by E J Frost
did, so either she knows him or she was
awake and listening when he introduced
himself.
He hands her a cup and a fritter. We all
eat and drink in silence for a moment.
Kez breaks the silence by saying, “The
Pack are in trouble.”
“They haven’t asked for our help,” Acker
responds around a mouthful. His teeth look
too long and too sharp for chewing.
“They’re at war. Askin’ for help’s a
weakness they can’t afford,” I say to back-up
Kez.
“How do you know this?” Acker asks.
“Saw it with my own eyes.”
“The Snatchers’ marks were overwritten
right to their doorstep,” Kez says. “The
tunnels are full of rotting meat. Poisoned by
the Snatchers. Java’s dead, and Nacht and
C.J.? I don’t know. I haven’t heard about
them in a long time. That one called
Diamond, he’s running things. He said Nacht
sent him, but, I don’t know. Maybe Nacht’s
dead.”
Acker looks into his cup for a long
moment, then lifts his dark eyes to us. “That
is what I believe.”
Rat-Girl draws a sharp breath.
Acker inclines his head towards her.
“Why have you heard nothing from C.J.?
Why have I heard nothing from Nacht?
Diamond sends word but there is only
silence from our sister and brother? I smell
death, and ambition.”
I glance at Kez to see what she thinks of
this. She’s got her head down, but she’s not
eating. She’s thinking. Listening. Treading
carefully.
Acker focuses on us again and narrows
his eyes. “Why were you in the Deeps,
Lightfoot?”
“I was picking up.”
“What did you need a Reaper-Man for?”
Kez shrugs. “I didn’t know he was one. I
just hired him as a pilot.”
I give Alpha Rat a broad grin.
“What did you pick up?” he asks.
“A box of adrenal glands.”
“Who did you take it to?”
“Kincaid.”
Acker turns his head and spits onto the
sand. “Hex-Man.”
Kez nods.
“The Hex-Men always want to move
their poison through our tunnels. Out of sight
of the Stick-Men. The Crystal Snake offers it
to my people for free. To turn them against
their own. So that I will agree to allow it
into the Deeps. They have no honor.”
“Kincaid does that to runners, too. To get
us addicted,” Kez says. I can see her finding
ways to build a rapport with Alpha Rat. I
smile to myself and let her work.
“And yet you work for the Snake and his
Hex-Men.”
Kez huddles against my side. I put my
arm around her. “My brother made a mistake.
I owe Tyng a debt.”
“Free yourself from this debt as soon as
you can, Lightfoot,” Alpha Rat warns. “No
good comes of owing the Crystal Snake
anything.”
Kez nods and I squeeze her reassuringly.
“They have not asked for help. And you
owe us nothing—” Alpha Rat begins.
“Except breakfast.” I salute him with my
cup.
He smiles in acknowledgement. At least,
I think that the baring of those too-sharp teeth
is a smile. “If I can get food to the mainland,
will you take it to Kuus? The Whites will
pay you.”
Kez looks at me. “We can’t make any
commitments right now.”
I shrug. She’s probably right. Who knows
where we’ll be after we meet with Tyng? It’s
all very well and good to call each other
partners, to promise each other forever. But
the truth is that Tyng could undo every tie,
force us to break every promise. And Kez
will do whatever he demands, to protect her
brother.
Alpha Rat sighs and moves restlessly.
The edge of his scythe catches my eye as he
shifts. It’s not metal, his scythe. The edge is
knapped. Looks like the bone of a big
animal.
And all of a sudden everything comes
together in my head. How to kill Tyng. Or at
least get a weapon into any meeting with
him. Create the chance.
“Flesh knife,” I say under my breath.
Kez looks up at me quizzically. “What?”
“We’ll get the food to the Pack,” I say.
“We will?” Kez asks.
“Yeah. I’m gonna need somethin’ from
them in return, though.”
“The Whites will pay you,” Alpha Rat
begins.
I shake my head. “We don’t need payin’.
This is something they already got,” I say,
thinking of the stink in the tunnels.
“Something they won’t mind giving up.”
Alpha Rat tilts his head and watches me
with his bright black eyes. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Acker switches that sharp gaze to Kez.
“Lightfoot, if there is word of C.J. or Nacht,
would you get it to us?”
Kez nods.
“Then I return this to you.” He reaches
into his bag and pulls out a familiar
collection of straps, beads and bangles.
Hands it to Kez, who cups her hands to
receive it. “My Wisdom tells me C.J. made it
for you. It should remain with you.”
Kez slips the viewie onto her wrist with
a brilliant smile.
Rat-Wisdom says quietly, “I’ve
programmed my K-Net code into it. Under
my picture. Just plex me.”
“I will,” Kez promises.
Alpha Rat takes a last swallow of chok,
collapses his cup and picks up the bag.
Gives it a shake. “My bag is empty,” he says,
before he packs my kukri and the remains of
our breakfast into it. “Our stomachs are full.
And the Twins are rising.” He nods behind
us, towards the mouth of the tube, where red
morning light stains the sand. “Time for me
and my Wisdom to return to the Deeps.”
“You ever come to Nock?” I ask.
“No.” Acker inclines his furry head. “But
I have never had an invitation.”
I lean forward and hold out my hand,
confident that if his claws are poisoned, he’ll
keep them to himself. “Consider yourself
invited.”
He shakes my hand. The pads of his long
paw are warm and rough. The fur slick.
“And you. To the Clouds. To the Deeps.
Whenever you wish to come.”
I sit back and put my arm around Kez.
“We will.”
“Safe journey.” He rises and Rat-
Wisdom, who has never really relaxed
enough to sit down, scampers back a few
paces up the sand-slope. “Lightfoot.
Snowburn.”
I nod in acknowledgement. That’s a name
I don’t mind so much. It’s still not the real
one, the right one, but it carries
the same
grudging respect as Kez’s street name.
Holding Kez, who is chewing the last of
her fritter, against my side, I watch the two
rats disappear, retreating back into the
shadows, away from the fingers of hard red
light reaching into the tube. I feel its warmth
on my back, a heated kiss across my skin.
“I’m glad you’re not nocturnal,” I tell
Kez. I like the darkness. It’s never held any
terrors for me, even before I had the cat’s
eye implanted. I learned early on that there
are plenty of monsters abroad in the daytime,
no matter what the stories say. But on
mornings like this, the touch of daylight feels
pretty friendly.
She looks up at me and yawns. “We do a
lot of night runs.”
“Yeah.” I don’t mind that. She’s flexible,
same as me. As long as she doesn’t have to
run away from the light, I don’t mind what
schedule she keeps. “C’mon.” I stand and
pull her to her feet.
“Where are we going? The hover doesn’t
leave until ten.”
“Then we got plenty of time for a walk on
the beach.”
Chapter 27
Kez initially grumbles at being dragged
out of our warm bed, away from the promise
of sex, but the beauty of the beach at dawn
silences her. She walks along beside me, her
bare feet making narrow prints on the sand,
dress fluttering around her calves and ankles,
holding my hand. The morning light paints
the quiet ocean brilliant gold; strokes silvery
highlights across her hair and skin. She looks
up at me occasionally, big blues glistening
more brightly than the sea, and grins her
kitten grin. But she doesn’t feel the need to
yap, and I appreciate her silence.
We wind our way around the volcanic
rocks that dot the beach. Scrunch over dried
kelp stranded by the night’s high tide. Pass
two mech pickers collecting shells and
seaweed. Otherwise the beach is empty,
except for sea-birds and scuttling
crustaceans who hide in the knots of kelp as
we near.
Finally we reach the far end of the beach
and stand at the base of the cliffs, looking up
at the houses of Tiv’s elite. There’s a ‘bot or
two to be seen, moving around between
villas, but no one else is up this early. Guess
the cits of Tiv are late-sleepers.
“The place I met Kimpler is up there,”
Kez says quietly.
If there was a murder in one of those
villas last night, there’s no sign of it this
morning. “Think she got him?”
Kez shrugs. “I don’t know. She was
pretty beat up.”
“Would you have?”
“If Tyng has something on her like he has
on me? Yeah, I would have. Whatever it
took.”
“You ever think that what Tyng’s got on
her is you?”
Kez shakes her head. “You don’t know
her. She doesn’t care about me and Ape.
Never has.”
I put my arm around her. Turn her back
towards the port at the far end of the beach.
“You’ve made yourself a better family than
the one you were born with, kitten.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” she says, with
quiet bitterness.
“Couldn’t have been easy, either. All on
your own.” Sometimes her silence is worse
than her yap. When anger, or fear, is eating
away her. Better to get her to talk about it
than let it build to the kind of explosion I saw
that night in her room. Explosive sex is fun.
Explosive tears and snot, not so much. “Tell
me,” I say.
“About what?”
“Your family. How’d you get your
place?”
“The Warren? Oh, it was my Granna’s. I
bought it back when I turned seventeen. It
was just a basic ColBox. I modified it so we
could keep the rabbits. Livvy helped me to
start. I paid her off two years ago.”
“How’s your credit now?” I ask, thinking
beyond tomorrow, beyond the next day, past
the end-game with Tyng, to when Kez and I
can go ship-shopping together.
“Pretty good, why?”
“Snow’s isn’t bad, either. With his prints,
we should be able to swing a new ship.”
“But you took your ship back.”
“Kitten, if your sister’s smart, she’s a
system away on it by now.”
Kez leans against me. She doesn’t look
up at me when she murmurs, “Snow’s knives.
Snow’s ship.”
I stop. Turn her to me and take her face in
my hands. “Snow’s kitten.” I kiss her, slow
and deep, so she knows I mean it.
When we start walking again, I tuck her
against my side. She puts her arm around my
waist and leans into me. “Can I ask a
question?”
I’m feeling generous this morning. Sun’s
warm on my skin. Kitten’s warm at my side.
Breakfast won’t be too long and then we’re
on the way back to the mainland, where I can
get on to the next thing, and the next and the
next, until the moment when I can sink a shiv
into Tyng’s throat or eye and end Kez’s
woes. “Sure.”
“What do you want from the Pack?”
“Bone.”
She looks up at me, those fine blonde
brows drawn into a frown. “Bone?”
“Yeah. You think Doc Gray is still
open?”
“Just about. Everything on the Night
Market closes at dawn. Do you need a derm
or something?”
“Nope.” I’m sore everywhere, but
nothing hurts. I’m healing. I’ll be fine for
what I’ve got planned for this afternoon. And
tonight. And tomorrow. “Got a favor to ask.”
Together, we walk into the yawning
Night Market.
With a floppy hat donated by Doc Gray
covering the stumps of her dreads and that
god-awful purple bag over her shoulder, Kez
looks like every other tourist boarding the
hover to Jielt. The gate-guard doesn’t even
glance at her, but he gives me the gimlet eye.
I’ve ditched the knives with the chop doc, as
a down-payment for my favor, and although
it makes me twitchy to be unarmed, I know I
won’t get on any public transport carrying
them. Without any weapons, with my new
fingerprints, no one has anything on me short
of a DNA test. When the guard nods us
through, I hide my smile in the bulb of klee
tea I’m sipping from.
I follow Kez as she explores the hover.
Two decks and a canteen. Standard Colony
issue. Top deck is open to the sun and spray.
She picks seats at the front rail.
I look down at her, at her expressive
little face. At her agile hands as she clicks
&nb
sp; together her viewie. She can’t get any signal
as long as we’re within the Cloudline, but
that hasn’t stopped her from trying. I wrap
my hand around one of hers and pull it to my
mouth. Kiss her knuckles, since her
fingernails are dirty.
“We’ll be home soon,” I reassure her.
She nods and stops fiddling with her tech.
Brushes at the brim of her hat when a gust
blows it down over her eyes. “Can we go to
my place first? I need to make sure
everything’s okay.”
“Sure.” That magnanimous feeling is still
carrying me along. I’m pretty much
guaranteed to come down with a hard bump
sooner or later, but for now I’ll enjoy it.
“Don’t take any runs today or tomorrow,
though.”
“’Cause we need to meet with Tyng?”
She looks down at our joined hands, which
I’ve let fall into my lap.
I lean into her. Crush the silly hat
between us when I whisper into her ear,
“’Cause you owe me noodles and a massage
and a naked dance and a sunburn-free fuck.
And I’m collecting.”
She glances up; her pupils dilate despite
the glare of sun and water. A hot flush
spreads over her cheeks. I love that I can
make her blush. For all that she wants and
needs my edge, there’s still something just
shy of innocent about my kitten. “And a
shower? Was there a shower somewhere in
there? I really need a shower.”
And an ultrasonic tooth-brushing. “Lets
make it a bath.” I’m not all that clean myself.
My hands are dirtier than hers; black around
the nail beds with what could be dried
blood. And I have sand in places I’d rather
not think about. Fucking skirt. “You got a
way to get word to the Kuus rats?”
Kez nods. “There’s a K-Net wall. I can
try posting on there. That’s how Java and I
used to arrange to meet up.”
“Tell them I need four thigh bones.
Human, or Mod, but close enough to pass a
scan.”
“Do I want to know why you want four
human thigh bones?”
“So I got two spare.” I haven’t carved
human bone before. I don’t know how brittle
it will be.
Kez rolls her eyes. “The emphasis was
not on the number.”
I chuckle. Teasing her is too easy
sometimes. “I got an idea, kitten.” A way to
create the chance. I wrap my arm around her
shoulders. “You trust me?”
She tips her head back. Looks up at me
from under the brim of her floppy hat. “With
my life.”
“It’s not gonna come to that.” I kiss the
