Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

off and leaving him with the stupid animal. You weren’t supposed to catch the creatures; you were supposed to kill them. Any real Drenard knows that. Besides, the thing had been eating so much food over the past weeks, it was beginning to cut into the money he’d bartered for back in Darrin. Hell, it had already eaten the money he’d made that day—and literally!

Walter put the brochure down and popped the thing on the head once more. The stupid thing had become like another crewmember, someone else Molly spent more time with than him. He thought about bopping it again when a large man in a jumpsuit came out of the back, wiping his hands on his butt. He smiled at Cat.

“Hey, Cripple. Looks like you’ve been having a good time tonight.”

“Yeah. Not bad, Paulie. Look, I was wondering—”

“Listen, we’re not really open right now, and I’m pretty busy in the back, so why don’t I come over and find you later? I’d be up for cracking some ribs if you’re buying.”

Walter watched a smile creep across Cat’s mouth—a mouth that didn’t seem near as busted up as it had earlier.

“Actually, I’m trying to help my friend here find someone. A young girl. You seen anyone stop in?”

“Not a soul. Been real quiet tonight. Big rally over on the square and all. Tell you what, I’ll keep an eye out and find you at the bar if I hear anything, okay?” He smiled at Cat, but his eyes darted over to Walter.

“Yeah,” Cat said. “Sounds good. Come by later.”

Paulie gave a half-wave and backed through the door, pushing it open with his elbows. Cat turned to Walter. She squatted down to be on his level while the men behind the counter continued with their work of moving heavy boxes, ticking items on clipboards, and eyeing the duo warily.

“Maybe we should head back to that ship of yours,” Cat said to Walter.

He shook his head and sniffed the air.

“No? Whatcha thinking?”

“He’ss lying,” Walter hissed quietly.

Cat jerked her thumb at the door behind the counter. “Paulie?”

Walter nodded. “It issn’t a guesss,” he said.

Cat touched her nose. “The Palan thing?”

He nodded again. “It reekss in here,” he said.

••••

“Hey, Paulie, what did she want?”

The far worker’s voice throbbed in Molly’s ears, mere background noise to her calm meditations. It was like falling asleep in the cockpit and feeling the thrum of the engines coursing up through the hull. More than that, actually. More like being in the vacuum of space and sensing vibrations through her fingertips. Her fingertips were tingling.

Molly couldn’t tell how much of her detached feeling was from blood-loss, how much from fear, and how much from the meditation. Her world had become a feeble set of inputs—dull and jumbled in her fuzzy thinking. She heard the other guy say something and a third voice tell them to get back to work. All of it took place far away, seemingly heard by someone else’s ears.

The large man appeared beside her once again. He dragged his apron off her chest and draping it around his neck. He fumbled with the sash, wrapping it around his back as he glanced down at the second bag.

“What the flank?” he asked. With both hands, he traced the tube from the bag to her arm, obviously searching for kinks.

Molly smiled ever so slightly.

The man must’ve noticed the twitch at the corner of her lips. He reached down and grabbed her neck, bent over and brought his face close to hers. He started to say something through a toothy sneer, but there was a crash at the other end of the room.

The man looked up.

“What the flank?” he asked again, louder, this time.

Or maybe Molly just heard it more clearly as the carefully wrought fog began dissipating from her senses. She felt it in her temples again: her pulse. Betraying her.

••••

“Jesus,” Cat said, looking out across the room of bodies. They were spread across a grid of tables, the forms as still as the two men she’d dropped behind the counter. She saw the bags hanging from one of the gurneys, saw the insulated cooler below a table stamped “Votes,” and a sickening puzzle fell together. She felt like she’d wandered into the back of a morgue to find them churning out links of sausage.

A short, bald guy with a beard came running over, yelling something. Cat drove her fist into his trachea to shut him up. She felt a lot of meat give way under the blow, felt her knuckles impact the ridge of spine beyond that softness—and figured she’d gone a little hard on him.

The man collapsed in a quiet mound. He just folded up on himself and remained as he landed, strangely still. He weren’t the sort of guy she usually tangled with. Part of her felt horrible for him. The other part wondered what it had felt like to get hit like that. Had it hurt? Or been done and over too quick?

Looking up, she saw two men more her likable size: brutes with lots of muscle and mean faces. Her favorite combo.

“Paulie? What the flank is going on here?” She turned around and made sure the door to the front was closed, saw the Palan kid rushing over to check the bald guy. “You goddamn draining people?” She walked across the room. The two guys formed up in the aisle, both wearing aprons splattered with brown smears of dried blood. Except for Paulie’s. His looked awful fresh.

“Oh, hell, Cat, we’re just making a living.” He reached over and held the other guy back. “We can get you in on this if you want. Guarantee it pays more that the performin’ arts. You could make enough to get yourself a real ass-whoopin’.”

Cat scanned the room. There were at least a dozen bodies in there, most of them too pale to be alive. “Where’s the girl?” she asked.

“Don’t know nothing about any girl. Look, you’ve had a rough night. Why don’t I give you enough coin for a few fights and you let us see to our friend over there.”

“Why don’t we just flank her up?” the other guy asked.

“Yeah,” Cat said. “Why don’t you boys just flank me up?”

Paulie laughed. “For free? C’mon, Cat, I like you and all, but you don’t know what you’re messing with here.”

“Yeah,” the other guy said. “This ain’t some small racket. You’re gonna get a world of hurt.”

Cat smiled. “Promise?”

Paulie waved his partner down. “Seriously, Cat, you should take your little friend and get out of here. Pretend you never came. Besides, we ain’t seen no girl tonight.”

“He’ss lying,” Walter said, arriving by her side.

Cat placed a hand on the boy’s chest and pushed him back. “Trust me,” she said. “I know.”

She turned and faced the men and smoothly changed her stance, bringing her fists up and taking her hips off square. Small things, but enough to change the game and quick. It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Paulie’s friend came fast. Fast and dumb. She’d never seen him around any of the pubs, so he obviously didn’t know what he was dealing with. Cat watched his feet as he ran, figured out where he’d be planting his foot just before he got to her and made sure her own foot was driving to where his knee would be.

It sounded like a thick branch snapping in two. The knee bent back the wrong way, and she barely moved in time to keep from getting wrapped up in his flying bulk. He landed with a thud and went to screaming holy hell, writhing on the ground, fumbling for his foot, but it was trapped beneath him, out of reach.

Cat watched the Palan kid go from silver to white, his eyes bulging at the sight of the man.

“Can you shut him?” Cat asked.

The boy nodded and ran back to the screaming figure, pulling something out of one of the pockets on his flightsuit. Cat turned back to face Paulie.

“Now you see why I never bring him out,” he told her, smiling nervously and gesturing to the gurgling man behind her.

Cat took a few steps forward.