Jubal Van Zandt & the Revenge of the Bloodslinger Read online

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carina shrug. “I want everybody I care about to be safe.”

  “Then why don’t you pray for them,” I taunted.

  “I do.”

  I sat up, squeezed the rat rod’s wheel, and shifted from one side of my butt to the other. “Lot of good it did your dad.”

  If I hadn’t been used to her Carina-pauses by then, I might have thought I’d scored a direct hit with that one. She was quiet for a long time. We’d almost stop-and-goed our way through half a city block before she spoke again.

  “Maybe it did,” she said.

  “Holy fuck,” I said, shifting in my seat again, my muscle fibers suddenly crawling with restless fishhooks of energy. “Don’t pray to your asshole deity for me, Carina. I can’t take that kind of blessing. I like my entrails right where they are.”

  She didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t say anything for the remaining two hours we sat in traffic, the thirty second elevator ride, or the short walk to our separate rooms.

  It wasn’t a thinking silence or an angry silence. I think she was hurt. I think I hurt her.

  As soon as I heard Carina’s room door close, I checked the security screen, then stepped back into the empty hall to see what sort of nighttime entertainment Giku had to offer.

  FIFTEEN

  My wristpiece beeped, and I came full awake.

  “Whassat?” a groggy feminine voice asked from over my shoulder. “Time is it?”

  The pillows and blankets were scattered around the floor, their white fabric stained orangish-blue by the light pollution coming in through the window wall. I was lying across the hotel room’s wide couch instead of on the bed. My arm was hanging off the side, my knuckles brushing the indigo carpet.

  My wristpiece beeped again. Two messages. I started to raise my arm to check them.

  Soft, sleep-warm breasts and burning thighs moved against my back.

  “That your wristpiece or mine?” she mumbled.

  I pushed her off. “You’re the ko grandmaster. Why don’t you use your incredible powers of logic and strategy to figure it out?”

  She laughed as if I’d made a really clever joke.

  “How about I use my incredible powers of seduction instead?” She ran her hand down my stomach toward my dick.

  I elbowed her off me and got out of bed, scanning the room for her clothes.

  “Yeah, I was lying about that.” I found her button-down shirt, tie, and one high-heeled shoe. “Your pickup lines aren’t charming, and your method of seduction is contrived and robotic.”

  She sat up on the couch, pulling a pillow off the floor to cover herself. “It worked on you.”

  “They’ll make anyone a grandmaster nowadays.” I held the clothes out to her. “Get dressed and get out.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I tried international ko player and it turns out I don’t have an automaton fetish. I like my women capable of expressing emotion. Your ex and I have that in common, I guess.”

  “I’m not an automaton!”

  Her other shoe lay half in the bathroom.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” I said as I picked it up.

  “I was an excellent lover!” You could see her replay the moves back in her mind and arrive at a concluded victory. “Tonight was everything that’s required of a spontaneous sexual encounter!”

  Another beep. The reminder notification for unchecked messages.

  On the way to the door, my foot caught in her skirt. I kicked it up into my hands.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I already asked you once to leave, but you obviously can’t process human speech.” I opened the door and tossed her clothes out into the hallway. Her sandal thudded off of the opposite wall.

  “You can’t do that!” she yelled. “Those are mine!”

  “Like I’m going to throw my own shit out of my room. Now get out before I throw you out, too.”

  A tear ran down her cheek. She stood up and swiped it away.

  “I am not robotic,” she said. “And I don’t have to put up with this kind of treatment.”

  I held the door for her.

  She lifted her chin and walked naked into the hallway as if that would show me.

  I let the door swing shut behind her, sick to my stomach.

  My wristpiece’s message reminder beeped again. Finally alone, I checked it.

  CX 00:59:06 I’ll pray for whoever I want.

  CX 00:59:19 I’m Carina fucking Xiao.

  I threw back my head and laughed.

  JVZ 01:06:08 Want to get some breakfast?

  CX 01:07:08 It’s six a.m. somewhere.

  ***

  The Glass House hotel’s restaurant wasn’t open after midnight, but Carina and I compromised by ordering up to her room and eating in the hall by her door. I got waffles. She got every kind of non-seafood protein on the menu, fried. We both enjoyed a steaming black cup of imported Ad’brum’sarl dark roast.

  “This is incredible,” Carina said. She took another sip of the coffee. “Like drinking a summer night. I can almost hear the tree frogs.”

  “Hey, what do you know, the iron stomach has taste buds, too,” I said, elbowing her.

  She flinched, smiling, and tucked her arm against her side to protect her ribs from follow-up attacks. Apparently Carina fucking Xiao, the Bloodslinger, named knight of the Guild, was ticklish.

  “Just because I don’t spend all my time complaining doesn’t mean I don’t recognize good when I taste it,” she said.

  I broke off a corner of my waffle. “Then taste this.”

  She did. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want any of this?” She indicated her tray.

  “All right, let’s have some of that bacon.”

  “There’s a hot pepper remoulade to dip it in.”

  I tried some. “Good God Almighty.”

  She laughed. “Right?”

  “Okay, sister, plates in the middle,” I said, arranging the trays between us longwise and turning to face her. “This is a breakfast buffet now.”

  “Best idea you’ve had all day.” Carina crossed her legs and spun around on her butt to face the food. She reached over and pulled off another bite of my waffle.

  We sat out there eating and joking until the food was gone. Every now and then a late-night reveler would give us bewildered looks as they stumbled past on the way to their room.

  When we were done, I stacked our empty plates and trays together and sat them next to the door across from Carina’s, then I leaned back against the wall next to her.

  She stretched, arching her back and moaning low in her throat. “That was exactly what I wanted.”

  “Same here, except now I’m about half a blink from passing out,” I said.

  “Same.” She checked her wristpiece. “Plenty of time. We’re not leaving here until eight.”

  I knew it wasn’t what she meant, but I went for the joke anyway. “If you’re inviting me back to your room, Bloodslinger, I accept, but I should warn you up front that I’m exhausted. I mean, I’ll give it a shot, but it’s not going to be my best work.”

  Carina smiled and stood up. “Good thing that wasn’t an invitation, then.”

  “If you want to cuddle, I guess…”

  “Good night, Jubal,” she said, unlocking her door.

  “Your loss.” I shrugged. “I’m a world-class cuddler.”

  “Go get some rest in your five-star bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a long one.”

  ***

  That night, as I was dozing off, I imagined me and Carina playing in the jungle alongside Courten’s river—except in this scenario, it was bright yellow daylight and she and I were little kids. We screeched and laughed and chased each other around the trees and threw rocks into muddy water.

  It wasn’t a dream, though. I was still awake, at least a little bit. When my entire body twitched in reality to catch my child-self from an imagined fall, the memory of that mak
e-believe scene stuck in my throat and stomach like a poisoned knife.

  I got up, went to the bathroom, and splashed water on my face. Then I stared into the dark brown eyes in the mirror, inspecting the ring of black around the irises until I was sure I wasn’t going to go back into the bedroom, throw the valuables safe through the wall of windows, and follow it out.

  SIXTEEN

  We left the hotel the next morning with thirty minutes to spare, made a quick stop at a camping and outdoor supply store for camping and outdoor supplies, then found the Dangerous Game resort.

  Atson and another guy were waiting for us at the helipad.

  “This is Dax,” Atson said. “He’s going to be our spotter. I can’t check your rope or make sure you’re ready to jump while I’m hovering, so he’ll do the final checks and give you all the signals. Dax knows everything there is to know about rope work. You’re in good hands.”

  Neither Dax nor Atson seemed surprised that Carina was decked out in jungle camo with knives strapped to her thighs, pockets full of backup knuckgun magazines, and replacement saw chain wrapped around her fists and wrists like jewelry, but Atson tugged his goatee at my brightly-colored tourist shirt and khaki pants and shot Dax an amused look.

  “Let me guess,” Atson said to Carina. “John here is going to distract the prey while you shoot it?”

  He and Dax guffawed at his joke. I laughed good-naturedly and fingered the throat-pin in my wristpiece band.

  When the hilarity died down, Carina asked, “Are we ready to go?”

  “Almost. Got to do the lecture.” Atson held up a harness and went off on a practiced spiel. “Just slip this on and pull tight here, here, and here. Do not—repeat, do not—set your harness down somewhere and lose it while you’re out. If you lose it, you won’t have anything to hook onto when I come to pick you up.”

  We each took a harness and pulled them on like an extra layer of underwear, then pulled the straps tight. Atson looked a little disappointed at how quickly and easily Carina got hers on and adjusted. He’d probably been hoping to spend some time feeling around her crotch under the pretense of helping.

  “The drop is a simple rappel,” Atson continued. “The pickup will be a simple winch back into the chopper—if you don’t lose your harnesses. Any questions?”

  I raised my hand. “I’m not clear on the harnesses, RE: level of importance.”

  Atson gave me a flat look, then turned to Carina to see if she had any questions. She didn’t. This wasn’t her first rappel. It wasn’t mine, either, but I didn’t feel it necessary to share that information with the group.

  With the lecture out of the way, Carina and Atson spent a few minutes transferring the fuel money into his account—the rest she would transfer after he picked us up—and then we climbed into the helicopter.

  The cockpit was a one-seater, just big enough for Atson, but the bay, where Dax, Carina, and I sat, was made to hold several hunters and whatever big game they had bagged.

  Donut rings, pulleys, and tackle threaded with black cord hung from the roof. A winch was set into the floor. Dax spent a few minutes assigning Carina and me headphones, ropes, gloves, and descenders, then showed us the guide hand and brake hand maneuvers. We sat on the edge of the bay with our feet on the landing gear, did a couple of dry runs, then we were ready to go.

  Atson started up the helicopter, and we lifted off.

  ***

  The canopy of Soam’s rainforest is ninety percent vine, ten percent tree, sort of like a giant net with a few holes in it, through which you could see almost all the way to the ground. Once we made it over the Weeping Mountains and into the valley, Atson brought us down closer to the vegetation net, looking for the specific hole he and Carina had decided on the day before. I kept an eye out for dark ponds that might match the one the Courten witch had drawn for us, but couldn’t see anything through the canopy cover.

  Finally, the helicopter stopped its horizontal momentum and hovered over a huge clearing.

  Atson’s voice came through our headphones, “Over drop zone.”

  “Drop zone check,” Dax responded. He leaned out and glanced around the clearing below. “Clear. Equipment check.” He jerked on my harness, the ring my rope was looped through in the floor, the descender, nodded at my gloves, then said, “Hunter one clear for drop.” He checked Carina over in the same efficient manner, then nodded. “Hunter two clear for drop.”

  “Go in five,” Atson said.

  Carina took her headphones off and handed them back. She sent her bag zipping down the rope first, then sat on the floor of the helicopter, put her feet on the landing gear, and waited.

  “Go, hunter two,” Dax yelled, slapping her on the shoulder.

  Carina jumped. She hit the ground, ran backward until the rope was free, then signaled that she was clear. Textbook execution.

  Dax reeled in Carina’s rope, then nodded at me. I handed him my headphones, tossed my bag down the rope, sat with my feet on the landing gear, and waited. My heart was pounding, and a wild grin had spread across my face.

  Over the noise from the blades, I could just barely hear Dax yell, “Go, hunter one,” as he slapped me on the back.

  I jumped.

  I don’t screw around showboating on the ’Shan because the potential to end up with a face that looks like ground meat is too high. Gotta protect the moneymaker. Additionally, with the number of variables I don’t have control over on any given road, the risk of death greatly outweighs the reward of a couple seconds’ thrill. But in a situation like this, when I don’t have any other ingress options, and the variables I don’t have control over have been cut down to just one or two, I love a good adrenaline rush.

  The wind washed over my face and riffled through my hair as I shot toward the ground. A laugh bubbled up out of my chest. I could’ve dropped forever.

  My sneakers slammed down, and I put an arm over my face and ran backward to unthread the rope. When the rope was free, Dax reeled it back in.

  Within a matter of seconds, the helicopter was gone.

  Carina was crouched a few yards away, digging her knuckgun out of her bag. She felt me watching her and raised her head.

  The smile lit up her whole face. “It’s never bad, is it?”

  “Never,” I said.

  For the next couple of seconds we just stood there grinning like idiots together.

  ***

  We couldn’t be sure how reliable the laptic grid would be inside the mountain valley, so Carina and I both checked our position on our wristpieces. The wristpieces agreed. If they were wrong, then they were at least both the same amount of wrong. We synced our wristpieces, shouldered our bags, and set off toward the marker Carina had made on the nav app in the dark pond area.

  The jungle grew denser as we walked, until Carina had to take out the machete she’d bought that morning and start chopping. There wasn’t much to talk about or much motivation to do more than huff, puff, and sweat. Bloodsuckers of various and sundry sizes came out to investigate us, looking for—and finding—weak spots in our greasy coating of repellant. The branches, vines, and brambles that Carina didn’t waste her energy cutting down because they weren’t a direct obstacle to continuing scraped, scratched, and pulled at us, occasionally opening up new holes for the bloodsuckers to exploit. The air, which had been a blanket of humidity in Courten, was now a boiling cauldron.

  It occurred to me several times during the walk that this was the reason I was a creature of luxury—the jungle sucks. But every time I looked down at the nav screen on my wristpiece and saw that blinking marker a few steps closer, I got more excited.

  “What are you talking about back there?” Carina asked, pausing for a second to swipe her long sleeve across her forehead. The tactical fiber blend soaked up the sweat and made it disappear.

  “Just reminding myself how awesome I am,” I said between breaths.

  “Any particular reason?”

  I pointed to the marker on my wristpiece. “
Unwaltzable village.” I pointed to myself. “Currently waltzing.”

  “Best thief in the history of the Revived Earth,” Carina said.

  “You’re damn right I am.”

  She started chopping at the undergrowth again. “That’s why I hired you.”

  I considered it. At this point, it was almost a certainty that the job was legit and everything Carina had said so far relating to getting revenge on those brujahs was the truth as she saw it. For someone to have okayed the time, cost, and energy sunk into setting up a sting operation this elaborate and disguise it to this depth was implausible, even for the Guild.

  But I liked knowing that Carina agreed that I was the best thief in the history of the Revived Earth. And she would know that I liked it and that my ego would want to believe her when she said so.

  But then what about all that nonsense about her scars being hypersensitive in this humidity, and admitting that she was wrong about the fix-it witch? What about on the drive to Courten when she was acting like a suicidal psycho with nothing to gain but shutting me up or killing us both, and all those times I had surprised her into laughing?

  A bloodsucker as big around as my wrist landed on my forearm. Before it could shove its proboscis through the muscle and into my bone, I smacked it. The bulbous thorax splattered gore all over my arm. I wiped my hand on the back of Carina’s bag.

  She didn’t look back.

  “You think this is the first time someone’s wiped something on me and thought I wouldn’t notice?” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll get you back.”

  I smiled. “Just keep in mind that if you do something bad, I’m going to do something worse.”

  “Oh, I expect you to.”

  For a second I was sure I could hear two little kids’ high-pitched laughing, but it was just something off in the jungle shrieking. That poisoned knife slipped into my gut again as I watched Carina hacking away at the greenery.

  I didn’t want her to be manipulating me. I wanted this to be real.

  ***

  At the first indication of sunset, we stopped. Carina made a fire and boiled water for our supper, then sharpened her machete on a whetstone while I set up the hammock tents we’d gotten from that outdoor supplies store.