The two fighters came alert like sharks sensing blood in the water.
“Is there trouble?” Dagorkun asked. “Please let there be trouble. I have a lot of pent-up frustration to release.”
“Lady Karat,” I said. “Would you fancy a short trip?”
Karat’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of trip? Would it require primed weapons?”
“Probably.”
She jumped up. “Let’s go! I’ll get my sword.”
Karat ducked inside, into the common room, and jogged to her quarters.
“See?” I told Sean. “Backup.”
He growled. “Fine.”
“I must protest!” Dagorkun rumbled.
“Girls’ trip,” I told him. “No males.”
“I should come,” Cookie called from the orchard.
How in the world had he even heard us?
“Cookie, you’re a male.”
Cookie smiled into his whiskers. “A very quiet, very sneaky male that no one will notice.”
A speculative light appeared in Sean’s eyes.
“No,” I told him.
Karat emerged onto the balcony. She wore a long dark cloak that hung open in the front, giving a glimpse of a massive sword strapped to her thigh. She pulled the cloak closed and raised her hood. “Ready.”
Karat and I hurried through Baha-char’s crowded streets. We had about fifteen minutes left.
“Why Curved Street?” Karat grumbled. “Couldn’t she have picked somewhere closer?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
We passed another alley, turned into the next one, and emerged onto Curved Street. It wasn’t so much a curve as a horseshoe, with narrow alleys branching off from both sides. Tall, terraced buildings rose everywhere, connected by breezeways, bridges, and colorful canvas shade sails. Shoppers clogged the alleys.
“I see,” Karat said. “It’s a warren.”
“Yes. Easy to run away and disappear.”
“If she runs, should I chase her?”
“No. We came here in good faith. She will say what she has to say, or she won’t.”
The glass stall sat in the middle of the U, visible from far away because of a tall mast that protruded from the entrance, rising above the street at an angle like an oversized fishing pole. Glass doohickeys, ornaments, wind chimes, prisms, and suspended vases in every color and shape hung from it, glittering and shining in the light.
We stopped directly under the mast. Shoppers moved past us in a steady current. Across the street, a group of short, hairy creatures that looked like a hybrid of a monkey and a donkey enthusiastically bargained with a tachi weapon shop owner, climbing onto each other to better screech in his face. The insectoid tachi was remarkably patient with their silliness.
“We’re being watched,” Karat said.
I felt it too, a focused gaze scrutinizing us with desperate intensity.
Moments dragged by.
A spot of light fell on Karat’s cloak and slid toward me. I raised my head.
The building that housed the weapons shop was shaped like a backward L. Its bottom floor was the widest. On the right side, the building rose three stories high. On the left, a large roof terrace stretched from its second story over the top of the remaining first floor. A narrow stone staircase squeezed between the left end of the terrace and the next building, the only access to the terrace from the street.
On that terrace, a lone figure wrapped in a shawl stood by the stone rail, holding a small mirror in her hand.
“We’re invited,” Karat said. “We passed inspection.”
“Seems so.”
We crossed the street to the narrow stone staircase. The terrace sat forty feet above the street, too far to jump. If we went up there, the staircase would be the only way down.
Karat eyed the stairs. “Your sister informed me that you are not a fighter. If there’s trouble, hide behind me.”
“Thank you for that generous offer.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion.”
She really was Maud’s best friend. They were exactly the same.
The terrace was empty except for the woman with the mirror. As expected, it offered only two exits, the stairs that we took and a door leading inside the second floor of the weapons shop. The door was open, and something stood just inside, hidden in the gloom.
“A combat droid,” Karat murmured.
“How can you know that? It’s too dark to see.”
“I smell the lubricant and cooling fluid.”
Vampires.
Karat halted. I stopped too. The woman watched us for a moment, then approached. She moved very quietly. She came within three feet of us and held out a small tablet. On it a familiar face grinned. The haircut was different, the clothes didn’t match his current image, and his smile had a vicious edge, but there was no doubt.
“His name, his true name, is Cumbr Adgi. His father rules the Vagabond fleet of the Muterzen meteorite belt.”
“Pirate,” Karat spat out. “I hate pirates.”
“He was raised in luxury bought with the misery of many others. He’s sadistic and merciless.”
The woman pulled her hood down. Tiny scales sheathed her face. With her large, dark eyes and delicate features, she would have been beautiful by any standard. A large scar crossed the left side of her face, stretching diagonally from her nose to her jaw. The edges of the scar were red and ragged. Another scar clasped her neck, old and thick from repeated wounds. It was the kind of scar a dog might get if it strained against a collar with spikes on the inside.
“I was altered for him. To please him. The scales are his fetish. He did this.” She pointed to the scar on her face. “And this.” She pointed to her neck.
Her eyes told me she wasn’t lying. They brimmed with pain and cold anger, a kind of fury that had burned like a fire but had been repressed for so long, it crystalized into ice. This woman suffered in ways I couldn’t even imagine. People said the eyes were the windows to the soul. If that was true, her soul was raw.
Karat was perfectly still, like a statue.
“There is a price on the Sovereign’s head. It’s enough to buy a whole fleet,” the woman said.
“But it’s not the money, is it?” I asked.
“No. He wants to outdo his father and his siblings. This act would bring him great prestige and honor among those he seeks to rule one day.”
“He’s aiming for the pirate throne,” Karat said.
The woman nodded and put her hood back in place. “Now you know where to look. You can verify everything I said. I ask only that you do not kill him. He and his father owe me a debt for the deaths of my parents.”
“Do you think you can collect what’s owed?” I asked.
“All I need is a small window of opportunity. A shot.” The woman bared her fangs. They were long and slender like those of a cobra.
“You know where the door to my inn is,” I said. “If what you say is true, tomorrow would be a good time to linger outside of it.”
“I have no reason to trust you,” she said.
“I know her and her sister. They do not lie. You will have your shot. Don’t waste it,” Karat said.
The woman turned and walked away, disappearing into the building. The door slid shut behind her.