Rali shrugged. “Fate takes care of itself.”
The car filled with heat and noise as we pulled into the second to last station on this line. Nobody was waiting on the platform to board.
The doors on the train slid open, and I watched out the window for the praying mantis to come out. It took so long that I started to think he wasn’t getting off, but finally he swayed off the train and through the rickety screen door into the station. A little tension I hadn’t noticed before drained out of my shoulders and gut knowing he was out of the picture.
Enemies who still live are not gone, only waiting, Hungry Ghost’s voice croaked in my head.
I flinched. Usually, the little grinning skull stone couldn’t talk to me unless I was touching it, but it was still in my pocket.
That guy wasn’t my enemy, I thought back to Hungry Ghost. Just some dick who wanted to rob me.
Death cultivator does not know the definition of ‘enemy.’
Was that a joke?
Hungry Ghost went silent with a feeling like somebody putting a hand in your face and walking off.
“Next stop, Bogland,” the conductor’s voice crackled through the speaker system. “Stand clear of the closing doors.”
The train wheezed back to life and crept out of the station, slowly getting back up to speed.
“So, Death cultivator,” Rali said, surprising me by using the same address Hungry Ghost always used, “what would you like to do with your ill-gotten gains?”
I shrugged. “Keep the Spirit stones, sell the rest? I don’t really need any of this stuff.”
“Except the favor card,” Kest said, pushing it across the table in front of me. “That’s worth more than all of us combined. Don’t let it out of your sight until we know who issued it.”
“If I’m hanging onto that, it’s just going in my pocket,” I told her.
She blinked at me, then took the card back. “When you need it, it’ll be in the storage ring.”
“I feel safer already,” I said. “If you guys want any of this stuff, you should take it. You can probably do something with the star iron meteorite, right, Kest?”
“You can always do something with star iron,” she said, putting that in the storage ring, too. “For the rest, I can see whether Naph’s back on Van Diemann yet. He could meet us for a buy.” She looked at Warcry. “He could probably bring new components or even a replacement prosthetic for you.”
“Oi, stumpy, in case you missed it, I ain’t the only one with a missing piece now, am I? You let me worry about getting around on what I got while you figure out the sound of one hand clapping.”
Kest sent him a flat glare, then swiped her HUD screen a couple times and tapped.
Canned applause erupted from the little speaker on the side.
That caught me so off guard that I forgot to be ticked at Warcry for being a jerk about Kest’s arm and laughed. Surprisingly, Warcry was grinning, too.
Kest raised her chin a little and tried not to look smug about winning that round.
“So, what about the rest of it?” she asked.
Warcry sat forward and scooped up the fan. “If nobody wants it, I’ll hang on to this.”
“It really sets off your eyes,” I said.
“Ah, piss off,” he said. “Anyway, ya never know when a Wind construct’ll come handy, do ya?”
“Rali?” I asked.
The heavy-set guy shook his head, flicking his long hair out of his face.
“You know how I feel about material goods, Hake,” he said. “I’ve got a good walking stick and good friends. What more does a man need?”
“Money for food,” Kest said.
Rali shrugged. “My twin usually pays for that.”
“A safe place to stay?” I suggested.
“Safety’s an illusion.”
“A bleedin’ challenge,” Warcry muttered, glaring down at the silk fan.
Rali smiled. “You speak my language with alarming regularity, Warcry.”
The ginger snorted and stuffed the fan into the cargo pocket of his pants.
“Offer’s open, big man,” he said. “Anytime, any day. Name the terms of the fight, and I’ll be there.”
Bogland Station
WHILE KEST MESSAGED back and forth with her smuggling contact, Rali meditated, and Warcry watched fights on his HUD. I gave sleep another shot. Eventually, the rocking of the train and droning of the tracks knocked me out.
I dreamed about Gramps sitting on the rusty trailer house steps, shivering. There was a blanket hanging off his shoulders, but you could see the dark red smears all over his shirt and pajama pants. Cops milled around, asking him questions, while a paramedic took his blood pressure. Gramps stared past them, answering absently. He was watching another paramedic at the end of our carport while she loaded a gurney with a body bag on it into the ambulance. The lights on top of the boxy vehicle flashed purple and white instead of blue and red.
I lurched awake, my breath hung up in my chest. Rali and Kest were too focused on what they were doing to notice, but Warcry looked my way. Before he could say anything, I got up and headed toward the exit at the rear of the car. My throat hurt like I might start crying or screaming, and the bathroom seemed like a good place to hide until I got myself under control.
In the dirty little cubicle, I braced my arms on the walls so the swaying of the bullet train wouldn’t knock me over. I glared into the green eyes in the tarnished square of mirror over the sink.
“Get over it,” I told myself. “It was just a stupid dream.”
Usually when I didn’t have a choice in something, I tried to shove it out of my brain and not think about it anymore. Crying over what you lost doesn’t bring it back. Even my dad had understood that, and he wasn’t some genius philosopher, just a loser drug dealer with a dead wife. I was stuck in this universe, so I shouldn’t be crying over losing Gramps. This wasn’t
