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Chapter seven

Vengeance is a Knife

Back at the facility, once they’d hauled the crates of supplies from Lady Death off the Sonadora , Elliott made his way to the Murder Room and Niko transferred back to his chair to get the suit charged before going to join him.

Elliott had seemed deeply, quietly relieved to have new supplies.

He hadn’t mentioned it to Niko before, but it was an unspoken acknowledgement between them both that Elliott had only possessed finite supplies intended for one person, and the addition of Niko meant they’d been burning through them rapidly.

Especially when Niko had the appetite of a Ghaelacuan geela-horse.

Niko was just grateful to get access to more flavors in the kitchen than salt and artificially flavored electrolyte powder.

After the constant neon lights, relentless thumping music and rich, spiced scents of Dainna, it was almost a comfort being back in the quietude and stillness of the facility.

Elliott stood now, one hip out, arms folded across his chest as he regarded the wall of portraits gravely.

Niko watched as his gaze trailed to the knife that still protruded from the center of Imperator Khaathra’s face—the Gheroun leader whom Niko had once fought hard to keep Elliott from taking down on Uula.

“Her,” Elliott said, simply.

“Yeah?” Niko asked, unease beginning to creep in.

“I want to take care of her and Iincha’cul now.”

“Oh,” Niko commented neutrally. He swallowed back a quickly rising nervousness, picking absentmindedly now at the arm of his wheelchair. “So, um, Elliott, I was thinking—”

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Niko sighed. “No. But hear me out, please.”

“I’m listening.”

“Why don’t we lay low until we can get those files distributed? Deleera’s going to help us finally get the information out about them that nobody—”

Elliott cut him off sharply. “And why would I do that?” His eyes held something dark and unmovable in them.

Niko blinked at him. “I mean, it can’t really be swept under the rug or denied anymore if it all finally becomes public knowledge. Do we need to keep kill—”

“I will never stop killing them. Until there’s no one left.”

The room felt colder somehow; Niko could have sworn it dropped a few degrees.

Elliott stood still and rigid, staring Niko down, all sheer, icy will and assertion.

When Niko stayed quiet, he continued, “Even if the public knows, I still don’t trust Galapol or the justice system to do anything about it.

Most of these people are their own justice systems. Kings and emperors, prime ministers and presidents.

Nothing is going to happen to them. They’ll worm their way out like they always do.

“No, I want them gone. I’m not done killing them. I set out on a mission and I’m going to see it through, Niko. No matter what. I’ll never rest until Uru Taal is dead.”

Niko nodded. “So, why don’t we go for Taal next and—”

“Because I want him to suffer , Niko. I want him to know fear. And misery. Just like he made Cleo feel. I want him to watch as all his little friends drop like flies, one by one, until he has nowhere else to run. I want him to realize there’s no way out for him.

Ever again. I want him to know, intimately, that he is going to die. ”

He was worked up now, breathing hard. Niko stayed silent, giving him a moment.

An old intimate sorrow and dread wormed their way through him.

It was obvious Elliott wasn’t willing to relent, no matter how their situation changed for the better.

He wasn’t willing to accept any extended hand ready to pull him out of the deep dark of revenge.

It was all too eerily familiar to Niko. It had consumed him once as well, and left him forever damaged.

Vengeance was a knife that often cut its wielder, too.

When Elliott’s breathing had quieted again, Niko finally reached out and laid his hand over the other man’s, which had come to rest against the edge of the island now.

“Okay,” Niko said slowly. “We’re still in this, no matter what. But—”

“I’m not going to like this either.”

“No. Probably not. But I think we need to at least rethink how we do this from now on.”

Yalsa may have had a point. And he couldn’t stop thinking about that now, her words echoing ominously through him.

Glimpses of the Starlight Awards flashed through Niko’s mind—Galapol closing in, his options running out. Elliott beside him, about to be arrested or killed over Niko’s failure. Both outcomes led to the same fate, in the end.

Niko couldn’t let it all go wrong again. He wasn’t ready to face that down.

“Khaathra and Iincha’cul are both going to have tight security right now, after the previous attempts on them.

Their residences are probably going to be crawling with Galapol agents too.

Especially knowing you were willing to show up at Jande Seiiren’s place and not just at big events now. They’re going to be expecting you.

“We should shake it up. We need to get smarter about all of this. If we keep doing the same things we’ve been doing, we’re just going to end up cornered and dead. And once this information about Honeybliss is out to the public, everyone is going to be aware of who you’re going after.

“You should reconsider doing any big events from now on. I know you wanted people to see exactly who your targets were, but once they have the info from your files, they’ll already know who they are and exactly what they did.

I can’t imagine any Honeybliss member with half a brain is going to be willing to be in the public spotlight for the foreseeable future.

They’re going to get smarter about it, they’re going to go into hiding.

You were sending a message, but we’ll have that message out to everyone now, and can just focus on taking them down instead.

“Let’s start going in a new and random order, too.

We’ll still have hunters and mercs to contend with, especially if they don’t cancel the bounty.

But it’ll throw off Galapol, at the very least, and make us harder to predict.

They have your list of Honeybliss members, but will have no idea which we’ll hit next.

They’ll struggle to choose where to allocate their resources.

I know them. They can't be everywhere at once.”

It would only hold up for a little while. The remnants of Honeybliss were already beginning to dwindle in number. The real challenge would come when they were down to the last individuals and it would no longer be hard to guess who came next. But for now, it was their best option.

Elliott didn’t look thrilled, his brow drawn into a heavy scowl. Niko could tell he was turning it over in his mind. But the logic was undeniable. “Fine,” he finally said. “We choose someone at random. It doesn’t matter. They’re all going to die eventually, anyway.”

Niko let out a long breath, relieved. “Okay. So who—”

“You pick,” Elliott said.

“ Me?”

“Yes. Choose who gets it next. And we’ll go for them. No more big events. We’re hunting them now.”

Niko hated himself for the small thrill that coursed through him at that last sentence.

“Okay, um.” He wheeled to the grid of portraits, eyeing each one. Scribbled on them was various information, mostly incomprehensible in Elliott’s handwriting. One stood out in particular, though—a single, semi-legible word that caught Niko’s eye.

On the portrait of the Xermotl stage magician, Cnrys, among the chicken-scratch, read: Eanan .

The tranquil, oceanic moon.

“Him.”

Cnrys was renowned for two things: his unparalleled stage magic tricks, and his bizarre obsession with humans and their cultures.

The Xermotl had even gone so far as to undergo several cosmetic surgeries which had altered his original blue, patterned skin into something disturbingly resembling Niko's own dark bronze.

He was less known for being a violator and asshole, as shown in the cursed footage of Elliott’s files. It didn’t even surprise Niko that every one of the magician’s victims had been humans.

Nor did it surprise him to see, now, that Cnrys’s private beachside mansion looked tailor-built for human taste and standards, rather than anything resembling Xermotl culture—two stories, with a shingled roof, white plaster walls, and big windows from which to view the splendor of the sea.

The guy still hadn’t managed to shake off the intrinsic love of and call to the ocean inherent in every Xermotl, though. And so Niko found himself on the shores of Eanan, standing side by side with Elliott.

They stood atop a large seawall which overlooked Cnrys’s mansion and private strip of beach, hidden away under Elliott’s stealth tech.

Rich, golden sands glimmered below them, bordered by an endless expanse of brilliantly teal waters.

Eanan’s sun hung low in its sky, peeking from between scant, wispy clouds.

If they worked quickly, they could make it out before dark.

“Finally got to take you to Eanan,” Niko muttered, half-joking.

Something about the statement wore him down a little, though.

He wanted this in its full experience. He wanted to take Elliott here and spend a day or a week with him, to build the stupid sandcastles they’d joked about in the past. To sink into the warm sands and watch the tide come in.

To just lose themselves in the ecstasy of simply being alive in each other’s company.

He wished he could spend time with his boyfriend outside of the facility, and outside of hit jobs, just being people, lost somewhere together in the galaxy.