by Martha Carr
“A Reevaluation of Zhuge Liang’s Fire Gambit in Light of Oriceran Influence: The Possible Use of Magical Fire Artifacts in Ancient China.” Shay chuckled. “What a mouthful.”
She had read a lot of articles like it since her decision to devote herself to tomb raiding. To her great surprise, many historians and archaeologists were happy rather than pissed after learning that much of what they’d believed for decades, if not centuries, was made-up crap. A lot of them seemed to be overjoyed they had entire new research paths for their careers, with more than a few going on and on about their obsession about finding the real truth. Shay rolled her eyes at the thought.
It wasn’t that Shay couldn’t understand their excitement, but she would have been annoyed to have spent an entire career studying something only to find out she’d been playing make believe the entire time.
Switching jobs from killing to tomb raiding didn’t require any radical changes in her thought processes or beliefs. Just no killing. Well, less killing.
Everyone likes a little job security.
Shay looked around the intimate little Munich street café. A handful of other customers, mostly men, worked on their meals or coffee, but no one paid her much heed. It filled her with a little relief. German men knew to keep their distance and not crowd a woman just because she was hot. Or maybe they were all gay. Whatever worked. She crossed one long leg in a dark leather boot over the other as she took another sip of the strong black coffee.
Shay had a few hours to kill before her flight and decided to get a bite to eat. After vanquishing her sandwich, she’d moved on to relaxing with some coffee while she caught up on her reading.
The small bell over the door chimed, and Shay glanced in that direction. A man in a dark suit with close-cropped blond hair stepped in, adjusting his tie as he surveyed the café, a tense expression on his face. A faint bulk disrupted the lines of his suit, both a fashion crime and an indication he was wearing a shoulder holster.
Shay resisted a sigh. She’d thought it’d been too easy for her to check out her newest target without meeting any resistance. Well, easy except for the whole almost getting buried in a watery tomb by logs. That was more than a little annoying.
Now you show up, asshole? It would have been nicer to show up at the lake where I had a more convenient place to ditch your body. Fuck, there’s not even a decent seedy trash can nearby. Why do the Germans have to have such clean cities? This was always easier in New York. Hell, there were even a few convenient forgotten subway tunnels there.
Shay looked away, instead focusing on watching the man’s reflection in the polished brass running behind the counter. She feigned a smile at one of the waitresses, which the woman took as a sign she wanted more coffee.
The new arrival moved to a corner table, one of the few tables where he could see the entire café and look out the window, but otherwise his back was to windowless walls.
Shay took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
It could be nothing. Maybe the guy just likes to sit in the corner. Or maybe not.
Defensive seating. That’s what she’d always called it when she still worked as a professional killer. An obviously armed man practicing defensive seating might not be a hitman, but the chance he was a local neighborhood business jerk wasn’t all that high either. Coupled with the timing of her visit, she had to assume that Mr. Defensive Seating had come to finish Natalie Leon’s job.
How the hell did they tag me? Where did I screw up?
Shay took another sip of her coffee, keeping her expression casual. She tapped away at her phone to activate and reverse the camera before lifting the device, so she had a clear view of Mr. Defensive Seating. She kept her phone at a slight angle, as if she were still reading the same material from before.
The likely killer accepted some coffee from the waitress with a frown, tension lines marring his face.
Shay stifled a laugh. When she’d worked the job, one thing she’d learned right away is that looking tense made you stand out and attracted the wrong kind of attention. Even an idiot could get the drop on you if they noticed you.
Surprise was one of the greatest weapons when it came to a successful kill. Is Mr. Defensive Seating new or just bad at the job? The thought vaguely offended her.
So, I’ve made him, and he doesn’t know I have. Seriously, asshole, you thought you could take me out that easily? I’m insulted.
“Auf wiedersehen,” said a snow-haired old man to the waitress. He’d been inside the café before Shay even arrived, slowly working on some sort of dark soup. He grabbed his cane and limped his way to the door.
Shay pulled out a few Euros and tossed them on the counter. She could finish off Mr. Defensive Seating in an alleyway, or at least somewhere without security cameras or drones, but she needed to push things along at her tempo and not his.
She hurried to the door and threw the old man a large fake smile before opening the door for him.
“Danke,” he said, and stepped through.
“Bitte schön,” Shay offered back, keeping the pleasant smile plastered on her face.
She spotted Mr. Defensive Seating’s reflection in the glass of the window as he made his way from his table. He’d barely had time to finish his coffee and was already standing. Any doubts she had about him being a hitman vanished.
If you were going to be this obvious, you should have just set up with a sniper rifle from a building and shot me when I stepped out, asshole.
A grin wanted to break out on Shay’s face. Excitement, not fear, flowed through her.
Taking out a single hitman would be a nice way to maintain her practical combat skills without any serious risk. Even if her new job didn’t always require her to kill, if she let her instincts rust, she’d be dead the next time a mercenary squad got the drop on her.
The old man headed up the sidewalk to the left, leaning heavily on his cane while he joined the light flow of the evening foot traffic. Shay moved the opposite direction where the walkers were less dense. Fewer people meant fewer complications. It also meant delayed police response.
Far fewer police drones patrolled the skies of Munich than she was used to in large American cities. Whether that represented German naivete or simply safer cities, she couldn’t say. Considering some of the serious magic-related incidents she’d read about, she doubted the latter.
The hitman emerged from the café and straightened his tie. Is it some sort of nervous tic? His tell. She walked down the street for few yards and lifted her phone as if she were taking a selfie, but mostly to check behind her, and frowned.
The hitman wasn’t following her; he was following the old man.
Really? You needed to hire a professional to take down an old dude with a cane and a limp? I could hire some 12-year-old Girl Scout to take out that guy.
Shay rolled her eyes. She wasn’t overly impressed with the hitman. Arrogance on her part, perhaps, but an arrogance earned through skill. Shay doubted most people could successfully assassinate themselves, disappear and still collect the payout.
The tomb raider slowed her pace, waiting for both the old mark and the hitman to go around the corner. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. She turned and hurried in their direction, maintaining a brisk walk but not fast enough to be running to avoid drawing any attention.
Curiosity fueled her now, not concern. The old man’s fate wasn’t hers to decide, but somehow watching a hit go down appealed to a dark part of her. The same vicious side of her soul that reveled in using her skills to defeat and take the life of another. She couldn’t deny that she’d fallen into being a professional killer after finding out on her first kill – she liked it.
She’d always told herself it was more about control than enjoying the kill. Not completely true. She pulled her soft light wool jacket tighter against the biting wind as she slowed down at the corner.
It didn’t matter, really. Shay knew how fucked up she was. In a way, the Nuevo Gulf Cartel had done her a favor by
putting the contract on her life. Now, she had a chance at some sort of halfway decent human existence instead of being nothing more than a paid weapon.
Not that her soul could ever be redeemed, if there even was such a thing, but at least now she wasn’t sliding farther and farther each day into becoming a complete fucking monster.
Of course, maybe my dead marks would disagree that I’m not a monster.
Shay stopped at the corner and peeked around. “Son of a bitch.”
The old man now held his cane and all but jogged along without any sign of his former limp. He glanced over his shoulder and picked up the pace, hurrying away from the hitman.
Shay smirked, impressed the old man had managed to fool her.
See, Mr. Defensive Seating? That’s how you surprise people, but now the guy’s made you because you’re so damned sloppy.
Shay jogged toward the men but kept her distance. Even fewer people walked in the narrow side streets, and it was clear the noose was tightening around the old man. She glanced around and spotted a ladder running up the side of a nearby building. After chancing another glance at the men, she ducked in an alley and grabbed onto the base of the ladder, easily scrambling up the side.
Those gym days do pay off.
Shay’s muscles burned as she hit the roof of the building. She hurried to the edge to reestablish a visual on the hunter and the prey. The old man ducked into another alley.
Shay winced. If he’d stayed near other people, he might have at least had a chance. She blinked and raised a brow, her esteem suddenly rising.
The old man hurried and ducked behind a small truck parked in the alley. He pulled on his cane, revealing a long, thin blade.
“Oh, sword cane, nice,” Shay murmured to herself from her rooftop perch. She liked the idea but didn’t see how a young woman like herself could pull off carrying a cane without looking odd.
The hitman reached into his coat and yanked out a pistol. He stepped around the corner into the alley. He slowed, looking back and forth, keeping his gun ready. To his credit, he moved to the opposite side of the alley from the truck. Still, no one’s looking up.
Shay reached under her jacket, feeling the cold metal of her 9mm. She might not be able to land a shot on the hitman at this distance, but she could scare him.
He doesn’t see him. She eased her finger off the trigger. Not your business, anyway.
The hitman turned to leave. The old man leapt up from behind the truck and charged. His pursuer spun toward him and squeezed off three rounds. Shay aimed her gun, able to get a clean shot.
The crack of the hitman’s gunfire echoed in the air, and the victim slumped to the ground, his sword now useless.
His killer holstered his weapon, straightened his tie and pulled out a phone, aiming it at the dead man, presumably to take a kill shot. An inside joke in their trade.
A distant siren sounded, and the hitman rushed away from the alley.
Shay’s heart thumped hard in her chest, and she took a deep breath. The memory of how it felt to take down a mark was hard to push out of her head.
The ex-killer licked her dry lips and shook her head.
Regular people don’t carry around swords hidden in canes. That old man was another hitman past his prime… just like Natalie. Just like I would have been if I stayed in the job.
With a shudder, Shay made her way to the ladder. She had a flight to catch.
8
Shay rolled into Warehouse Two feeling pretty good. Even if she didn’t snag the magical persuasion pin, it was buried under so much mud and wood that no one else would be getting it, along with the gold. Denying someone else a victory was at least part of the game, maybe even just as much as an actual win. She could always go after the rest of the treasure in the future. At least now she knew exactly where it was.
Walking away from an overseas trip with a bag of diamonds didn’t exactly fall into the failure category, anyway. The diamonds weren’t the highest quality according to a fence she’d stopped by on the way to the warehouse, but it would still be a good payday and help keep her knee-deep in pizza and sports cars for at least a little longer. Might even buy Peyton a few technological toys to help the business.
Ignoring the money, the entire mission again confirmed she knew what she was doing. Shay wasn’t a killer fumbling around and pretending to be a field archaeologist and tomb raider. She was the real damned deal and now could claim the successful location of two magical artifacts.
Failure to recover the second artifact came with the job as far as she was concerned. Like the man once said, no plans survive contact with the enemy. She couldn’t control the logs, but there had been treasure there, and likely magical treasure. That’s all she cared about for the moment.
Shay almost wanted to whistle at how impressive she was as she stepped out of her car.
Peyton emerged from the office, this time in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt decorated with koala bears and eucalyptus trees.
“I…” Shay began, staring at the man’s outfit. “That was in one of those boxes?”
“What? My outfit?”
Shay rolled her eyes. “No, your face. Yes, your outfit. It looks like you got mugged by the Australian Board of Tourism.”
Peyton laughed. “No. These weren’t in the boxes.”
Shay narrowed her eyes. “Where did you get them, then? Please tell me you didn’t go shopping when I was gone.”
“Well, kind of. Not the kind you’re thinking of.” Peyton grinned. “This was paid for anonymously and delivered nearby.”
Shay groaned. “How did you pay for it anonymously?”
“I’ve got a lot of cryptocurrency holdings. Bitcoin, Ethereum, lots of Trollcoin and Oricoin, too. If you know what you’re doing, it’s all but impossible to trace. You should really look into that, if you haven’t already.”
“Sounds to me like you took a risk with the life I went to a lot of trouble to save.”
“Not much of one.”
Shay sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Whatever. The point is you shouldn’t have left this place. It’s not safe. Someone could take you out, especially if I’m not around.”
Peyton shrugged. “I’m already dead, remember? You got paid for it. No one’s even looking for me, and what am I supposed to do, sit here all day? It’s not like you’re sitting around hiding in a warehouse, and the contract on your life was worth way more than the one on me.”
Shay scoffed. “Degree of difficulty to take me out… turns out they were right.”
Peyton smirked. “Duly noted.”
“Okay, okay, fair enough. I get it. You have cabin fever.” Shay put up a finger. “But let’s be smart about this. My fake death was more thorough than your death, okay? But I get it, you’ve been locked up in here, and you’re going stir crazy. I’ve got a solution for that.”
“And what’s that?”
“We should just go out.”
“Go out? After all that big speech about safety? Are you just fucking with me now?”
Shay crossed her arms. “If you’re with me, you’re safe, and I know I can make sure no one follows us back here. I’m only worried when you wander off by yourself. Let’s go and celebrate.” She grinned.
“Celebrate? Your texts were rather… uh, cryptic. You did find something, then?” He propped his blue Vans up on the metal desk until Shay gave him a cold look that managed to send a shiver down his spine.
“Diamonds, and even gold, but there was an issue recovering everything. I only escaped with the diamonds.”
Peyton nodded. “An issue? Is that code for a bunch of angry guys with guns?”
Shay shook her head. “Nope. Just man’s greatest and much ancient enemy. Nature. The treasure was under a pile of unstable logs, and well, they shifted, and they almost buried me. It was kind of a big fucking mess. Came close to getting buried in a bad game of Jenga.”
“Wait. What? Are you saying you almost died in that lake?”
&n
bsp; Shay laughed. “Almost dying is like being almost pregnant.”
Peyton stared at her, shaking his head. “You’re insane. Do you even realize that you’re insane?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is brave, asshole.”
“If you got buried under there, no one would have known to look for you. I wouldn’t have even known to contact the authorities until it was too late.”
“Don’t worry. If I did, I’m sure I would have been crushed to death, so it wouldn’t be like I was waiting to die and praying for rescue or anything. I assume when I check out, it’ll be pretty quick and probably pretty painful.”
Shay opened her mouth to mention the hitman but closed it without saying anything. Following the hitman even after realizing he wasn’t on her tail was an unnecessary risk. I would have chewed Peyton a new one if he’d tried something like that. For now, it’s more important that the only thing the man sees is the face of success.
“I don’t think I could swim into a pile of logs that might bury me alive,” Peyton said. “Call that cowardice if you want. I call it being smart.”
“Good thing you’re not gonna be a field guy, then, huh?” Shay clapped her hands together. “Anyway, even if I didn’t get the gold, I got the diamonds, so we can afford a little pizza.”
Peyton eyed her, suspicion on his face.
“What?” Shay reached for her car keys, ready to go eat.
“It’s just that I thought you didn’t go there for diamonds or gold. I thought you went there for a magic Nazi pin.”
Shay shrugged. “I did. And I found it. It just so happens that I valued my life more than the artifact, and I had to make some hard choices.”
“I can tell you’re going back there some day. Whatever. Um, glad you’re not dead, I guess.”
“Aww. That’s sweet. Now, let’s go get some pizza.” Shay headed toward her Spider.
Telling Peyton the truth about the magical trap wouldn’t be useful. He didn’t need to be aware of any of her miscalculations. Don’t tell them how you make the sausage.
The important result of the lake raid was establishing she was right about the mission. There was a magical artifact there, judging by the defenses. That established that her gut, mixed with a lot of research and some satellite hacking, was a good source of information.
