Deuces Wild Boxed Set: Books 1-4: Beyond the Frontiers, Rampage, Labyrinth, Birthright

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “Well, if I promise to kill him he has no incentive to answer me, does he?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Why wouldn’t you just not mention it, then?”

  “I didn’t think it all the way through.”

  The EI’s voice came over the comm. “I would agree with Ranger Tabitha on that point.”

  “Achronyx, you ass!”

  The EI sat in smug silence and Tabitha fumed. He was very good at saying respectful things—or things that sounded respectful or should be respectful, but you could just tell weren’t really.

  “I’ll get you for that,” Tabitha promised him.

  Ryu maintained an impressively straight face and tried with everything he had not to laugh. “So, what do we do with this one?”

  He wasn’t even finished with the last word before the Torcellan pulled out a hidden gun and tried to shoot them again. However, the Torcellan was still somewhat dazed from his fall, and Tabitha and Ryu both used their good reflexes to good effect. As soon as they saw the gun, both of them ducked.

  Tabitha’s eyes flashed again. She grabbed the Torcellan’s arm and ripped the gun away before throwing him against the wall of the building.

  “Listen, you useless ingrate!” A punch slammed the Torcellan’s head against the wall, and he gave a moan of pain. “You have the fucking nerve to shoot me in the back—” Another punch punctuated this statement. “And now you try to shoot me when I am giving you a chance to live?” She punched him twice more, and added another punch for emphasis.

  “You said you were going to kill me anyway!”

  She stopped her punches. “I said I might. You’d have had better odds telling me about Kenet. What, do you work for him or something?”

  “Everyone in Karkat works for him,” the Torcellan whimpered. “You don’t do anything here without his say-so. If I double-cross him I’ll never work here again, and he’ll put a hit out on me.”

  “Ask me how much I care. No, seriously, ask me.” Tabitha sighed as the assassin stayed quiet. “He’s not going to ask me, is he?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ryu told her.

  “Okay, how about this?” Tabitha picked the Torcellan up and used his head to break a window. “Tell me what you know about him, and I won’t do that again.”

  “Augh! I don’t know much, I swear!” The Torcellan was babbling now. “He’s Flexxent! Their family is rich! I don’t know anything else!”

  “Why does he want me dead?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Ugh.” Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Fucking useless. All right, listen up. I am giving you one chance. I shouldn’t even do that. I should just shoot you in the back and call it even, but I have a lot of people to track down, so consider this your lucky day.”

  She went through the Torcellan’s clothes methodically, pulling out every weapon she could find and storing them in her pockets.

  “I’ll just take this, and this, aaaaand this. And that. Anything else? Hmm.” She flipped him upside down and shook him by the ankles, him bitching the entire time, but nothing else came out. “I guess that was everything. Go find a new planet and a better career.”

  The Torcellan, now bleeding from his nose, landed hard in the dust, staggered up, and stumbled off with a panicked look over his shoulder.

  “I think I’m growing as a person.” Tabitha looked at Ryu. “Showing mercy, you know?”

  Ryu watched the man duck around a corner and disappear before turning to Tabitha. “Are you sure hitmen were the place you wanted to start with that?”

  “That’s enough sass for now, Number One.”

  “For the last time, I am not Hirotoshi.” Ryu gave an elegant bow. “That said, Kemosabe, perhaps we should proceed to the next point in our itinerary.”

  “This from the man who was throwing his hands up in the club and ordering bottle service last night. Yeah, that’s right, I got the bill.” Tabitha glared at him.

  “You said to live it up,” Ryu reminded her innocently.

  “You knew what I meant. I meant—”

  “I hate to interrupt, but perhaps you two should look behind you.”

  Tabitha and Ryu looked around.

  “Aw, hell,” Tabitha muttered. There, wearing what were clearly police uniforms, stood two officers with wicked-looking guns already drawn.

  Chapter 14

  Tabitha

  City of Karkat

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Rino muttered as he and Lore moved through the busy streets, watching for the two humans.

  “How is it not a good idea?” Lore demanded. “This human tears up Benet Aljun’ra’ s lounge, and a few hours later there’s a hit out on her from Benet’s olderling.” In the Flexxent language, since one could not be sure if an individual were male or female at any given point in time, siblings were olderlings or youngerlings, denoting their place in the family by age rather than gender.

  “And then an arrest warrant. Hits are illegal, Lore.”

  Lore rolled her eyes. “Technically illegal. You and I both know they’re not really the sort of thing anyone cares about. We have direct instructions not to focus on them anyway.”

  “That doesn’t mean we should start doing them ourselves!”

  “It does when it’s BSG.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “They’re a government office, too. They’re just the sort of people you want to have owing you favors.”

  “No,” Rino argued. “No, they’re the kind of people you don’t want to know you exist.”

  “You’re such a coward. Why are you on the police force?”

  Rino decided not to answer that. He walked along in steely silence until they rounded the corner and Lore hissed at him to stop. He ignored her, but she grabbed his arm and dragged him to her side.

  When Rino looked up, his eyes got wide.

  There were the humans. Facing down two Flexxent cops.

  Lore was obviously not the first to have this idea.

  “What do we do now?” Rino asked.

  “We, uh…” Lore considered.

  “Ranger Two, also known as Tabitha.” The first officer puffed out his chest. “You are under arrest, by order of—”

  “BSG?” one of the humans suggested. The other one was tall and angular, and this one was shorter and had protrusions on the hips and chest.

  “Is that the female?” Rino whispered to Lore.

  “I think so. I think they’re like Torcellans with that. Weird Torcellans with strange coloring. And they’re better at building empires.” She shrugged.

  The two officers who were staring the humans down seemed to be unimpressed with the human’s answer.

  “By order of the chief of police,” the officer finished. “You will come with us now.”

  “What, you’re not going to read me my rights?” Tabitha crossed her arms and smirked. This officer was all show. He didn’t have the guts to attack her.

  The Flexxent laughed. “What rights?”

  “Well, this is new,” Ryu murmured. On almost all planets, those being arrested had rights. It was considered the only logical way to do things, given that an innocent person in jail meant a criminal was free on the streets.

  “Given that Kenet Aljun’ra runs this place, are you surprised?” Tabitha asked him. She strolled over to the two aliens. “Okay, you’re Bloop, and you’re Goop. Bloop’s done a lot of talking. You want to chime in, Goop?”

  The two of them blinked at her.

  “Flexxent aren’t too bright,” Tabitha called over her shoulder.

  One of the officers growled, “You are being disrespectful. This will not look good on our report.”

  “What does it matter if it looks good?” Tabitha was unimpressed. “Seems like the law just decides how things are going to be here. No rules. No rights. And that pisses me off, you know?”

  The officer she had nicknamed Goop decided he was done listening to her blather. She was blathering on and on—he had heard that humans did that—and no
w she was insulting his higher-ups.

  To his surprise, the human ducked out of the way of his punch and directed an uppercut at his chest cavity. Goop felt his breath leave him. He stumbled back as his partner tried to tackle her and went flying.

  “I bust my ass all day long,” Tabitha spoke aloud as she walked around, “risking my very tender ta-tas I will add, and even when a criminal is obviously a criminal, I bring them in to stand trial. They face Justice. But out here, you all just decide when you think a person should be in jail or get a hit put on them and you take them out like underhanded little bitches that you are. Is the plan for me to get into jail where I won’t be able to escape when all the assassins show up?”

  “No,” replied the first officer, the one she had nicknamed Bloop. “The plan is for you to die before you get to jail.”

  “Well, thank you for explaining that. It makes things a lot easier on my end.” Tabitha gave him a sweet smile. “Now I don’t have to pull my punches.”

  She ducked and Ryu came up over her back with a leap, slamming an elbow down at Goop’s head. The Flexxent staggered back and Bloop grabbed for Ryu, momentarily forgetting Tabitha.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Tabitha grabbed his arm and swung off it, pulling the cop around in a big, stumbling circle. “OH MY GOD Wheeeeee!” She let go of him, let him stagger a few more feet, and then directed a kick at his torso.

  Bloop went over with a wheeze.

  Ryu, meanwhile, had circled to Goop’s other side and waited for him to come into range. The Flexxent bent his head, rubbing the place where Ryu’s elbow had come down with one hand.

  Good enough. Ryu took two steps, turned, and launched himself into a spinning kick that hit the same point on the officer’s skull. Bones cracked, and Goop howled. He hadn’t gotten his fingers out of the way, and Ryu had broken several of them.

  In the alleyway, Lore and Rino were staring at the confrontation with their mouths hanging open.

  “Did you know they could fight like that?” Rino asked, not believing his eyes.

  “No.” Lore shook her head, almost dazed. “I’m glad those other two got here first. I was pissed when we showed up, but I think we would be getting the shit kicked out of us if they weren’t.”

  Rino nodded in wholehearted agreement, taking a couple of steps backward. “Let’s go.”

  “What?” Lore looked at him like he was crazy. “This is our chance!”

  “Are you insane?” Rino hissed. “Do you not see what’s happening?” He gestured just in time for Bloop to go flying past and land in a heap against a nearby wall. Both Rino and Lore scrambled into the shadows when the male human approached and sank into a crouch, waiting for Bloop to get up. “We have to leave,” Rino whispered.

  “No way,” Lore shot back. “We wait until they’re distracted and we take them down!”

  “What about your plan of no one knowing what had really happened? Those two will be able to say what they saw!”

  “First of all, that one isn’t even conscious,” Lore pointed out. Goop was swaying on his feet and fell forward just in time for Tabitha to punch him and knock him back slightly before he fell onto her fist again.

  As they watched, his legs collapsed, and he went down with a groan.

  “Second of all,” Lore continued, “maybe we came upon them getting killed by the humans. We couldn’t save them. So sad.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is turning into one of those plans where we kill everyone who notices we’re killing people! Those never end well!”

  Lore sniffed. “That’s because you lack commitment.”

  “No, it’s because eventually all the bodies trace back to us! I can’t believe I’m getting dragged into this again.”

  “I can’t believe I chose to work with you again.” She rolled her eyes. “They didn’t prove anything last time.”

  Ryu, who could hear the conversation very clearly, shook his head slightly as he watched Bloop get to his feet. Ryu bowed elegantly to the Flexxent.

  “Perhaps you would like to surrender,” he suggested. Insults like this were the ones he most enjoyed giving. Even though most people had not been raised in an environment as strict as his had been, they knew enough to be insulted at the suggestion of abandoning their cause.

  However, in Ryu’s mind, it was more than that. These were police. They had sworn to protect people, but instead, they were here for the hit money. They had no principles left to cling to. Surrender would not strip them of honor.

  They didn’t have any.

  “You’re going down,” Bloop growled. He spat out some blood and pulled his gun. “You see this? Most powerful gun in the city.

  “Heads!” Tabitha yelled, and Ryu ducked. She leapt over his head, entirely horizontal, and slammed into Bloop at waist height. He slammed back into the wall and went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head, and she shook her head at Ryu. “I’d use the Special, but I want to save that for someone better than this. Kenet, maybe.”

  “Uh-huh. And where’s Goop?”

  Tabitha jerked her thumb over to where the other officer lay, similarly incapacitated. “Let’s go find Kenet.”

  “One second.” Ryu pointed to the alley. “There are two more officers there.”

  Rino and Lore watched in horror as both humans turned to look at them.

  And Lore, panicked, raised her gun and shot at them out of instinct.

  “Oh, honey,” Tabitha said in the dead silence. Both she and Ryu had ducked and then stood back up. Now she gave the two cops a sweet smile. “That was such a mistake.”

  “Ruuuuuun!” Lore screamed. She turned tail and ran, and Rino followed without a second thought.

  Behind them, Tabitha was laughing as she chased behind them. “I can’t tell if I’m loving this or I hate it!” she called to Ryu as she ran. “On the one hand, this is kind of fun—like shooting fish in a barrel. I could use an easy win or thirty.”

  “And on the other hand?” At her side, Ryu was running elegantly, not even winded by his exertions—such as they were.

  His clothes were another matter, of course—the suit was probably a lost cause, and his hair looked like he’d been riding in a convertible…in the 1980s.

  “On the other hand…” Tabitha replied. She caught up with the police officer who had shot her and dragged the Flexxent over backward by her collar. She looked at Ryu and said loudly and obviously, “You know when you’re having a really bad day, and you just want to kill the next person who gets on your nerves?”

  Ryu grinned as the other officer disloyally tried to make a break for it. Ryu managed to get a handful of the back of his uniform and dragged him back.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, I definitely do know what that feels like.”

  “Don’t hurt us!” the second officer pleaded. Ryu thought this one looked like a male.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Ryu tilted his head to the side. “I heard your whole conversation in the alley, and I have to say, I wasn’t impressed with your part of it.”

  “What? I was the one who didn’t want to get involved!”

  “You said you’d done this before, and let’s be honest—we both know you were going to cave and try to kill us.”

  The officer who had shot at Tabitha sensed her opportunity and made a break for it, scrabbling away after trying to sweep Tabitha’s ankles.

  “You call that a leg-sweep?” Tabitha yelled. “You wouldn’t last a minute in Buenos Aires, turdburger!”

  “Ew,” Ryu murmured delicately as he broke his officer’s nose.

  Tabitha gave him a look as she ran after the officer, kicked out her feet and when she stopped rolling, Tabitha dragged her back. “Luckily for you,” she continued speaking to the moaning female, “I don’t kill people who are just dumb—and today I don’t even have the time to kill people who are trying to fuck me up, so you might get a pass.”

  Lore managed to get a punch off, and Tabitha rolled her eyes. She slammed her fist down on Lore eight tim
es in close succession, making use of every bit of her enhanced speed and strength.

  Lore gave a warbling scream, the sound bouncing as each hit landed, and lay dazed on the ground while Tabitha stifled her laughter with her hand.

  “Oh, that was too funny! Did you hear that? Did you hear that?”

  Ryu was trying to keep a straight face. “I did, Kemosabe. A most impressive noise. Perhaps you will be able to persuade Kenet Aljun’ra to make the same one later.”

  “You always know how to cheer me up after a hard day, buddy.” She gave him a mock punch in the arm. “All right, fuckfaces, tell me what you know about Kenet Aljun’ra. What kind of defenses does he have on his compound?”

  “We don’t know,” Rino whimpered. “He has his own police force. We aren’t allowed to go there, even if there’s a call or an alarm or anything.”

  “He’s so hoity-toity he doesn’t even want the police to come to his place?” Tabitha whistled. “Yeah, I’ve met guys like that. Likes to dress very sharp, right? Kills people for little things, so everyone stays scared? Throws his money around and thinks it buys loyalty?”

  Both police officers nodded hard.

  “That’s how he is,” Lore agreed.

  “We’ve seen him sometimes at government events,” Rino added.

  “He’s mean,” Lore stated. “But everyone wants to be a part of BSG, so they all suck up to him.”

  “And why do they want to be a part of BSG?” Tabitha’s tone was too sweet.

  Lore noticed that right away and shut up, but Rino missed the cue.

  “Because they can do anything they want,” he explained. He’d spent his whole life following the rules, terrified of breaking them and getting told off, but for BSG there were no rules. You could do whatever the hell you wanted, and no one got in your way.

  Too late, he realized that the humans probably weren’t going to be very impressed by this. He tried to think of something to say that would save him.

  “Interesting,” Tabitha mused, still too sweetly. “Is that why you came out here today?”

  Rino hung his head. His nose was bleeding like a faucet, and he just wanted to be gone. He mumbled something. Even he couldn’t tell what the words were.