“Put your weapons on the ground.”
I look out again. “Well, look at that.” They’re obeying. “We’re coming out,” I say. I push the Duke up and rise myself, using him as a shield, keeping an arm around his throat and the gun to his head. We shuffle out the door. I have to kick it open. Their fusillade knocked it half off its hinges. The children follow.
“Well, this is a bit awkward,” I say, facing the line of cutthroats. Some are in their dusters, others look just roused from bed by the commotion. Their guns litter the floor. “I need you to back away. Down the hall. Then put your sacks and clams to the floor. If anyone rises or looks at me in a way that displeases me, I’ll relieve the Duke of his head. Crystal?”
The men look to the Duke.
“Do it,” he hisses. “Obey him.”
The thorns back away from their weapons and lie on the floor. There’s four Obsidians amongst them. Those I watch most carefully. Gorgo isn’t there. Not good. We move quickly through the ceded floor. Pax grabs a small plasma pistol from the ground. The girl turns up her nose at this in favor of her razor. They follow tight behind me as I lead them to the lift bank. Electra hits the button with her razor’s hilt. Pax’s pistol suddenly goes off. The sound explodes in my ear. Plaster rains from the ceiling.
“Halfbreed! What the hell was that for?” I snarl.
“One of them was reaching for something.”
“Well, then shoot him, not the ceiling!”
The lift dings behind me. We back into it. The Duke laughs a little mad laugh to himself but says nothing of substance. The children are terrified, even the nasty girl. “Professional recommendation,” I say, looking back at the boy, “use that pistol on her, then yourself, if it looks like we’re slagged.” He looks down at the pistol. The girl glares at me. “Just trying to help.”
There’s no one waiting for us on the Duke’s level. Word must have traveled. But still I expected Gorgo. We move quickly through the abandoned halls and make it back to the Duke’s suite. Our dinner still sits on the table. Electra grabs a handful of octopus tentacle and jams it into her mouth as we pass. We access the patio outside, crossing a small gravel park with swirling white angel trees to reach the Duke’s sparkling CR-17 Hornet. There’s no sign of any thorns. Something is off. I keep the Duke between me and the building, then I have an epiphany.
“They’re in the ship,” I say. “Don’t…”
Pax activates the door controls and the door hisses upward, revealing a dark interior. No one comes from inside. I look back to the building, not seeing any pursuers. Then I catch the glint of metal. Three stories up, through a plate-glass window, I see Gorgo’s pale face to the side of a long barrel. There’s a small flash. The window shatters. In this moment I suddenly realize why Gorgo smiled when I called him “the Duke’s man.” Something that feels like a hot hammer hits me in the right side of my chest. Everything goes very quiet and focused. Confused, I rock back on my heels, barely moved, and sway with the Duke. Like we’re slow dancing. I take a step backward, trying to pull the Duke into the ship. My heel catches and I fall backward with the Duke on top of me. I stare at the back of his head and part of the sky and breathe his hair. I try to push him off and get up, but he doesn’t move. I try to crawl out from under him. The Duke is making a rattling sound with his mouth. I crawl free of him and twist myself to my belly to try to stand. I can’t get up. My right arm is too weak to push.
“Help…” I say distantly, quietly, confused at why I can’t rise. “Help…” I’m not even sure who I’m talking to. I feel hands under my arms. The boy’s hauling at me to get me up. I almost tip over again.
“Leave him!” the girl cries.
“Come on!” the boy shouts in my ear. I push with my legs and use him to stumble toward the door, leaving the Duke behind to bleed out on the edge of the ramp. I feel better with each step. The girl stands there with her legs spread, both hands on the boy’s stolen pistol, firing wildly up at the window. The panes around Gorgo vaporize. Another shot from Gorgo slithers under my left ear, taking the bottom of the lobe. It slams into the metal of the ship and ricochets till it embeds itself in the floor. I duck away from the door, now inside the ship’s main hall. Must fly away. “We have to take off,” I say. With the boy following, I stumble to the cockpit and then sit down in the captain’s chair. I stare at the controls, acclimating. I push the key in and twist. Lights come on the console.
“Greetings, Your Ethereal Majesty,” the vessel purrs. I press the engine ignition. The Hornet’s twin ion engines thrum to life.
“Close the door!” the girl is shouting. “Close the gorydamn door!” I look for the ramp retraction button and can’t find it, still dazed. The boy reaches past me from the co-pilot seat and presses it. I feel the ramp retract into the ship. He asks me something. I turn to look at him.
“Hm?”
“Can you fly?” he asks me.
“Of course I can fly.” I reach for the elevation thruster controls and activate them. The Hornet levitates up off the landing pad. I push forward on the main engine throttle and we rocket away from the landing pad out into Endymion’s cityscape.
“Goryhell,” the girl says. The tower shrinks behind us. “That was manic.”
“You prime, Electra?” Pax asks. She nods.
“Is the Duke dead?” I ask.
“Hell if I know,” the girl replies.
“Where are you taking us?” the boy asks.
“Back to the Hyperion. It’ll take us an hour’s flight time in this. I can get your mommy’s men to rendezvous halfway. Syndicate will have this thing tracked, but short of military ships, nothing can catch a Hornet. Long as we don’t set down, we’re safe and you’re home to Mommy.”
“We should hail the local Watchmen,” the boy says.
“And roll the dice that they’re not on the Syndicate payroll? I thought your parents were geniuses.”
“They are.”
I grunt. “Must not be genetic.” They’re both staring at me funny. “What?” I ask. “Got something on my face?”
“Are you prime?” the boy asks me.
“I’m shiny.”
“Shiny?” he asks.
“Dog tongue,” the girl says. “You don’t look shiny. You look like you’re going to die.”
“A regular font of cheer, you are.” A localized burning pain on my right pectoral begins to grow and grow until it’s a horrendous agony. My entire chest is starting to cramp. Something wet and hot trickles down my flank and soaks into my underwear. I look down and see a small hole in my suit. I stick a finger in and feel a sharp pain on the torn skin. It comes away covered with blood. Cool shock ignites in my cells from my nipples down through my legs and toes, like I’ve been dunked in ice water. “Oh. I’ve been shot,” I say. It must have gone through the Duke into me. It seems obvious now, but in the moment I couldn’t figure what happened.