Celestial Hit List

by Charles Ingrid

  A dark figure was turning away from him and disappearing, weaving its way through columns into the depths of the embassy.

  “Shit.” Jack drew the back of his hand across his forehead. They had been watched. He looked about him, saw the area empty, and decided to follow.

  The man moved quickly, stealthily, down the hall and up a back set of stairs. He was older than Jack. Heavier breathing and the insistent creak of one kneecap as he took each step hid any sounds of Jack’s pursuit. As he turned the corner upstairs, a hallway mirror flashed a fleeting portrait of his face.

  Jack stumbled to a halt and caught himself. Then the gut-wrenching shock that had made him stop for an instant sped him along instead. This man he could not afford to lose, for he’d spent most of his waking life since the Sand Wars looking for him! Twenty-five years had aged Winton, but not to such a point that Jack could not recognize the man who’d condemned the Knights to Thrakian defeat and death on Milos.

  Winton and Thraks. This time, he had the chance to make the connection. Questions embedded in his soul were close to being answered.

  He hurried after his nemesis.

  Two guards stepped out of an alcove at the top of the stairs. “Sorry, sir. This part of the embassy is private.”

  Jack looked at the WP insignia on their epaulets. He smiled tightly. “I seem to have made a wrong turn.”

  “The men’s room is down on the first floor,” one guard said. “Just outside the dining room.”

  Jack pivoted and returned downstairs. His fist had clenched involuntarily and he opened it.

  One of the guards had been with the man who had brought Ballard’s eye to them.

  That left Jack wondering just who the enemy was as he reentered the dining room and took his seat at Amber’s elbow. Kavin gave him a curious look from across the table. As he sat, he was aware of the violent trembling beside him, but he could not turn to her as a servant bent down with a plate.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The Bythian High Priest sat across from her. He turned his light emerald eyes on Jack. “We were discussing a phenomenon of my religion known as the Holy Fire. Its appearance heralds the Third Age we talked of. My ancestors used a minor form of it to cleanse sins.”

  Jonathan, looking ill at ease next to Colin, laughed awkwardly. “Who is without sin?” he asked.

  “No one,” Hussiah returned. “Without the Holy Fire.” He made that eerie copy of a human smile. “The Lady Amber strikes me as a curious one. In my people, curiosity is not an idle trait.”

  Amber got to her feet, the lines of her dress quivering with her agitation. Without looking once at Jack, she whispered, “Forgive me, your reverence. I… I cannot stay for dinner.”

  Colin answered, “Of course. Jonathan.”

  The bodyguard got up almost as quickly. Amber moved her hand over to Jack’s hair, an intimate gesture that betrayed her trembling. She bent down and said in a low voice made husky by unshed tears. “Come see me later. Please.”

  One of the Thraks made a guttural noise. His companion answered it with a gnashing of face plates. Jack looked swiftly at them. When he turned back, Amber had gone.

  Colin cleared his throat. “My apologies, Omnipotent One. Foreign travel can be… difficult.”

  “Indeed,” said the High Priest. He looked at his plate. “Ah. Nando feet. What a rare appetizer.” He picked up an eating utensil with relish.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Amber let the night air hit her like a slap in the face. She took a deep breath to steady herself before she ripped off her headband and let her hair come tumbling down.

  The walkways of Sassinal were empty this late. It made her suspect the Bythians even more of reptilian coldness. They were probably curled up inside their baskets of homes. She turned her head as a wheeled conveyance whirled past her, its rider pumping furiously. The Bythian never gave her a second glance. She was in no danger here on Sassinal streets, only beyond where surfas reigned at night. It was about the only advantage she could think of for a one-sexed race.

  She closed her eyes briefly and tried to dismiss Hussiah’s burning gaze that had speared her the moment he’d entered the embassy. How could he see through her like that? How could he know about the deaths that churned inside her? She could not even tell Jack something like that and yet this… this stranger, this thing… knew.

  A low hanging branch slapped her lightly, emitting its fragrance and Amber’s eyes snapped back open. She ducked under the tree’s overhang.

  He could not possibly know about her unless… unless he was like she was, born with the talent.

  Amber kicked off her dress shoes. The cool, packed dirt beneath her feet felt good. What made a High Priest a priest, anyway? Back in Malthen, she knew an old lady who’d lived between the cracks in the buildings and swore she could feel the angry earth beneath the hot permaphalt streets and claimed damnation and salvation on alternating days. And yet, she’d known an uncanny thing or two. A little chill prickled up Amber’s spine.

  Preoccupied, she brushed past the empty streets and thresholds and entered the Walker villa. She prayed that Jack would have the time to see her later that night. Somehow, she must find the way to tell him what she’d done.

  Winton rubbed the scarring along the side of his face, feeling the eerie sensation of numb and too slick flesh under his fingertips. What would it feel like, he wondered, to be that heavily scarred all over? The eerie illumination of the multimonitored room played over his features.

  The thought distracted him for a moment, then a sound tinned on one of his monitors. He tuned it in.

  The Thraks were cleansing themselves in a privacy booth after their meal and before returning to their villa. Winton smiled. Dhurl’s synthesizer made it nearly impossible for him to converse in the clicks, whistles and other sounds of the Thrakian vocabulary so he did not.

  “It would be odd, would it not,” the Ambassador mused as he rubbed his face plates clean, “if one of the Knights we faced tonight was the one we detained during the Sand Wars?”

  His aide clicked.

  “Of course not,” Dhurl returned. “He escaped years ago. We have to assume our implantations were successful or else we would have felt the consequences of our actions.”

  There was a dry rustling Winton could not identify though he was now hunched over the monitor, listening intently. He’d begun to sweat in the enclosure. It filmed his forehead now, running into his brows. He clenched a fist. He’d known it. He’d known it! But which one? Storm was the obvious choice. Not adrift for years, no. Detained by the Thraks. What the hell did they mean by implantations?

  He got no more answer than that, for the Thraks left the booth and his line buzzed dead. It was then he saw that his recorder had malfunctioned and he had no evidence to verify his accusation. Winton clenched his teeth viciously and sat back in his chair.

  “Taking a late stroll?”

  Jack smiled at Kavin. “I think I might.”

  The commander shrugged his own shoulders and smoothed back his hair. “Not a bad idea,” he said. “Think I’ll go with you.”

  Jack dropped a hand onto the shoulder nearest him. “No,” he said, without explanation.

  Kavin laughed gently. “All right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you if Colin doesn’t let you past the first door.”

  “Who uses doors?” Jack returned as his friend walked off in the dark. Kavin twisted about, gestured good night, and went on.

  Jack stripped off his dress jacket. He wore black underneath. He left the jacket lying on the front walkway where one of the junior officers would no doubt pick it up and return it to his room. He had business elsewhere and strode into the night, his mind busy. He never looked back or saw the figure materialize with sinewy grace to retrieve the jacket and stand holding it, before fading back into the tree lined boulevard with its find.

  The embassy had darkened now, its paper lanterns dimming with the advent of late evening, its guests gone, its dwell
ers returning to their business and perhaps even to sleep. Jack stood watching it, his head tilted back. He adjusted a strap about his neck and prayed that the security shift had not changed.

  He scaled the outer wall swiftly, swung into a second floor window, and paused until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He was in a bedroom of sorts, spare, for it held no life or personality of its own. A few steps and he was at the door and out into the hallway.

  A single man stood watch on the staircase. Jack smiled grimly. It was rare for his prayers to be answered so promptly. He was on the guard before he was heard, knee in the small of his opponent’s back and forearm at his throat as he bowed the man down. The guard snarled for breath, his metal alloy teeth glinting in the half-dark.

  “I remember you,” said Jack softly. “Do you remember me?”

  The man gargled. He twisted his head frantically for breath.

  Jack tightened his hold a fraction. “You escorted an assassin to my quarters. You roughed up a young lady a tad more than your assignment called for. The assassin carried a gold eyepiece and a message.”

  The man froze in his hold.

  “You remember,” Jack said, pleased. “So do I.” He applied pressure until he heard the snap, then let the body sag down upon the top stair. It was a pity, but the man wouldn’t have had the answers he wanted anyway.

  Jack stalked back the way he had come, hugging the shadows and dark alcoves of the second floor.

  He found a recessed stairway and took it with a surety that was almost like following a scent. On the landing he hesitated.

  A voice curled softly out of the darkness and about him. “You were expected.”

  A tiny light flared, its brilliance almost dazzling, as it dropped to the floor and an assassin stood there, his face creased by a tight smile. He stood balanced, weight lightly on the balls of his feet. There was no doubt in Jack’s mind that the man was ready for him.

  “I didn’t think I’d make that much noise,” Jack said.

  “You didn’t. But the house is full of small lizards. They’re more efficient than netting and safer than insecticides. Your climb up the wall sent a wave of them scurrying to the corners.”

  “Sensitive creatures. What about you?”

  The assassin’s lip curled very slightly. “Do not make the mistake of baiting me, Captain Storm. I’m not a messenger boy any longer.”

  “Then you’re merely a killer.”

  They both moved to their right a step or two. Jack felt himself grin as he anticipated the assassin.

  The man paused, head tilted a fraction as though he listened to something. Then his attention came back fully to Jack. “Yes,” he answered lowly.

  “Who sleeps down that wing?”

  “One of my employers.”

  “Then I suggest you move aside. I have business with him.” “No.”

  They moved as one. They closed, fists clenched. Thud, block, block, hit. They fell back. The assassin panted and Jack’s ribcage ached as though the one blow that had reached him might have broken a bone. His knuckles smarted. He’d gotten the first hit, the assassin the last. The ones in between that each had blocked had been meant to be deadly.

  Jack sucked in a low breath. The ache gave a sharp prick. He bared his teeth to hide his discomfort. “What happened to Ballard?”

  “Ballard?” The assassin spoke through tight lips. It pleased Jack to see that his first blow had done damage.

  “The man the gold eye belonged to.”

  “Ah. He survived. He was given a fee and let go. Did he not come back to warn his friends of treachery?”

  “He has no friends,” Jack answered. He ducked as the man kicked at him, heels grazing his temple, but before he could whirl and grab, the assassin was back in position breathing heavily. “You’re hurt,” Jack noted.

  “And so are you.”

  “But not as badly. Tell me who hired you to bring me Ballard’s eye and I might let you run.”

  The assassin showed his teeth. The tiny flare blazing on the corridor floor began to dim. “You’re just a farm boy at heart,” he rasped. “Go back to the fields. You’re involved in things you have no idea of.”

  “Perhaps,” Jack answered, “you’ll tell me some of them before you die.” He sprang. The assassin hesitated just a moment but it was enough, and Jack had his hands full as the flare went out, plunging them into night.

  He knew it was a mistake, but it was too late to do anything but hang on. They fought desperately, rolling and grasping. Crimson blazed across the back of his head as they smashed into the wall. His eyes blurred with the intensity of his pain. He held on.

  Nails raked along the side of his neck. He had a moment to wonder if they’d been poisoned, but he held on.

  Then the assassin stopped fighting and sagged in his arms, breathing heavily. Jack did not give in to the temptation to loosen his hold.

  “All right, farm boy,” the assassin said. “I was hired by a man named Winton to carry Ballard’s eye. Pray you never meet him.”

  “I know him,” Jack answered. “What about the attack on Colin of the Blue Wheel?”

  “That was… from a different organization.”

  “What organization?”

  “I… have my loyalties. Squeeze away. I won’t tell you more.”

  “Do you have a target here?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Who?”

  There was a pause, accented by a rattle. Then the whispered answer, “You.”

  Jack felt the chill sweat trickling down his forehead. “Who?”

  There was no answer, and he knew there would not be.

  “The broadcaster Scott Randolph?”

  “Ah. You recognized my handiwork there, too.” A hacking cough. “The Thrakian League asked for that one.”

  “Why?”

  “That is one question an assassin never asks.”

  Then he went slack in Jack’s arms. Jack held him another moment until he realized the man was dead, and then let go. He stood up. He knew his faith in Amber had not been replaced despite the confession.

  He looked up. Security here was not as it had been in the emperor’s palace on Malthen, but there were still recorders and cameras whirling away in the corner. He pulled the strap away from his throat. It came away in streamers, having saved his jugular vein from the assassin’s nails. He pocketed the synthesizer attached to it. The ambassador would have the assassin’s confession on tape, but he would not be tied in to it by voiceprint.

  But their death throe wrestling match had been heard and he had no time to get to Winton. Jack turned and ran down the landing to the recessed staircase, and was gone by the time the WP roused the household.

  He stayed out of the way crossing the town to Colin’s quarters. It seemed swirled in darkness and aroma and he hesitated. Then he decided that Colin was too good a friend, and went to the front tapestry and rang the bell strand hanging there.

  It was Jonathan who pulled back the tapestry and glowered at him, the man’s face rumpled in half-sleep.

  “I’m expected,” Jack said softly.

  Jonathan let him in, saying, “His reverence told me you’d probably be by. He says to tell you that Amber’s been upset for days and that he can’t help. Maybe you can.”

  Jack ducked his head to enter.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  He wanted to tell her she was free, but he was afraid she’d smell the murders of two men on his hands, and so he decided to wait until morning to gift her with their deaths. Instead, he brought compliments.

  If she’d kept looking at him, he might have been able to tell if she’d pinked with pleasure at that or not. But she wasn’t watching; she was looking out at the courtyard as though drawn by it, sprawled on a pile of pillows by the low wall.

  “Amber,” he said, to capture her attention. “Look at me.”

  Her face turned. She used her hair to veil her thoughts from him, its strands sweeping down and over covering half her face. One so
ft brown eye watched him warily.

  “I’ve found Winton. He’s here at the embassy in some capacity. I’ve got him.”

  Her silence answered him.

  “What have I done?”

  “Nothing,” she answered shortly, after a pause.

  “Then what can I do?”

  “Take me home. Take me back to Malthen, with its streets of concrete and permaphalt.”

  “Where you’ll be safe?”

  No answer at all this time.

  “I’m going to burn Winton. I’ll do it if I have to go through Pepys or Colin or that damned Bythian High Priest.”

  “Or me,” she murmured softly.

  He could think of nothing else to do, and nothing that he wanted to do more. He crossed the room and knelt beside her on the pillows, and took her in his arms. Gently, he swept back her hair. A delicate perfume wafted up as he did so. She put her arms up and firmly pushed him back.

  The expression in her eyes meeting his shocked him. “You love me,” he said quietly, and was surprised to find a tremor in his voice.

  Amber shook her head. “Dammit, Jack. It took you long enough to see it.”

  “I haven’t been looking.”

  “No.” She reached up and touched the side of his face where a very faint paleness swept into his dark blond hair, all that was left of a laser burn she’d treated long, long ago. Her touch was cool against his face. “And if I were looking, what would I see?”

  A heat rose in him and he found it hard to answer, “The same, I hope.”

  A tear swelled in her right eye. “I’m lost,” she whispered, “if I can’t.”

  He hugged her close and her resistance collapsed, then she wove her arms about him and returned the embrace, tighter and tighter. He felt the swell of her body against him, the quickening of her nipples through the thin fabric of her caftan, and his own answering quickening. They kissed, tentatively, then deeply. He tasted the exotic sweetness of a Bythian fruit on her lips, then followed the curve of her cheekbone across her face to her temple, passing the saltiness of teardrops on the way.