So she waited.
Twilight spread over the city, lavender and pale, but the warehouse stayed quiet. It was the prettiest time in Didgermmion. The stars glittered on and the city lights blinked to life in reds and blues and greens, and the wind off the swampland to the south and the harbor to the east picked up.
For a moment, one could almost forget they were trapped in hell by the water and swamp to the south, and everywhere lese by the craggy, impassable mountains and the desperate, endless desert beyond.
The temperature plummeted as darkness spread, and salt air, carried the scent of growing things. And mozzies. The little bastards usually avoided her. She wasn’t sweet enough, but still. She hated their itching bites.
She tugged on the man’s overshirt that was part of her constant disguise. Black like everything she wore. Black like the dark. Black so she could hide.
When the hum of hushed voices touched her ears, she crawled to peer over the opening.
A single, exposed bulb lit the space in a meagre circle. Five men, and one woman stood on a broken concrete floor. They conversed in tones too low to catch. Another man pushed in a dolly, loaded with crates.
They argued. The woman wore a gaudy red dress, her breasts pushed up to her collarbone. She gestured sharply toward the crates.
One of the men, a big bald brute, tore the wood planks off a crate, and lifted the lid, tattooed muscles bulging.
Black metal glimmered.
Tessa swallowed, leaning closer, mouth dropping.
Rezal blasters.
A lot of them.
No one but the Poliza had rezals in Didgermmion. That was one way the Prime aristos maintained control of the Humanis. The Humanis weren’t strong enough on their own to fight against the faster, stronger Primes, and anyway, they had nothing to fight for.
If all those crates were full of rezals, there must be hundreds. Her whole life would change if she could get her hands on just one. She’d never need to be afraid again. No one would be able to touch her or Leyla.
Palms clammy, she leaned closer, straining to hear, wrapping her hands around the edge of the skylight as she shifted forward, lowering her ear to the opening.
Nothing. Which one was the Boss?
The men were all big and dark and scary. So the junkie’s description was less than worthless.
An agreement of sorts was made. She could tell by their body language. The woman, still pissed, made a few sharp remarks.
She caught a few words, rising like smoke in the thick air. “Harder for us to… Need a break…. Too many…. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Another of the men, one who hadn’t spoken much, with thick, dark hair, dressed all in black, said something that seemed to calm the woman.
He was big—enormous actually—standing with his legs braced apart, arms crossed, the corded muscles of his arms glinting in the light. He looked like a Prime, but he wasn’t wearing the classic togata of the nobility. Which meant, he either wasn’t a Prime, he wasn’t noble, or he just didn’t like wearing the dandified togatas. And of all those options, the only one that made sense was the last one, since all Primes were nobles, and he had to be a Prime. Humanis just didn’t come that big or arrogant.
Maybe…
One of his words hit her ear. Boss.
Her eyes narrowed. She’d been holding out hope that he was the Boss. There was a slight deference in the way everyone spoke to him. Like they were waiting for him. But he wouldn’t talk about himself in third person, would he? Even the Boss wouldn’t be that weird.
And it wasn’t the woman.
The Boss was a man. She knew that much.
The woman and the speaker were out. They’d outright dismissed something the bald, tattooed guy had said. He couldn’t be the Boss then. She couldn’t picture anyone dismissing Delsanthio, not if half the rumors were true.
The other two, she’d distinctly gotten the impression, worked for the woman. Her bodyguards maybe. They’d stayed back from the circle of the two men and the woman.
So the Boss wasn’t there?
She ignored the smattering of disappointment. Where the hell was he?
It didn’t matter, she’d come back tomorrow, and the next night, and the next, and the one after that, if she had to. Until he made an appearance, and she saw the bastard in the flesh. She’d never give up.
She leaned closer, bracing herself against the window casing.
Which was a mistake. Because it was old, and the sun, heat and humidity had broken it down to little more than dust.
It crumbled away.
Right beneath her fingertips.
One second the casing was a solid weight under her palm, and the next it was gone. And there was nothing but dust and air as her hand plunged into the warehouse below.
She scrabbled for purchase, throwing out a leg, and flailing with her other arm, but she was too slow.
Her shoulder plunged through the opening. Paint chips and rotted caulking rained down.
Her cheek bone smacked against the glass hard enough to make her eyes tear up. She squeezed them shut, waiting for the glass to give. But it held. It didn’t shatter. If it had, she’d already be dead on the ground.
She shuddered.
Twenty feet below, five heads turned up. Five pairs of eyes zeroed on her.
Shit.
Time to run.
2
Tell me your lies,
And I’ll tell you mine.
THE BIG ONE didn’t even flinch.
He just launched into motion, bolting toward the door in a dark blur.
The way he moved, there was no longer any doubt about his physiology. Prime.
Of the four genuses; Prime, Prima, Humani and felana, only Primes and the incredibly rare Primas could move like that. Superfast. Felanas could move faster than Humanis, but nothing like the Primes. He was bigger, stronger and faster with heightened senses and probably formal combat training.
She was totally screwed.
Grabbing her bag, she took off at a sprint. Straightening her palms to slice through the air, she leaped across an alley and onto the rooftop next to the warehouse. Pounded across
