars and slams me against the table. This is where being a wiry little bastard is kind of a disadvantage; this guy is a lot stronger than me. The breath goes out of me with an oof and I lose my grip on his arm. For a moment it’s all I can do to lie on my side, wheezing.
Ky has regained her footing, and now it’s the machete thug’s turn to fall back.
Her sword is a blur, dancing around his clumsier weapon.
Cuts appear on his legs, then his arms, and when he howls and tries to hack down at her, she sidesteps neatly and spears him through the chest. He collapses with a gurgle.
It’s a neat display of swordsmanship, but it would have been more impressive if the third thug hadn’t come up behind her a moment later.
He grabs her skull in one big hand and slams it brutally hard against a crate.
Ky drops like a sack of mash, sword falling from limp fingers.
The thug snarls down at her, gripping his still-spurting arm.
I get my hand on his dropped knife. My ribs ache, but I stagger to my feet.
He kicks Ky, sending her limp body sliding across the floor; I charge.
This time I sink the blade high in his chest, feeling it grate against bone as it goes in.
He gasps but stays on his feet, so I yank it out and stab him again, and again, and again, until he finally collapses against the crates making a bubbling sound.
My hand on the hilt is slick with blood.
[Pride: opponent defeated.] Star skitters around the table, liberally coated in red himself. He leaves a trail of gory pinprick footprints. Behind him, the woman is a mess of crisscrossing wounds.
“Ky!” I dash to her side. She’s curled up around her ribs, coughing spastically, her eyelids fluttering. I grab her shoulder, leaving a bloody handprint, but I don’t know what to do from there. There’s blood and wooden splinters in her hair. “Ky, can you hear me?”
Time seems to twist like rubber for a moment, all slow and horrible. Ky coughs again, hauls in a deep breath, and her eyes flutter open. They focus on me, but slowly.
“Can hear you,” she mumbles, pressing her hand against the side of her head. “Ow.”
“Thank the fucking stars for that,” I mutter. As gently as I can, I slip my fingers under hers and probe the wound. She hisses as I find a cut on her scalp, but her skull feels intact.
“’m okay.” She pushes me away and sits up, reeling drunkenly. “Just… ow. M’ first swordfight.” She blinks muzzily. “How’d I do?”
“We’re alive and they aren’t,” I say. “I think that’s usually the definition of a good performance in a swordfight.”
I reach down, and she takes my hand and allows herself to be hauled to her feet, groaning and clutching her midsection.
“In training, people are less likely to kick you while you’re down,” she says with a groan. “It’s frowned on.” Another deep breath and a wince. “Where’s Weslai?”
“On the table.”
We stagger over to him. At first I’m sure he’s dead; his eyes are closed, and his skinny body is coated in a staggering amount of blood.
But his chest moves slightly, and when Ky leans over him his eyelids flicker.
When he sees her, his lip curls very slightly into a smile.
His horrible blond mustache looks like it’s been dyed red.
“Thought… that was you,” he says. “Hope you… nutted ’em as hard as I got it.”
“We went for a more direct approach.” Ky looks over Weslai’s wounds, her hands fluttering. “You’ll be okay. We just need to get you bandaged up.”
“Nah.” Weslai coughs, and more blood trickles from his mouth. “I’m done. Fucking Pader. Never… should have dealt with those fucks.”
“These were Cavcante?” I put in.
His head wobbles in what might have been a nod. “They… kept asking about him. And about you,” he says to Ky. “Didn’t… tell ’em shit.” He gives a little laugh, spraying blood. “Always wondered… if I would. Knife to my throat. But I didn’t.”
“Weslai…” Ky takes his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.”
Then his eyes go glassy, and the breath wheezes out of his lungs.
“They shouldn’t have been able to find him,” Ky says, still gripping his limp fingers. “He was always so careful. Cutouts, bribes to the Arbiters. The Cavcante are a bunch of half-bit street thugs. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We need to go,” I tell her. “They had plenty of time to send a message. More of them could be on the way.”
“Yeah.” She blinks, her eyes still a little vague and faraway. “Yeah. Where?”
I have no idea.
Well. I have one idea. But it’s terrible.
“Down to the undercity,” I tell her. “No Yesod crooks are going to follow us there.” Uncle Claw has always been very particular about organizations from the tiers messing with his turf.
“Good. That’s good.” She lets go of Weslai and takes a wobbly step, then shakes her head. “Fuck. No. We need the money.”
“What money?”
“The money. The pot, at Venci’s. The entry fee is in the bank, but without that cash we don’t have a chance of getting Star ready to fight in the Ascent.”
“Shit.” The Mark 4 is at Venci’s, too. “You think the Cavcante will be there?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She shakes her head and winces. “Fight’s soon. It’ll be packed. Be hard for them to grab us in public.”
“Okay. Venci’s first, then the stairs.” I look between us, then at Star, all covered in crimson. “After we get cleaned up a little.”