Crash Deluxe (16 page)
Authors: Marianne de Pierres
He was in his chair, touching his charms in obsessive order.
‘This is a live coded feed but some will still be able to trace and read it. Enough for me to affect the stock exchange. Get this right, Plessis, or I’m throwing you to the wolves. I saved you once. Not again.’ Lavish finished his homily and slammed the hatch shut.
I promised myself that once I’d hooked Monk I could be as pissed-off with Lavish Deluxe as I liked.
I was looking forward to it.
The sensorium activated and a thousand tiny sensors brushed my skin, taking readings. I closed my eyes for a second and tried to think of something that might turn me on.
Be authentic,
Lavish had said.
Lavish had said.
Unique signature,
Glorious had said.
Glorious had said.
The only things that felt authentic at that moment were fury, frustration and claustrophobia. I’d left a bunch of victims back in The Tert who were going to be wiped out if I didn’t get my act together and stop whoever was pulling the strings in the immaculately rotten Viva.
And the damn sex coffin I was in stank of stale perfume.
I delved inside myself for something that would work - the way I had when I’d needed to get past the border guards.
I thought of Glorious - her hair, and the way she moved under me. A brief memory of desire stirred. I tried to build on it but it flickered and died out.
A voice filled the sensorium.
‘You come highly recommended, Jales Belliere. But I need something a little
more
than that to risk the attention you are attracting. It’s already cost me a most reliable Intimate.’
more
than that to risk the attention you are attracting. It’s already cost me a most reliable Intimate.’
Monk? Or someone in his employ?
I couldn’t speak, too aware of the pinprick sensors under my eyelids, in my mouth and between my legs.
More
meant going somewhere I tried hard not to visit.
meant going somewhere I tried hard not to visit.
Loyl-me-Daac.
I let the image of him standing naked under the lights of the meat-walk invade my mind. The oblivious concentration on his face as he stroked himself to arousal. What had he been thinking of so that he could get so hard in front of so many people? A soft sigh lifted my chest, and then, inevitably, I remembered his head between my thighs . . .
. . . Excepting that he had wings and was swimming in a river of blood. I dived headlong into the blood and swam towards him. The waves tossed me around, keeping him just out of reach.
He reached for me and dragged me to a red beach where he penetrated me without waiting. I orgasmed over and over until the sand between us rubbed me raw, and the crash of the waves turned into cries for help . . .
I came out of the hallucination gasping for air and disorientated.
‘Interesting,’ the voice was saying. ‘Enough that we should meet in person.’
I gathered my scrambled wits. ‘Yes. Now. But not here,’ I whispered.
A pause. ‘Transport will be on the pad of the Luxoria in around ten minutes to pick you up.’
I fell out of the sensorium at Lavish’s feet.
‘You bitch,’ he squealed. ‘He’s not coming
here
.’
here
.’
I felt stale, pissed off and totally sick of this place. Lavish’s declaration was pure histrionics. He’d get a mile of publicity out of the fact that Monk wanted to hire one of his girls, regardless of where it took place.
‘You fucked the deal!’ he ranted.
I stumbled to my feet and grabbed him by the throat.
‘
YOU
fucked the deal, you piece of waste. Don’t you ever try and blackmail me again.’
YOU
fucked the deal, you piece of waste. Don’t you ever try and blackmail me again.’
His eyes bulged with a mixture of fury and fear. ‘Get out of here,’ he gasped.
I dropped him, surprised. What, no fond farewells? No seeing me to the door and into the arms of the Militia?
Something was wrong.
I turned to look at Merv. His face was strained and nervous, his stare flicking involuntarily to the bank of screens.
I scanned along them and spotted Glorious in one of the ’doirs. It didn’t look like she was having fun. I knew that because Dazzle was unconscious in the corner.
‘Where’s Glorious, Merv?’
Lavish snarled a warning at me. ‘She is my business.
I
will deal with it if necessary. Now get out of here before someone damages my club trying to get at you.’
I
will deal with it if necessary. Now get out of here before someone damages my club trying to get at you.’
I swivelled to examine the bank of units on the opposite wall. They cammed every exterior angle of the club and the commotion that was building outside. I saw the two bodyguards who had shown an interest in me at the Globe on the orders of the red-haired woman and a rousty contingent on another viewer.
I didn’t know how much of it was actually to do with me and what was normal Viva security. But I was done with being conservative in my estimate of the trouble I could attract.
Something told me that I was about to be caught in crossfire.
Get smart, or get dead.
The smart thing would have been to cut and run while Monk was hot to have me. But there was the small matter of Glorious being tortured to death in a nearby room and Lavish not doing anything about it.
‘OK.’ I nodded to him. ‘It was a pleasure.’
I strode past him, hauling Merv with me. He squirmed to get away from me like a fish on a hook but I dragged him out into the bar and leaned him up against the door.
‘Lock it,’ I said.
He stared.
‘I know you can. LOCK IT.’
He tapped a combination on his p-diary. The lock cycled over.
Lavish’s squealing penetrated the soundproofing.
I turned and found Lam waiting for me.
What now?
He gave me a small nod to let me know that he wouldn’t interfere, and walked away.
Nothing like breaking a guy’s arms to improve his disposition.
I nodded my appreciation to his back and turned to Merv.
‘Where’s Glorious?’
Merv pointed to one of the corridors that ran in the opposite direction to the helipad exit.
I gave him a gentle push. ‘Go and get my case from my room - and tell Monk’s pilot to wait for me.’
I ran off down the corridor to the ’doirs, pulling up short when Tae waved a warning hand at me. He obviously didn’t share Lam’s new devotion to me.
‘Open the door,’ I told him.
He was panting in light, cat-sized breaths.
Stim.
I leaped forward, trapping him with my weight. Then I stepped back suddenly, flinging him against the opposite door. He bounced off without making a dent in it and collapsed.
I jumped to the door and pawed at its lock as an alarm started. But Tae jumped me and I fell backwards, crunching him on to the floor. His fingers found my windpipe.
We rolled.
Unconsciousness swarmed.
Then Tae’s fingers went slack around my throat. He slid off me.
Merv crouched behind us with a knife in one hand and my case in the other. ‘The ’copter is here, Parrish,’ he said - and then he fainted.
I stood up and kicked the door of the ’doir but the action was pointless.
The whole thing was freaking pointless.
Merv was out cold and I should have already been on the ’copter that was about to leave the helipad right now. Instead I was bashing at an immovable door, trying to rescue someone who was probably already dead.
I gave a frustrated howl.
It got the doors of ’doirs opening all along the corridor.
‘Glori’s in trouble,’ I bellowed at them. ‘What’s the door code?’
No one answered - they were all paralysed by mistrust. I grabbed the nearest person, a guy sheathed in glad-wrap.
‘Help me.’
He shrugged me off and teetered back.
I couldn’t blame them.
How crazy must
I
seem? Brocade bondage was not my best look.
I
seem? Brocade bondage was not my best look.
A tiny pre-pubescent girl who’d been entertaining a guy larger than Mama, Fishertown’s sweet-tempered sumo, stepped forward.
‘Tell me the code,’ I begged her.
She looked confused. ‘Where’s Delly? Where’s Dazzle?’ she shouted over the alarm.
‘Dazzle’s dead. Glorious will be too, if you don’t get me in there.’
The others called out warnings to her but she ignored them and darted across to the door to lay her print on it.
I knocked her down getting inside.
Glorious was naked and unconscious. Her beautiful hair had been torn out in handfuls and she slumped strapped into a chair.
Her spinner was gouging her teeth out with a barbed fishing hook. The blood from her mouth drained to the floor, pooling around Dazzle’s tiny feet.
I knocked the guy away from her with the most brutal head-butt I’d ever delivered.
The skin on my forehead split but I had him by the throat on the floor before the blood even began to trickle into my eyes.
Things slowed.
I noticed a lot of things. The eyelash tattooed on the side of his neck. The smell of dizzies on his body, the flicker of a pulse at his temple, his fear and his arousal. Glori’s literally tortured breaths.
Revulsion spun me into darkness. If I stayed and killed him slowly - like I wanted to - I’d spend the rest of my life in a Viva quod.
If I left now I still had a chance to do what I’d come here for.
But what he’d done to Glorious was . . . animalistic.
Beautiful, seductive, dizzie-drenched Glorious.
Rationality threaded its way through surges of adrenalin pumping through me.
I snatched the rope off Dazzle’s small body and, breathing deeply and raggedly, tied the spinner up. Then I dragged him to the window and shattered the seal.
I hoiked him up and out. At the very worst he might draw some attention away from me. At the very best the knots would slip.
I didn’t look at Glorious. I couldn’t. Instead I picked the kid-girl up on my way out and stood her on her feet. ‘Get her a medic NOW.’
She nodded and ran.
I stared at the rest of them.
Most of them looked at the floor, some looked at Glori.
I didn’t need to say anything.
The helipad was retracting as I burst through the door. It paused, the safety protocol preventing it from pulling back totally while my weight was on it.
The ’copter pilot spotted me jumping around and signalling for him to come back.
He signalled back NO WAY. Pointed down and then put up two fingers.
I had two minutes to sort it.
Below me a Rousty crawler was heading up the side of the building.
Hugging my case to my chest I edged back to the outside console and played with the protocols. But Lavish was monitoring me from Merv’s room.
I activated the large all-weather wall-viewer and roared at him. ‘Extend the pad, Lavish. It’s the only way to get rid of me.’
‘You dropped one of my best clients out of a window on the 150th floor. I can think of much better ways to get rid of you.’
‘He killed Dazzle. He might as well have killed Glorious. I didn’t know you ran a slaughter house.’
‘A business, bitch. Not a slaughterhouse. He paid for the right. Besides, she needed a lesson.’
My whole body quivered with rage. I wanted to storm back in there and strangle the life from him.
‘Extend the pad and I won’t tell Monk what’s going on here. You’ll still get your publicity.’
And then I’ll send you to hell.
And then I’ll send you to hell.
Lavish laughed. High-pitched. Crazy. ‘You really think he’d care? What primordial slime did you crawl out of? You don’t have a clue.’
‘I understand this: you let me get on that ’copter or I’ll have nothing to do but come back for you.’
His laugh grew louder.
The ’copter’s engine note changed as it began to drop away from the side of the building.
My desperation got desperate.
I waved frantically at the pilot, miming for him to drop me a line to grab. He bobbed the ’copter back up level with the pad, a few metres shy of actually setting down, and began talking into his pick-up.
I dumped the contents of my case on the pad and grabbed my leather crop. I shrugged it over my shoulders and in nothing but my brocade bondage and long hair, I made ready to take a run at it.
And there I’d been, just a short while back, worried about dying with no knickers on.
Half a dozen explosive steps and I pulled out at the last second, digging my toes into the edge.
Too far.
I couldn’t make it.
I stood there trembling, besieged by a familiar thought.
I am not going to die here. I am not.
The pilot shrugged and started to lift away again.
The lights began to flash around the edge of the pad. I felt it lurch and begin to extend. The pilot saw it too and brought the ’copter back in.
I grabbed the struts as the machine touched down and lifted again immediately. I clawed my way up and inside.
Not exactly the elegance of an
Amorato
- apart from the naked bit.
Amorato
- apart from the naked bit.
I clambered in beside the pilot and stared into his viewer. The large wall screen showed Merv’s room crowded with
Amoratos
.
Amoratos
.
Two in particular I recognised: Muscle Massive, heavily bandaged, and the kid-girl giving me the thumbs-up.
Triumph unfurled in my gut and turned into hysterical glee.
A coup.
Chapter Sixteen
A
nd a mistake. The pilot was a woman. Big, broad, with a face that would stop Armageddon. Not in the good way, either.
nd a mistake. The pilot was a woman. Big, broad, with a face that would stop Armageddon. Not in the good way, either.
‘Thanks for hang—. . . er . . . waiting.’ I stumbled over my usual speech and tried to drag some thought of my disguise back into being.
She gave me a sweaty sideways look and said nothing.
‘You got something else I can wear?’
A shrug this time. ‘Try over the back.’
Other books
Savin' Me by Alannah Lynne
Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret by Hannah Voskuil
Pelican Bay Riot by Langohr, Glenn
Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho by Taylor, Theodora
Seeing Stars by Vanessa Grant
The Noah Confessions by Barbara Hall
Leaving Lancaster by Kate Lloyd
Solstice Surrender by Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Click Here to Start by Denis Markell
Stockholm Syndrome by Brooks, JB
