Negative Return: A Durga System Novella (Durga System Series Book 2)

by Jessie Kwak

  Finally Jaantzen looks past him, nods sharp to whoever’s waiting over Manu’s left shoulder. Manu tenses, but no blow comes.

  “You’re a middling hitman, Mr. Juric,” Jaantzen says, but it’s not an insult — Jaantzen’s musing something over. “But you do create an impressive distraction. And I can be more valuable to you alive.”

  “You’ll pay me half a million marks? For what?”

  “Let’s not start with the sum. After all, I still need to pay for repairs on my bar.” There’s a speculative chill in Jaantzen’s eyes. “Let’s start with me not killing you.”

  “Pretty valuable, that.” Whoever’s waiting over Manu’s left shoulder takes a long, deep breath through his nostrils; Manu can’t shake the feeling that the man’s scenting his fear. Manu tries harder to force his heart rate back down. “My life’s a good start.”

  Jaantzen tilts his head, watching. He’s lit from behind, only the stern curve of his cheek, the regal angle of his nose lit by glancing light. “Excellent.”

  A footstep to Manu’s left; the second man finally comes out from behind him. Manu’s been picturing a clone of Jaantzen, but while the man’s just as huge, he’s uglier and fair-skinned, his mane of black hair glossed back into a ponytail. Manu fights the urge to laugh inappropriately, but this hunk of muscle is just the spitting image of the disposable, bad-tempered goons Jaantzen’s known to run with.

  “Meet Kai,” Jaantzen says. “He’s running the team.”

  Kai cracks his knuckles like he read it in the Ultimate Manual of Intimidation Tactics. Dammit, Manu hates working in teams. But beggars can’t be choosers — not the way the game’s being played these days, and not when a goon with fists the size of your head is looking for an excuse to use them.

  “Nice to meet you, Kai,” Manu says.

  “That’s the spirit, Mr. Juric. Now. Are we doing business?”

  Manu nods, wrists burning. “You got it, boss.”

  “Good,” says Jaantzen. “Kai?”

  And he turns and walks out of the room, nonchalant. Manu takes a deep breath. He supposes he deserves this.

  The big man steps forward with a smart punch to the ribcage, another to the gut, Manu doubles in the chair, retching. A fist to the jaw snaps his head back, and for a dizzying moment he’s about to black out. A thick hand grabs him by the back of the neck, shakes him roughly out of the fog. “You listen to me,” the man says. His voice is close in Manu’s ear, his breath is a patina of mint over halitosis.

  “Listening.” Manu’s aware that the word comes out as an embarrassingly frantic gasp.

  “You answer to me, you got that?”

  Manu nods. He thinks this has been abundantly clear from the beginning. The theatrics weren’t necessary, but he understands the intimidation game.

  Or, he thinks he understands the game.

  A knife flashes into Kai’s fist, and for a moment Manu thinks he’s dead. That all this talk of jobs and money has been a weird sort of foreplay to the main event. What else could he expect? He’s heard the rumors about Jaantzen. The man attracts only the sickest lowlifes too unbalanced to find a home in any other crew.

  Kai tilts his head, raises the knife. “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?” The knife presses the length of Manu’s cheek, a thin, biting line.

  Manu’s stomach clenches in fear. He can’t answer.

  “What do you see?” A touch harder on the blade. Manu’s thinking about nothing but his left eye, that gleam of metal bisecting his vision. His left eyelid is squeezed shut tight like that scrap of flesh would do anything to protect the eye beneath.

  “Just a kid from Carama Town,” Manu says carefully, trying not to move.

  “Not anymore.” The knife slips — just a hair’s breadth — and Manu feels something warm and wet trickle down his jaw. “You look in the mirror now, you see somebody belongs to me,” Kai says. “You got a question about this gig, you talk to me. You get an order from Jaantzen, you check with me first. I find out you didn’t, I kill everyone you have ever cared about. We clear?”

  Manu nods, as carefully as he can.

  “We clear?”

  “We clear.”

  Another flash of the knife, and the ropes around Manu’s arms fall free. He resists the urge to touch his stinging cheek — it doesn’t feel deep, though he can feel the trickle of blood slowly dampening his collar.

  “Good,” says Kai. “Now let’s go meet the rest of the crew.”

  3

  Motley

  Manu’s new friends are waiting for him inside a cavernous warehouse. Kai blacked out the spinner’s windows on the way here, but they’re somewhere near the docking yards, Manu thinks. He can feel the building shudder as one of the larger cargo haulers takes off rumbling into orbit. It’s midday — Manu wonders just how long he was out — but he can’t see a thing out the warehouse windows. They’re all too high and smoky, light filtering thin and miserly through them.

  The warehouse is set up like an ops center: screens and desks, cots lined up like they expect everyone to settle in for a few days. Manu can feel his neck cricking already as he frowns at the narrow beds.

  “Make yourself at home,” Kai tells him.

  “Where’s my gear?”

  Kai just walks away from him, and Manu doesn’t press it. Kai’s twice again Manu’s weight, and he didn’t get that way by sitting around eating fritters. Jaantzen hasn’t followed them up the stairs, and Manu isn’t sure whether he feels more comfortable with Kai alone or with the mob boss around.

  Neither, he decides. Definitely neither.

  Fortunately, now he’s got more options when it comes to dance partners.

  There are four others in the huge space. A hook-nosed man is squinting at his comm like he’s working, but the jerk of his shoulders and faint grin on his bruiser’s mouth betray his game. When the man sees Kai, he pushes himself off his cot and calls out; Manu can’t hear their conversation, but it sounds like they’re arguing.

  Another man has taken possession of an empty stretch of floor for his impressive martial arts practice, sweat luminous on his gold-white skin. He’s bare chested and graceful, his glorious model’s abs marred by a wicked-looking scar that traces the jut of his left hipbone before veering south below the waistband of his loose trousers.

  There’s a girl in the far corner. Mousy and small, she’s picked a cot nearest the wall and is keeping to herself, absorbed in the glare of some type of hand terminal Manu’s never seen before, glossy black hair falling in a curtain to obscure her face.

  And there’s the reason she’s chosen that cot: a tall woman, a slice of muscle with blue-black skin and well-toned shoulders, prison tattoos stamped behind her ears and tracked down her inner arms. The women aren’t talking, no sign to show they mean anything to each other except that the tall black woman looks up from her comm and gives him a glare when she catches him looking at the girl behind her.

  There’s a third cot on the near side of the black woman.

  Manu walks over.

  “Manu Juric,” he says, thrusting out a hand. She regards him coolly, then takes it. He expects a power play, but her grip is just firm.

  “Gia.”

  The girl behind her doesn’t look up. Gia ignores her, so Manu does, too.

  “This cot taken?”

  Gia shrugs, and he drops his jacket. The heavy denim hits the barely-there mattress with a sorry thud, and the space between Manu’s shoulder blades twitches in anticipation.

  “Man, what a job,” he says, and gets nothing. “Be a trip, yeah?” It’s poor bait and Gia doesn’t stoop to it, just goes back to reading on her comm. “You been waiting around long?”

  “You gonna keep talking all day?” Gia scrolls down without looking up.

  “Probably not.”

  “Glad to hear it. Washroom’s that way, you wanna clean yourself up.”

  The blood from the shallow cut has dried itchy on his cheek; he can feel it flaking as he gives Gia
a smile she doesn’t look up to see. Probably best to take care of it sooner rather than later.

  “Thanks. Nice meeting you,” he says, and gets no response.

  He takes as long as he dares in the washroom. He looks like he spent the night chained to a chair in Willem Jaantzen’s murder dungeon, and he decides it’s not the most flattering look he’s ever sported. He gingerly scrubs the blood off his cheek — though he can’t get it out of his collar — and splashes cold water on his face. It’ll have to do.

  “Everybody round up,” Kai’s yelling as Manu comes back out.

  With how many cots are in the warehouse, Manu expects “everybody” to be a few more than what it actually is. So far they are six: Gia, her little mouse, Kai, the martial arts model, the surly hook-nosed bruiser, and Manu.

  Shitty team, is what he’s thinking. He looks around to see what everyone else thinks. The answer is unclear.

  The shitty team gathers around the desk. It’s one of those cheap ones: disposable, self-destructive if things don’t go well. Or if they do, and you just don’t feel like hiring a crew to move it. Or if the power surges. Or somebody accidentally spills a cup of coffee down the circuitry.

  Kai powers it on, thumps it with his fist when it blinks. It’s showing a map. Manu’s on the wrong side, but this city’s an old friend. They’re looking at the Tamarind District — there’s that swanky bar his ex, Marisa, kept insisting they go to and he had to pay for.

  “The job’s this.” Kai zooms in on the map, mumbling curses under his breath as the grainy hologram flickers, the graphics pulled kicking and screaming through the wiring of the cheap desk. The image finally snaps clear. “Smash and grab, more details on the target to come. But for now, know that what we need’s here.” The stubby finger points at an address across the street from the swanky bar. Manu recognizes the hotel, the Blue Falcon.

  He lets out a low whistle. “Only Bulari’s finest,” he says, and Kai gives him a look.

  The mousy girl has ended up beside him. She glances at him as though seeing him for the first time, then leans forward to see where Kai’s pointing. “Where is that?”

  “Posh hotel,” Kai says. “Place’s called the Blue Falcon.” He glances at Manu. “You been there?”

  “I never stayed there or anything, but yeah, I’ve been.” To the lobby. During that night trying to get kicked out of bars with his buddies. They hadn’t made it past the first set of doors.

  “What’s the target?” This from the martial arts model. Manu looks up, taking the chance to appreciate the man close up. He’s rangy, with brassy, shaggy hair. He brushes it off chiseled cheekbones as he waits for Kai’s answer.

  “Details to come,” Kai says. “It’s a fast job. We’re expecting a courier to pick up the goods. Our job is to intercept. Easy money.”

  “Famous last words,” says the bruiser. Red-earth skin on this one, cracked through with years of too much sun and too many drugs. His black eyes hold challenge for Kai. “How do we know you’ve got our back?”

  “Because I already gave you my word, Beni,” a new voice says. Manu doesn’t need to turn to look to see who it is.

  Willem Jaantzen walks into the room. He’s changed into a new suit since Manu saw him last, this one smoky gray. Manu didn’t get any blood on Jaantzen’s last suit, but he must’ve put a few bullet holes in it. Or maybe the man just likes a good costume change. Manu can appreciate that.

  Jaantzen takes up a position at the head of the desk; Kai steps to the side, but there’s a moment’s hesitation Jaantzen doesn’t seem to notice. Manu’s going to have to be careful not to get in between those two.

  “Let’s all get to know each other, shall we?” boss man says. “My name is Willem Jaantzen. I’ll be running this operation.”

  “And who are you?” asks the bruiser Jaantzen called Beni.

  Manu expects fury, from what he’s heard of Jaantzen’s temperament, but the man only hits Beni with a mild, evaluating look. Manu might even say it bordered on amusement. He glances around the table to see who else doesn’t know who’s hired them; sees only the white-gold man with a guarded look. The two women are staring at Beni like he’s just said New Sarjun was flat. Kai looks . . . Kai just looks like Kai. Kinda murderous, kinda dumb.

  “I’m the one who’s running this operation,” Jaantzen says again.

  “And who are you, man?” Manu asks of Beni. He gets a look of distrust from the red-earth man, smiles back.

  “Name’s Beni Chav. You need to get somewhere quick, I’m your man.”

  “Mr. Chav is quite skilled,” Jaantzen says. “He spent a decade racing Flat Creek, and a few more years on the pro circuit here in Bulari. I believe he has — and correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Chav — two gold medals and three silvers. Very commendable, though not a complete surprise given his family’s history on the track. He’d probably still be there now, save for certain money problems brought on by his penchant for gambling. Which might not have been a problem, except that his mother developed Matiz’s syndrome, and his father had to start dealing in shard to pay her medical bills.” Jaantzen fixes him with a stare. “Shall I go on.”

  Beni’s nostrils flare, just a touch, and Manu can see the same thought in everyone’s expressions: What does he know about me?

  “I got this job through a contractor,” Beni finally says. Grudging tone, slouching in his chair. Manu notes the way he tends to lean — to the left — and judges the shots he may need to take accordingly.

  “Still, it pays to do a touch of research on the people you’ll be working with,” Jaantzen says mildly. He turns one hand out to the martial arts model, the other to Manu. “Oriol Sina, meet Manu Juric. You two have similar skill sets. You’ll be working closely with Kai.”

  “And what exactly are the skill sets?” Gia’s watching him with narrowed eyes.

  “Ballroom dancing champions, us,” says Manu. Across from him Oriol cracks a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Manu wants to keep watching him forever — and not just because he’s easy on the eyes. He’s one of the most relaxed-looking humans Manu has ever come across. It’s soothing.

  “They’re both excellent at killing people,” Jaantzen says, holding Manu’s gaze for the briefest of seconds. Mostly excellent, thinks Manu. Gia rolls her eyes. A stitch appears on the mousy girl’s brow.

  “You’ll both especially want to play nice with Giaconda,” Jaantzen says. “She’ll be sewing you up if you get yourselves sliced open.” He gives Manu a long look. “Particularly if you step on your partner’s toes.”

  Manu ignores the jab, but doesn’t try to hide his surprise at the rest. He’d taken Gia for a hired gun herself, with those lean, muscular arms and prison tattoos. “You’re a doctor?”

  “Gia coordinates,” Jaantzen says simply. “When we’re done here, let Gia know what you need.”

  Only one left unintroduced in this little crew. The mousy girl has been watching the proceedings with a look of wariness, a flutter of anxious knuckle cracks that only pause when she’s watching Jaantzen. Manu notes that with interest. Something about the way she holds herself reminds him of someone, some ghost from the past he can’t quite put a finger on. For a minute he thinks it’s Marisa — that serious little downturn to the mouth — but that doesn’t quite track.

  “And what’s she do?” Beni gets a second wind of gruffness and jabs a finger in the girl’s direction like a dog that doesn’t understand it’s lost the fight. Good to know.

  “Toshiyo will be our eyes in the sky,” Jaantzen says. “She will be working closely with me. That means if you hear her give an order, you obey it instantly.”

  That little slip of a girl, giving orders? Manu can see the thought reflected on the faces of everyone around the table — even Gia. Toshiyo’s hand creeps up to cover her throat.

  “Understood,” Manu says, tapping his fingers to his forehead in a quick salute to her. She gives him a faint smile, shoulders relaxing slightly. “What’s our target?”
/>   Jaantzen nods to him; it almost seems appreciative. “You’re to retrieve something important. That’s all you need to know for today.” Manu barely holds back a snort; he’s only been brought in for a couple group contract gigs, all back before he had enough of a rep that he could make a living on his own. They were always the same: We’ll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. Like every mob boss had gone to the same crime leadership seminar.

  “We’ll spend tomorrow gathering supplies, so tell Gia what you need,” Jaantzen says. “I’ll speak with you all then.”

  And with that the big boss man tugs a cuff into place and walks out the door.

  The shitty team stays, staring at the grainy hologram — and at each other — with suspicion.

  This is going to be terrible.

  4

  How To Make Friends

  Time to make the rounds.

  Manu decides to start with the model martial artist, on account of if he’s going to get shot down, it might as well be by the prettiest face in the room.

  Oriol’s sitting on his cot alone, brassy hair falling into his eyes as he types something into his comm. Wiry tendons dance in his forearms as his fingers move; when he sees Manu approaching he slips the device into his duffel.

  “What’s your deal, man?” Oriol says, but it’s curiosity, not a challenge. He leans back on his elbows, feet crossed at the ankles. He’s still barefoot.

  Manu sits on the cot across from him, trying self-consciously to match Oriol’s casual pose. “My deal?”

  “You an assassin? Hired gun? What’s your deal.”

  “Bounty hunter, these days.”

  The look on Oriol’s face, that raised eyebrow and a smirk. “Bounty hunter.” Manu waits for commentary; it doesn’t come.

  “How about you?” Manu asks.

  “My deal is I don’t like to talk about myself,” Oriol says. But the way he holds himself says enough. That faint hint of an Indiran accent — New Manila, maybe — the reflexes and the moves he was showing off earlier. Oriol’s been well trained, and Manu’ll be damned if it wasn’t by the Indiran Alliance. Manu wonders what’s got an ex-soldier doing crime on the wrong planet these days.