Page 229

“Warrior race, my ass,” Darran says. “They even got a queen now. But who’s your king, bitch?” He pokes one of the Obsidians with his pike. The tall woman grunts and glares at him. Her body is covered with winged symbols. “Duncan, there’s the one you got yourself.” Darran points to a hunched woman covered in grime and stunpike burns.

Volga. It’s barely been two days since I’ve seen her. But she looks as if it’s been five years. Her bare feet are bloody and shaking against the cavern floor. Her face is obscured by her hair, but her eyes stare distantly at the feet of Darran.

“Oh, they’re so dreadful, like idiot bears,” I say. At the sound of my voice, Volga looks up. She allows only a bare glimmer of recognition. I touch my head as though faint. “Oh, there’s evil in those bottles, Duncan.” Volga’s eyes dart to the growlers Darran has passed to his men. “I feel faint, take me out of this heat.”

“All right, coldies, back to work. Zoo’s over.” Darran shouts at her and sticks her in the side with his pike. She grunts and trudges on. One foot after the other. Before she disappears back into the mouth of the tunnel, she glances back at me and gives the barest of nods.

* * *

—

The party is still in full swing by the time Duncan and I s

tumble back. Some hard-eyed Reds loiter around the fringes. They’ve got pistols on their hips. That’s not good. I smile at one, and he doesn’t smile back. Soon they’ll start taking the girls back. I wanna be first, else I might not get as free a roam of the place. I still have to find Victra.

“I don’t want to dance anymore,” I say to Duncan.

“But the lads will wonder where I’ve gone!” he says. “Did I marry a dead stone?”

I reach my hand to his manhood and feel a minor swell. “I don’t want to dance anymore.”

Duncan’s home is not grand. I might have thought it so had I not seen Hyperion, and he thinks it so because he hasn’t. He proudly shows it off, like it wasn’t abandoned by the people that did live here. It’s big enough for a family of six. A small kitchen with trophies on the wall—which he boasts on about until I pull him toward a bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at me nervously. The music from the party is a whisper through the stone. “It’s too dark,” I say. So he searches for a glowlamp. When he finally finds it, he turns back, nervous, and pats the bed beside him. I sit.

Maybe I can talk with him. Maybe he can help us. He knows this is wrong. “This ain’t your home,” I say, regarding his search for the lamp. He shakes his head. “Where is your home?”

“Don’t have one anymore. Rat War made sure of that.” He plays with the edge of my skirt. “And you? You ain’t one of the fish.”

“Lagalos.” I wait for a sense of recognition. But there ain’t one. “How long you been with the Hand?”

He rubs his neck, reminded of something he’d rather forget. “Three years, I’d reckon. Take off your dress.” It sounds almost like I have a choice. “Please.”

I stand up and I go to move the shoulders of my dress. “Three years, eh?”

I run my tongue against Fig’s molar as he frowns at me.

“Take it off,” he says more aggressively.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my wife.”

“Why?”

“Because I…” He drunkenly searches for an answer. “I picked you. Listen, I want to be kind about this. But…”

“Makes two of us.” I sigh. “Sometimes kind just ain’t in the cards.”

He rises from the bed, quicker than he looks, and grabs the back of my head to stick his tongue in my mouth. I let it worm there until he’s distracted by his own pawing of my body. He looks down at my skirts so he can lift them, and his fingers are trying to find my insides between my legs when I pop the molar. There’s a flood of liquid into my mouth. It is hot at first, but then grows cold as ice.

DNA calibration complete. V-7 antipersonnel system ready for deployment, the parasite says from within. I wondered how Fig kept it from melting her own flesh.

I think one thing as I stroke Duncan’s face and he looks up at me, mouth open, eyes closed, tongue wet and probing. This will be loud.

I shove him in the chest. He stumbles over the edge of the bed and half-falls. I grab a pillow and spit the acid from my mouth, taking care to only get his stomach and legs. It splashes over him. Nothing happens. He frowns in confusion, lunges upward knowing something is wrong, grabs my throat with his metal arm.

Then the acid activates.

First go his clothes. He smells the smoke, glances down, and screams bloody murder as the acid eats into his skin. His fingers bruise the muscles of my neck, but I don’t bother trying to breathe. He’ll let go soon enough. I shove the pillow against his face as he goes on screaming. The sound muffles and I push at him to keep the acid from spreading from his gut and legs to me.