He shrugged and brandished his cigarette, then scowled and looked me up and down.
'You wanna try lookin' any more like a goddamn tourist?'
I realised I'd been blocking the causeway. Sticking out like a sore thumb with my bulging backpack invitingly obvious, bolt-upright and fascinated where everyone else was either rushing about like their arseholes were on fire or leaning, just like Nate, against whatever item of sturdy ephemera they found. There were two correct states of being inside the Wheels-Mart: involved or not involved, and neither one involved any sense of wonderment.
Paying attention; taking an interest; having a bag full of unknown goodies. These were one-way-tickets to getting noticed by someone.
My 'someones' emerged from the crowd to my left, and I knew what was coming immediately. Two young men – early twenties at a guess, maybe even tithe-dodgers – scrapping and squabbling, rolling in muck, dirtied fingernails clutching at torn rags. They sprang and locked again, snarling like ferrets, tripping each other in their clumsy aggression then scrambling upright for a renewed attack.
It was all very convincing.
Except for the glances.
The tiny sideways squints in my direction.
The subtle eyes that told me everything I needed to know.
One of them drew a knife, circling in suddenly to thrust inwards towards the other, who rolled aside theatrically and yanked his own shimmering little shiv out of the hem of his boot. The pair closed again, their angry wrestles and desperate stabs bringing them – as if by magic – stumbling towards me. Choreographed to perfection. Messy and fast and unpredictable, and as authentic as it gets, but I knew.
The body language.
The stance.
Nate was watching them with some interest, I noticed, completely taken-in; face a slack mixture of disapproval and distance. Even some of the crowd – studiously nonchalant of all other things – were twisting to watch the brewing carnage. Everyone was ignoring me, never considering it might all be for my benefit. One or two punters even started calling out encouragement to the fighters, making wagers and shouting advice, whilst others scanned the crowd for the nearest guards.
'No Klan business!' A woman hissed, trying to break them up. The young men shoved her away and kept circling around each other, knives hooking hilt-to-hilt, then twisting back and forth inside one another's guard. Vicious. Personal.
Always heading right for me.
By the time they dropped the pretence and pounced – both at the same time, unlocking from their fake pugilism like a bear trap in reverse, knives outstretched on each side like scissor blades – I was already moving. Diving beneath the double-stab, rolling awkwardly across the backpack and flicking out one orbital leg: roundhousing the first punk – a freckled beanpole with bright purple hair – off his feet. The other darted-in with a snarl, catching a straight-handed chop to the side of his tattooed neck and – as I vaulted upright from the ground – an angry, unsubtle head butt on the bridge of his much-pierced nose. To be blunt I think he was dead from the neck wound already – he bloody should have been, the way I hit him – but I was angry. Sue me.
He went down without a word.
The purple-haired geek got up slowly, shaking his head to clear the fuzz, and backhanded his knife into a downward slicer. I picked up his mate's shiv – dropped from one spasming hand – and grinned at him; letting my body tell him how calm I was, how much I wanted him to rush me, how much I was urging him to come take me o…
His eyes flickered, just a millimetre, to one side.
Cold sweat. That sinking feeling.
Third guy behind me.
Two for the diversion, one for the strike.
Clever.
I sidestepped a fraction early. I figured the attack was imminent, but I left the fucker with too much time to angle his swing. Still, if it's a choice between denting my skull with a heavy tyre-iron or missing by inches and instead swiping the fabric along the top of my pack – tipping me over like a sleeping cow – I'll take the latter every time. I slash-stabbed blindly with the shiv as I stumbled, snarling from somewhere deep inside me that wasn't entirely rational; feeling a tug and a tear and a spatter of warmth, rewarded with a scream. The breath exploded out of me as I thumped to the tarmac on my back, crushing the kid with the pierced face for a second time and sending something sharp punching through the top of my pack; digging me in the nape of my neck.
This Johnny -come -lately sneak -up -behind -a -guy arsehole – an enormous man with a braided beard and a pair of lensless glasses – staggered and moaned, squirting blood from an arterial gash on his thigh. He'd dropped the tyre iron at some stage, but as the purple-haired youth closed in on me with the knife the giant swatted him on the shoulder, held out a bony paw for the blade, and dropped down to finish me himself.
Something small and red appeared between his eyes.
The back of his head came off, and for a second or two he looked startled; as if his brain was still feeding him waves of shock and uncertainty, despite being scattered in a semicircle across the mud. A gunshot echoed across the crowd – like a guest arriving late for a party – and everyone jumped.
'Fffff…' he managed.
The kid with the purple-hair took off.
Without being entirely conscious of it, sitting upright in one long fluid movement, I felt my arm extend, left eye closed, fingers releasing. The shiv – a curled tooth of flat steel, easily palmed beneath gloved fingers – spun off into space; a shuriken that caught the weak light as it whispered.
It hit the punk at the base of his skull, just beside his left ear. It looked like it went deep, and when he sagged to the floor – arms quivering, legs bending back on themselves – he wasn't in any rush to get back up.
There's a lot of blood in a scalp. It clashed with his hair.
It dawned on me slowly that a lot of people were staring. Several of them were wearing black clothes and red bandanas, and were going to great lengths to elbow their way through the crowd in my direction.
A shadow fell across me.
'Stay the fuck there,' it said, poking the two dead punks near me with a smoking rifle.
My guardian angel, I guessed. The one who blew off the giant's head.
From below, it looked a lot like a tattered, hunchbacked ogre.
Its voice was actually kind of sexy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Her name was Malice. I figure she was probably 'Alice' – maybe 'Melissa' – at one time, but the whole gung- ho nickname thing worked pretty well for the mercenaries the Wheels-Mart paid to keep the peace, and they were never happier than when striding about, calling out each other's ridiculous handles across the braying crowds.
Spuggsy.
Moto.
Tora.
Nike.
And so on. I pretended to be impressed as they introduced themselves. Pumped up and black-clad in every case, moving with that familiar 'I'm-a-hard-bastard' confidence you see in mercenaries the world over.
They'd propped me up in a canvas shelter off to one side of the auction (still noisily ongoing through the tent's doorway) and now Malice was staring at me, more-or-less-alone, with her arms folded. Nate stood behind me, dabbing at the cut on my neck. I think he was enjoying being part of the attention. Light through the tattered canvas ceiling dappled the interior of the room, making it seem busy and claustrophobic, and it was almost an effort – in amongst the extremes of brightness and shadow – to focus on Malice's eyes.
She was the blackest person I'd ever seen in my life, and she was so beautiful it hurt.
'So,' she said, voice guarded. 'Guess we owe you one.'
