Beluga Fay (Dragon Bone Hill) (34 page)

The mouth gaped and a trickle of blood ran from the protruding tongue. Why had he kept it? Cubeo Panche wasn’t certain at the time why he’d taken the head other than to test out the new khukuri blade. It hadn’t disappointed, but he then took the head and now it bounced and oozed on his hip leaving a gory trail behind, just about anyone could follow that had half a mind to do so. The kids seemed to be interested in just that—which meant he might have found a purpose for Karen’s head. As with Pym, it was going to be difficult for Cubeo to disappear into the city once they had a description of him. Between his height, over one hundred and ninety centimeters, and his grey eyes, and broken nose, he would stand out—probably more than Titus. One of the many reasons he’d been keeping a low profile until he could find a way to get next to his quarry.

This put him at a disadvantage, because chasing them down would take care—if he made any enquiries of the wrong people, he risked being identified, and that meant he had had to eliminate more than a dozen of these since the docks. The gate fiasco had been his first chance since the pair of them had entered this city. It was also the first time he’d gotten close enough, excepting the market, but then he’d had to use avatars, and they weren’t up to the job.

Not many—not any—had been up to the job. This meant what he had been told of the target just hadn’t been true. That, or the client had either been lying or did not know what they’d bitten into—since those early weeks in the city, Cubeo had become increasingly careful of Titus, and had waited and waited for the opportunity to strike. There’d been little enough of these as long as he’d been with the Fay—what Pym had chosen to call the gang (Cubeo was unclear what else to call them, but they seemed more than this) had amused Panche—or the elites.

There’d been a couple of chances with the elites to take him, but Cubeo needed to disappear afterwards, and they would have gotten a clear look at him. His opportunities with Pym meant he would have to kill them all, and that would draw down on him Salazar’s wrath. Martyrdom was not the result he was looking for. So until an opportunity presented itself, he had kept as low a profile as possible, while watching and waiting. This was the first real chance, and he wasn’t going to allow the children to screw it up. He could hit Pym, but there were two problems in this. First, Pym had developed a set of important survival skills since hooking up with the Fay. Second, Cubeo still needed out of the city afterwards. The latter would take some time to arrange, but unlike Pym, he had a plan to get to the other side of the gate.

That’s if the plan worked. It sounded good, but it would require a little bit of luck and guards that were no longer committed to the Colonel in the way they’d been when resources were flush. First he would have to deal with the Santana, which were now trailing him.

“You sure, Dugo?” Zesto asked. They were sitting behind the burnt ruin of an old pickup.

“Francisco saw him go in.” Dugo answered.

“How big?” Zesto was having trouble with this because it was so far beyond anything he’d not only experienced but also had heard of.

“Almost twice as tall as me.” Dugo wasn’t tall but, still, twice his height was taller than anything he’d seen outside a movie theatre. Others had mentioned seeing something in the shadows that was huge, but this was passing belief.

“What about Pym?” Analise asked.

Zesto wasn’t certain if the girl was worried about losing Titus after what he’d done to Luis or whether she was afraid of going after the giant. Whichever it was remained irrelevant—the woman was afraid, and that would be enough to send this whole thing sideways. “Go back and take half a dozen Santana—keep your eyes on him, but
don’t
get close until you get word from me.”

Buldo had to decide which was more important—Pym, who was trying to escape, or whatever was behind them, someone who killed two of them and left a blood trail. In the end, there wasn’t much of a choice to make—if Zesto didn’t take care of this threat, there wouldn’t be much left of the Santana by the time they’d captured Pym.

“This is just what Pym did,” Dugo again.

“Waiting,” Zesto wondered aloud, “for you to come in and then...”

“Yes.”

“Okay—I’m keeping six with me, but go get a dozen more. They should be about a block east. Don’t take your time—if you aren’t back in ten minutes, I’ll be coming after you.”

Dugo nodded.

“I’m not moving on the giant until you come back, and if you take too long, they’ll disappear—that’ll be on you.”

Buldo needed to make sure Martilyo understood who the Santana would be blaming if he took too long out of fear or laziness. Then Dugo was gone.

Getting the stake to stand up took a bit of work. Cubeo couldn’t stick it in the ground because it was concrete, so he had to gather as much rubble as possible. It took a couple tries to get the balance right, but eventually this was done and he stepped back to make certain all was angled correctly. Stepping behind this, he picked up his bag and slung it over his right shoulder. Stopping behind the stake, he set the metal egg beneath a weighty piece of rubble then attached a narrow but strong cord to this, letting this out as he backed away and up over a small rise of refuse. Settling behind this, about four meters from the stake, he hunkered down—waiting for them to screw up their nerve, or get the reinforcements they would be sending for. Panche wasn’t sure which would get here first, but was hoping for the reinforcements.

“Pick it up.” Dugo was walking behind the others that didn’t seem keen on rushing. Yet again, another casually weaved out of the group as though looking for something by the curb then bolted. Martilyo, who’d been watching, threw a rock catching the kid square in the back and driving him hard onto the sidewalk. “Pick him up.” Pointing to the recalcitrant Santana in front of him; shouldering a short spear from a scabbard of these, he made certain everyone saw what he intended. Dugo lacked the charisma of Zesto; all he had to keep others in line was fear—so he used this. “Another of you bolts gets one in the face—Telleran there gets to be first after the target.” Telleran stuttered and turned but was pushed forward by his guards. What Dugo saw of the look on their face was baleful.

The trip had taken longer than Zesto had told him to take, but when Buldo saw the group, he seemed to understand the problem. Once he had them sorted into teams and had cranked their courage up with dreams of a proper meal and a safe place to kip, Buldo was ready to send the first team—led by Telleran—into the gap. Telleran and his team hadn’t seemed won over by the rhetoric but looked more persuaded by the spear in Dugo’s hand and the quiver of these slung over his shoulder. Others, thankful they weren’t to be the first ones in after the blood trail and the giant, hung about at a safe distance waiting to see what the end result of Buldo’s gambit would be. No one seemed particularly enthusiastic or hopeful. Zesto was aware of that, was also aware this evening would be his last chance to save his position and, perhaps, the Santana.

A moment after the group stepped into the gap, there was a muffled scream, and one of the younger ones emerged from the gloom; Dugo warned them back with the spear. Disappearing back into the darkness, there was some excited, muffled conversation from Telleran’s team then a dampened whumping sound followed with a puff of dust and smoke billowing from the ruin. Following this were several moans and then cries. “Thought so.” Dugo said moribundly and to no one in particular.

The soft thud of the explosion and the shouts, which followed behind him, pushed Pym onward. The noises weren’t close, but they had carried easily through the windy canyon of buildings Titus now found himself between. It was one of the many built-up areas of the city—these were mini downtown cores, constructed to relieve traffic and human congestion. They had worked back when the city was without blight, but they were some of the first to fail with the epidemic. Now the windows were broken, shattered to fine grains of glass in some places; there were scorch marks on the concrete of several of these store fronts as well as the offices above them.

None of the structures had been left unaffected by the Sweats and the disintegration occurring about the city and the collapse of the Salazar government. This was the first time Pym had allowed himself to consider what was happening and what the consequences for life under Salazar would be. Shaking himself from the thoughts and the manner in which they tore him away from being aware of where he was and what was going on about him, Pym looked about. Whatever was happening behind him did not fill Titus with confidence, and he needed, as quickly as possible, to make his way off the broad thoroughfare and toward the minor streets with their low buildings, apartments, and family residences. It took him another several minutes to do this, but he wasn’t entirely certain as to whether or not he’d shaken his tail.

There was no longer that sense of being watched. He’d learned not to dismiss the intuition; learned what one sensed was a deeper sense than the rational mind was capable of and—more often than not—had a deeper and truer sense of what was going on about oneself. Titus had noticed he was giving in to the supposed world rather than the actual world as constructed by social paradigms and the vulgar physicality of the senses—not to mention the feckless modeling of reason. How far he’d come from the man who’d rowed ashore those many months ago was becoming apparent. What this meant for him he wasn’t certain. At the moment, he was still lightheaded from the beating, and there was, on occasion, a raging headache behind and above his eyes. That could have had something to do with the way he was permitting his mind to wander.