Deathstalker (26 page)

“Don’t do that! You know I get a nervous twitch when I’m startled. What do you want?”

“Where’s Jude?”

Harley looked at Crow uncertainly, and then looked vaguely round the alleyway. “I don’t know. I thought he was with you. He was here a minute ago.”

“I know he was here a minute ago, but he isn’t here now! What’s happened to him?”

“I don’t know! Maybe he had to take a leak and … wandered off.”

“Without saying anything to us? And why didn’t we notice him going?”

Harley thought hard. It wasn’t easy. Thinking had never come easily to Harley, and he rather resented Crow asking him all these questions. Harley wasn’t in the gang to think. He was there to take orders and hit people. He looked hopefully at Crow, in case he’d come up with the answers by himself, and then looked quickly away again.

“I’ll take a look down the end of the alley,” he said hastily. “Just in case.”

He trudged quickly off through the snow before Crow could ask him just in case what. Crow watched him go and growled under his breath. The ambush hadn’t been started properly yet, and already it was going wrong. He glanced back at the bakery to make sure the prey hadn’t appeared yet, and then looked back at Harley. Only to find that he’d disappeared, too. Crow made a small whimpering noise. There was no way Harley could have reached the end of the alleyway in the short time he’d taken his eyes off him, but there was nowhere else he could have gone. Except he had to have gone somewhere. … Crow spun round in a circle twice, in case he’d missed something, but all it did was make him dizzy. He was giving serious thought to running away screaming, when a noose of thin rope dropped soundlessly over his head from above and tightened round his throat.

Crow dropped his sword and clawed at the noose with both hands, but already his eyes were glazing over. His eyes bulged as he was drawn up into the air, and he was completely out of it by the time Cat hauled him up onto the roof overlooking the alleyway. He laid the unconscious thug out beside his two sleeping friends and grinned widely. He was so smart, and they were so dumb. He loosened the rope noose from around Crow’s neck, coiled it round his waist again, and looked thoughtfully at the three slumbering toughs. He couldn’t kill them. It wasn’t in him. But he gave Harley a good kick in the nuts anyway, for being particularly heavy. He’d nearly done his back in hauling that great oaf up onto the roof. Still, Cyder had told him to make sure that Hazel and the Deathstalker went on their way undisturbed, and he always did what Cyder told him. Partly because he loved her, but mostly because she tended to throw things if he didn’t. He crouched down on the edge of the roof, almost invisible in the shifting mists in his pure white thermal suit, and smiled widely as Hazel and the Deathstalker set off down the street away from the bakery. Cat followed them, moving silently from roof to roof above them.

“Owen,” Hazel said firmly, “whatever else you do or don’t do in Mistport, the one thing you should never do is get an esper mad at you, let alone a whole crowd of crazy espers. There are an awful lot of ways they can make life unpleasant and suddenly short for you. If you’re going to continue taking risks like that, please give me plenty of warning so I can completely disassociate myself from you.”

“I don’t get it,” said Owen, his fingers tightening angrily around his sword hilt. “He exploits those children, burns up what’s left of their lives, and yet they were ready to defend him!”

“You don’t have to get it,” said Hazel. “All you have to remember is to keep your nose out of other people’s business, or someone will cut if off. Mistport is like that, mostly.”

Owen sighed, and shook his head. “All right, where are we going now? You said the health spa we want was due north of Abraxus, and according to my internal compass, we are currently heading southwest.”

Hazel looked at him. “You have an internal compass? I didn’t know I was walking around with a Hadenman. What
else have you got hidden in your plumbing that I don’t know about?”

“Never you mind, and don’t change the subject. Where are we going?”

“I want to stop off somewhere first,” said Hazel. “Just in case the Random deal doesn’t pan out, I’ll feel happier if we’ve got a backup. Ruby Journey used to be a red-hot bounty hunter, and she owes me several large favors. If anyone will know how to hide and protect us, it’ll be her. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to be in any of her usual haunts, which leaves only one place worth checking. All bounty hunters on Mistworld have to be licensed, on the principle that if you can’t control it, tax it; the center for issuing those licenses is just down this street and around the corner. Unless they’ve moved it again. People keep fire-bombing it on general principles.”

Owen considered this silently as Hazel led the way confidently down the street and around the corner. He was pretty sure they were being followed, but so far no one had made any moves. He was beginning to wish someone would, just so he could react. The continuing tension was giving him an ache right between the shoulder blades. He wasn’t sure how many there were out there. He kept half-seeing or hearing people, only when he looked again they weren’t there anymore. Owen was seriously considering turning around suddenly and shouting “Boo!” very loudly, just to see who’d jump and where, when Hazel came to a sudden halt. Owen stopped with her and studied the new premises thoughtfully. He’d seen worse, mostly in Mistport.

The new location was definitely more upscale than the last, not that this would have been difficult. Presumably the bounty hunter business was booming in Mistport. It was a big building, with curlicued decorations and scrollwork, and people going in and out in a steady stream. Hazel strode in through the open double doors as though she owned the place, and Owen hurried after her. They were immediately caught up in the complete chaos filling the huge lobby from wall to wall. Everywhere Owen looked there were desks and tables buried under piles of paper and people running back and forth between the desks as though their lives depended on it. This being Mistport, thought Owen, perhaps they did. A large crowd of all sorts and types took up all the remaining space, shouting at the people behind the desks and each
other with equal volume and tenacity. The walls were covered with overlapping wanted posters, and up on the ceiling someone had painted a series of large murals depicting the human body in some detail, and the best places to hit it with large pointed things.

The din was deafening, the air was hot and sweaty, and the smell was indescribable. Hazel ploughed right through the middle of it, making liberal use of her fists and elbows to get some room. Apparently this was common practice, or at least common enough that only a few people reached for their swords, and by then she was already gone. Owen stuck close behind her, muttering polite apologies that no one heard and glaring at anyone who didn’t put their sword away fast enough. It was a good glare; Owen had had lots of chances to practice and perfect it since he’d come to Mistworld. It was a carefully balanced mixture of rage and imminent violence, with just a touch of outright insanity. By the time he was halfway through the crowd, people were backing away to avoid him.

He ended up at Hazel’s side in front of a desk at the rear of the room. It had two trays, marked “In” and “Urgent,” and there were piles of paper everywhere. Much of it had the rough look of cheap recycling, and Owen was intrigued to note that most of them were covered with handwritten texts. In the circles he was used to moving in, handwritten notes tended to be few and far between, being usually reserved for spies and lovers.

The man sitting behind the desk was a small, intense figure with a put-upon face and a permanent scowl. He was casually dressed to the point of carelessness, and his thick black hair stuck out at angles, as though he tugged at it a lot. Hazel smiled at him charmingly, and the clerk stared back at her with equal parts desperation and apoplexy. Hazel opened her mouth to speak, and he beat her to it in a loud, carrying voice that cut through the general din.

“I don’t know! Whatever it is, I don’t know and I don’t care! I am up to my lower lip in paperwork and sinking fast. Go away. Come back next week. Or next month. Or not at all. See if I care. Why are you still standing there?”

“I only want one name,” said Hazel.

“That’s what everyone says!” snapped the clerk. “Do you know how much work it takes to track down just one name? No, of course you don’t, and you don’t care either, do you?
No one cares,” he said wistfully. “No one appreciates you here. The lunch break’s a joke, there’s only one toilet, and the pay’s rotten. I’d quit if it wasn’t for the pension. And the constant chances to screw up people’s lives. I see my job as a kind of revenge against an uncaring society. It’s either this or planting explosives in public places, and explosives are expensive. Why are you still here?”

“Why is anybody here?” said Hazel. “Look, can we save the existentialism for later? Just find me a name and an address to go with it, and we’ll go away and leave you alone. Wouldn’t that be nice? And not only that, if you help us, I can definitely promise to restrain my companion here from picking up all those papers in front of you and scattering them to the four corners of the room.”

The clerk grabbed the nearest pile protectively. “That’s right. Threaten me. Intimidate me. Who am I? Just a clerk, a minor cog in the great wheel. I can feel one of my funny turns coming on.”

“How about if we offered you a small payment?” said Hazel.

“How about if you offered a big payment?” countered the clerk.

Hazel produced a large silver coin from her purse and dropped it onto the desk before him. The clerk looked at it sadly. Hazel had to add three more before he sighed deeply and scooped up the coins with a practiced sweep of the hand.

“All right, give me the name. I’m not promising anything, mind.”

“Ruby Journey.”

“Oh,
her
. Why didn’t you say? She’s working as a bouncer down at the Rabid Wolf. And long may she stay there, well away from civilized people. It’s been ever so peaceful around here since she moved. When you find her, remind her that her license runs out next week. I should do it from a safe distance, mind. Now go away and upset somebody else. I have papers to shuffle and civil insurrection to plan.”

He picked up the nearest piece of paper and stared at it fixedly. Owen and Hazel exchanged a look and then shoved, elbowed and intimidated their way back through the crowd and out into the calm and quiet of the street.

“Well,” said Owen, “that was … different. Are there a lot of people like him in Mistport?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” said Hazel. “A lot of people arrive here fleeing from the tyranny of Empire, expecting to find some kind of free, civilized Utopia. The rather different reality of scraping out a living on an unhospitable rock of ice with a population consisting mainly of outlaws, failures and criminals upsets a lot of new arrivals, and some never really get over it.”

“Don’t you find that rather worrying?” said Owen.

“Not as long as explosives remain really expensive.”

“So, you and this Ruby Journey go back a long way, then?” said Owen as they set off down the street. He couldn’t help noticing that they still weren’t heading north.

“I had a try at bounty hunting myself,” said Hazel briskly. “I didn’t last long. I was too soft; kept bringing them in alive, and there’s no money in that. Ruby was my sponsor and mentor at the time. A good friend, if a trifle … unpredictable. I can’t believe things have got so bad for her that she’s been forced to work as a bouncer. Mind you, I bet she’s a good one. No one would argue with her twice.”

“What sort of place is this Rabid Wolf she’s working at?”

“A dive, the last time I was there. Dope joint, gambling house, a few girls and a bar that never closes. You know the sort of place.”

“Well, actually, no,” said Owen. “But it sounds … interesting. Still, I can’t help thinking Ruby Journey can wait. Surely we need to find Jack Ransom first, before someone else finds us. He’ll be able to protect us from whoever comes after us. Jack Random could stand off a whole army. I mean, the man’s a legend.”

“Was a legend,” said Hazel, looking carefully straight ahead and not slowing down one bit. “The man is well past his prime. The last I heard of him, he was telling stories of his past exploits in bars in return for free drinks.”

“Are we talking about the same person? Jack Random, the professional rebel?”

Hazel sighed, but still wouldn’t look at him. “Being a rebel and an outlaw is hard work. It wears you down. Jack Random is not the man he used to be. Hasn’t led a major uprising since that fiasco on Blue Angel, when he got his ass kicked in no uncertain manner. It was a miracle he got out of there alive and mostly intact, and everyone knows it. And
that was years ago. Random is … an unknown quantity. I know I can rely on Ruby. She’s death on two legs, with an attitude. The best in the business.”

“And currently working as a bouncer.”

Hazel glared at him and increased his pace. Owen trudged after her, maintaining a diplomatic silence. He felt as though he should be defending Random more, but the more he thought about it, the less actual evidence he could find to support his argument. All right, the man was a legend. No denying that. He’d led more rebellions against the Empire than any three other outlaws put together, but though he’d fought in some famous campaigns, he’d only ever won fleeting victories. He had the charisma and the rhetoric, but the Empire had the numbers. It always had more ships, more guns, more men to call on. And as the years went on, Jack Random lost more campaigns than he won and was hounded from planet to planet and from battle to battle, while the Empire still stood. Owen sighed. If you couldn’t trust Jack Random, who could you trust?

He moved up alongside Hazel and pulled his cloak tightly about him. There was a bitter wind rising, and it seemed to blow right through him. Owen was beginning to find the sudden shifts from icy cold exteriors to piping hot interiors and back again increasingly distressing. Probably end up with a streaming cold on top of everything else, and light years away from civilized medicine.