Snowburn

by E J Frost

  you I’m not for eating.”

  “So he did, Lightfoot. And so too your

  blood-brother. But the one you’ve brought us

  is not your blood.” The rat-man’s snout turns

  toward me, lifts, sniffs. “Although he does

  smell of you.” The rat-man’s chuckle bares

  too many pointed teeth.

  “He has safe passage. He bought a ticket.

  He bore the mark.”

  “A Snatcher mark,” the rat-man scoffs.

  “Tainted meat,” one of the others

  sniggers.

  “He bought a ticket,” Kez insists.

  The first rat-man lifts his lip, baring those

  pointed teeth again. “Show us the ticket.”

  I bring it out of my pocket, held between

  two fingers, a knife cradled in my palm. I

  turn my palm over to offer him the ticket,

  making sure the edge catches the light.

  The rat-man tilts his head to the side.

  “That is a fine blade, ticket man.”

  “Like it?”

  “Very much. Do you have others?”

  “A few,” I allow.

  “May we see them?”

  “Sure.” I give him a grin that’s just as

  feral as his, even if my teeth ain’t as sharp.

  “Where d’you want ‘em?”

  “Is that a challenge, ticket man? If I take

  that blade from you, do I get them all? Do I

  get more?” His wet lips pull back from those

  pointed teeth.

  “Wait, wait,” Kez interjects. “We bought

  tickets. We bore the marks. Don’t the

  Downers honor these anymore? Are the

  Deeps closed?”

  “The Downers are hungry,” the rat-man

  snarls. “The upperworld riots, the Downers

  starve. You have safe passage, but he has

  nothing—”

  “He has a ticket! And a mark!” Kez yells.

  “If those mean nothing then the Deeps are

  closed and you will starve!”

  “You threaten us, Lightfoot?!”

  “No, no.” Kez holds up her hands. “I’ll

  pay. I brought him. I’ll pay. Blood, not

  meat.”

  I slant a glance at her. “Kez—”

  She shakes her head and I shut my mouth.

  This is her show. If the only way to walk

  away from this is for her to pay my way out

  in blood, and she’s willing to pay it, then I

  can respect her choice.

  I’ll make it up to her later.

  “Blood for his passage.” The rat-man

  nods. “One liter. That is a good exchange.

  The box that you came for is extra. Nacht

  says a thousand hard.”

  Kez shakes her head. “Two hundred hard.

  That’s the price I agreed with Penny.”

  “The steel bitch does not speak for us,

  woman. A thousand hard.”

  “Three hundred hard.”

  “You bargain with me? You come to the

  Deeps with nothing to offer. You deny us

  meat. You insult us by offering your tainted

  blood, and you dare bargain with me?”

  Kez gives the rat-man a hard, cold look.

  A killing look. I didn’t know she had that

  look in her. “You know what? Fuck you. I

  bought the ticket. I endured the mark. I

  agreed a price. If the Downers don’t honor

  those things anymore then your word is

  worthless. Come on, Snow. We’re done

  here.”

  “Right behind you,” I growl.

  Kez begins to back out the way we came.

  I hand her the bag I’m carrying so that both of

  my hands are free. Wait for the first one to

  make a move. The one who called me

  tainted meat breaks first. He howls, more

  like a dog than a rat. He drops onto all fours,

  his claws digging into the sandy tunnel floor,

  and charges after Kez.

  I let fly with the blade that Rat One

  admired and the charging rat-man drops to

  the ground, my knife buried in one crusty

  white eye. He’s not getting up again.

  Something hits him a second later. A

  writhing line of light that carves the meat of

  his shoulder and back into red ruin. I don’t

  have time to see what it was or where it

  came from, because the rest of the pack is

  coming.

  Two more fall with blades through their

  eyes before any get close enough to grapple.

  One throws himself into the air, arrowing

  down at me with his claws extended. I catch

  him by the throat, going in under his claws.

  Follow up with a slice to his belly that spills

  his guts over my wrist in a hot, slippery gush.

  Using his own momentum, I throw him, still

  screaming, trailing intestines, at a pair of rat-

  men who are hurdling the bodies of the fallen

  towards Kez. The first hurdler goes down

  with another of those lines of light slicing

  through his throat. It carves all the way

  through; his head rolls down his back to

  bounce on the sand. Gutless sails over

  Headless and tumbles into Hurdler Two,

  knocking him to the floor. Kez pauses in her

  retreat to give Hurdler Two a kick in the

  head with her steel-toed boots. His teeth hit

  the tiled wall like rolling dice.

  “Stop!” Bellows Rat One. He grabs the

  last rat-man by the throat and throws him

  backward onto the sand when the rat-man

  takes too long to obey. “Enough! Lightfoot!

  Enough! Tell your Reaper Man to stop!”

  Kez pulls herself upright and stands

  hipshot, holding a twisting filament of light

  in her hand, a very unfriendly version of her

  mischievous grin curling her pale mouth.

  “Hold up, Reaper Man,” she says.

  I shake rat-guts off my hand and move to

  stand next to her. Take stock of the six dead

  or dying rat-men on the ground. The two still

  standing. And the dozen or so pairs of

  glowing eyes that flicker in the dark beyond

  Kez’s circle of light.

  “You got a proposition for me?” Kez

  asks Rat One.

  He’s panting, his white-furred chest

  heaving, even though he stayed back from the

  fight. “You bring a Reaper to the Deeps?”

  Kez glances at me and smiles. “Looks

  that way.”

  “You don’t ever come here again, Reaper

  Man. The Deeps are closed to you.”

  I shrug. I don’t give a shit. I didn’t know

  they existed.

  “Lightfoot, you, too—”

  Kez shakes her head. “You don’t want to

  go there, Mister. The Pack may be hungry,

  but I know the rules. You pissed on the

  Underlaw, not me.”

  “You bring us nothing!”

  “I brought hard credits, as agreed. You

  want them? They’re still on offer. Three

  hundred hard for the box and what’s in it.

  Going once, going twice . . .”

  “Five hundred. And a liter of blood. To

  appease the families of those who fell.”

  “Done,” Kez says, a little too quickly,

  and I realize that, Reaper Man or not, she

  didn’t think we’d make it out.r />
  “Fletch, get a bucket,” Rat One snarls at

  the other rat-man, who is still picking

  himself up off the ground, clutching his

  bruised throat.

  Kez points at one of the bags over my

  shoulder. I unsling it and pass it to her. She

  unfastens it, takes out five wrapped stacks of

  octagons and places them on the sand. She

  closes the bag, but not before I see several

  more wrapped stacks in the bottom of the

  bag. She could have paid more. She expected

  to. She drives a hard fucking bargain.

  She pulls off her backpack and takes a

  handheld scanner out of it. Passes it over the

  stacks of credits and holds it out to Rat One.

  Showing him the credits are validated,

  unmarked, un-fucked-with. He nods.

  Fletch-the-Rat returns with a small jug. It

  has markings up the side, tenths of a liter.

  Ten marks. Thinking about what’s about to

  go in it, the jug suddenly looks much larger.

  Kez holds out her arm and Rat One

  extends a long, black claw towards her pale

  skin. I hear Kez take an unsteady breath.

  I brush Rat One aside and pull a clean

  shiv out of my wrist sheath. If she’s going to

  bleed for me, I’ll do the cutting. I nick her

  forearm, quickly, cleanly, catching the ulnar

  vein but avoiding the artery and nerve.

  Fletch-the-Rat shoves the jug under Kez’s

  arm as a thin line of red begins to run from

  the cut. I take the jug from Fletch, pull Kez’s

  back to my chest and hold her with my arm

  across her body while she bleeds. A liter,

  fast, will make her lightheaded, and if she

  loses her balance, I don’t want the rat-men to

  see her weakness.

  She bows her head over her arm. It’ll be

  hurting, now that the initial shock of the

  injury has passed. She’ll start feeling cold,

  and right on schedule, I feel her shiver. I pull

  her a little closer so my body heat offsets the

  chill. I put my mouth to her ear, whisper to

  her, “Spread your feet. Even out your

  stance.” She does, balancing her weight. The

  smell of her blood rushes up to me, fresh

  copper cutting through the miasma of opened

  bowels and rotting meat that fills the tunnel. I

  turn my head a little, bury my nose in her

  dreads, and fill my lungs with the sweet soap

  smell of her hair. “Half-way there,” I tell her

  when the red liquid reaches the fifth mark.

  “Snow,” she says quietly. “There’s a

  spare shirt in my backpack.”

  “I’ve got it.” My new life ain’t so

  different from my old one that I don’t carry a

  tube of newskin and a couple of rolls of

  bandages in my pockets. “We got sixteen

  minutes to get back, by the way. An’ it took

  ten to get down here.”

  She nods. Bleeds in silence until the jug

  is full. As soon as the blood reaches the tenth

  mark, I hand the jug to Rat One and press my

  thumb hard against her wound. I can’t hold

  her steady and fish the bandages out of my

  pocket, though. “Put your thumb over mine,”

  I tell her. She does. I shift my thumb out of

  the way and she clamps down on the cut. I

  retrieve the bandages and after a quick

  rummage through my pockets, the tube of

  newskin. She moves her thumb when I point

  the newskin at her arm. A bead of blood

  quickly wells up and I squirt it with the

  sticky spray. Twenty-four hours and the

  wound will be completely healed, maybe

  without even a scar since it was a good,

  clean cut, but we have to keep it closed until

  the newskin cures. I wrap her arm quickly,

  tie it off and tuck the ends under. “C’mon.

  Tick-tock.”

  “Other bag,” she whispers and sinks to

  her knees. For a moment I think I’ve lost her.

  She’s fainted and I’ll never be able to carry

  her and her fucking box out of here before the

  Snatchers begin peeling strips off her

  brother. But then she shakes herself, drags

  the third bag over with her uninjured arm,

  unfastens it and pulls out a foam-wrapped

  bundle. She peels off the foam, revealing a

  blocky machine. She flicks it on with a blue

  haylon hum. I hand her the last bag off my

  back, help her unpack a twin machine.

  She looks up at Rat One. “The box,” she

  says.

  “You have honored—” he begins.

  “Mister, I don’t want to be rude, but I

  have absolutely no time. Give me the box

  right fucking now or I take Reaper Man off

  hold.”

  Rat One’s long pink nose twitches. He

  disappears into the darkness and I’m too

  close to Kez’s halo to see where he goes.

  “Fuck,” Kez whispers.

  “Thirty seconds, we gotta go.” I use the

  time to rub my hands along the sandy floor.

  Gooey skin equals unpredictable grip. “Box

  or no box.”

  “Aye-firmative,” Kez says.

  Rat One is back in twenty-five seconds,

  dragging a metal crate. I hear Kez start

  breathing again. She opens the cover in a

  puff of vapor, nods at the contents, then shuts

  it again. Slaps the boxy machine against the

  side of the crate. I follow her lead with the

  second machine. With a whir, the box lifts

  off the ground. Kez clips a line to it and rises

  unsteadily to her feet.

  I take the line, wrap my arm around her.

  She struggles and I release her. Is she too

  proud to accept my help, or scared of

  appearing weak in front of the rats? Neither,

  it turns out. She snags her backpack, tucks the

  two empty bags into it, and staggers back to

  my side. Practical kitten.

  “Can you run?” I ask her.

  “How long until Penny starts skinning my

  brother?”

  “Eleven minutes, thirty seconds.”

  “I can run.”

  “Say goodbye to your little friend. Time

  to go.”

  “Mister, it’s been a real nightmare. Hope

  I never see you again.”

  “Nor I you, Lightfoot,” Rat One says.

  “The Deeps stay open?”

  “That’s our deal. Bye.”

  “Goodbye, Lightfoot. Goodbye, Reaper

  Man.”

  Before he’s finished his goodbyes, I drag

  Kez away. Back down the maglev tunnel.

  Knowing where we’re going makes it faster,

  and this time I don’t pause to admire the

  artwork. We reach the station and I hook Kez

  around the waist, toss her up onto the

  platform. She doesn’t weigh much more than

  fifty kilos herself. I vault up after her. It’s

  easier now that I’m only carrying the money-

  bag, which is maybe half as heavy as it was

  before. The box floats serenely after me.

  Kez struggles to her feet on the platform.

  I catch her around the waist again, drag her
/>   upright and support her as we run. Back

  through the hanging plaz, through the

  branching tunnels, to the cistern room. I

  hammer on the painted balloon.

  No answer.

  I check the burn on the back of my hand.

  Two dots remain. “Kez, we got a problem.”

  She shakes herself out the stupor she’s

  fallen into. “Fuck, Tank! Tank! Stop wanking

  off and open the goddamn door!”

  The panel doesn’t move.

  “Want me to go through it?”

  Kez shakes her head. “It would take an e-

  bomb. Have one handy?” When I shake my

  head, she fumbles at her right wrist. Puts her

  touch-screen together, scrolls and taps until

  she gets an image of five crossed blades. The

  screen buzzes. Once, twice.

  “Hello, Kezzy.” The monster’s dark

  treacle voice.

  “I’m here, Penny. I’m at the front door.

  Where’s Tank?”

  “I believe he’s using the gentlemen’s at

  the moment. Arc, is Tank in the head?” she

  drawls. Someone murmurs in the

  background.

  “Penny, not to be a bitch, but couldn’t he

  have held it for a couple of minutes?”

  “Well, when Nature calls, honey . . .”

  “Penny! I’m at the goddamn door. If I’m

  late because Tank is taking a piss—”

  “Shouldn’t you have given yourself

  enough time for such an eventuality? I

  warned you, Kezzy. Beware the lastminute

  —”

  “Angebot, yes, I got it! Stop fucking with

  me, Penny. I am seriously not in the mood.

  Send someone to open this door so I can

  collect my goddamn brother.”

  “Or what?”

  Kez reels on her feet, her head lolling

  back against my shoulder. She slams her left

  hand against the wall panel, shakes herself.

  “Or nothing. I don’t make threats, Penny. You

  know this about me. Now stop fucking

  around and open the door.”

  “Ah, well, I’m terribly sorry—”

  “Hey,” I interrupt. “She may not make

  threats but I do. Open the fucking door now

  or I’ll tear it down and start carving off bits

  of metal until I hit something that bleeds.”

  “Mister, Snow, is it? Do you have any

  idea who you’re talking to?”

  “Yeah, you’re the ones who don’t know

  who you’re fucking with. Stick the name

  Halemano Hauser into your orrey and see

  what comes out.”

  The touch screen goes dark. After a long

  moment, the panel slides to the side.

  I drag Kez into the Snatchers’ palace.

  Stop in front of the clock. Twenty seconds to