Hidden Steel

by Doranna Durgin

  They didn’t so much as blink. No curiosity, no interest, no concern. One said to the other, “Don’t play games with her, just get her. I don’t know why Hisami had so much trouble.” And he spoke in Irhaddanian, which Mickey hadn’t expected to understand.

  But she did.

  And because she knew better than to think too hard about it, she instantly replied in kind. “They had trouble because they thought just like you do, you jerks! What makes you think you can get away with this kind of blundering, goonish behavior on U.S. soil?”

  Behind her came the muffled noises of flight, the cry of someone falling, the scuffle as that person scrambled up again. “C’mon, c’mon!” voices urged, and Mickey knew the underpass people weren’t all safe yet—couldn’t believe Steve had had the time to put his bow together, grab his quiver, and take cover behind the nearest corrugated storm pipe, the only place that offered him both angle and range.

  When the men exchanged a glance and moved for her, she stepped into it—still buying time. She would have walked right between them if they hadn’t grabbed her upper arms, leaving them with the awkward necessity of turning around as a single unit in order to escort her backwards from the underpass.

  And that’s all they figured they had to do, she realized, and was insulted all over again. Just walk in, grab her arms, and walk right out again. “Am I supposed to make little squeally, frightened girly noises while you’re at it?” she demanded in English, not concerned that they might have trouble with her slang and her sarcasm or even her train of thought.

  In fact, they did no more than exchange another glance, very much what did you expect? They’d probably known about her bad reaction to the super cocktail; they’d certainly gotten an eyeful of her Cats performance. And now, meaty fingers closed hard on her biceps, they thought they had her.

  Steve’s voice, strained or not, was music to her ears. “Hey, fellas.”

  Mickey’s words under her breath came in a sing-songy rhythm. “You’re gonna be sor-ry.” One of them gave her a quick series of jerks, as though she were nothing more than a doll. But Steve’s words meant that everyone was under cover—that he was ready to go. She tensed—

  “Let her go, now,” Steve said. He should have just unloaded a couple of arrows into them. Too much of a nice guy, dammit. Mickey … probably not so much of a nice girl. Under these circumstances, she would have—

  The guy on her right grunted … staggered. Mickey jerked her head around and got a glimpse of fletching jutting into the air from the other side of the man. Whoop! Go Steve!

  The guy on her left went for his gun, reaching inside his loose suit jacket. Mickey wrenched her arm loose from the wounded man—he, too, groped for a gun, and the two shouted at one another in quick, hard phrases that Mickey couldn’t follow. And loud. Way too loud.

  And they weren’t paying nearly enough attention to her.

  She slammed her heel behind the wounded man’s knee—already off balance, he went down hard, screaming as he landed on the arrow. The second man turned to her in annoyance, ready to slap her down with a gun-filled hand. Shoot him too! she thought at Steve, but knew they were too close now, too unpredictable.

  She shifted the knife in her hand so it protruded out beyond her palm, and she slashed backwards, taking him on with the same arm he’d thought immobilized. Speed is everything … She scored him across the ribs, the blade so sharp he probably wasn’t even sure what she’d done. But it threw him off anyway, and the pistol landed across her shoulder instead of on her head.

  Mickey staggered under it—but didn’t back off, not for an instant. Using his own grip on her as a fulcrum, she went for his ribs again—biting more deeply this time, metal skidding off bone and then jamming between ribs. This time he felt it—he roared at the insult and tossed her away as though she were weightless. She felt like human skeet, expecting to hear the report of his gun, feel the impact of a bullet—

  Oof. Just the impact of the ground, rattling her head. She rolled with it, reaching over her numbed shoulder for a second knife—only to run smack into the black barrel of a gun. The wounded man’s Glock 36, jammed right into her face as she came to her knees, heading for her feet—but stopping, sinking back, gone from hunter to hunted and frozen with the very visceral fear of that gaping .45 barrel.

  An arrow quite suddenly sprouted from the man’s chest, blooming in Mickey’s peripheral vision. She dove away as the gun went off; the acid burn of the bullet cut across her neck, kicking her right back into high gear. She rolled upright to the tattoo of gunfire reverberating around the underpass—shooting at Steve, a bullet pinging off metal—and brought her arm back as she rose, flinging the knife in one smooth motion, letting the handle slip through her fingers with a whisper of cool metal.

  It pinned the second man’s lapel to his chest even as he turned to sight in on her. Steve’s arrow followed close behind, a much more lethal wound, and the pistol sagged in the man’s hand as he looked down at himself. Mickey launched herself up, kicking the gun away and just as quickly gathering it up, one hand at her neck just to make sure she wasn’t gushing blood.

  Leakage, yes. Gushing, no.

  She turned back to the first man, grabbing up his gun as well. Neither man had long to live without help and she hesitated there. “Aw, dammit,” she finally muttered, and patted the man down for a cell phone. Found it, too, and opened it up, putting it in his hand. “Call your people,” she told him, speaking in his own language. Damn, she’d have to get out of here fast.

  She returned to the second man—he reached for her, grasping, as though he still thought he could get his hands on her. She ignored him, yanking her knives free, then went for Steve’s arrows. My, my, wasn’t she just neat and tidy?

  But weapons could be traced. Fingerprints, tool marks, manufacturers … they were evidence. If the cops got here before the Irhaddanians, Mickey wanted none of this in their hands. She only hoped the Irhaddanians would do as thorough a job cleaning up here as they had in at the gym. “You good?” she yelled toward Steve, not quite ready to turn away from the fallen men. One more arrow …

  But he didn’t answer right away, and she repeated her call, interrupting herself with a grunt of effort as the final arrow came free.

  “Mickey,” he said, his voice uncertain, and that’s when she finally whirled to look at him—to see he wasn’t alone. To see that the two Irhaddanians hadn’t been alone, either. A third man stood behind Steve—and he had Mosquito cringing at his side, swatting air with distinct, crooning grunts of effort that made for a constant if syncopated wuhwuh wuh wuh in the background. Steve stood with his hands away from his sides, the bow discarded, his spine in such an unnatural posture of attention that Mickey knew damned well he had a gun jammed into his back.

  She straightened, letting her gathered weapons slip through her fingers to clatter on the ground. One blade in the harness, that’s all she had left. She didn’t wait for the man’s demands. “Your friends are dying,” she told him, using his own language.

  “A tongue such as yours should speak only your own ugly language and sing your own ugly songs,” he said in English. “Don’t make that mistake again. You need no tongue to write the information we need.”

  Steve half-turned to give the man a horrified look, but instantly jerked and straightened.

  Mickey said, “What does it matter what Naia has told me, if I can’t remember it? That would be your fault, by the way. Your people—or those working for your people—are the ones who did that to me. Talk to that woman.”

  The man spat off to the side. Mickey hadn’t realized that anyone did that anymore. Mosquito reacted in horror, swatting and slapping, whining frantically as he tried to break away. The man had only a grip on his shirt, but it was sufficient to hold Mosquito’s uncoordinated efforts. “They assure me they can reverse that problem.”

  Not according to what Mickey had overheard the doctor saying. Of course, the bitch who’d questioned her about Naia was probab
ly desperate about now. Would probably say anything. The Irhaddanians had hired her to do a job, and she’d messed it up in a big way.

  “These men are yours, I think,” the man said, giving Mosquito a little shake, giving Steve a little jab. “Come with me, if you want them to live.”

  And Mickey, hands away from her sides, stepped toward the shadow of the underpass.

  “Mickey—!” Steve gave her a horrified look—a look that said he’d seen too many action movies where the hero never bows to the inevitable. Never loses.

  Not that she was done yet. But she wasn’t playing this out with their lives, only with hers.

  “Mickey—!”

  “Nothing to talk about, Steve,” she told him—quite evenly, she thought—and walked to the edge of the shadow. If the cops were going to be here, she thought there’d be some sign of them by now. A siren. A prowling cruiser. She said to the man, “I’m coming. But I need to talk to him first.” And nodded at Steve.

  The man snorted. “Talk,” he said, his English heavily accented even on single-word sentences. “Right here.” And he gave Steve another nudge with the gun just to remind them both that he could. Mosquito, whining and cringing in his grip, was clearly starting to annoy him.

  “Run,” Mickey said to Steve. “As soon as he lets you go, just run.” And here was the risk—the chance that the man’s English was no better than it sounded, and Mickey’s bet that he wouldn’t be able to follow simple pig-Latin. “He’s going to ill-kay you oth-bay anyway—ab-gray a un-gay.” Either of them, still in the pile of discarded weapons. She had no idea if he knew guns, but she hadn’t set the safeties on either before she’d been forced to discard them.

  “But—”

  She didn’t let him finish that—what about you? She put a finger to his lips, tracing them. She hadn’t expected her hand to be bloody; she hadn’t expected it to be trembling. She leaned in to kiss him—a strangely erotic hands-off kiss, arms still halfway to “hands in the air” position. At first he was frozen, shocked—and then he kissed her back with more greed than she’d known he had, pouring enough into that kiss to make it feel like full body contact.

  She wanted to get lost in it.

  Of course, that would kill them both. She pulled back enough to finish what she’d started, whispering against his mouth, “You got it? I’ll try to distract him. Get the damned guns and take him out before he gets you.”

  He didn’t have time to answer—instead of prodding him, this time the man yanked him back. Out of contact, out of range.

  Mickey caught Steve’s eye, and she saw the understanding there. Maybe they’d make it … maybe not. But he’d try.

  “Take your idiot friend,” the man said, thrusting Mosquito forward. Mosquito stumbled into Steve, and Steve just barely kept them both upright.

  He’d have to leave Mosquito behind if he was going to reach the guns in time.

  But Steve didn’t. He righted the man, he took the time to say, “We’re going inside now, Mosquito. Behind the walls.” It made no particular sense to Mickey, but Mosquito straightened, standing under his own power, understanding briefly surfacing in his eyes. “Let’s go, then.”

  And Mickey stood, the very figure of bereft defeat, hugging her upper arms and shoulders in a crooked embrace, one hand just shy of the burn across her neck.

  And not so far from the knife at that.

  She watched them go, her gaze lingering on Steve as though it were the last time she’d see him—and watching, from the corner of her eye, as the man followed their progress, Mosquito’s stumblings and Steve’s efforts to hurry him along. She saw when the man lifted his chin slightly; she knew what would follow. The gun.

  She moved. She snatched the final blade from the shoulder harness, slashing outward with the same motion, whirling into the follow-through. Right across his neck, a mirror image of her own wound—but much deeper.

  His gun discharged—not once but twice, finishing what he’d been about to start. Mickey kicked it out of his hand and when he grabbed for her—not quite aware of the severity of his wound—she met his reaching hand with the knife, jamming it right through his palm. He stared stupidly at it a moment, as if he couldn’t understand why such a peripheral wound would leach his strength so quickly—and then he realized. He had just enough time to dab his fingers in the arterial spurt of his own blood before his knees slowly gave way.

  Mickey stepped on his hand and yanked her knife away. “You shouldn’t have dissed Cats.” But her voice was grim, and she thought she’d never get clean again no matter how many showers she took.

  Never.

  And then she looked over to Steve, to find him whole and yet his expression still stunned, still reeling—and Mosquito in his arms, slowly slipping toward the ground.

  Looked like she was playing with other lives after all.

  * * * * *

  She wanted to run to him. But she couldn’t help Mosquito and she couldn’t take away Steve’s pain—and she could watch their backs. Get them ready to run. And chase away any of the underpass people who were left.

  First, to call someone who could help Mosquito—for the wound still bled, and that meant he was still alive. She appropriated a cell phone from the dead man, calling in a quick 9-1-1 and then hanging up when she wasn’t supposed to. No one from the underpass was in evidence as she turned to the bike, scooping up Steve’s bow and not quite ready to break it down yet.

  She slung the quiver over her shoulder and hung the bow there much more awkwardly. At the bike she checked the saddlebags—empty, other than a few personal items and Steve’s now-flaccid backpack. She flipped the kickstand back and wheeled the bike toward Steve, but not without hesitating to shout to the palpably fearful silence of the underpass, “Steve was telling you to leave this place for a while—you’d best do it. I won’t be back—I won’t cause you any more trouble. I—” she stopped, knowing the words were inadequate to the point of absurdity, but in the end she couldn’t walk away without saying it. “I’m sorry.”

  Silence greeted this remark, as well it might. She thought she heard a sob—of grief or fear, she didn’t know. They were still here somewhere, she knew that much—gone to ground, probably already bundling up their belongings and their new acquisitions and ready to bolt the moment the coast seemed clear.

  She pushed the bike out into the sunshine, squinting resentfully. Too bright and cheerful by far. But it didn’t slow her—she couldn’t afford for it to slow her. Off to the side, she gathered up her little cache of dropped weapons, cleaning the knives and jamming them home at her shoulder. Into the quiver went the arrows; into the saddlebags went the guns. Swiftly, matter-of-factly. Behind her, the scuffle and whisper told her that some of the underpass occupants had re-emerged, and were taking her advice. Someone commandeered the new cart; she heard the quickly diminishing squeak of wheels.

  Steve sat on the ground just as he’d gone down, Mosquito half on his lap, his hands pressing desperately on the chest wound. Mickey couldn’t even imagine how he felt. One man from his world dead, another possibly dying … and he’d shot two men, one of whom still whispered desperately into his cell phone as he inched away from his dead or dying buddy.

  Dead or dying. Steve had done that. And as much as Mickey’s throat burned with the awareness of how effectively she’d handled her encounters, she knew that somewhere along the line, she’d made the choice to become that person. She’d taken on that responsibility—she’d trained for it. Steve hadn’t. Steve had trained for saving the world—or his little corner of it. His target practice had been a refuge from his efforts, not part of those efforts.

  She couldn’t imagine him picking up his bow to blow off a little steam ever again.

  “Steve,” she said, and felt just as she had with the street people … there were no adequate words. She’d gotten him involved, and now his life would never be the same.

  If he even got to keep that.

  She cleared her throat. “Steve, we have to
go.”

  He looked at her without comprehension, lifting that dark-lashed gaze to reveal all the things she expected, and more.

  “We won’t be alone long. We’ve got to—”

  “What?” he demanded. “Leave him? Like we left Anthony, and now no one but us even knows he was killed?”

  “I called for help,” she said. “And for Anthony … when this is over—”

  Anger sparked to the surface. “Is it going to be over, Mickey? Or is this just the beginning?”

  Both. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and winced when it made not a dent on his grief. Then again, she hadn’t expected it to.

  The wounded man was the one to get her attention—to raise new alarm. He stopped talking on the phone, dropped it, and scrabbled to get away. But Steve’s arrow must have hit an artery; the man was pale and shocky and managed approximately half a step before staggering down to a crawl.

  That part didn’t worry Mickey. What worried her was why—and she immediately went looking for the cause.

  And found it. Behind her, at the overpass … someone had parked just beyond the bridge, and two people now navigated the steep slope of the overpass at that point. Not wanting to lose any time, those two.

  Neither did Mickey. She dropped the bow and quiver, and dove for the saddlebags. By the time she had her hands on a gun—the one with the most cartridges in the magazine, she hoped—the two were close enough so she could see they weren’t cops, weren’t from Irhaddan. No, it was her two friends from the night she’d broken into CapAd.Com.

  She wasn’t sure this was any better.

  She put herself in front of Steve, legs braced in a no-nonsense stance and the gun at the ready in a two-handed grip.

  “Hey, hey,” the man said, and put his hands half in the air. But he didn’t drop the little snub-nose he held, and his partner didn’t drop her sleek little semi-auto. “I thought we’d established that we’re all friends here.”

  “Friends would have knocked,” Mickey said.

  “We didn’t want to startle you.”