Grimspace (Sirantha Jax 1)

Grab Velith’s arm and slash his claws across my forearm. He scrambles out of his seat like he thinks he’s under attack; I’m finally showing my true colors, the crazed killer the Corp has painted me. But by the time he figures it out, it’s too late. I work my thumb feverishly over the vein just beneath my elbow, and the blood really starts to flow.

It drips down my forearm and over my fingertips, crimson drops spattering the ki-pants I put on after my shower, intending to curl up next to March. The blood looks dark and obscene against the pale fabric, living art.

“What is the matter with you?” I can tell by his tone that he doesn’t understand. Not surprising, this isn’t something a sane person would do.

His long, thin body blocks the path to the cockpit, as if I would try to take over the ship. That’s fine; it even works in my favor, as I’m heading the other way. Bracing my palms on the back of the seat, I bounce over, then it’s clear to where the four Morgut sit, conversing in a low chitter.

Deliberately I draw my arm back and fan it across their faces. All four of them draw back as if struck; and then, as one, forked tongues flick out to sample my flavor. Watching their faces, seeing how the slit-pupil eyes dilate with a different sort of lust, I feel like I could puke, but instead, I murmur, “Good? Want more?”

And all hell breaks loose.

CHAPTER 49

I expect to die.

When the first Morgut launches itself at me, I don’t even flinch. The others follow in a fury, but I simply squeeze my eyes shut and stand my ground. But instead of going down beneath a wave of rending limbs, Velith shoves me behind him. I have no idea what’s going on in his head, but he pushes me back so hard that I overbalance, slamming my head against the seat.

My vision fills with little flecks of light as I hit the floor. I hear grunts, sounds of scuffling, and weapon fire as if through a tunnel. Feel something hot and viscous spattering my face. I could crawl under the seats. Wait. Instead I push to my hands and knees, dizzy and nauseous. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost.

When I force my eyes open, the ridge along my brow throbs; maybe I hit my face on something on the way down. The carnage astonishes me. Of the five, only Velith’s left standing, but he looks really fragged up. Two of the Morgut bodies are still convulsing, pestilent ooze boiling out of their wounds.

“Why? Why did you do that?” We voice the question in unison, although we’re asking vastly different things.

“All I wanted was to die,” I whisper. “Why didn’t you let me? You still get paid.”

He’s bleeding in four places that I can see, a thin, delicate stream. Thought his blood would look different, but Vel is more like me than the Morgut. He’s not a monster.

His claws click together, and it makes me feel his agitation. “I captured you alive, Sirantha. Never has a target been slain while in my charge, and no one is going to sully my impeccable record, not you, not them. Now sit down and shut up before I am tempted to see how much damage you can survive.”

The Silverfish slows. Even though it’s a graceful descent, I feel the lessening altitude in my belly and in the way my knees bend slightly as if gravity asserts more influence closer to the ground. Don’t know whether we’ve reached Corp headquarters or if the pilot heard the commotion, but I’m betting on the latter.

A low, unpleasant noise comes over the comm system, and Velith cocks his head, listening. “No. Nicht. Do not come back here. Everything is fine. Keep going.” Then he lapses into the chittering I find unintelligible.

But whatever he’s saying doesn’t appear persuasive, and the Morgut pilot puts us down so deftly I barely feel the touchdown. Whatever else may be said of them, they know their way around a ship. I hear the door to the cockpit unseal with a soft whoosh, but Velith greets him with a shot to the head, and his brains spray out bile green against the bulwark, more modern art.

He seems to read my reaction and lifts a shoulder in that endearing almost shrug. “I never liked him.”

That strikes me as absurdly amusing, but I manage to contain my laughter, knowing it will come out sounding like hysteria. “Why did you kill him?”

“They were clutchmates. He would have attacked us if I had not reacted thus, and I am in no condition to engage in unnecessary violent confrontation.”

I shake my head. “You’re crazier than they say I am. You should’ve let them kill me. What’s waiting for me at Corp headquarters is so much worse.”

With that I turn and head for the door. I’m not afraid of him anymore. My peaceable surrender has accomplished something that I don’t quite comprehend, but it seems he feels honor bound to protect me until we reach our destination. I can use that to my advantage. As he pointed out, he isn’t in top shape right now. Neither am I, so we’d be two cripples mixing it up with our crutches, so to speak.

Hope neither one of us is that dumb.

I hit the button that unseals the outer doors, and the stairs lower with the smooth sound of well-maintained machinery. A gust of frosty air sends a chill straight through me, and when I peer out, I see that we’re in the middle of nowhere. Big surprise. But instead of a field full of golden grain, we’ve landed in smooth, white tundra, mountains in the distance, also white-capped. I’m fragging hungry, so they remind me of choclaste cakes with cream sauce on top. The sky looks as if it may snow, and the light diffused through the clouds appears touched with gold.

We can’t be more than a half hour from headquarters by Silverfish flight, but as previously noted, these ships are insanely fast. I have no way of calculating the distance from here to Ankaraj, although the Corp is probably tracking our flight in some fashion.

Sure enough, the comm crackles to life in the cockpit. “Spiral, this is control. Do you need assistance? We show you stalled in the Teresengi Basin.”

Velith bounds for the cockpit, leaping with unsettling grace over the corpses that litter the aisle. Being battle-sore hasn’t decreased his agility. Tapping the panel, he replies, “Yes, but I would also appreciate some information. Why does my target claim that Farwan Corporation is responsible for the crash on Matins IV? Why does the target prefer to provoke a pack of Morgut to being extradited into your custody?”

His questions meet with an uncomfortable silence.

Shit.

Now I’m the one running for the cockpit. I struggle to turn off the feed, but he holds me away, waiting for the answer. My heart starts to pound because I know…I know we’re in danger. They’re not going to send aid now; they’re going to send aerial assault. I know how they think. I know about their damage control. When he started asking the wrong questions, he ceased to factor for them.

“She’s insane,” the controller finally responds. “She would say anything. Just sit tight, and help will arrive shortly. We have a unit en route.”

“Come on.” I tug at his arm. “We have to get out of here. Right now. We cannot be on this ship when they get here.”

“They claim you are mentally unbalanced, Sirantha.” I wish I could read his expression, but I’m incapable of distinguishing anything but the twitch of his mandible and the clicking of his claws, and maybe I interpret those incorrectly as well. “Your behavior suggests paranoia, at best.”

“You half believe me.” I grab him by the collar. Mary, he looks strange, still wearing Doc’s clothes that are too big and too short, so badly shredded by Morgut fangs. “Or you wouldn’t have mentioned it. I’ve raised some doubt in you. Give me this much. Come off the ship with me. Over there…” I’m pulling him now, and I’m surprised to feel him follow. With my free hand, I point to a dark jumble of rock in the distance. “To wait. If they really intend to rescue us, there will be a search party and we’ll go to meet them peacefully. I won’t give you any more trouble, and you can forget you ever saw me. But if I’m right…then we don’t die when they blow the Spiral all to hell and claim it crashed. Velith, please.”

“Very well,” he says finally. “A test. But we will need some supplies if we are to wait with any degree of comfort.”

He packs with an economy of motion that March would envy and hands me the bag to carry. That’s when I notice his shoulder, half-torn from the socket, and I wonder how he can bear it. Before we step out onto the crisp snow, covered with an icy crust that professes we’re the first to have stepped foot here in a long time, we wrap up in blankets. The outcropping sits a little farther out than it seems, but we make the trek just as I glimpse the white trail in the sky that means something’s headed our way.

I know he wants the ship to land, but it won’t. So I crouch down, flattening myself against the dark stone. Make sure the gray blanket wraps around my head, which feels like it’s covered in hoarfrost. Velith hesitates, then mimics me.

“You have succeeded in making me uneasy,” he whispers.

I don’t reply to that. There’s no need. As soon as he asked those questions, he turned himself into a security risk and a liability. Why would they pay him when they can just kill us both? But then I know how they think, and I got him to listen, praise Mary.

The Corp vessel overhead spots the Silverfish, and instead of lessening altitude to land and offer assistance, I see the blue-white flare of guns overhead. Beside me, the bounty hunter watches, barely breathing, as the Spiral goes up in flame. We hold very still as the ship seems to skim the area overhead, then wheels off, returning to headquarters to report us as loose ends tied up.

Without a word, he reaches over and inputs a code on my bracelet. It drops off my wrist and onto the snow. For a moment longer we watch the Spiral smolder.

“So how does it feel to be dead?” I offer him a bittersweet smile, hating what I’ve done to him, what I’ve taught him.

Sometimes there’s nothing worse than the truth.

CHAPTER 50

“Cold,” he says, after a moment’s reflection.

Taking in the vast expanse of snowy landscape, I can’t help but agree. In slippers and pajamas, even wrapped in a blanket, I’m not going to last long out here. There are no settlements within visual range, but maybe Vel brought something useful from the ship.

I dig into the bag and glance over at him. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

Not waiting for his answer, I don the thin, insulated suit, right over the top of my clothing. My teeth chatter as I stuff the blanket into the bag, but oh Mary, it feels good once I get the gear fastened up. I’m covered from head to toe, just an eye slit providing perfunctory visibility. He dresses more slowly, seeming to consider my question.

“You were…persuasive in your paranoia,” he answers finally. “And I preferred not to perish of exposure, if you were right. A good bounty hunter always has a plan B.”

I continue prowling through the bag. “What else did you bring?”

“Nothing that will keep us alive indefinitely.”

“You’re one of the good guys now,” I tell him, stepping away from the shelter of the rocks. “Although I don’t suppose that helps much.”