“Money’s in your locker room. Nope, locker room’s this way, come on,” a growling voice answered. It was so familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“What time’s my fight again?” the girl slurred.
Around the corner listed the short muscly girl who had just been KO’d. She was being half escorted, half carried by a brawny shark guy.
It was Ripper, the OSS hooligan turned Jianjiao, and the guy who had torn Kest’s arm off in the Wilderness Territorial.
My blood boiled as the memory of her shredded skin in Ripper’s teeth and his face covered in black Selken blood rose to the surface of my brain.
Then a more rational part of me pointed out that if Ripper was here, the Bailiff might be, too. They’d been best buds back in Ghost Town. The Bailiff was even the one who’d weaseled Ripper and the rest of the OSS out of trouble after what they’d done to Kest.
Ripper hadn’t seen us yet; he was too busy guiding the punch-drunk girl toward a door closer to their end of the hall.
I took a step toward the shark, hitting all the strength and speed enhancements.
An arm hooked around my throat. I tried to shake Warcry, but he slugged me in the bad ribs, and my knees folded. He dragged me backward into an empty locker room before I could get my feet back under me.
The door to the hall clicked shut, and Warcry finally let me go.
I yelled, “What the crap?” at the same time as he yelled, “Where’s your head at, ya clown?”
“That was Ripper.” I flung a hand at the door in frustration. “The Bailiff might’ve been with him.”
“I saw the shark,” Warcry snapped. “And if you can see one Jianjiao, then there’s twenty more you can’t see.”
“All the more reason to go after him,” I said. “We need to find out what they’re doing here. What if they followed us from Van Diemann?”
“What’re you gonna do, grav, saunter into the locker room and ask him polite as you please? I ain’t letting you walk into an ambush me first night on the job.”
“If the Bailiff is on this planet—heck, if he’s in this system—he’s a threat,” I said. “I’m going to take him out before he takes us out.”
“You’re mad if you think Ripper’s gonna spill that greasy cove’s whereabouts.”
“I’ll make him,” I said, a ghost of Dead Man’s Hand forming in my Spirit sea.
“Don’t be dense! It’s not just Ripper in there. You’ve got at least one fighter and you don’t know how many others. They’ll see your Death Spirit coming a light-year away—if they haven’t already.”
I dropped into Last Light, Last Breath, hiding my Spirit in oblivion, then sent out a cloaked blast of Dead Reckoning. It came back with a crude map of the life points within my range. Warcry’s was the closest, glowing like a red coal right next to me. A seafoam-green one burning at the same intensity was coming down the sloped hall toward us. A few scattered life points occupied other locker rooms, but there was no sign of Ripper or the muscly fighter girl.
“Crap. I lost them.”
Warcry nodded. “A fighter on the Jianjiao payroll would have a room with a secondary exit. She’ll get her fight done and pound concrete outta here.” Then he shook his head like he was arguing with himself. “That knockout was clean. It wasn’t a dive, grav, I’d stake me life on it.” He paced along the bench and thumped his fist into a locker. “What’re they playin’ at setting her up against a Jianjiao fighter on a qualifying tour?”
I brought up my messages on the Winchester. “I’ll let Kest and Rali know the OSS is in the Shinotochi system. Hopefully, they can stick close to Technol protection.”
“You don’t know that, grav. For all you know, that shark’s out on parole—”
The locker room door swung open.
We both spun around. Fire engulfed Warcry from head to foot. I was about to tell him not to attack—that Dead Reckoning showed it was just the seafoam life point of the Ylef fighter girl—but she spoke up first.
“Warcry?” Freckles scattered across the top of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose stood out as the skin underneath went white.
“Too right it is,” he growled.
There was half a second of silence. Then all hell broke loose.
The Ylef streaked past me, that green webbing covering the room and twisting to keep her at its center. Red flames blazed, and Warcry slammed a block into her attack, throwing himself into the superman-punch combo.
She turned her head a fraction of an inch, and the punch whiffed past her ear. I winced, not ready to see a girl take the full force of one of Warcry’s killer roundhouses, but apparently this girl already knew about his go-to move. As his prosthetic sliced toward her stomach, she barreled into the kick, scooping the fake leg.
They crashed into the lockers and hit the floor. Warcry rained hammer fists on her head and shoulders, but she shifted her grip without ever letting up the pressure and spidered around his back. In a second, her torso and arms were tangled around his legs and her legs were crossed around his neck.
Warcry’s face turned scarlet as she choked off the blood to his brain. He kicked for her face. She scowled and levered her body, locking his real knee.
“Tap out or I’ll rip your good leg off,” she yelled, head weaving to avoid his kicks.
He shoved and twisted, creating a split-second gap around his throat. Immediately, the blood drained, and he caught her right foot.
“Ain’t the one with the career to worry about anymore, am I?” he choked out. Then he turned into her heel, wrenching it until her foot was almost backward.
She growled and rolled forward, throwing groin-shots. Warcry dropped her foot and curled up to protect himself. Fists and knees laced with green webbing and red flames flew.
“Um...” I stuck my hands in my back pockets. “So,
