Page 106 of Throwing Fire

Drogan nods.

I grunt. It all comes back to that little fucker.

“I know Jaxon pretty well,” Kez says. “And I know he doesn’t have a hundred CeeBees, either. There’s someone else behind him.”

“Someone within your organization,” Drogan responds. “Someone who could supply such a quantity of fly strike.”

It’s my turn to nod. “Someone who’s name begins with B.”

CHAPTER 37

It’s not the lumpy foamcore of Acker’s guest bed that wakes me four hours after Kez and I finally call it a night.

It’s Kez, who is moving restlessly against my side. Feels like a shivering-shaking nightmare tonight. I turn towards her, cradle her to my chest, so she feels me all around her when the nightmare releases her from its grip. The foamcore crunches under me as I move. Cheap crap; I’m really going to have to have a word with Acker.

A sound distracts me from the discomfort of the mattress. A sound I shouldn’t be hearing at oh-three-hundred. The thud of running feet.

I appreciate the rats are nocturnal, but no one should be running anywhere at three in the morning.

I slide away from Kez. She wakes with a start and sits up as I climb out of the bed.

“Hale?”

“Somethin’s goin’ on.”

She joins me as I gear up, pulling her bracers on as I strap on mywrist sheaths and katanas. I reach across and still my tingler so its low blue light doesn’t give us away when I open the door.

I listen for a moment, then tap the door open.

The corridor’s empty, lit only by low red safety lights along the tunnel floor, but I hear shouts in the distance. I glance at Kez and when she nods, head towards the source of the noise.

Through the dim corridors, past Acker’s dark suite, past the flowstone wall. Kez and I are all but silent on our bare feet. I hear the scrunch of sand ahead and have time to draw a katana before a rat-man charges around the corner and nearly impales himself on my sword.

He draws up short, clapping his paw to his mouth to stifle a shout.

“What’s goin’ on?” I growl at him.

“The prisoner’s gone,” he says, between hard breaths, and I recognize him. The guard who put the Ojos in the cell furthest away from his station. Amateur.

“Where’s Acker?” I ask.

“In the south tunnel. I woke him first. He sent me back to get you.”

Good.

“Lead the way. Then you head back and watch over the wounded. No one in or out until Acker or I come back.”

The guard frowns, probably at my presumption in giving him orders, but he doesn’t argue and beckons with his claws. He leads us through the central cavern, eerily lit by the pool and empty except for some cots in one corner. Then we’re into the maze of the rats’ tunnels. These are different tunnels than I’ve been in before, and undamaged, if a little dusty. In the low, red light, I see a welter of tracks in the sandy floor, both clawed and booted. No way of knowing whether the Ojos came this way.

“You got any vid in these tunnels?” I ask the rat-guard.

“Yes, but it was knocked out when the Ojos attacked us. Heckter hasn’t gotten it back up yet.”

So my tingler was wasted. I’d have had Gig help with the internal vid if Acker had told me it was down. Maybe he forgot.

Or maybe he didn’t want me to know.

The guard leads us up a flight of metal stairs, which are freezing underfoot, but at least they don’t clang. At the top of the stairs, he turns and I see Acker’s broad, black back a few meters ahead. He’s huddled with Match over a palmtop.