disorienting tingle in his new artificial parts when he had crossed the threshold.
Beyond that, the room wasn’t quite designed for the type of meeting Mr. Antonio wanted. Leather harnesses dangled from the ceiling, chains dangled from the walls ending in velvet-lined cuffs, racks lined another wall holding leather straps, paddles, and various electrical devices. The dominant piece of furniture was a long padded table with various articulated arms that seemed designed to hold a wide variety of attachments.
Humanity’s passion for sin was wide, deep, and more infinitely detailed than any Nickolai had known. Next to the lusts of the Fallen, his own transgressions seemed almost childlike, laughable.
“Are you used to the prosthetics now, Mr. Rajasthan?”
“Yes,” Nickolai said, even though he was privately unsure. Just this morning he had torn the handle off the bathroom door in his apartment, and almost daily he had headaches from looking at a world that was too sharp to these new eyes. However, he wasn’t going to admit weakness to one such as Mr. Antonio.
“Excellent,” Mr. Antonio said, in his uncomfortably fluid language. He smiled, oblivious to the aggression he showed to Nickolai with the flash of his teeth.
Despite appearances, there were two things Nickolai knew about his human benefactor: the man was not stupid, and he was not weak. It was quite possible that Mr. Antonio knew exactly what was implied with the flash of his own tiny canines.
And the galling thing was that what it implied was correct. In the palace halls on Grimalkin he might have seen fit to scar someone for such an expression—much less one of the Fallen. However, here he was, in service to the naked devil himself.
“Mr. Rajasthan?”
Nickolai realized his attention had wandered, which was disturbingly unlike him. “Forgive me, sir. I was reminded of Grimalkin for a moment.”
If Mr. Antonio noticed how forced the honorific sounded, he showed no sign.
“I understand how it is being stranded in an alien land.” His smile faded. “Perhaps more than you’d know. But if you would please return to the present moment, however unpleasant the venue?”
He set a case down on the padded tabletop between them.
“The time has come for you to repay my generosity.”
“What exactly do you require of me?”
“Your services as a mercenary.”
Nickolai said nothing. There was little to say. He had agreed to the devil’s bargain. He could almost hear the priests laughing at how far he had fallen, down to prostituting the sacred craft of the warrior.
“I need an agent to attach to a private expedition. You are going to be that agent.” He turned the case around and opened it.
“How did you acquire—” Nickolai began, but cut short the outburst.
“A symbol of your service, Mr. Rajasthan. A token from he who gave you succor when you were shunned.”
In the padded case was an antique slugthrower. The design was old, as old in fact as the design of Nickolai’s species. However, the handgun was obviously of a post-exodus model. The ancient humans who had designed Nickolai’s ancestors for warfare never would have bothered to add gold plating, scroll-work, or mother-of-pearl to something they saw as strictly utilitarian. They certainly never would have engraved quotes from scripture—not that the scripture in question existed at the time the first of these guns had been manufactured.
The 12-millimeter firearm Mr. Antonio had was one that belonged in the ceremonial guard in the temples and palaces on Grimalkin. It had probably been blessed by the temple priests.
Nickolai remembered well when he had passed his first trial as an adult of House Rajasthan. After twelve hours of uninterrupted sparring with priests and acolytes, he had limped, bruised, bleeding, undefeated, up the 367 steps to the cenotaph of St. Rajasthan. At the top, before the statue of the first speaker of his faith, his mother had
