I looked at Warcry.
“Don’t even bleedin’ say it,” he muttered. He scrubbed a hand down his face, then let out a frustrated grunt. “Burn it. We already lost Sanya, didn’t we, so what’s another stop along the way?” Warcry pulled the curtain out of his way and told the dancer, “Oi, lovey, get whatever you need for you and your kid packed. Don’t matter where you go so long as you get away from the Jianjiao.”
Her hair whispered over the bedroll as she shook her head.
“I can’t. They own me.”
“Is it a script tattoo?” I asked. “We can give you the credits to get a tattoo artist to remove it.”
“You’re just a child,” she said. “You can’t even begin to understand. There are things so much stronger than script in this universe.”
“Then tell us what it’ll take.” That came out harsher than I meant for it to, but I was starting to get annoyed. I understood being sucked down by grief when your mom was dead, but she still had her kid to think about. “We can help if you let us.”
“The only way to protect her...” The dancer sat up on her daughter’s bed mat, laying aside the bloody rat thing. Her whole demeanor did a one-eighty. “Get her off the planet. It doesn’t matter where. In fact, don’t tell her where she’s going. She’ll just tell me the second we can communicate.”
“But you could go with her—”
“No, I can’t. This is what I should’ve done when she was born. I knew all along, but I was so selfish...” She wiped away tears I couldn’t see in the dark and behind the glowing crosshairs of Sentenced to Death. “I know what you two came here for. There’s a place Technols ship into Sarca to avoid the notice of the Eight-Legged Dragons. I’ve heard it in their thoughts. If you get my daughter off this planet, I’ll tell you where it is.”
I got up, ready to go, but Warcry didn’t move.
“How do we know you ain’t making all this up so we’ll do your dirty work for you?”
“Dude, she just lost her mom and her daughter,” I said.
“We don’t know that, do we?” Warcry snapped. “All we know is they ain’t here right now. Use your head, grav, it’s exactly what a slippery eel of a Jianjiao would do.”
The dancer shrugged. “I can’t think of any clever ways to convince you. I don’t have it in me anymore. All my cunning, everything that makes me a Jianjiao, even that has deserted me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told Warcry. “We’re doing this. If she screws us over, we’re back to square one on Sanya, but at least the kid is safe.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”
Cleaning House
THE EVERY COMFORT PALACE stood at the northern edge of the saloon district, a chunk of adobe two stories tall. The front door swung open. Music, light, and a couple of drunk guys with half-buttoned shirts spilled out into the night laughing at the top of their lungs. A painted sign was plastered across the front, lit by a pair of gas lamps. It didn’t leave what sort of comforts their name meant to the imagination.
Fury prickled under my skin at the thought of the Bailiff and his Jianjiao cronies selling a kid to this scuzzy place.
“You like arson, right?” I said, less than half joking.
Warcry got that ugly somebody’s-about-to-get-destroyed smile on his face. “Not when I don’t know who’s inside and who ain’t. What about your mass murder attack?”
“I need to see who I’m dealing with face-to-face. Like you said, we don’t know how many innocent bystanders are inside.” I scratched my hand through my hair, suddenly freaked out at all the ways this could go wrong. “Okay, so we go in, grab the girl, then head straight for the port. You’ll have to take the kid while I go back to her mom, that way the mom can’t read any info on where the kid’s going from my brain. I’ve got a lock on her with Sentenced to Death, so she can’t give me the slip.”
Warcry spat into the shallow canal. “Let’s not hang about making plans we can’t stick to. Live or die in the moment.”
“I’m not that cool with winging it when there’s a kid’s life on the line.” I already had one of those on my conscience from that shark family; I didn’t need another one.
“Then keep your head on straight and don’t muck up, yeah?” Warcry said, heading for the door.
A rough-looking bouncer with shoulders as wide as the door let us in with nothing more than a once-over, even though we’d been standing in the street, obviously casing the joint. Maybe he didn’t care, or maybe he was used to seeing losers who had to psych themselves up before they went in.
Warcry and I both lurched to a stop just inside the door. I thought I’d prepared myself out in the street to see some heinous stuff, but that had been the kind of lie only a totally naïve idiot can tell themselves.
The Every Comfort workers were all kids. Little girls and boys made up and on display for the twisted sickos patronizing the place. Customers sat drinking at the tables, their hands on little kids’ shoulders or twirling the kids’ hair. They ogled the ones on the stage and climbed the stairs with their fragile little purchases following behind.
Flames of Burning Hatred erupted across Warcry’s head and raced down his arms, and his face twisted into a revolted snarl.
My teeth started grinding. Bile climbed up the back of my throat as red washed over my vision. How could a place
