Boyd blinked back at him.
"Your hand," the bounty hunter prompted. "What happened?" He sat down in Ara's recently vacated chair and peered at Boyd's heavily casted hand.
"I got cut," replied Boyd.
"Cut? And you needed a cast? Must've been pretty bad. Unless someone really good with a knife cut you?" Jebediah shook his head. "Doesn't pay to piss off Raja."
"You think about that!" Boyd threw back. "Before you do anything else. Raja finds out you fucked with me …" He let the unfinished threat hang.
Jebediah gave a serious nod as if considering his words. Then, without taking his eyes off Boyd, he lifted his gun and fired a round into the man's casted hand. Half the cast broke off and blood spurted. Boyd screamed in pain.
Jebediah spoke in calm and deliberate tones. "Boyd, you're going to be left stuck to this chair. The only question is, are you alive when the glue wears off?" The bounty hunter's voice turned hard. "You cowards took a girl from a school. Where is she?"
"Christ, it hurts man! Get my fingers! Save my fingers!" Boyd cried.
Jebediah brought his gun up again, this time aiming at Boyd's still-healthy hand.
"No man! No. Don't," Boyd sputtered. "Okay. Okay. Look, she's close! She's at some old office building they own in the Warren. She's close though, man. You can get there fast. Just fuck, no more! Lemme alone."
He gave them the location.
"Who's guarding the place?"
"Raja and a few other guys. Shira's going there later though."
The bounty hunter cursed. He had no way to stopping a crimara, not without a lot more men, and even then, he wasn't certain it'd be enough.
"Yeah man," Boyd said after hearing him curse. "Raja's bad. But Shira … the hell you gonna do, boogeyman? Gonna shoot her? She's a goddamn dragon. You can't do shit!"
Jebediah ignored the man's pained ranting. He stood and walked to Ara.
"We need to do this before Shira gets there," he said.
She nodded back. "Do you know where this is?"
"I do. But it's tough to find. It's buried back behind a bunch of other buildings. One of those places you don't know about until you go there once."
"So what do we do?" she asked.
"I'll show you where it is, then you're going to go back to Mei's compound and bring help. If Shira does show up, we'll need it."
"And you?" she asked.
"I need to see Flint," he replied. "Then I'll stake out the building until you guys get there."
"Why Flint?"
"Because I need something before we do this."
Jebediah looked back to the prone Boyd. The other man was sobbing over his re-injured hand.
"He'll be stuck like that until it doesn't matter," said Ara. "There's no reason to kill him."
The bounty hunter didn't respond. Instead, he walked to the door and Ara followed.
Boyd stared around his darkened apartment after they left. His hand was on fire, but at the moment, its pain was dulled by something else—fear. If anyone found out he'd given up the girl's location, a busted hand would be the least of his worries.
He may not have been the smartest man, but he knew enough to be scared, and who to be scared of. As deadly as Raja was, and as monstrous as Shira could be, Dipak Rakash held place of terror for him and almost all of the guardsmen.
He looked at his cell phone sitting on the far side of the room.
It was terror that made Boyd lift his arm, higher and higher, until his skin ripped and tore and bled over the chair. And it was dread that made him begin to lift one leg, to strain and peel against the glue holding him, all the while keeping his gaze on the nearby phone.
Shira reclined against the bar and stretched a hand behind her. A drink was dropped into it almost instantly, the bartender ignoring the line of people waiting for their orders.
She looked around the club with a raised eyebrow. She'd come with a few girls she let hang out with her now and then. But she didn't intend to leave with them. Not when there were other options.
The bump of rhythmic music pounded like a heartbeat. Bodies across the club thrust their hips, flipped long hair and ground against each other in sensuous motions. A man with the tanned skin of a Latin conquistador peered at the light-haired girl in his arms. His eyes appeared to shadow down just before his lips lowered toward hers. She closed her eyes and held her breath in anticipation. Suddenly though, she was shoved aside and out of her lover's arms.
Shira smiled at her shriek and glared back at the girls shocked eyes.
"You're pretty enough I suppose. Go find another," Shira said, slinking over to the man and wrapping her arms around him. "Or join us, if you'd like."
Shira pressed her lips against the man's cheek. The other girl waited as if expecting her man to do something. Instead, he wrapped his arm around Shira and dipped his head to nuzzle her neck. The girl was pulled away by her friends. They whispered Shira's name into her ear, and she backed off meekly.
Shira hooked her conquest by the front of his pants and pulled him closer to grind against her, moving harder and harder against him. She would've almost missed her phone buzzing in the back of her pants except the man grabbed her ass to pull her harder still. The motion made the buzzing more noticeable against her skin.
She reached to grab the phone then sighed in exasperation at the name flashing on its face. She put it against her ear while pressing herself back into the man's arms.
"Boyd, I swear to god, stop calling me. Are you deficient or something?" she yelled over the music. For a moment, she heard only harsh breathing, then Boyd's voice came across the line, weak and raspy.
"Jeb … Jebediah … going … get girl…" He gulped air. "Help … send … me … help …"
Shira stared at the phone, then shoved the man away from her and sprinted toward the front of the club, yelling at the crowd to get out of her way. She threw open the door and raced to her limo waiting outside. Before sliding into the seat, she yelled at the two-armed guards standing next to the car. "To my side, both of you!" she ordered.
They rushed to comply and sat down next to her. She closed her eyes and red liquid poured out of her mouth and into the air. Her body immediately went limp and the guards grabbed her before she slumped forward.
The liquid coalesced into Shira's reptilian form. With a shriek and thrash of wings, she flew toward the Warren and the building where they'd hidden Magda.
Chapter 16
Jebediah sat down, again, in Flint's office. He let himself slump and take a breath. The night had taken a toll. He'd hidden his exhaustion from Ara until she'd left for the compound.
Now, though, he let his eyes shut for a moment. Flint stared at him from across his desk. He'd never seen the older man look so tired.
Jebediah sensed the stare with his eyes closed. "I'm fine," he said.
"You're old," Flint responded. "I mean, not decrepit or anything, but let's face it, your prime was years ago."
"Yet here I am. Do you have someone better to send?"
"No. This has to be you," Flint sighed.
"Tell me about my son."
"I'm in constant contact with Dr. Gaal. There's been no change in his condition, for better or worse. You know I'd tell you if there was."
"You know what could be waiting for us when we get Magda?"
Flint did a grim nod. "You have a plan?"
"Yes. It all depends on us getting there before Shira arrives. I'm not sure we could stop her even with our entire force."
"She's at a club opening tonight. Chances are she'll be there a few more hours. You still have time."
"Then that leaves Raja and his men," said Jebediah. "They shouldn't be an issue with the soldiers Ara brings back."
"Don't underestimate Raja. The man is a demon with a knife. He's killed plenty of gunmen."
"We'll surround him with automatic weapons and liquefy him if he tries anything."
"People have been trying to kill him since he was a kid," Flint sai
d. "There's a reason he's still standing."
Jebediah considered what Flint said, then asked "Do you have it for me?"
"Are you sure you want it?"
Jebediah shook his head. "No, but I think I'll need it."
Flint reached into his desk and pulled out a small, silver cylinder and handed it over.
Jebediah turned it around and read the lettering on the sides. He debated taking it for a moment, then, with a sigh of resignation, placed it into his pants pocket.
"Just how good is Raja?" he asked quietly.
Flint hesitated before answering. "Pretty damn good," he finally replied. "I've used him for work you couldn't handle."
Raja dodged around one of the side tables littering the smaller room at the front of the old office building. He ignored the girl's weeping cries coming from the door behind him.
The larger back room holding Magda was big enough to cause her keens to echo a bit, and the door separating it from the room Raja and his men were in wasn't quite thick enough to block the noise.
He was excited, enough for even his sure hands to almost drop the locket bearing his family's crest—excited, and hungry.
It seemed like his mother almost never cooked anymore. A bit of it was probably because of their staff of servants. But he guessed she didn't like cooking now, regardless of how it used to make her happy.
She must feel better now, though, because she'd made his favorite dish and damned if he was going to miss that. There were guards watching the little girl—they didn't need him here for that. And thanks to his locket, he could get home and back in an instant.
He traced the crest etched on the surface with his thumb. It was two large, stylized wolves, reared up and facing each other, claws and teeth extended. It used to scare him to death as a child, until he found out there were a lot of other things much more scary.
"I'll be back soon," he said to the two guards. He held the locket in his hand and spoke the trigger word. "Home."
The locket grew warm, then ropes of gold exploded from the device to surrounded him, whipping about with a high-pitched hum until he was covered in a cocoon of light. It felt like electricity dancing along his skin.
The guards watched with their hands shielding their eyes. The dome of energy exploded outward into tiny motes of incandescent light, leaving an empty space where Raja had been.
A similar explosion of light appeared inside the walls of the House Rakash estate. Raja strode out and trotted toward the mansion's front door. He would've normally taken time to appreciate the surrounding trees, nearby lake, and other natural beauty, but he had a home cooked meal waiting for him.
He burst into the kitchen to see his mother setting a simple table. The odor of dal makhani wafted to his nose in a wave of butter, cream and lentils mixed with liberal species. All the ingredients were steeped over several hours. The dish was notoriously difficult to make, taking the better part of a day, and was usually reserved for special occasions.
"I can't believe you cooked it!" he cried with a smile.
"I haven't cooked for you in a while," she said, smiling back. Her smile grew larger when Raja grabbed up a ladle and scooped a huge helping of food into his bowl.
The knife fighter sat down and began to shovel large spoonfuls of the hearty dish into his mouth.
"Raja, slow down!" she laughed. "There is plenty."
"I'm hungry. And this is so good," he said through a mouthful of food.
"Ah, your belly will hurt later," she chided with a chuckle and shook her head.
"No, it won't," he protested. "I know my limits."
She looked at him quietly for a moment. "Do you?" Sita asked. "Do you know your limits, my son?"
Her tone took his attention away from eating.
"What do mean?" he asked.
"You have a child in a cage. If your father asks, will you hurt her?"
He looked down to his bowl, his appetite suddenly lost.
"He's the head of our House and gave me a job. It is my duty. And it is important."
"Is earning his pride so important that you'd hurt a little girl?" she asked.
"It won't come to that. We'll get our money, and the girl will go home. That's all."
"You don't know that," his mother insisted. "You can't know that, at all. Dipak is angry, Raja. Not just his normal angry, but the deep, dark rage. This old woman, this Mei, she's defied him like no one else ever has. And you know what that means. I ask you again, if he tells you, will you hurt this girl?"
"And if I do?" Raja hissed back. "Father and I—" he shook his head. "It's been so bad, for so long. If I do this for him, if I do it right, maybe he will speak to me like he does to Shira, maybe see me as his son. His son."
"The only value he's ever seen in me were my blades. This will make him respect me," Raja said.
His mother shook her head slowly with a tsk. "No, my little prince. You don't want his respect. You want to stop being scared of him."
He stared back at her.
"I am grown man. I cannot be a mother's child all my life," he said, echoing his sister's words.
His mother paused. "Do you remember Devi?" she asked. He started at the name. "Do you remember the first time you ever held a gun?"
"Mother, don't …"
She ignored him and continued. "You didn't sleep the night before because you were so excited. And worried. You didn't want to do anything wrong. When did your father ever want to spend time with you? You thought, if you were good, it would change everything between you and him, between all of us."
She gave a tiny laugh. It was tinged with a deep sadness. "Maybe I did too. So I made sure I woke up early and got us both ready before he was. So he wouldn't have to wait."
"He took you to a range and gave you a gun. It was big and heavy in your small hands. He taught you how to stand, how to hold it, how to let the gun surprise you every time you fired. Your hands were shaking, but you held strong, so very, very strong."
"You hit nothing at first but kept trying. And then, you hit the target, again and again and again. You were so good! And he smiled at you, Raja. He actually smiled and told you 'good job, Son.'"
"Remember he said Devi ran away?" she continued. "That the door got left open? And maybe it was, and maybe she did. But he found her. He brought her out with a rod stuck to her leash so she couldn't get at him. And she was all scratched up and there was foam on her mouth. She was barking and kicking, but when she saw you she stopped. She just stood there looking at you."
"He said being a man meant putting things down that could hurt you. That only a child looks to someone else to keep them safe. But a man saves himself, and a gun makes you strong. And then he unhooked the rod to her leash and stepped back."
"Devi looked at you for a minute. She just stood there with this confused look on her face, probably from being so sick. Then your father fired his gun into the air. She started growling and spitting and I thought she was going to charge at him. But instead, she turned around and ran at you."
"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how sick she really was. But she was barking and growling so bad and she was running right at you, and I was so scared. Then your father put his gun away and yelled at you to shoot her, make yourself safe, be a man goddammit, just be a man. Shoot! Shoot!"
"Stop it, mother," Raja said, pushing from the table as if to walk away. But his mother's voice kept on.
"So you shot her," she wept. "She screamed and fell over, but got up again and kept crawling for you. But she wasn't growling anymore. She was still trying to get to you but she was whining instead. And you shot her again, in the head this time because you were good with a gun."
"Please …" Raja pleaded.
"And then you threw up. And he smiled at you, because you were a man and he was proud."
She turned to stare up at him. He hovered over and forced himself to meet her accusing eyes.
"Will you throw up after you hurt that girl? "
"Godammit,
that's enough!" His hand whipped out with a speed honed from years of practice. And with a sound that reverberated in his ears like thunder, he struck his mother full across the face. She cried out and fell backward from her chair, her head striking the ground with a thud. She looked up at him from the floor and asked him a final question.
"Will you be a man then, Raja?"
Horror crept across the knifeman's face like cracks spider webbing across glass.
"Oh my god I'm so sorry …"
His voice cracked with sorrow and madness. He stumbled back, turned and raced from the kitchen and out of the house. He grabbed at his locket, and in mid-run was surrounded again by gold light. He disappeared from the estate.
Chapter 17
Jebediah ran a hand against the top of his head. The wind from three stories up blew through his short hair, and the cold air felt good against his sweaty scalp. He gripped the metal railing of the fire escape balcony with both hands and dropped down to a squat, peering through the vertical bars like a man in a jail cell.
A single, flickering streetlight cast more shadow than illumination on the old building across the street. He peered down, as if to somehow see through the walls like some comic book superhero. The kind that didn't exist even in a place filled with magic.
But there were monsters and villains here. He wondered which he was.
He brought his phone out of his back pocket and cursed at the "no signal" message. The Warren didn't have the infrastructure of the Caliber, and dead spots were common. He should have thought to check reception before Ara left him to bring back the others. He was too tired and making dumb mistakes.
He shoved the phone into his jeans and leaned back into the shadows. Below him, two men walked down the sidewalk toward each other, dressed in dark clothes and speaking a foreign tongue. One of their jackets flipped open in the wind and revealed a compact sub machine gun tucked into his side holster. He'd seen two other men earlier, which meant at least four guys guarding the place.
Too many guns for him to take on his own, even before Raja's insane knives came into play. He'd have to wait for the others, then lead the breach to rescue the girl.
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