“That fuckeen bitch Kadee Matari. And good luck with that.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
I took Sixkiller home along the tourist route, picking the bus across the bridge from Gilgul and staying on the main line uptown. We got back to the Cloisters around 4am and parted in the lift with few words.
I drew my pistol before I thumbed my door open this time, but no one jumped me. Even Aquila was a no-show. The only sound I heard was Heart’s breathing in the bedroom. I stripped, dropped my clothes on the floor, sank into bed beside him and mimicked his breathing pattern until I fell asleep with my forehead resting against his shoulder blade and my foot on his calf.
I woke in the same position a couple of hours later when my alarm went off.
Heart slid his hand back onto my thigh and stroked it. “Late night.”
“Too late.”
“That cowboy making work for you?”
I sighed. “In ways you could never imagine.”
He rolled over to face me, so close that our lips almost touched. “You want to talk about it?”
I gave a slight headshake and a large yawn. A few stretches later, I was able to speak again. “Not really. Just a case of a giant ego, a culture divide and some other shit.”
“Can’t help with the giant ego or the culture shock, but I cog ‘other shit’.”
I stretched and drew back a little so I could see his face. “Says the guy who dropped out of political science to become an exotic dancer.”
His lips turned down. “You make it sound like I had a choice.”
The sketchy picture I had of Heart’s background went along the lines of huge education debt, private loan, no job prospects, no family. When the debtors started to chase him, he used his attributes to kick-start an income. Shame about it was he was good at dancing and good at women. Really good. Pretty soon, he was top billing at his club and the education took a back seat.
The night we met, Caro had dragged me out to a show, saying I was overwound. We got a bit crazy afterwards – whiskey highballs, beer chasers and salty peanuts – and I was still slumped at the bar when the night shift staff left and the strippers emerged from their dressing rooms looking for a liquid breakfast.
Heart sat on the empty stool next to me and I shoved him right back off. He got up and asked me why I’d done that. I told him I was drinking with my father and it wasn’t polite to sit on his seat.
Anyone else would have written me off for drunk-crazy or just crazy, but Heart pulled up another stool and asked to be introduced to Dad. I told him he not to be a fucking loony and that my father was dead.
He laughed and a half hour later, we were in bed.
Course it wasn’t the stupid conversation about my dad that attracted him to me. I worked out pretty quick that it was because I hadn’t shown a single bit of interest in him when we met. When your job is to encourage women to paw at you every night, it’s kind of refreshing when one kicks your chair over.
I didn’t overthink what came next. Sure, he was attractive – inspiringly, if I stopped to think about it – but I didn’t have any interest in a relationship with a pretty man. Just some way to let off steam and keep me connected to the human race.
The unexpected bonus was that we actually talked well together. In the brief moments before he left, or when he arrived, our conflabs covered the dissolution of individual states, the country’s centralized government and the loss of our welfare system. Heart had an opinion and so did I. We often hit some kind of synchronicity.
“I know it’s been hard,” I said. “But things are better now. You’ve saved some dollar. Maybe you could consider alternatives.”
“What? You don’t like dating a stripper?”
“Is that what this is?” I said surprised by the quaint term. “Dating?”
He pulled me toward him so our naked waists touched. “You might have noticed I quite like you. Thought maybe we could spend some time together.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“I mean… while we’re vertical.”
“You want to go out on a date?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “For the novelty.”
I knew I wasn’t being very gracious about it, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Wouldn’t that… y’know… ruin things?”
“It might make ’em even better.” He’d started to move against me, his skin moist and hot.
“Can I take it under consideration?”
His smile grew wider and parts of him grew harder. “Always cautious, Virgin.”
Cautious? Like my play against Papa Brisé’s men, facing them down to stop a shoot-out. “Yeah,” I said, softly. “That’s me.”
His hands began to move over me. “Let me help you with that particular affliction.”
I reached down between us. “Let me help you with yours.”
Less than an hour later, I was standing at Sixkiller’s door, my post-coital calm waning already. The Marshal was not there or not answering again.
I stomped downstairs and hopped a taxi to the Park. Normally, I’d do the bus commute, but as usual, I was a step behind my charge.
To pass the travel time, I trawled irritably through my messages, accessing my work ones first. A priority from Bull blinked at me, saying my sector would remain closed while the murder investigation continued.
The message did nothing to improve my mood, but Leecey had Benny ready for me when I arrived. My horse snuffled and dribbled in my hand, her whiskers tickling my palm, reminding me I had some good things going on in my life.
“You look exhausted, Virgin” was Leecey’s opinion as I mounted.
“Where is he?” I asked her.
“The Marshal? Went out about a half hour ago. Said you’d be coming in directly.”
“Directly, huh? Where did he go?”
“Dunno. Totes has got the door locked.”
“What?” I turned to her. Today her hair stood up in a golden-metallic crest, matching the colour of her jewellery piercings.
She shrugged. “Been knocking ever since the Marshal went out, but the little runt is ignoring me.”
I let go of Benny’s bridle and walked down the corridor. The scent of synthetic hay and antibacterial spray hung sweetly in the air, and the other horses shifted in their stalls to greet me. The stables at the Interchange felt more like home than my own apartment.
My office was set back between two stalls, masquerading as a storeroom. Or maybe it was masquerading as an office. Long and narrow and dark.
Down the far end, I kept a kickass office chair, worn to Virgin-fitting perfection, which sat in front of a large wall screen. My keyboard was a foldaway into the chair’s arm, but it hadn’t done that since the day after it arrived from the supplier. To one side, a table piled with paper maps inherited from Dad. To the other side stood a beverage caddy on wheels that harboured a coffee machine, cups, a Clean-Cubator and my supply of cream shortbreads and jerky.
The Clean-Cubator doubled as a mini microwave. I tipped coffee into a cup and changed the setting from CLEAN to HEAT.
How the cleaning nanites switched off and the microwaves switched on would remain ever a mystery to me.
I took the coffee out and sipped while I got the map up on my screen. All the horses were tagged, as were the Rangers’ phones and the tourist buses. Visitors couldn’t stray more than ten metres from the vehicle without an alarm going off, so we didn’t individually tag our dailies.
My Park grid access gave me basic location maps of anyone in the park in the form of little green blips. Totes was the one with infrared and real-time satellite feed and all the bells and whistles data.
According to my Park map, the only blip in the Park – Nate Sixkiller – was halfway to the Paloma ranch house.
Why there? I wondered. And why without me? Did he have an agenda, or did he just not play well with others?
The only thing I really knew for sure was that the guy hardly needed to sleep. I’d caught about four
hours last night, and a fog held my brain in suspension.
“Virgin!”
Bull Hunt’s face suddenly appearing on my screen made me jump.
“Capt’n,” I said.
He ignored the casual jibe. “I sent you details of an upcoming VIP visit. Need you to be there on the right day at the right time. With the Marshal.”
“Why? Who’s the VIP?”
“Just be there.”His voice sounded strange. A bit choked off, like he was being strangled. Bull was feeling the pressure today. Even his skin had a choked hue.
I scowled by way of agreement.
“Where is the Marshal?” he asked.
“Halfway to the station house, according to Park-Track.”
“And that would be because…”
“Honestly, Bull, I don’t know. The guy doesn’t talk or sleep much.”
My boss’s already purple face suffused to the colour of a bruised grape. “I expect you to stay with him.”
“I’m trying to and he’s trying his best to get shot of me.”
“You telling me you can’t handle him?”
I took that bait willingly. “I’m telling you he’s making it difficult. Spent most of last night hosing down a situation in Divine.”
“What in blue fucking blazes were you doing down there?”
“Trying to prove I didn’t commit murder. He, on the other hand, was just out and about, wreaking joyful havoc.”
“You telling me something happened that I should report?”
“No,” I scowled. Much as he irritated me, I wasn’t going on record about Sixkiller’s trigger-happy ways.
Bull covered his face with his hands. “One simple instruction, Virgin, that’s all. Stay with the Marshal.”
“Well, soon as I’m done here, I can do that!” I bit back.
Bull’s face vanished as if it had been sucked away down a drain. I gave the screen the finger and slammed my cup down. The sticky Robusta bean liquid slopped over the sides, coating my fingers.
“Shit.” I wiped them on my pants, grabbed my phone and made sure Park-Track was synced. Striding out of the office, I marched to the supplies store and checked out a phone for Sixkiller. When I caught up with the Marshal this time, there’d be no excuse for him being out of contact again.
I shoved it in my breast pocket and buttoned the top. Time to get moving.
Leecey had Benny down the corridor near the inner door, tickling the horse’s nose with an oat stalk.
“Looks so real,” I told her as I took the reins and mounted. It was against regulations to mount inside, but I was too bolshie to care.
“Tastes like crap, though,” Leecey grinned, sucking on the straw for a second. She wasn’t one to get wound up about rules, either.
“When doll-boy emerges from his hidey-hole, tell him I’ll be back when I am,” I said, nudging Benny’s sides.
“You want me to crowbar his door open to pass the message on?” Her expression was hopeful.
“Nah. But can you tell him he’d better cough up a copy of his audio recording from my room, or I’ll stick pins in Puti.”
“But they’re getting married next month,” Leecey joked. “She’ll be full of holes for the wedding.”
I rolled my eyes, waved at the motion release and moved on through the inner door to the Interchange entry. As my sector of the park was closed to the public, I didn’t have to worry about mapping a route to avoid the tourist bus.
Within seconds, Benny and I were through and I felt I could breathe again. The sense of suffocation had been worsening lately every time I left the park. My chest had been tight the whole time I was in Divine last night. And that wasn’t just my irritation with Corah, or Sixkiller’s impulsive draw-down on three bangers.
For the time it took to cross the Plains to Salt Springs and past Los Tribos, I let myself just enjoy being in the place I loved most. Sun-warmed and feeling the luxury of no tourists, I pulled my hat low and settled back to soak up the ride. Benny knew the route better than I did, and she picked her speed.
Paloma Station House was over an hour’s ride, so I stopped at #3 trough to give her a drink and stretch my legs. Our arrival scared a large, open-mouthed bungarra from its perch on the ballcock, and a small party of galahs rose screaming to the sky.
Of all the bird life in the park, the galahs commanded my deepest affections. Not as noisy as the Corellas or as baleful as the crows, their curiosity and sense of fun made them an endless source of pleasure to watch.
The little flock I’d scared wheeled off in the direction of the station house. I wondered if Sixkiller could see them and had realized the reason for their sudden flight.
I imagined if the Marshal didn’t want to be found, he could make it difficult for me, but this was a foreign country, and he didn’t know the park terrain like I did.
Once back in the saddle, I urged Benny to a faster clip. All park horses had heart and muscular-skeletal enhancements, which meant they ran quicker and for longer than racehorses. The racing industry had embraced genetic enhancements for a decade or more and then decided they couldn’t keep the playing field level that way, so they went old-school. Only horses to get upscaled these days worked for law enforcement.
My sense of being carefree diminished as the Paloma station house came into view. Sombre Vol was tethered and standing in the shade of the building, flicking his tail, one hoof lifted in rest.
What the hell was the Marshal up to out here?
The dry heat blistered around us, burning my skin. I pulled my Akubra down low and my neck scarf up, to shield my lips. We kicked up a fair dust cloud coming in and I didn’t care. I decided that I wanted Sixkiller to know I was here and that I was pissed.
As I rode in past the stockyards, a large crow perched one of the posts extended its wings as if to take flight. Bigger than any bird I’d ever seen, its full wingspan surpassing the length of Benny’s back, I caught the menacing flash of its eye.
Slowing Benny to turn back and take a look at it, I was stopped by something fanning my cheek. I looked up to see an eagle fluttering just by my shoulder.
Aquila? “What are you doing here?”
All the years I’d been imagining this bird, she’d never come this close.
A piercing cry drew me back to the crow again. It’d lifted from the railing, heading straight toward us.
Aquila gave her own protest call and rose higher, wings arched and claws forward, ready to engage. She was a bird of prey, but the huge crow moved with malevolent purpose.
I ducked down on instinct and turned Benny straight at the front porch of La Paloma, emphasizing the point with a kick in the ribs. She obliged me by surging from trot to gallop in an instant.
Over my shoulder, Aquila and the crow clashed. I glimpsed a tumble of feathers before they drew apart again and circled each other.
When we reached the steps of the station house, I reined Benny in and dismounted in one fluid motion, taking the steps two at a time. The front door opened before I could turn the handle, and Sixkiller hauled me in.
He slammed it shut after me and I flashed on a bunch of familiar objects – rocking chair, black iron pots on the wall, and the ancient paint-peeled food safe.
“What the…?”
Ignoring me, he took a large step across to the window.
I followed him.
Outside, Aquila ascended with the crow in pursuit. She soared in an almost vertical line, and I found myself holding my breath, willing her to get away.
“She’s going to run into the Canopy,” I said aloud. “What will happen?”
“Nothing,” said Sixkiller. “Watch.”
The crow gained on her and then fell back suddenly, veering and dropping, as Aquila kept on, disappearing straight through the almost-translucent vapour of the park’s aerial barrier.
“What happened? Is she alright?” I couldn’t see her anymore.
“Take a look for yourself.”
“What do you mean?”I stared
at him.
He pointed to the rocking chair where Aquila perched, feathers ruffled, beak open.
“How…” I brushed my eyes, and looked again. “But I just saw her go–”
“What you see depends on with which eyes you look,” said Sixkiller in an infuriatingly obtuse fashion. “In the mind’s eye, anything is possible.”
The crow screeched again, drawing my attention back to the window. Robbed of its quarry, it plummeted back towards the house. Just when I thought it would plunge straight into the verandah and our window, it veered wide, pulling up to settle once more on the yard railings.
I felt my breathing slow a little, but it didn’t help my dangerous mood. “Mind’s eye? What kind of arcane bullshit is that?” I demanded.
He turned his head, revealing a bloodied deep cut along his jawline.
“And what happened to your face?”
“Arcane bullshit happened to it,” he said calmly. “And your denial of what’s in front of your nose is bordering on disturbed.”
That sent my anger levels popping. I squared up on him, fists clenched. “Why are you even out here? You’re supposed to be working with me, not riding solo!”
“Working with you does not mean we have to babysit each other,” he said.
“Well, excuse me for saving your arrogant carcass last night.”
“I came out to look around. The Mythos started hunting me at Los Tribos. I tried to outride it, find some cover.”
“The Mythos? You mean the damned crow?”
Aquila lifted her wings at my tone. Her head swivelled, yellow eyes upon us.
“You’re upsetting your disincarnate.”
“My… disincarnate?” I grabbed him by the shirt front. “Stop using stupid bloody words–”
I was suddenly on the floor, with the wind knocked out of my lungs and Sixkiller’s knee on my chest.
Gasping, I shoved his knee sideways, then rolled away and onto my feet.
The idea of shooting him plumed like a hot flash through me, but he already had his Peacemakers out and levelled at me.
“Calm down, Ranger,” he said quietly. “Take a moment to collect yourself.”
I tried to steady my breathing and my trembling. And failed.
Peacemaker Page 9
