Necrotech (9 page)

Vertigo kicked in, my lip curled into a snarl, and I turned into the weight of his grip. Curving both arms, I shoved my fists hard into Boone's solar plexus. I heard his groan, felt the impact turn his body into a curved snap of pain, and the fingers in my hair loosened.

I ripped free, ducked on instinct. Just in time to watch an orange leg sail over my head and collide with Boone's already hurting chest.

The look on Fidelity's sharp-featured face was priceless. Idiot. I'd taught him that move.

Boone toppled into the crowd; short screams punctuated the crash. He was a large man, heavier than his frame suggested thanks to the tech that turned him into a human battering ram. The fact he hadn't corrupted was one of those things nobody could figure out, but there it was.

I stepped into a lunge, seized Fidelity's planted ankle with my tech hand, and yanked. My lateral display told me he was wearing full vinyl again – his favorite fashion go-to.

He hit the ground, swallowed by the aggressive crowd before the shock cleared from his reddened face.

That was three.

Sweat drenched me, anger turned my adrenaline high into a murderous beat. I shoved through the horde, caught someone's flailing elbow in my metal grip and twisted. She spun around, stumbled into the arms of a knot of dancers. Swearing, laughing; limbs flailed behind me.

By the time I made it across the pit, I was snarling with the effort.

Valentine waited outside the arch, his muscled arms folded over his bare chest like some kind of mythical genie. He fit right into Shiva's theme tonight. His hair was ice white and cut short; a black goatee framed his mouth. His bronzed skin was completely free of scars or tattoos.

That was four. Just fucking great.

Unlike the others, Valentine had been around the block longer then I had. He was handsome as sin because he'd paid good cred to be that way, but no amount of retooling would undo years of hard slaughter work. Something about him – his poise or the set of his jaw, something in the eyes – betrayed him for the killer he was.

Valentine was a munitions specialist, all about weapons where Boone was about survivability in the frontlines, but the lack of weaponry on him now didn't make me feel better. No shirt, the sculpted beauty of his chest open to all comers, and black pants similar to mine completed the effect. All he needed were some gold bracers and an earring, and he'd be somebody else's wet dream.

Me, I wasn't biting. He was as lethal with his bare fists as Tashi with her blades, and four times as experienced.

Valentine and I had never gone round for round, respecting each other from a safe distance. I found him too artificially perfect to appeal to my libido and too dangerous to mess with otherwise, and I don't know what he thought of me.

He watched me as I forged a path through the club, a muscle ticking in his left pectoral as if he was flexing one hand, over and over.

I didn't bother with niceties. By the time he realized my intent, it was too late. Too close to give him any more time to prep and too far to grab, I lunged into a sprint, lowered my head, and rammed my shoulder so hard into his ribs I felt something pop. Him, me, I didn't know. Adrenaline turned it all into fuel.

Valentine tried to grab for me, but he'd never seen me go for brute force – it wasn't my usual standby against immovable objects like him. With my arms wrapped around his trunk, he staggered, my weight bearing him backwards. I howled with the effort, pain working its way into my collar bone, down my flesh arm, as we fell into the curtains, tore them off the rod, and collided into Indigo's table.

Glass rattled. Shattered. A man cursed.

My fleshy surfboard rode the wave of impact for me, but damn, it still hurt. Fabric slithered off the table, skimmed over my back, Val's side, and coiled gently on the floor.

He groaned beneath my metal palm as I planted it on his face, using it to prop my aching body up.

“What,” I snarled, jerking my pale hair from my eyes, “the
fuck
, Digo.”

My answer was the unmistakable pump of a Sauger Quad 54 primed for firing. I looked down the barrel of a blocky, dinged-up shotgun and couldn't help myself.

I laughed.

I
ndigo Koupra looked enough
like his sister that seeing him tore open the bloody wound of guilt I'd been trying not to suck on since I woke up in that station. Like hers, his skin was olive, his hair mostly black where he hadn't streaked it dark blue, and he kept it long in a thick braid. He had more edges than Nanji did, taller and more defined. His eyes were lined with the same thick black ridge of envy-inducing lashes, but his gaze gleamed a much darker blue.

He also had a tendency to look at me like I'd grown a second head, unlike his sister.

Fidelity once asked why I'd chosen Nanji over Indigo's exotic, masculine appeal. It came down to three things: she already had a crush on me, they weren't into sharing, and he liked to think I was crazy.

Well, and fourth point, I had a weakness for curvy ladies. Nanji wasn't into rigidly defined athleticism.

Not for herself, anyway. She was hella into me.

Indigo stared at me now, his full lips twisted into a grimace torn between anger and wary disbelief. “You are one crazy bitch, you know that?”

Beneath me, Valentine hadn't moved, his eyes closed. I knew he was alive, I could feel his heartbeat beneath my forearm, but he'd recognized the sound of the shotgun and knew as well as I did what it meant.

There was nothing precise about that spray.

My laughter dried up. “I'm going to get up,” I told Digo. “We're going to chat. While we do, Val is going to go buy drinks for the others.”

“Stay right there.”

“Come on, boss,” Valentine grunted beneath me. “Her knee's in my gonads.”

“You shut up,” I said mildly. “You don't get a vote.”

Indigo stared at me a moment longer. I don't know what he read in my face – I was going for stone cold – but he jerked his chin in a nod. “Slowly.”

My weight shifted, knee easing the pressure off Val's junk. His breath worked out on a sterling note of relief. His hands closed on my hips – warm, callused and rough – and he practically benchpressed me onto my feet.

Okay. Inappropriately timed as that pulse in my snatch was, I could appreciate a strong man with a sure grip.

Never mind that I had too many other issues topping off my plate. I didn't need to add this one. Besides, in my experience, the strong ones usually ran too extreme: too scared to let a woman call the shots, or one-trick dicks full of their own vanity.

Too much work. I'd appreciate from a healthy distance.

He set me down, fingers squeezing my hips once, and let me go. Pain radiated up my ankle, but not as much as I'd expected. The nanos were already working on my minor injuries. I'd need the damn energy recharge I ordered, but at least they were working.

Val didn't stick around. Giving me a nod – a glint of humor in his otherwise steady hazel eyes – he got the hell out of the way.

That left me and Indigo, staring at each other over a shotgun and the ruins of a whole lot of drinks.

The team must have all been here, having a good time, drinking, when somebody called in word I'd arrived. Who? The redhead?

No reason; I didn't know her.

But everyone here knew
me
. I was a regular, like Indigo and our team. Any one of them could have sent word. My fingers tightened into fists.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, eying the shotgun. “You only get one shot, and that piece of shit's too front-heavy to aim.”

“You're like a foot away,” Digo retorted. “I don't have to aim.”

Good point. I lashed out an arm, popped him in the throat with my extended fingers. The shotgun jerked, he staggered back against the table. Glass rattled, bottles tipped.

But he didn't shoot me.

His eyes widened – fear, maybe, surprise for sure. I snagged the gun from his loosened grip, flipped it around and jammed it so hard against his chest, I knew it'd bruise before his nanos could hit it. He hacked and choked, one hand at his neck, the other braced against the table behind him.

“Let's try this again,” I said, tight and barely level between clenched teeth. The metal was smooth, cold, faintly damp from Indigo's sweat. “What the shit, man?”

“Nice,” he croaked.

“You started this.”

His gaze flicked to my right. As sweetly telegraphed as it was, I didn't expect a cold metal barrel to press into my skull over my ear.

“Please do not make me charge for cleanup.”

Shiva's dulcet tones were already in a throaty range guaranteed to muddle anyone's sense of gender identification. On a threat, her voice turned to pure velvet.

Smug triumph replaced Indigo's fear. For that reason alone, I wanted to shoot him. It bit deeply, raked diamond steel talons into my brain and
squeezed
.

I wanted blood. I wanted his eyes, shocked and wide, I wanted blood on his teeth and a lung on the floor.

All I had to do was squeeze this little bit of metal.

I could feel the trigger move, even hear the faint give.

The gun nocked against my skull dug in. “Riko, darling, you know how much I enjoy you...” The mild words faded. The meaning did not.

She would shoot me, and Indigo, and anyone else who messed with her business. She'd never even lose a wink of sleep.

Not one of my finer moments. I was a merc, sure, but I wasn't into murder for kicks. Regardless of how pissed I was right now, this wasn't helping anything.

I choked it all back. Hauled my anger, vicious and hurting, back into a dark metal closet and slammed the door. There'd be time for that later. There'd have to be, or else the vicious rage would eat me alive, but not right now.

With a theatrical sigh, I pulled the gun out of Indigo's ribs. He fell back into the curved booth, rubbed the spot. “Get her out of here,” he snarled.

The metal at my head eased away. A long-fingered hand with shimmering golden nail polish reached around me to relieve me of the shotgun.

I let Shiva have it. Better her than Indigo.

“No,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “You kids have things to work out. I will send refreshment, on the house.” In the corner of my vision, I saw long purple hair, golden silk with more fabric than she allowed her girls to wear. I couldn't see her expression, but her voice frosted. “Don't ever again, Koupra.”

I don't think she meant about the guns. It only confirmed what I suspected – one of Shiva's had sold me out, pitting their loyalty to Shiva against helping out a Koupra.

Dumb. Fucking. Tool.

Indigo paled, hands clenching on the table's surface.

I helped myself to a seat as Shiva departed in a swish of fabric. Staff was already fixing the curtains, which would give us some privacy, but I didn't wait for them to clear off. I pushed aside a sea of half-empty glasses. “You want me to ask you again?” was my opening gambit, and his jaw tightened.

“You have a fuckton of nerve, coming back here.”

“Where else am I supposed to go?” Rotating my right shoulder sent sparklers of pain through it. “Fuck. At least tell me why Tash tried to fillet me.” I mean, I knew why I would have tried in her place – but I didn't think
he
knew what I knew.

If he did, I'd have a whole new barrage of questions to ask.

He usually sulked like a kid. I was used to his temper, but the black rage underscoring his champion glower caught me by surprise.

Anger
didn't do it justice. It was rage and hurt and grief and something hot enough, brutal enough to melt a man's conscience. Whatever damage I was fighting, he knew his own demons and he saw them when he looked at me.

I'd never felt so close to him as I did in that moment.

And I never wanted to beat his head against the table so much.

I very carefully flattened my hands against the sticky surface, palm down. No threat, see? No weapons. Just me, unarmed and harmless. Shiva's orders. “Indigo, I have a lot to tell you.”

“I'll bet,” he spat.

I frowned. “But you're going to have to give me something to go on here. Last time we spoke, everything was fine. What changed?”

“What changed?” Digo's voice rose an octave. “What
changed
, Riko, is that you betrayed me. You betrayed Nanji!”

The accusation was a slap in the face. My fingertips dug into the wood – fake blend, nanofactoried to decent specifications, probably replaced every week for damage. The numbers scrolling past my lateral display assured me it was more than heavy enough to break over Indigo's skull.

He knew. How much? My jaw ached as I repeated, “Betrayed Nanji. What are you talking about?”

“I mean you
vanished
, Riko. One moment here, leading my sister around on your leash, and then you killed her.” Indigo's tech wasn't visible to the eye. It gave him hyperfocused perception and mental agility, and, like his sister's, it catalogued everything he saw. Being around the Koupra siblings was like being flanked by cameras. They saw it
all
.

For that reason, I knew he clocked my confusion. I didn't try to hide it. “I... killed her?” That was a stretch, even for me.

“Quit repeating me,” he spat back. Hatred sizzled across the table, carried on a spray of saliva and reeking of alcohol. “You talked her into that upgrade,
you
caused her conversion.”

The world fell out from under me. My stomach knotted. “Upgrade.” The metal reams replacing her spine, the nerve tech, the conversion. “I talked her into that?”

“Fuck!” He seized a glass and hurled it, spilling topaz yellow liquid in a long, luminous stream.

I threw my metal arm in front of my face. The projectile shattered against the diamond steel, sprinkling me with fragments and droplets of yellow.

I didn't fight back.

In my mind's eye, I watched Nanji's trembling lips mouth an apology. Her near-black eyes. The spinal replacement.

I'd done that?

I couldn't remember. Why would I do that?

Indigo opened and closed his fists between us, as if he could squeeze out his fury. His loathing. “The only thing that kept me from losing my shit,” he said from between clenched teeth, “was the fact you vanished. Dead, for all I cared. I was working on it, Riko. Nobody could find you, so I'd made my fucking peace. Now, here you are.”

Gingerly, I shook off the glass fragments. “Nice.” When he took a sharp breath, my fist slammed into the table between us. Glassware jumped. His retort, whatever fucking last thread he intended to snap, arrested. “I didn't vanish, you smegging cock. I was
missing
. I didn't just walk off into last night's sunset – and oh, yeah,” I added bitterly, “thanks for giving up on me so fast.”

“Not fast enough.”

Oh, fuck him. “Then how's this for fast?” I shot back. “Give me two minutes to explain. If you still think I'm at fault, I'll walk right out of here and never look back.”

“The hell you will,” he countered. Not the easy, good-natured taunt I remembered, or even the annoyed sulk of the put-upon older brother. This was menace, cold and edged.

He'd changed. I wasn't sure it was for the better. Of the three of us, I'd always been the stone cold merc. The role didn't suit him.

But it seemed a lot had changed in a couple of days. More than I expected.

“Two minutes,” I repeated thinly.

“You have them.”

I started talking. It took longer than two minutes. The redhead waitress dropped off a glass brimming over with pink and gold liquid, my weirdly green energy boost, and a tall blue chute for Indigo. He didn't touch his. I shot back the somewhat salty recharge, toyed with the Cellular Sunset that Shiva must have ordered for me, and told him everything I'd seen in that hellhole I'd woken up in. The guys with guns, the cold lab room – even about Nanji, locked behind that tempered glass.

When I told him about his sister's conversion, his hands whitened to yellowed knots on the table. I could read the mistrust in his face, the confusion that had to stem from what I told him versus what he thought he knew, but he didn't say anything.

When it came down to our own, Digo's policy had never been negotiable: if it flips its shit, kill it. Nanji's behavior fit right in that definition.

But I couldn't shake the memory of Nanji's last words. It was
her
, her eyes and her sad smile. She'd been fighting the corruption with everything she had.

Now here I was, basically telling Digo that he'd given up on her before she'd actually died. That
sucked
. That sucked harder than anything else I'd gone through, but how bad did it suck compared to his point of view of
me
?

All in all, I was so screwed.

I didn't mention the cops. I couldn't afford the scrutiny. When I was done talking, I drank every last drop of the Cellular Sunset and waited for him to call me on my shit.

He was silent for a long time, letting the frenetic thrashjam in the background fill the quiet. He stared into his glass. Rotated it idly between two long fingers. His hawkish nose seemed more pronounced in his face, his cheekbones sharper. In fact, now that I took the opportunity to study him, he seemed thinner underneath his dark blue neoprene. Always lean, he couldn't afford to drop weight. His arms, ropy with muscle, looked tighter, less filled out and more sinewy.

Fuck, he was starting to remind me of me, except that I think I could still out-brutalize him in a fight. That was my job.

I chewed on my questions as the alcohol hit my system like the sunset it was named after.

Finally, he looked up. Flat, level blue. “You're telling me you were down in some secret lab for two months.”

I snorted, brushing that aside like the bullshit it was. “No. Couple days at the most.”

The skin around his eyes tightened. “Then where were you until then?”

“I don't follow.”

“Fuck you, Riko, it's not astrophysics. It's July.
You
went missing in May, the same day I last saw Nanji.”