Jubal Van Zandt & the Revenge of the Bloodslinger Read online

  “If I could’ve found something imported and vacuum-packed, I would have, but everything the locals were willing to part with in that little shitpuddle was home-fried. I tried to bribe the hostess for some goodies from her stash, but she wouldn’t even admit that she had a stash.”

  Carina was staring at me, lips and brows forming an expression that was almost studious.

  “What?” I asked.

  “How do you survive?” she asked. “That’s not just pickiness, that’s…”

  “It’s called having discerning tastes.”

  She started walking again. “Nope, it’s called having a weakness.”

  “I don’t compromise when it comes to food, Carina. You shouldn’t, either, iron stomach or not. Do you want mouth-gonorrhea? Because poorly prepared food is how you get mouth-gonorrhea.”

  “Those breakfast fruits weren’t even peeled. They were probably the least-processed food you’ve ever been in contact with.”

  “That was different. Those tasted like nutsack.”

  “You would never survive in the wild.”

  “I wouldn’t want to. I’m a creature of luxury, Carina, and I demand to be treated like one. Give me five-star cuisine or give me death.”

  She snorted.

  My door came up first. I scanned my key and opened it, then stopped just before stepping inside.

  Carina hadn’t waited for me or said anything, just kept on walking down the hall to her room, two down from mine. She was scanning her key when she noticed me watching her.

  “What?” she asked.

  The skylights in the roof of the Glass House hotel were shining just right off the pink mass of scar tissue on her left cheek. I could see myself running my fingers across it, her eyes closing as she leaned into my touch.

  “You could really use a shower, too,” I told her, curling my fingers into a fist. My nails dug into my palm. “You look like shit.”

  She opened her mouth to say something back, but her wristpiece started ringing. She glanced down at it, then back at me.

  “Tell Nickie-boy I said hi.” I went into my room and shut the door before she could answer. I launched my bag at the couch. “Stupid fucker.”

  ***

  Carina didn’t call my room or message my wristpiece later to see if I wanted to go get something to eat with her, so I raided the snacks in the minibar and ordered some room service.

  Maybe she was still talking to Nick or whoever had called. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. Maybe she was downstairs using the Glass House’s gym to run off all those nutsack fruit and diarrhea-dipped cattails-on-a-stick she ate. Maybe she was waiting to see if I would message her.

  I wouldn’t. If she wanted this game to progress, she was going to have to make the next move.

  When my locally-sourced, freshly-prepared scallops zri with cristgrass salad and the Glass House kitchen’s take on the classic Emden roll was delivered, I sat on the bed and ate. Light and buttery with a hint of pan char. Edible perfection.

  I messed with my wristpiece while I ate. If I went digging around with the Silver Platter infoserve tech upgrade I’d gotten off the digi-black market last year, I could probably link to Carina’s wristpiece and find out what she was up to, check her messages, figure out why she was ignoring me.

  It was tempting, definitely, but it was also a bad sign. I was having too much fun hanging around Carina. I was buying into the friendship lie again, thinking of her as the pet, not the predator.

  The only person who can catch you is you.

  With the savory and the greenery coating the inside of my stomach like a warm hug, it was time for something sweet. All four of the desserts on the Glass House’s menu sounded good, so I ordered one of each, telling myself that I was making up for lost meals while in Courten.

  While I waited for dessert to be delivered, I glanced down at the knife on the scallops and cristgrass tray, then up at my reflection in the mirrored ceiling.

  My hands were grabbing at the slack in my gut. I smiled. The man in the mirror giggled at me.

  Nope, cutting off chunks of myself with a serrated knife in the middle of the afternoon would never work. I didn’t have any way to sufficiently sanitize the knife, there would be blood all over the place, the possibility of hitting an artery, and even if I didn’t, I would have to dispose of the flesh somewhere. You couldn’t just flush semisolid chunks of adipose tissue that big without clogging the toilet. Physical plant would come to unclog it, realize what it was, and freak out. A move like that would be impossible to keep secret.

  Room service knocked politely, emphasizing that meditation and self-examination will always bow to the real world.

  I got up and shook my head. “And can you imagine the scars?”

  FOURTEEN

  I must’ve dozed off at some point after eating because when I woke up, the world outside the wall of windows in my room was dark and lit with blue and orange city lights. The air conditioner was running full blast over in the corner. I stretched and listened for what had woken me.

  Three solid knocks, the sort that a person accustomed to being in authority probably does without even thinking about it. I rolled out of bed and checked the security screen next to the room door.

  The hidden camera was set at a high angle so I could see the top of Carina’s head with the least amount of fishbowl distortion. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail that would’ve looked good—younger and pretty—if not for the way it emphasized her scars. She stood in the hall with her thumbs hooked into her jeans pockets, looking down at her shoes while she waited for me to answer the door.

  I smiled. In spite of the fact that I knew I should be proceeding with caution, Carina’s game was working. I was excited to see her.

  I stacked the plates and snack trash from earlier onto a tray, set them on the bathroom counter, then pulled the bathroom door shut. I hadn’t seen Carina wear her hair like that before. This ponytail business was a first.

  Three more commanding knocks.

  “Coming,” I yelled.

  I checked myself out in the mirror over the bed. Dark circles under the eyes from the recent lack of sleep, but the eyebrow scar and perfect smile brought it all together in a way that gave the dark circles an air of mystery.

  “Come on, Van Zandt, we’re going to be late,” Carina called.

  “Give me a second to get some clothes on,” I yelled back.

  In the hall, she rolled her head on her neck impatiently, which is what I would have done if I knew someone was watching me on a security screen. Why the sudden hairstyle change?

  I unbuttoned my tourist shirt until it flapped loose over my t-shirt and thought back to sitting in my room earlier, eating and wondering why she wasn’t contacting me. Maybe she had been waiting for me to message her first, and since I hadn’t messaged her, she’d decided to try a more visual way of attracting my attention.

  “All right already,” I said, opening the door. I messed with the collar on my tourist shirt, straightening it as if I’d just thrown it on. “What do you want?”

  She glanced at the shirt, then up at me. “We’re meeting with the pilot across town in half an hour and you weren’t even dressed?”

  “I took a nap. I had a big night last night. That’s what you’re wearing?” I turned a condescending eye on the tank top and jeans hugging her toned, athletic body. “You know this isn’t a Guild shrimp boil, right?”

  “Says the guy in a shirt covered with blue and orange flowers.”

  “The guy in slacks and a shirt covered with blue and orange flowers,” I countered. “Most of these Giku dinner clubs will bounce anybody in jeans. It’s the first thing they look for. Even if they did let you in, you’d stick out like the vag in the oysterlusk beauty contest.”

  “What should I wear, then?”

  “Something feminine, if you own anything that fits the adjective,” I said, ignoring the way that her shirt emphasized the soft curve of her breasts. “A dress would be best, but even
a skirt and nice shirt would get us past the host. Think rich germophobe meets prissy lady of leisure.”

  She sighed and went back to her room.

  ***

  With as little notice as I’d given her, Carina actually did an admirable job. She stepped onto the pier of the outdoor dinner club wearing a sleeveless knee-length dress that clung to her torso and swished in interesting patterns around her hips.

  “You lying bastard,” she said, looking around at the patrons wearing jeans and t-shirts. The ones who weren’t wearing shorts and swimming suits, anyway. “This is literally a shrimp boil.”

  I giggled. “I know, right?”

  “You’re going to regret this,” she said.

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.”

  “People are staring.”

  “It’s because you’re overdressed.”

  She growled in her throat. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Like father, like daughter.”

  The host appeared, and Carina turned a radiant smile on him as if she wasn’t completely out of place in a casual club for fat Soam shrimp-lovers.

  “Table for two?” the host asked.

  “Three,” Carina corrected him. “We’re meeting someone. Blake Atson. Has he been seated?”

  “Yep, he has. Follow me, darlin’.”

  The host led us to a round, bug-lantern lit table, where a man was already working on peeling a mountain of shrimp. Before he left, the host pulled out Carina’s seat as if this was a much fancier restaurant.

  “Atson?” Carina asked, offering her hand. The bug-lantern illuminated faded scars down her bare forearm that brought to mind the deflection of sharp objects.

  Atson utilized a napkin before shaking. “That’d be me. Guessing by your accent that you’re not from around here, stranger.”

  “Guessing by your accent that you’re from the mountain bayous up in Emden,” Carina said, mimicking his accent playfully.

  “Originally, yeah,” he said, cocking his head at Carina in surprise.

  “It’s not that impressive a guess on my part,” she said, lowering her chin with a self-deprecating smile. “My fiancé’s from up that way originally, too. I hear ‘stranger’ a lot.”

  They laughed together at what I assumed was a regional inside joke, and my internal Fuck This Guy O-Meter redlined.

  I smiled as if I thought being outside the inner circle jerk was funny. “Well, now that you two know each other’s life stories, should we talk business?”

  “I take it this isn’t your fiancé?” Atson said.

  Carina chuckled. “This is my business partner. He’s not trying to be rude, but he stays pretty focused on the job.”

  “No, no, I understand,” Atson said, offering his hand to me. “Without the blinders, the workhorse gets distracted. I can respect that attitude.”

  “John Dillinger,” I said, giving his hand a businesslike shake and his face a businesslike frown.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Atson didn’t register a flicker of recognition at the name. This is why you study First Earth lore—so you’ll know when someone gives you a blatantly obvious alias.

  The waiter came around and took our orders. An aperitif for Carina, bottled water for me. The waiter offered to refill Atson’s all-you-can-eat shrimp plate, but Atson waved him off.

  Once the waiter was gone, Carina set to outlining her drop and pickup plan, showing Atson a couple of Weeping Mountain Valley maps on her wristpiece as visual aids. Atson latched onto it all fast, and soon he was suggesting better drop points and explaining the wind and weather patterns common to the area.

  For her part, Carina was doing everything she could to encourage his input, asking questions about flying, leaning in and listening to his anecdotes with what appeared to be genuine fascination. Only a few strands of her long hair were out of the ponytail and framing her face, but she kept sweeping them back and tucking them behind her ears.

  Discussing the finer points of his job with Carina and correcting her incorrect assumptions about flying seemed to be giving Atson a great big ego-boner. Probably a penis one as well. He was so engrossed in her being engrossed in him that he didn’t ask once why we wanted to be dropped in the middle of the jungle. Throughout their conversation, Atson scooted closer and closer to her until they were sitting side by side, not quite touching.

  “So you’re saying you can do it,” I interrupted, still playing the workaholic partner. “Great, but how much is this going to cost us?”

  “Yeah.” Carina bit her lip and cast her long lashes down toward the table. “This is kind of embarrassing, but we are on a budget.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Atson said. “I get a salary plus commission on each drop I make working for Dangerous Game, so I don’t need to put the hurt on you for my supper. I’ll take you out and pick you up if you pay for fuel and add a thousand each way.”

  Which was probably twice what he was making in commissions.

  “Thank you so much!” Carina squeezed his bicep in gratitude. “That would be amazing. You’re absolutely hired.”

  She was good. That retard Nick probably had no idea at all what he was marrying.

  ***

  After we set up a time the next day to meet with Atson for our drop and finished our drinks, Carina followed me out of the restaurant. I veered away from the stolen Fedra and headed down the street.

  Behind me, her steps faltered. “Where are you going?”

  “Trading up,” I said, scanning the parked cars for something a little more my class. A custom chopped, toxic-waste-green rat rod on the opposite side of the road caught my eye.

  I started the timer on my wristpiece, then crossed the street, keeping an eye out for potential witnesses. The rat rod’s doors had been fitted with simple techtumblers. I pressed the victor crystal set in the band of my wristpiece to the techtumbler’s faceplate and listened to the static inside the lock as it freaked out.

  A second later, the doors unlocked with a muted clunk. I opened the driver’s side and climbed in.

  Carina didn’t go to the passenger side. “Do we need a new car?”

  “We’ve been driving that one for a couple days now,” I said, opening the e-skeleton key app and starting the download for aftermarket MercyFire ignition locks. “Whoever it belonged to might have come back and reported it stolen.”

  They probably hadn’t, though. There had been barely any accumulation of dust or dirt on the Fedra when we jacked it, which meant it hadn’t been sitting in that long-term lot for very long at all.

  “What if this belongs to Atson?” she asked, still standing in the street.

  I snorted. “Not in his wettest dreams. He’s probably driving some mass market piece of shit. Or that cheap excuse for a crotchrocket over there.”

  The e-skeleton key app beeped a finished notification and I let my wristpiece interface with the ignition. The rat rod screamed like an awakened hogzilla.

  I hit the timer on my wristpiece. “Fifty-nine seconds! Jubal, you monster-cocked virtuoso, how do you stand yourself?”

  Carina still hadn’t gotten in.

  “Are you going to stand out there all night waiting for rain, or are you going to get in the car?” I asked.

  She got in. We started our drive back to the Glass House in our beautiful new rat rod.

  “Is something bothering you?” Carina asked.

  “I’m a day away from proving I’m the best thief in the history of the Revived Earth—yet again—by waltzing into an unwaltzable village, and you want to know if something’s bothering me?” I grinned and hit the button to put the ragtop down. “Sister, I’ve never felt better in my whole life.”

  She was quiet for several blocks. Then, raising her voice to be heard over the wind, she said, “You seem different tonight.”

  “I’m not.”

  She didn’t contradict me.

  I glanced over at her. The wind whipped her ponytail and the face-framing
hairs around her head. She was holding the hair back on the left side of her face, away from her cheek.

  “What’s with the new hairdo?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “It’s hot down here, and I hate it when my hair sticks to my face.”

  “Does it bother your scars?”

  The wind tore away her answer, so I had to ask, “What?”

  “Sometimes,” she said louder.

  We turned down a traffic-packed street and had to slow to a crawl.

  Carina added in a quieter voice, “The acid should have destroyed the nerve endings, but it made them hypersensitive instead. So, sometimes contact bothers them more. Especially when it’s hot and humid like this.”

  I nodded, trying to decide whether she was telling the truth. What would she have to gain by lying about her scars? Maybe sympathy? Pity? But again I couldn’t see an endgame in that. And if it was true, then it was a weakness. Why tell me? So I would realize it was true and that she was revealing something about herself, and in turn, feel compelled to reveal something about myself?

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Van Zandt?” Carina asked. “You’ve been quiet tonight.”

  “Still tired,” I said. “That freaky Courten gal really wore me out.”

  The way the scarred corner of Carina’s mouth twitched I knew there was a smile on the rest of her face. “I’m sure you’ve heard the lecture before, but you did use protection, right?”

  “Carina, I’m a grown-ass man, of course I used protection. I had a knuckgun within reach the entire time.”

  She laughed. “I’m serious.”

  “Me, too.” I let off the brake long enough for the rat to roll forward another inch, then stopped again. “Why? Worried about me?”

  “Yeah.”

  My foot slipped off the brake, and I had to stomp on it again before we rolled into the back of the cargo carrier in front of us.

  “Well, you shouldn’t be.” I leaned an arm on the door panel and rested my head in my hand so I could dig my fingernails into the back of my scalp. It didn’t help.