The six-armed lady glided out from behind the curtains wearing a swoop of fabric on top and a skirt that was just two pieces of long cloth hung together with a chain over her hips. When she moved, tin coins sewn onto the skirt jingled. Her six arms twisted and rolled in hypnotizing patterns while her hips shook the coins in counterpoint to the music.
If not for the huge neon Kill Me sign plastered over her head, I might’ve forgotten why I’d come there in the first place.
When her dance ended, the six-armed dancer took a graceful bow and slipped into the audience. The appreciative coin-throwing went on for a while.
The crosshairs disappeared from my view as she crossed out of the window’s cone of vision. I couldn’t see her over there, so I ducked under the window and moved around to the opposite side of the dance hall.
There were no windows on that side with a good angle on the corner, but luckily the bamboo walls weren’t air or light tight. I found a crack between bamboo stalks big enough to see through and stuck my face up to it. Hopefully nobody would look that way and notice an eyeball staring back at them.
Inside, the six-armed lady was sitting on Valthorpe’s lap, two of her hands playing with his black hair and round, monkeylike ears while he talked, the rest of them doing things like handing him his drink and hanging around his neck.
So this was where he’d stormed off to.
I couldn’t hear what the academic was saying over the music and noise, but the six-armed woman looked impressed or shocked at all the right points, which seemed to encourage Valthorpe to keep going.
I got a bad feeling when he pulled out a black coin silencer like the ones we’d found on the Technols and showed it off. The six-armed dancer was fascinated with it, so he let her hold it and poke at it and stuff for a while before taking it back.
When they disappeared out a side door next to the stage, I leaned against the wall, trying to decide what to do. This didn’t prove anything except that Unu was right and Valthorpe didn’t want any of us to know he was there. The silencer wasn’t evidence by itself; I’d met Dragons who kept one on them all the time. Valthorpe could’ve just sold all but one today. He could’ve been telling her he killed the Technol who’d been packing it. The six-armed lady hadn’t done anything except listen to him ramble like a dork trying to impress a hot girl, and there were no connections to the Shogun or Bailiff. Definitely nothing that changed my mind about killing her.
Frustrated, I shoved off the wall. I wasn’t some kind of Dick Tracey PI. All these stupid knots within knots were going to have to figure themselves out. I didn’t know what all this meant, and I didn’t know what I was going to tell Sanya-ketsu the next time she messaged me besides, I’m still not killing somebody’s mom. It was late, I was tired and starving, and I was going back to the saloon to get some food and sleep.
Dead Reckoning freaked out behind me, right in time with the gunshot.
Old Enemies
SCALDING-HOT LEAD BURNED across my jaw as Dead Reckoning tried to dodge the bullet.
“Idiot!” someone snarled behind me. “Are you trying to get us executed?”
I caught a glimpse of three familiar figures as I spun, all of them former OSS. Fugi—the OSS gangster with the rifle arm, the Shogun, and the Bailiff. The Shogun had ahold of Fugi’s gun arm, shoving the barrel down.
“Apologies, Shogun. It was just a warning shot.”
“Through his head?” the Shogun snapped.
“I didn’t realize that would kill a human.”
Pressure slapped me down. I hit the hot paving stones on my hands and knees, but for once I didn’t go all the way to my belly. The OSS Shogun’s pressure trick doubled, trying to force me down, but I reinforced my muscles with Ki-strength and held myself up.
“Well, well, well, long time no see, Smart Boy.” The Bailiff’s cheerful voice grated down the back of my neck.
His greasy black hair had grown longer, but he still had the same faded bowler hat, worn wifebeater, suspenders, and brown slacks. With that yellow comb of baleen teeth behind his too-big smile and the extra set of oversized, muscular gray Spirit arms coming out of his shoulders, he looked like an evil carnival barker. The only thing that had changed about him since joining the Jianjiao seemed to be that he’d gotten a brand-new pair of hobnail boots trimmed with silver.
The Shogun’s pressure increased as they came closer. My arms shook. Sweat poured off my face and dripped onto the stone.
“You and your gang are supposed to be out in the sticks,” Shogun Takiru said in a low, cold voice. “What are you doing here, meat roach?”
“Got bored,” I forced out. “Came to town to party. Why didn’t you guys just kill me?”
“’Cause we’re so happy to see you,” the Bailiff drawled, his fancy new boots shifting like he was looking around. “Where’s Mr. Champion?”
“Behind you,” I croaked.
The fancy hobnailed boots twisted around to look behind him. The Bailiff laughed again.
Apparently Fugi didn’t think it was that funny. He jacked another round into his chamber and rested the barrel against the back of my head. I flinched. The muzzle was hot. The smell of burning hair and fresh gun smoke assaulted my sinuses.
“You think we’re playing around, indenture?” he snapped.
The barrel shifted as he swung a foot forward and nailed me in the gut. I folded onto my face, arms clutching my stomach.
Black, furious hatred reared up inside my chest, obliterating Last Light, Last Breath. I grabbed Fugi’s life point and crushed it. He saw it coming, but he didn’t have any resistance to protect himself.
The OSS gunman dropped like
