Back in the transport, Grier turned to Jimmy as he pulled away. “They knew who she was, right enough. But they won’t talk. She must be someone important. Not the crew boss; the most recent intel says that’s Yuel Vincze. He’s shaky, though. Maybe she’s a threat to him for some reason.”
“Well, we’ll have to ask someone else, then,” Jimmy said with a shrug. There were people on the streets at this time of day. Grier sighed again, but he steered the transport down the street, looking for someone else that was likely. Eventually, they found a group of young teenage boys standing near the corner of a house. Too young to have joined the crew, but old enough to think they could intimidate people.
“Perfect,” Grier murmured, slowing to a stop. “Your turn, Mr. James,” he said. “They’ll be less afraid of you. I’ll be ready if you need me, though.” He sighted one of the transport’s side guns on the group of boys. Jimmy took a breath and stepped out of the transport, walking confidently over to the boys. He needed to appear like he had money, but not like he was an actual threat. Someone the boys would feel cocky about. He dropped his shoulders slightly and let go of all his tension, trying to recapture his carefree swagger from when he was younger. Once he had been rich and cavalier and unafraid. Once he had known he was immortal and nothing could touch him, and he had exuded the careless vanity that came with having access to anything he ever wanted. He grinned slightly. That boy had been so young and stupid.
The small huddle of boys turned to watch him approach. They were stiff and nervous at first, but as he drew closer, Jimmy could see their postures relax. They exchanged nods and glances with one another, and Jimmy knew it was working. They saw him as a mark, one they could use. One or two eyed the fancy transport behind him and then looked him up and down, taking in his understated but clearly rich clothing.
“Hey, man,” one of the boys spoke first. “What’s the deal?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
The boys shifted uneasily. They were streetborns, after all; they weren’t completely stupid.
“I don’ know that we can help ya, man,” the same boy returned. “We don’ know nuthin’.”
“Not even for a senine?” he asked, flashing the heavy coin. The boys eyed him warily, but he saw the greed flash in their eyes too. A senine was no small change.
“Well, we might know somethin’.” The apparent leader looked around at the other boys. Jimmy bided his time. They would assume that if he was willing to flash a senine just for information that he must be flush with cash. He could tell that they were already considering if it was worth trying to mug him. Was he armed? Did he have protection in the transport? Or could they instead just extort more money out of him?
He smiled easily at them, confident but not threatening. Enough, hopefully, to dissuade them from trying to jump him without frightening them into fleeing.
“I just need to know where to find Luzia,” he asked.
As a group all four boys instinctively moved away from him.
“What d’ya want with her?” the leader asked suspiciously.
“She has something of mine I need to pick up,” Jimmy answered casually, though he watched the boys closely.
The leader’s face grew hard. “She’s got nuthin’ that belongs to the likes of you,” he spit contemptuously. Jimmy raised an eyebrow. They were protective of this Luzia, weren’t they? Who was she?
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he offered, pulling out a second senine.
“We’re done here,” the leader hissed, and he waved at the other boys. They stepped backward, still not taking their eyes off him. Another boy suddenly dashed around the corner, running full-tilt into the other boys.
“Theo!” he shouted. “Luzia’s!” Jimmy’s heart leaped at the name, but then he frowned. The newcomer was panicked. “Some outsiders are attacking!”
The boy swore, using words that made Jimmy’s brows raise. Then he turned on Jimmy, swinging a fist. One of the boys grabbed at his arms and another kicked out, aiming for his stomach. Before Jimmy could even twist away, an atlatl shot from the transport took the kicking boy down. He writhed on the ground. The other boys froze, their eyes staring behind Jimmy. He glanced back to see Grier advancing from the transport, his laser aimed from one hand and the atlatl from the other. He didn’t say a word, but his stare was cold and menacing.
Jimmy turned back to the boys. “Look, we don’t mean any harm to Luzia. We need to find a friend of ours that we think Luzia is protecting.”
“Right,” the leader, the one called Theo, growled. He glared right back at Grier but he didn’t move. “That’s why she’s bein’ attacked. Just luck that you’re here lookin’ for her too.”
“We can help,” Jimmy urged. “Just tell us where to find her.”
“Go to hell,” Theo hissed. Jimmy nodded at Grier, who shot Theo with the atlatl. The three remaining boys on their feet stared at the two on the ground, still groaning from the shock.
“I don’t have time to waste,” Jimmy said, his voice harder. “And I don’t want to have to kill you. It’s an easy choice. Take me to Luzia’s and earn yourself two senines. Or we can take one of you and make you talk. I don’t want to do it that way. It’ll take too long.”
The newcomer flashed nervous eyes at his friends and then turned to Jimmy. “I’ll show you,” he agreed, with a troubled glance at Theo’s still-twitching form.
Jimmy didn’t wait. “In,” he ordered curtly, pointing at the transport.
44. Kozel Strikes
At the back door, Lilah paused for a moment, closing her eyes. Was this the right move? Did she even have a choice? She thought of Damon, of her failure to save her brother because she hadn’t stayed with him until the end, and her breath hitched. Please, if there is a God listening to me right now, please protect him. He’s only a little boy. Then she gathered her courage, nodded at the boy waiting tensely beside her, and wrenched the door open, dashing through. She heard the door thunk shut behind her and hoped that the boy had been able to bar it securely, but she didn’t look back to check. Instead, she pelted down the alley, not trying to be quiet. She needed them to follow her, but she wanted to get as much distance between the Quintan Security guys and herself as possible.
She turned the corner of the building and ran full speed into a bulky figure, knocking him backward. He collapsed on the alleyway floor with an oof, and she leaped over him. He snatched at her foot, almost catching her, but she yanked it free, stumbling forward. Glancing back, she saw that it was not Kozel. So there was more than one Quintan Security traitor, she realized with a sinking heart. The man pushed himself back to his feet, and she turned forward, pushing her legs as fast as she could go. No one in this forsaken war zone would help her, but she just had to stay far enough away from him to make it back to Omphalos. Or at least to a more stable part of the Red Zone. Then she could comm for help. Except she didn’t have a flipcom. Someone would comm for help. Wouldn’t they? Or she could find an open shop . . . She shoved away her disjointed thoughts and concentrated on dodging debris and turned around another corner back onto the main street on which Luzia’s house sat.
“Lilah!” shouted a voice behind her on the street. Rigo’s voice, but she didn’t even glance back. Her heart squeezed. If Rigo was working with the bastards who had kidnapped Jenna and her kids and killed Damon, she would personally gut him and enjoy his screams. But she wasn’t going to do it now.
Run. Don’t stop. Run. Survive.
Her chest was burning now, and a stitch was forming in her side. There were people on the street, though as she expected, no one tried to help. Of course, she probably looked like a madwoman, flying down the street with a gun in one hand and a man in the uniform of the most feared zone security right behind her. Looking up, she tried to get her bearings. Where was she? The sun was nearly overhead, so that was little help. None of the buildings looked familiar,
and as far as she knew, she had never been in this area of the zone before, even though during her time it had almost certainly been controlled by someone else.
A bullet suddenly slammed into her back, knocking her forward and off her feet. It took her a moment to catch her breath, and before she could get onto her knees, her assailant’s shadow moved over her head. Lilah’s sudden rush of adrenaline cleared her mind, and she saw the outline of the shadow raising his gun to aim at her again. Without hesitation, she suddenly rolled to the side, brought her gun up, and fired multiple shots, obliterating his face. His body crumpled to the ground, and she staggered to her feet, scanning the street around her. There were a few curious faces staring out of windows, and several other pedestrians watched her warily, but there was no sign of Kozel or anyone else in a Quintan Security uniform. Her body ached painfully. The body armor she wore underneath her clothes had stopped the bullet, but she still felt like she had been kicked in the back with a spike-heeled boot. Now what? She was clear, and she could keep going and try to find another way to contact Jimmy, but where were Kozel and Rigo? She had hoped to lead all three men away from Luzia’s house. Had they stayed to look for Erik?
Lilah drew in a deep, shuddering breath and turned back to the body of the officer she had killed. She avoided his ruined skull but dug through the zippered compartments of his uniform until she found his flipcom. Using his own flipcom, she marked his body for pickup. Then she hesitated. Should she take the flipcom? She would have a means to communicate, to comm for help. But it could also be tracked, leading her enemies right to her. She compromised by sending a quick text comm to Jimmy.
Come quickly. EJD in danger.
Then she dropped the flipcom down on the chest of the dead man and started back the way she came.
●●●
It took at least ten minutes to get back to the stretch of the block where Luzia’s house squatted among the other decaying buildings. She couldn’t run, and every breath was painful. She scanned the streets warily—not only did she want to avoid Kozel and Rigo, but she didn’t want to get blindsided by some other zone punk who thought she looked like an easy target.
She stopped at a distance and studied the house. Everything was completely quiet. The block had emptied—not even a single curious teen lingered on the stretch of pavement before the house. The front windows were boarded and barred, and the front door looked securely shut. There was no sign of Kozel or Rigo anywhere.
Warily, she slipped up the front steps and rapped on the door, using the signal that Dania had taught her earlier. No response. She pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear any of the children at all. With so many young kids, she should have been able to hear something, but either the house was more soundproof than she realized, or it was dead silent inside.
Her stomach clenched at the phrase “dead silent.” Praying that the silence just meant that everyone was safely hidden away, she darted back down the front steps and around the side of the building. When she reached the back door she sucked in a painful gasp. The back door had been blasted open. It hung in twisted and blackened shreds, leaving a large gap. With her gun up and ready, she carefully slid between the jagged edges of metal and found herself blinking rapidly to adjust to the dim light of the kitchen. It was utterly still. No thumps of running feet upstairs, no crying, not even whispers. She cautiously moved forward, checking behind the table before moving to the open doorway that led to the hall.
Just as she reached the hall, she heard a muffled scream from the floor above her. Instinctively, she glanced up and so nearly tripped over the prone figure sprawled in the hallway. She stumbled backward, her heart rate rocketing into overdrive, though her aim stayed steady. There was a dark pool spreading around the head, and no sign of chest movement. She needed more light!
Holding her arm steady, she flicked on the gunlight, shining the narrow beam onto the staring eyes of her friend Rigo. He had been hit in the neck, it looked like. Probably had died instantly. She swallowed thickly and then stooped down and snatched his laser, stuffing it into a side pocket of her cargo pants. She doubted Luzia or Dania had killed him. They wouldn’t have left his weapon lying like a useless toy beside his body.
That meant Kozel was in the house. She thought of the scream upstairs and hurried for the staircase. There was only one way up.
The stairs were creaky, but she took each one slowly. She knew Kozel was probably up there, and she wanted to keep the element of surprise on her side. Did he have the children? Where was Luzia? She couldn’t manage all these stairs, not with her weak legs.
When she reached the upstairs landing, she could hear the sniffling and the whimpering. More than one child was crying softly. After a moment of standing and listening, she pinpointed where they had to be. There were three doors on the right side, and an old, rickety wooden railing overlooked the downstairs living area on the left. They had to be in the last room. The door was cracked, and a little blue-white light from a globe spilled into the hall. Carefully, she ghosted forward, nervously eyeing the doors of the other three rooms she passed. Two of the other doors were cracked open also, though there was no light. Anyone could be hiding in those rooms, including Kozel.
Then she heard a growling voice from the room with the light.
“I will ask only one last time, or I will kill them all. Which boy?”
Lilah reached the door and pressed her eye to the crack. She couldn’t see Kozel at all from this angle, though she could see a huddle of children pressed against the wall opposite. Erik was in the middle of them, his eyes scrunched shut. Dania was in the group; she had four of the crying kids pressed up against her. None of the kids seemed harmed, at least from what Lilah could see.
Someone was gasping for breath out of her line of sight, though. Was it Luzia? Who had screamed?
Lilah nudged the door open just a bit more. She didn’t want to catch Kozel’s attention, but she needed a better idea of where he was and what he was doing. The movement caught Dania’s attention, and she locked eyes with Lilah. They were blazing with fury. She inclined her head just a little to the side. What did she mean by that? Was Kozel right behind the door?
“I don’t know who you are looking for,” Luzia’s voice croaked. “They are all my children. They have been here for years.” There was an audible snap, and Luzia screamed hoarsely.
“Wrong answer.” Kozel’s voice was cold and hard. Lilah dared to push the door open just a little farther. Erik’s eyes had opened at Luzia’s scream, and as the crack widened enough for Lilah to catch a glimpse of Kozel standing over Luzia’s crumpled body on the floor, Erik suddenly bolted to his feet.
“Lilah!” he cried in his high voice, running in her direction. The door yanked open, and Lilah jerked back, Erik darting for her just as Kozel charged through the door. She fired one shot, and then he knocked her gun from her hands. She tried to twist away from him and tripped over Erik, crashing to the floor. Kozel raised his laser, aiming straight for her face when suddenly Dania jumped on his back from behind. She crooked one arm around his neck and grabbed her elbow, squeezing it tight. Kozel dropped his laser and reached up, trying to grab Dania’s head. Lilah surged back to her feet, kicking Kozel’s weapon down the hall, where it clattered down the stairs.
Kozel staggered a bit and then threw himself backward, smashing Dania into the door frame. She grunted and tumbled off his back, slumping to the floor in a heap. Kozel dropped to his knees, breathing hoarsely. Lilah scrambled around on the ground, trying to find her gun.
“Run, Erik!” she shrieked. “Downstairs!” Her hand brushed the cold metal of the grip and she sat up on her knees, aiming once again at Kozel. Before she could get a single shot off, he launched himself forward and barreled into her. They crashed backward into the railing. Lilah caught just a glance of Kozel’s murderous eyes centimeters from her own before the rotted wooden pillar gave way behind her, and then she was
falling, Kozel’s rank breath in her face, everything a confusion of twisted limbs and wood and screaming, her own screams tearing from her throat. Then the pain of crashing into the floor below and Kozel’s weight slamming on top of her, driving her mercifully into the utter dark.
45. In Luzia’s House
Grier waved him forward, and Jimmy moved around the corner, joining the old bodyguard at the back door of the house. His forehead beaded with sweat. Just minutes before they had arrived at the house that their reluctant guide had led them to, he received another text comm from Lilah. It had come from yet another strange number, but it had to be her. It had been short but clear enough.
Come quickly. EJD in danger.
He stared at the blasted back door and wondered if they were too late.
Grier didn’t hesitate. His own weapons ready, he stepped carefully though the remnants of the back door and disappeared into the house. Jimmy followed after only a brief moment, giving Grier enough time to clear the room before he entered. When he stepped into the gloom, it took a second for his eyes to adjust. He was standing in a dusty, cluttered kitchen with boarded windows. There was no sign of violence, though, other than the destroyed door. Suddenly, Lilah’s shout echoed from somewhere in the house.
“Run, Erik! Downstairs!” She sounded desperate and terrified.
Grier looked back at him, then pointed to the door at the far end of the kitchen. Jimmy nodded curtly and hurried forward while Grier slipped through the doorway on the right. Jimmy pulled the door open and froze in horror as two bodies dropped from the second floor and smacked into the floor with a sickening thud only a few meters in front of him. He waited, too nervous to move any closer, but neither of the crumpled figures so much as twitched. One seemed to be a very large man. He had landed on top of the other figure, but Jimmy couldn’t see well enough to make out any more details.
“Lights!” Jimmy shouted desperately, without response from the house. Glancing up, he saw that the two had fallen through the railing that lined the upstairs floor, and a small crowd of children now peered through the gap down at the bodies. “Lilah?” he called. “Erik?”
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