Three (26 page)

“I
’m not sure what kind of trouble I could’ve caused you, ma’am,” Three answered. “Just rolled into town yesterday, and haven’t done anything untoward to anyone since I got here.”

The Bonefolder sipped her beverage again, a dainty procedure borne of long years of practice and some kind of homage to traditions long dead. She replaced her cup on the table, adjusted it slightly so the handle was pointing exactly ninety-degrees to her right.

“This may be true. But we fear the offense came before you ‘rolled into town’, as you so
eloquently
put it.”

Three could feel the tension pouring off jCharles. Without a doubt, he was already running through the scenarios of who to drop first when it all went down.

“Ma’am, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve had a long few weeks. If I’ve done you some wrong, you’re gonna have to come right out and tell me.”

She looked at him with disappointment, clearly affronted by his crass disregard for her preferred manner of speech. The Bonefolder took another sip of her beverage. Three already recognized the routine. Same quantity in every sip. Raise the cup. Sip. Pause. A long blink. Lower the cup. Adjust. Handle ninety-degrees to the right.

“A few days ago, Mr Walker, several of our business associates went looking to procure certain commodities that are at times in demand here within Greenstone. Four associates departed. Only one of those associates returned, Mr Walker, and he was notably less well than he had been when he first departed. His ankle snapped cleanly in two. Jaw dislocated. Only partial memories of the events which led to the unfortunate state in which we found him.”

The image flashed through Three’s mind immediately. The slavers. He’d told Cass he might not have killed all of them. Apparently he was right. Small comfort.

“It seems he spent the night in a culvert, wedged inside a drain pipe, Mr Walker, after having crawled there on his elbows, he says. Apparently, he had the less than desirable experience of observing the Weir as they savaged the corpses of his companions and then dragged them away. We fear he has been somewhat changed.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss, but I gave those men the only thing I had to offer ’em. I didn’t know they were yours.”

“Would it have mattered if you had, Mr Walker?”

“No ma’am, I reckon not.”

“As we suspected,” she replied. She pressed her lips together so that they disappeared into a perfectly flat, horizontal line. Cup up. Sip. Pause. Blink. Cup down. Adjust. “Under normal circumstances, we fear we would have no choice but to make an example of you. Greenstone is a challenging place for a woman of any standing, let alone for one of our particular age, you see.”

Close to go time. Three casually surveyed the bartender. He was cleaning a glass, but watching intently. The Big One stood statue-still behind Bonefolder, hands behind his back. The rest arrayed in a half-circle that nearly enclosed Three and jCharles. Four to one. And the Bonefolder. Three didn’t know how she’d earned that name, and he didn’t want to find out.

“So what’s the procedure here? I assume you want some kind of restitution, else I’d be swinging from a post already.”

“Oh, isn’t it a sharp one?” she said. “We understand you desire use of our train that you may travel to Morningside. Is this accurate?”

“It is.”

“It is to your great fortune, then, that we have need of a courier for just that very destination. A messenger.”

“So I hop on your train, deliver your message, and we’re square?”

“We require a message be delivered to the governor of that province. A man by name of Underdown.”

Under the table, jCharles spread his fingers wide, stretching them, then relaxed them into his lap. He bowed his head slightly, let his eyelids droop. Ready. On Three’s move, Twitch would unleash.

“And the message?”

“The message is his death. After we receive confirmation, we will allow your woman and child to join you.”

An icy shock went through Three, and he saw jCharles’ eyelids flutter. How did she know about Cass and Wren?

Three forced himself still. Calm. Cool. Controlled.

“Ma’am, I’m afraid that doesn’t work.”

“Mr Walker, by now we have your woman and child in our custody. Your decisions are reduced only to this: deliver our message to Governor Underdown of Morningside, or die. We do not care, but recompense must be made. Your death plus the woman and the boy are calculated a fair exchange. The sum is equal to the cost of the zeroing of Underdown. This is business. What is your decision?”

T
he electric feeling didn’t subside as the man approached from the hazy darkness. There was a shift in the crowd, as well. Cass felt the ring tighten ever so subtly.

“Our moneyman,” Tyke continued. “Just taking care of the money, and we should all be on our way, just like that. I hope you’ll tell your brother what good business partners we are, how well we held up our deal, and how eager we are to serve. We’re fans of his, we read all his stuff, me and Jantz.”

The man finally reached the perimeter of the lights, and Cass recognized him instantly. The limping man from before. But more than that, she saw it now, all of it. The man she’d seen in the
Samurai McGann
. The one with the familiar eyes. She’d seen him even before that, out in the open. He’d been wearing a mask over his mouth then, when Three had broken his leg and knocked him to the ground like a dead man. Not dead after all.

Cass stepped back involuntarily, and felt the fake greenman close behind her. Seven to one. Very bad odds.

Tyke changed his tone immediately, apologetic now.

“We didn’t have nothing to do with it, I swear. You tell Mr McGann we didn’t have nothing to do with it, we wanted the deal just like we said, just like we said, and we didn’t want to have nothing to do with the Bonefolder!”

Hands gripped her upper arms tightly, surprising in their strength. The pressure applying so smoothly, so steadily. The uniform wasn’t the only thing fake about the greenman. Servorganical arms, at least. They gripped with steel certainty.

The Limper approached, got right in her face with a damaged smile, and without a word he slapped her, hard. When she looked back, he spit on her mouth.

“Easy”, the fake greenman said. “Bonefolder doesn’t want her damaged.”

“She said alive. Didn’t say nothin’ about damaged.”

The Limper grabbed her shirt at the top and ripped it wide open. Seven to one was bad odds.

“T
here is no decision,” Three said, quick to grab Twitch’s arm under the table. “The woman and boy are yours if you want ’em. But I’m not going to handle Underdown. Killing a governor’s not my idea of repayment. So look, you take the woman, you take the boy, what’s that leave between us? A few thousand?”

The Bonefolder hitched, the slightest hint that something had taken her by surprise.

“These terms are unacceptable.”

Three knew jCharles was straining with all he had not to open up on the crowd and see how far he could get before they cut him down. If they were going after Wren, that meant they were going after Mol. And the thought of that seared Three to the core. He could only imagine what Twitch was feeling.

“Then forget it. Keep the woman and the boy, and we don’t bother with the train. We’ll call it even.” Three stood just quickly enough to make everyone flinch. He snatched jCharles’ bittertonic and downed it.

Four to one, plus the Bonefolder. Ranges were all wrong. One shot for the bartender to open, and after that, it was all close work. Had to assume everyone was packing hate of one form or another. Even at his most desperate, Three had never tried something so obviously guaranteed to end with his death. Why had Twitch come? Even if they managed to clean house, there was no way they’d make it out of the building alive. And then what would happen to Mol? And to Wren? Where was Cass? What were they doing to her?

“Come on, Twitch, we’re done talkin’.”

jCharles stood, slowly, smoothly, all eyes on him. And then, Three did the most dangerous thing he could possibly think of.

He turned his back and walked out the front door.

I
t was obvious to Cass what was going down. The Bonefolder had arranged for them to be separated. For whatever reason, the Limper was here to handle Cass. She could only assume that meant Three and jCharles were in the heat. And the thought flashed: what if they’d sent someone for Wren? The fake greenman’s fingers were beginning to dig into her flesh. The Limper obviously had plans for her body. She made plans of her own.

“Wait, stop, listen,” she said, suddenly frightened, shrinking back into her captor. “Take the quint, take the money, I don’t care, take it all.”

“Too late for that, missy,” said the Limper. “Bonefolder says I gets to have you, so that makes you mine.”

“You can have me,” Cass answered. She pulled her shirt fully open, letting it fall down her shoulders, her thin compression top the last line of defense. “Take me, take me, just leave my son alone.”

She stepped toward the Limper, felt the greenman’s grip loosen as she went docile. Cass reached up and slid her garment down, baring her breasts.

“It’s OK, take me,” she whispered. The Limper stepped forward, mouth hanging open, hand raised.

She boosted.

T
hey made it out of the building, and picked up the pace to cross the street, both walking as if slightly drunk, hoping any first shots would miss. Across the street, alley twist, another alley twist, and they broke into a full run.

“What was that?!” jCharles shouted.

“We gotta get back to Mol first! Back to Mol and take it from there!”

As they punished the pavement with heavy footfalls, fast as they could deliver them, they crashed through the increasing crowds, knocking people aside and to the ground. Three’s heart pounded with icy fire at the thought of Mol confronted by Bonefolder’s thugs. She would never back down to them. She would do anything to stop them from taking Wren, and that thought, that knowledge, terrified Three.

They’d get to Mol first, find Wren. They were priority. After that, they’d find Cass. If she was alive.

S
he waited in stillness, as his hand approached. Fingers flexed, shaking in anticipation. The final half-inch. So close she could feel the heat off his palm.

He never touched her.

Cass flashed with her palm, drove it upwards into the Limper’s nose, felt the bone shatter and the cartilage slide back and in. The Limper choked and burbled a blood-filled cry as he stumbled back, lost his footing, and went crashing into the table. She covered herself, and surveyed the scene. With the quint racing in her bloodstream, everything seemed to be taking twice as long to fall. Cass felt faster than ever. The Limper’s head was just above the table, his neck hard against its edge. Cass stomped forward, snapping his neck in an instant, and then reversed the kick and folded the knee of the fake greenman behind her. She spun as he fell, saw his head at her waist level, and struck down on the side of his face with her open palm, ensuring his impact with the planet would finish the job.

As she pulled the jittergun from her coat, she saw with crystal clarity the guard in red drawing a black device from his belt. Two gleaming points shone from the tip, and she recognized it instantly as a stunner. She brought the jittergun to bear on the security man in black across the table. Just as the red guard fired, Cass squeezed the trigger on the jitter, felt it hum in her hand, saw the guard in black’s chest explode in red puffs from the impact of dozens of micro flechettes. In the same instant, she twisted, snatched the stunner’s dart-like probes between two fingers. Whipped them back at the red guard. Tips buried in his neck, the live current of his own weapon knocked him writhing to the floor.

Cass leapt to the table, and off again, plunging from eight feet in the air down onto the last guard, who seemed frozen in fear. Her impact dropped him to the concrete, crushing the air from his lungs and knocking him out cold. Without losing momentum, she rolled to her back and let loose with the jitter, shredding Jantz’s left calf. Before he’d finished collapsing, Cass was up and had Tyke’s head on the table, with the jittergun tight against his temple.

He was crying.

“Bonefolder! The Bonefolder, we didn’t want none of this, you take it you take it I’m sorry, we love your brother, man we love him!”

Jantz was screaming on the floor like a hysterical woman. Cass had to take a second, let the bloodlust lose its edge. She shouldn’t have done that to Jantz. It was payback for staring at her, she knew, and she knew it was wrong. Tyke was quivering under her grasp.

“Take all of it, keep the money, we don’t want it. Please, just take it and go!”

“Maybe you find yourself a new line of work, alright, Tyke?”

“Yeah, alright, definitely, yeah.”

Cass left the pistol pressed against his temple while she resealed the case. She threw the money pack back over her shoulder, and picked up the quint. She nudged the shrieking Jantz with her foot.

“Hey, Jantz. I’m sorry, kid. Wrap it up tight, you’ll be OK.” She tapped Tyke on the head with the jittergun, and then slid it into her pocket. “You stay clear of the Bonefolder.”

Cass walked to the eastern entrance, and didn’t look back. Once she’d crossed through the outer edge of Downtown, she turned down a narrow alley, dropped to a knee, and vomited.

T
hree had led for most of the way back, but Twitch had covered the last hundred meters faster than Three had ever seen anyone move. He crashed through the front door of the
Samurai McGann
, and Three was only a few steps behind.

“Mol!” he shouted, “Where’s Mol!”

The bartender leapt over the bar and intercepted him before he could get too far, grabbed him by the shoulders, held him fast.

“Twitch!” the bartender tried to get his attention. “Twitch!”

“Mol! Mol, baby, where are you?”

“Twitch, hold on now, hold on!” said the bartender, but jCharles wasn’t having any of it. He lifted the man bodily and threw him into the bar, and raced towards the stairs.

Three followed closely behind, certain his heart had stopped in his chest. Halfway up the stairs the door swung open, and Mol stood there looking terrified. jCharles swept her up in his arms so violently, they both nearly toppled into the room.

“Twitch?! Twitch, what happened, are you alright?”

“Mol, baby, are you OK? Where’s the kid?”

She was pale with fright, confused.

“Wren? Wren’s right here. Wren, come here, sweetheart.”

Wren poked his head out from the back room, wild-eyed and clearly confused.

“Twitch, calm down, what is going on?”

Three stood at the door, scanning the apartment. No signs of a struggle. Everything seemed as they’d left it.

A commotion sounded on the stairwell, and without hesitation, Three drew and was on target in less than a blink. The poor bartender nearly fell back down the stairs.

“Nimble! What’s going on!?” jCharles yelled from the top of the stairs.

Nimble, the bartender, crept up the stairs almost apologetically. “That’s what I try’a tell ya, Twitch. Got some down here for you see.”

Three reholstered, straightened up. jCharles went back and hugged Mol.

“You sure you’re OK, baby?”

“We’re fine. We’re completely fine. What happened, Twitch?”

He kissed her hard on the mouth, then on the forehead, then left her in the room. Nimble led them back downstairs, down the length of the bar, and around the corner to a large end booth. Two rough-looking gentlemen sat shoulder-to-shoulder next to each other, surrounded by seven much rougher-looking gentlemen. Three recognized the seven as regulars.

“These ones here,” said Nimble, wagging a finger at the two men pressed in the middle of the booth. “Come run in ask about Miss Mol, say the Bonefolder needs talk to her. I tell ’em get faffed.”

“Faff off, ye!” one of the regulars shouted, for no apparent reason.

“And ’ems start get rowdy. Actin’ for show, y’know. And ol’ Nimble say nay go round here, no sir.” He looked at the two men for emphasis. “NAY. GO. ROUND HERE.”

Twitch let out a laugh then, a genuine laugh of relief and joy. He slapped Nimble hard on the back, leaned his forehead into his bartender’s in some version of a hug. Started handing out backpats to the regular seven.

“Well thank you, Nimble. This is why I let you run the place. You take better care of it than I do. Open the bar up for everybody.”

“And about ’em?”

Twitch thought about it for about two seconds.

“Strip ’em. Tie their arms around each other. Let ’em walk back to Bonefolder.”

“Aright then.”

“Make sure they’re facing each other. And tie ’em tight.”

“A course, sir.”

Twitch led Three back to the main room, where the bar seemed to be carrying on as usual.

“Good people, Twitch.”

“You gotta have a few, Three. What now?”

“I gotta go find my girl.”

“Let me tell Mol–”

“No, you stay.”

“We’re not doing this again, Three.”

“Good reason this time. They might try again, I’d feel better if you stayed. I’ll move faster without you.”

“Alright, I’ll buy that this time. But if they’ve got her, don’t you go in there on your own. You come right back here, and we’ll get my boys up a right proper army, you understand?”

“Fine. I’m gone.”

“Godspeed, brother.”

Three turned and strode to the door, half a catastrophe averted, the other half unknown. He reached for the door, and it flew open, catching him in the chin and forehead. He saw stars.

And then, he saw her.

Cass. Alive and well. Carrying a case and a backpack.

He grabbed her and pulled her in, holding her as tight as he could, wishing he could bring her even closer.

“Three?”

He pulled away, looked her over. “Are you alright, Cass? Did you have any trouble?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, shook her head.

“No. No trouble. You?”

“Maybe.”

“Is Wren OK?”

“Yeah, he’s upstairs. You get everything you need?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“Good. Cause we’re gonna have to move again. Now.”

“Like, right now?”

Three nodded. Brain already racing to do the calculations. They were going to have to disappear, fast. Train was out, no doubt about that. Only a few hours of daylight left. Not enough to go far. But there was no way they could stay in Greenstone now.

And what about Mol and Twitch?

“Come on,” Three said. “Let’s get upstairs. We gotta get this sorted out.”

He slipped his hand along the small of Cass’s back, and steered her through the bar, up the stairs, into the apartment. And as he watched Cass drop to a knee and Wren run into her arms, Three knew, and let himself know, that he loved them both in a way he’d never thought possible.