Sins of the Soul

“Between you and me, Butcher, isn’t there another way? Maybe I take an extended trip to Tahiti? Maybe we both do? Always wanted to see Tahiti.”


There was no other way. She knew that. But she had to ask. Had to try. She didn’t want this to end with a corpse.

“Wish there was, girlie. Wish there was.” Butcher nudged her forward with a shallow jab of his gun. Then he kept talking, uncharacteristically chatty. “You pissed off the wrong people, Naph. Called attention to yourself.” He paused before continuing sorrowfully, “You screwed up big time.”

Screwed being the operative word. She’d been hired as a Topworld assassin, not a whore. But when she’d declined Xaphan’s prettily worded suggestion that she join the ranks of his concubines—When I tell you I want to fuck you, bitch, then you get down on all fours, forehead to the floor, and say “thank you” and “how hard?”…or better yet, say nothing—she’d left herself open to the worst sort of reprisal.

Xaphan was an Underworlder, a lesser god, the keeper of the furnaces and the braziers that light the lakes of fire. He had a chip on his shoulder the size of the pyramids. He was sulky and mean when he didn’t get his way, and she’d thwarted him.

Which meant that out of the laundry list of names she could come up with of people who might have hired Butcher to kill her, Xaphan was coming up as the asshole most likely to take slot number one. Partly because she’d refused to take his jobs on an exclusive basis, but mostly because he was a petulant toddler who’d been denied the toy he wanted: her.

Nice one. Hire her own mentor to off her. A move like that took real class.

Butcher laid his fingertips on her shoulder as they walked toward the gates, a fleeting touch. “You were a good one, Naphré.”

There was genuine emotion behind his words, and that just made this whole situation all the more bizarre. In his own way, Butcher cared about her. She knew that. So why was he pointing a gun at her head?

Because business was business. With Butcher, that was the real rule number one.

“A good one.” She laughed, the sound scraping the quiet night, dull and dry, her breath showing white before her lips. “Naphré. My name. That’s what it means, you know. Goodness.”

“Goodness.” Butcher grunted. “Another time, that’d actually be funny.”

Yeah, it would be.

“Naphré…always thought that didn’t sound Japanese.”

“It isn’t.” Her Egyptian mother had chosen the name. Her issei—first-generation Japanese-American—father had allowed it, but insisted on a good Japanese middle name: Misao.

Perfect. Her name meant goodness, loyalty, fidelity. And her dad and grandfather had spoon-fed her the whole duty-above-all-else mentality her whole life, fostering some major shame and humility issues. As to her mom…well, from her mom she’d gotten the duty to the Asetian Guard that she’d denied. How was that for a craptastic combination?

Butcher had no clue. In all the years they’d been together, the most intimate conversation they’d ever had had been about the rash he got on his ass from the sand fleas on a Dominican Republic beach.

“Hnnn.” Looked like Butcher had run out of words. He sighed, nudged her again, trying to get her moving. “I really am sorry about this.”

“So’m I, Butcher.” Because she had been a good one: he’d told her often enough that she was the best student he’d ever had. Ingrained humility kept her from completely believing him, but she knew she’d been good enough to suck up his lessons like a sponge and add a few fun twists of her own. Still, she’d never made the mistake of getting cocky. There was always something more she could learn.

Naphré took a few more steps, then stopped walking and stared straight ahead. There was nowhere for her to go; the gates before them were locked. Butcher was going to have to do something about that if he wanted to keep moving.

Breath suspended, she waited, waited…

The pressure of the barrel changed, a subtle shift. Her one chance. She moved. Spun. Dipped. Squatted low when he’d expect her to go high. Elbow ramming hard and sharp and clean into his nuts.

Butcher wheezed and doubled over. Fired once. But she was already moving, arcing back. The bullet whined past her head, close enough that it took off a lock of sleek, brown-black hair. From the corner of her eye, she saw it fall, felt it slither across the back of her hand.

Kuso. She’d dropped a fortune on this cut.

She swung and cracked him on the ear, open palm, speed and power. Enough to make him dizzy. Enough that he hesitated a fraction of a second before pulling the trigger a second time.

And that was enough for her to close her hand over his and change the trajectory of his shot by millimeters. The bullet was so close, she swore she felt it fly past her cheek.

Curling her fingers, she clawed at his skin, tearing bloody runnels in his flesh as she bounded back to her feet. He hissed, but held tight to the gun.