Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
Isako’s first thought is that she’s going to die.
Shadowcons don’t technically exist. Clients never admit to hiring them and the Agency doesn’t acknowledge any connection to contractors who violate policy. But if an important client speaks to the right people and offers up the right sum, they can pay for assassination.
Her second thought is amazement. How much did it cost to hire not one, not two, but four shadowcons to kill her? Truly, SoCon GasPro is swimming in scrip.
It’s kind of flattering, honestly.
Kob kicks the door again. Isako’s teeth rattle with the vibration. The light, driverless cityhab car isn’t like the sturdy field cars that venture past the airshield; it’s not designed to withstand the elements or significant impact. The metal warps, the window glass shaking in its frame.
The shadowcons are going to reach them in seconds. Presumably, they’re going to have a way to open the vehicle from the outside and kill the people trapped within.
Isako draws her longknife. It’s an awkward, penned-in movement, but she gets the weapon free of its triggersheath and shouts for Kob to move over as she lunges over him and rams the butt end of the hilt into the window with all her strength.
A dent appears in the dark glass; her wide-eyed reflection fractures in a long single crack.
Kob pushes her aside, heaves himself up again, and slams his heel directly into the weakened point.
His boot goes through the window, the tempered glass shattering all around it in a web.
Another kick knocks out the remaining shards, turning the window into an empty frame.
Kob reaches out of the car and finds the latch to unlock the door. Isako yells a warning as the first of the four shadowcons sprints forward and brings his longknife down in a slash meant to open the wide target of Kob’s neck.
She has no way to fight from inside the car, but she throws her shoulder against the loose door, hard.
It swings up, depositing Kob on the ground, halfway in and halfway out of the seat, but it also hits the onrushing attacker in the legs, knocking him backward and into the path of the man behind him.
Both of them stumble, and that’s enough time for Kob to roll away from the car and onto his feet.
Even at his age, he’s still astonishingly fast for a man his size, and he’s not slow on the draw either.
The distinctive click of Kob’s ejecting weapon is to Isako’s ears the sweetest sound in the world.
The shadowcons take a step back, radiating menace and disappointment. They intended to eliminate their targets before or while they escaped the car, but the man they’re facing now is larger than either of them and emanating a terrifying fury.
Despite the epic shittiness of their situation, Isako smiles. This is a side of Rain Kob she hasn’t seen in a while. He’s not easily roused to a temper, but if there’s to be violence, there isn’t anyone she’d want by her side more than Strikebreaker.
Kob’s imposing figure shields her as she dives out of the car, longknife still in hand, just before the second pair of shadowcons reaches them.
They don’t hesitate, and their arrival is the cue for the first two assassins to rush Kob together at the same time.
Isako can’t worry about him right now; she has her own head to keep on her shoulders.
She’s barely on her feet before a blade comes sailing for the hollow of her throat.
She lurches to the side, feels the tip slide past the lapel of her coat and nick her collarbone, but there’s no pain, not with the amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins.
She grabs the assassin’s arm at the elbow and shoves it upward and away from her face, slashes hard and fully across the man’s abdomen and kicks him backward.
She expects to see the shadowcon fall to his knees holding his entrails, but he merely doubles over in discomfort before straightening back up, weapon still at the ready.
Beneath his snug black thermal jacket, he’s wearing an armorweave vest that’s doing a good job of keeping his guts inside his body.
The whites of the man’s eyes are the only part of him visible through his hooded mask.
He assumes classic, combat-ready Second Stance, Drawing the Bow , so he’s obviously Agency trained, and he stares at Isako with determined, wary desperation, as if she’s the one who’s ambushed him .
His partner doesn’t hesitate. She comes at Isako, fearless, longknife in one hand, dagger in the other.
Isako sprints around the back of the car.
She’s already missing the two things she’s relied on to win the majority of violent encounters in her life—the element of surprise and a quick draw.
Without them, this is merely a melee with sharp objects.
Not a situation she ever wants to be in.
She’s not without advantages, though; the narrow space meant to keep them from escaping also makes it difficult for their attackers to surround and overwhelm them.
With the car to shield her on one side and Kob blocking half the group, she can force the assassins to face her one-on-one.
The shadowcon woman charges after her, confident she’s faster—until Isako pivots hard and whips around in a crouch.
Pain erupts in her hips and knees, but her longknife arcs precisely and catches her pursuer across the top of one knee—never any armor there—and she feels metal slide satisfyingly through flesh.
The shadowcon’s headlong momentum is hard to stop.
The two women crash into the car together, their longknives jammed up, metal on metal.
As she falls, the assassin thrusts the short dagger in her left hand at Isako’s stomach.
Out of instinct, Isako throws up a hand and catches the would-be fatal stab with her left forearm; the slim blade passes right through her sleeve and skewers the muscle beneath her elbow.
Agony races through the limb like electricity; Isako lets out a cry of pain and rage, but at least the shadowcon loses her grip on the dagger and is tipping off-balance, panic in her eyes.
“Shadowcon bitch .” With a surge of murderous energy, Isako knocks the other woman’s blade aside and swings her own down across the assassin’s carotid artery, opening the neck to the bone and spilling blood across her boots in a spray of red that streaks the side of the car as the woman’s body slumps against it and slides to the asphalt.
Kob bellows. Over the hood of the vehicle, Isako sees him toss one of his attackers into the nearest wall, bouncing him off the corrugated aluminum with a crash.
Suddenly, there’s no one between the two of them and the far end of the alley.
Kob jerks around and catches her eye for half a second. Without a word, they turn and run.
The masked men give chase. They’re fast, but Kob is faster.
Isako was under the impression that he’s been doing nothing since becoming a freelancer, but he hasn’t let himself get out of shape.
He’s wounded, though. Dark stains are spreading down the front of his coat and pants.
Even so, she has to sprint at her limit to keep up with his long strides.
She clutches her wounded left arm to her stomach; the cut on her collarbone is stinging, seeping liquid warmth down the front of her shirt. Wounds not yet fully healed from last week drive additional pain into each step. Cold scalds her heaving lungs.
One of the trucks blocks the end of the corridor, preventing the car from passing, but it doesn’t stop them from getting through on foot.
Isako squeezes between the vehicle and the building; Kob leaps and slides over the hood.
They can’t really escape shadowcons. Even if they were to lose their pursuers in a chase, the assassins will track them wherever they go and ambush them again.
They won’t stop hunting until they complete their assignment.
But Kob and Isako have fought together outnumbered before and against worse odds. Back when they were faster and stronger than they are now, but neither of them has forgotten. They don’t need to talk to know what to do.
The first hit man to scramble out of the alley doesn’t even notice her; he sees only Kob’s towering figure bursting from behind the rear of the truck, swinging the longknife down two-handed toward his head.
The shadowcon’s not small and is no slouch; he raises his own weapon to block, meets Kob’s weight for an instant, then turns his longknife deftly to let Kob’s blade slide off his own.
He sidesteps, pivots, prepares to cut low and open Kob’s femoral artery.
Isako rushes, lungs and muscles screaming, but her approach ghostly silent.
At the last second, the assassin senses the second attacker and twists away from the lethal strike.
Isako’s longknife comes down across the top of his shoulder blade instead of his neck, slices through fabric and off the armorweave beneath.
But the distraction is enough; the man is caught in the worst position between two armed enemies.
Kob seizes him by the sleeve of his longknife arm and yanks, hard, twisting the weapon arm behind the assassin’s back before cutting his throat from behind.
The two remaining shadowcons catch up in time to see their companion drop to the ground with a bib of red over his chest. Too late, they realize their targets weren’t running to escape, only to get into a position to turn the tables.
Out in the open, Isako realizes where they are: one of Tenacity’s water-recovery plants.
Steam hisses all around them from the escaping heat of pipes carrying wastewater to the facility.
Enormous cylindrical tanks loom on all sides like silent, titan spectators.
A good place for a murder, far from public view, with options for dumping a pair of bodies that won’t be found for hours or days.