The Seven Markets (24 page)

“We are go,” Hart said, booming in their heads. “I repeat, we are go. Proceed to rally point one and fall into positions.”

Ellie had to minimize Private Ramirez down to a single screen to deal with Bo. She was inconsolable, livid with rage.

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew they were going to do that!”

Ellie conjured up the drawing room again. The soldier’s screen hung over the fireplace. She saw the men proceeding through the Market at a quick march. She had time to talk to Bo before they arrived at the inn.

“Ellie!”

“Yes, of course I knew. Who do you think wrote the original brief on this mission?”

“You?”

“Sure. Bo, we needed to know if it was safe before our men went too far in to back out.”

“Shooting an innocent in cold blood is safe?”

Ellie nodded. “Better one of them than all of us. What did you think we were going in for? I know you’ve seen them running drills, testing the armor and the weapons. Did you think it was so they could go in and do a little light shopping?”

“No, but—”

“We had to know if the Market would resist us. We
had
to. Believe me, if there’d been any other way . . . but there wasn’t.”

“She’s right,” Rossi said. “Doctor Beauregard, don’t you see? They had to find out if it was safe before they went in too deep. But Ellie, you’re also wrong.”

“What?”

“They didn’t need to kill the man, did they? If the Market was going to fight back, just pushing him around, maybe knocking him unconscious—wouldn’t that have worked just as well?” He rubbed his head, squinching his eyes shut. “The Peace, that’s what it’s called, isn’t it? It’s not just for killing. It protects them all. But you figured out a way to beat it. How?”

“We didn’t need to kill him?”

“How did you beat it, Ellie?”

“Hold on a second.”

“Ellie, please, how did you beat it?”

She pulled up a scan of the original Market flier she’d stolen all those years ago. It was a digital copy, but indistinguishable in the system from the real thing. Even the words had changed,
CLEVELAND, OHIO
replaced with
GREAT LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
.

“I . . . know this,” he said.

She explained what the flier was and how she’d come to possess it. “You—the other Rossi—once told me it was a piece of the Market. You’re not supposed to be able to take something like that, but I did. I don’t know the science, but they found something in the paper they can use. It’s in their armor, the goggles, and their hoods. The knives and the guns, too. So long as they stay covered up, they’re safe. The Market can’t see them, can’t hurt them. They can get to the Prince and no one will get hurt.”

“No one
else
will get hurt,” Bo said.

Ellie didn’t correct her. On the screen over the fireplace, Hart and his men had arrived at the Prince’s inn.

For the soldiers, the waiting must have been the hardest part. For Ellie it was a matter of zipping through the replay to just before the Prince arrived at the inn.

“There should be twenty of them waiting inside,” Ellie said. “No one will notice them unless they do something stupid. If he goes upstairs they’ll follow and take him before he gets to his suite. If he sits down to eat they’ll just surround his table and—”

An explosion rocked the soldiers’ feed. Fire vomited from every one of the inn’s windows, raining flaming debris over the surrounding area.

Hart barked orders into the soldiers’ ears. “Fall in to surround the inn. Fall in! We’ve taken the target but are meeting with heavy resistance!”

Private Ramirez leapt to his feet and sprinted after the rest of his squad. Other black-clad soldiers closed in all around him, all with their weapons drawn.

Another explosion from the inn, this time not of fire but of searing white light. The top floors flashed with the Prince’s energy and were gone in a heartbeat, leaving only steaming ruins. A wave of energy radiated from the shaking inn, knocking Ramirez off his feet.

The light flowed over them, consuming all it touched as if made of nothing but biting, ripping, tearing teeth. Where skin was exposed to the air, the Market also took its due, reaching up with grasping claws to pull flesh from bone, sucking whole men into the ground with orgiastic fury.

The few soldiers who remained began retreating. In the ruins of the inn stood the Prince and Cutter, the former guiding his tide of white light out to hunt for more enemies, the latter with his long sword drawn, fighting the few who remained.

Ellie zoomed in the view and found Hart in the thick of things. He wore the same dark suit of armor as the rest of his soldiers, but she recognized the shreds of his old cloak fluttering from his shoulders like a tattered scarf. He stood toe to toe with Cutter, blade drawn, exchanging blows with the bodyguard, giving as good as he got.

The Prince raised his hands and stared at Hart and the few men still fighting. They dove for cover or fled into the street, Cutter hot on their heels, then disappeared from Ellie’s view. The Prince guided the torrent of rushing whiteness as it searched for more prey. His face was twisted with rage, no longer the least bit beautiful. His hands were brown and gnarled, as if made of old, sick wood. He screamed and the light rushed back into him, filling him up, healing his many wounds. With a disgusted snarl, he leapt from the rubble after Cutter and Hart.

Private Ramirez stayed in place for more than a minute. They waited to see if he would flee to the Market’s exit or if curiosity would get the better of him and go after Hart and his pursuers. Ellie said a silent prayer—to whom she wasn’t sure—that the man would knuckle up so they could see Hart’s fate.

“There he goes,” Bo said.

Ramirez picked himself up and, slow with caution, trotted after his commander. He didn’t have far to go; just around the next corner, by a round-faced building with a wide, open doorway, Cutter and Hart were ripping each other to shreds as the Prince stood glowering nearby. The bodyguard had suffered a number of small cuts and one long, jagged wound down his left arm, which hung limp at his side. The loss did not seem to make him any less dangerous as he slashed at Hart again and again with his long, curved blade.

Hart backed up toward the open doorway, blocking Cutter’s blows with short, measured strokes. When he found an opening, he darted out with unbelievable speed, nicking the bodyguard here, cutting him there. His sidearm remained in its holster. The time necessary to draw and aim it would have given Cutter all the opening he needed to finish the fight with a single blow.

“No!”

Hart caught his foot and stumbled, lowering his guard for a heartbeat. Cutter swept his blade in low, aiming to disable his foe, realizing too late the clumsy move had been a ruse. Hart trapped the blade between his arm and his ribs, twisting it out of Cutter’s grip, sending it clattering to the ground. He heel-kicked Cutter’s leg out from under him, and now, finally, reached to his holster.

“Finally, revenge for my friends.” His voice boomed through the soldier’s head as he took aim at the Prince.

“No!” Ellie screamed at the feed. “No, don’t kill him! I need him!”

Before Hart could fire, the Prince unleashed a focused blast of energy directly at him. Hart dove clear as an explosion of debris erupted from the spot where he’d been standing only a moment earlier. The force of the blast flung him, head over heels, into the round-faced building. There was a flash of green light, a scream of terrible pain, and then nothing more. Hart was gone.

Private Ramirez remained in his hiding spot for a few minutes longer, waiting to be discovered. They watched as the Prince and Cutter entered the building Hart had been thrown into. The two men looked around, conversing briefly. Ellie’s blood froze in her veins as she watched the Prince throw his head back and laugh. They exited the building together, Cutter’s sword sheathed, the Prince unbearably beautiful again. Ramirez waited for them to leave before breaking cover and double-timing it back to the Market gate and home.

They sat in silence, the light of the roiling fire a stark contrast to the otherworldly glow of the blank screen hanging in the air between them. Bo dismissed the screen when she saw Ellie had no intention of doing so. Now it was only the firelight illuminating the trio. The night beyond the drawing room’s windows was moonless and shrouded in darkness.

Ellie sat with her head down, all her attention seemingly focused on Brutus, who’d made a nest of her legs and was now involved in having his head scratched. She smiled, and her face was filled with terrible sadness.

“Ellie, I’m so sorry,” Bo said. “I know how very close you were.”

The UI flashed red three times. Ellie ignored Bo’s sympathy and authorized the visitor.

Commander Hart appeared before them. A fourth chair—a beat-up leather recliner with an afghan folded over one arm—blinked into existence for him.
 

“Ma’am.”

“You’ve watched it?”

“All five, actually. About what we expected, no?”

“Just about,” Ellie said. Brutus rumbled contentedly in her lap.

“Wait, hold on,” Bo said. “How is he here?”

Ellie held up her hand and ticked off fingers. “Commander Anthony Hart the fourth, meet Doctor Emily Beauregard the first.”

“Ma’am. Though technically we’ve already met. Topside, you understand.”

“Topside?”

He glanced up at the ceiling. “Topside. Out in the world. You sat across from me at lunch last Tuesday. Borrowed a napkin when you spilled your tea.”

Bo’s look as she put two and two together was priceless. “That was you?”

“Hart the third was on maneuvers. SOP—that’s Standard Operating Procedure—is to let any man who wants to take his clone’s place. My brother and I, we’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with her ex.”

“Moreso now, I’d imagine,” Ellie said.

Bo sat forward, startling Rufus out of his snooze by the fire. The dog shot to his feet and dashed out of the room. “Those were all clones we saw dying?”

“Mostly clones.” Ellie grimaced. “Like the commander said, you get the option of going in if you want it. I think forty-seven of the men were clones, not counting Hart. He was third-generation.”

“But that’s—why?”

“Because we expected to fail, doctor,” Hart said.

“But now we know our suits work. We know our weapons can wound him, even if only temporarily. Also, Cutter’s not the ultimate badass we thought he was. Did you see your brother there? He’d have had him if the Prince hadn’t stuck his nose in.”

“Cheap tactics. Won’t work a second time.”

“Also, did you see?”

“I sure did. Just like you said. Next time we’re gonna steamroll them.”

Bo stamped her foot on the ground. Brutus looked up but remained in place, poured across Ellie’s legs. “Sorry to interrupt your little love-in, but perhaps you’d like to share with the rest of the class?”

Ellie and Hart exchanged a look. He nodded for her to explain to Bo what they were talking about.

“Their weapons, Bo. Their tech, all of it. Whether by design or by necessity, the Market is stuck in the dark ages. Okay, there’s running water and roads, but Cutter was still fighting with a sword. Take away the Market’s teeth and the Prince’s magic, and you’ve got a bunch of pointy-eared wannabes playing with sticks in their backyard.”

“So?”

“So that’s the way it was in Cleveland. They haven’t learned a thing in a hundred years. And what do you want to bet, in another hundred, wherever the Market pops up, it’s going to be same show, different day, all over again? The commander’s right. Next time we’re going in to get the job done for real.”

Word of the Market arrived early in the evening. The Duke’s envoy found Cutter leaning against the trunk of a tree, just within the firelight of the Prince’s camp. The night’s wind bore a bitter chill, but Cutter was in shirtsleeves.

“Good evening, Captain,” the envoy said, leaping down from his horse and bowing low.

“Evening. I know you, don’t I, son?”

The envoy radiated pride at being recognized. “Aye. You passed several weeks at my father’s estate some years back.”

The bodyguard nodded, pressing the mouth of his pipe against his lips, inhaling and then blowing sweet smoke out in rings. If the cold bothered him, if he noticed it at all, he gave no sign. “What news, then?”

“The Market, sir.” The envoy produced a folded paper from his coats. “It returns to the human lands again. His majesty’s presence is requested.”

“Required, you mean?”

“Aye. Though it is not for such as I to say.”

Cutter drew in another lungful from his pipe, holding the smoke deep, deep down before exhaling once again. “We’re a long way from the human lands. My lord will not be pleased at this news.”

“I don’t imagine so, Captain. I set out as soon as word came. It was only this morning the news reached us.”

“Three days?”

“Aye, three days. And one almost gone.”

“Very well. How far did you ride to come to us? Will you join us for the night before setting out?”

“Thank you, Captain, but I must refuse your generous hospitality. With your permission, sir, I will ride ahead to prepare the way.”