Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) (20 page)

The main entrance was a revolving door. Roy could see the lobby beyond, all thick carpets and warm lighting. A single guard was at the door, a grim-looking woman in a black coat that didn’t hide the machine pistol hanging at her side. She stood in the shadow of the entranceway, the orange tip of a cigarette glowing between her lips. Her eyes tracked the tourists strolling past.

Roy dropped the butt of his own cigarette, ground it beneath his shoe, and put a new unlit cigarette between his lips. With his hands in his pockets, he headed down the street towards the hotel.

The guard eyed him as he closed. He could see her tighten her grip on her gun.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Can I have a light?”

“Get lost, stranger.”

“Just let me light it with yours.” He leaned in towards her. Her gun twitched towards him.

He slammed her up against the wall with the full force of his body, pressing her gun back against her stomach so she couldn’t aim it at him. Before she could cry out, he pulled the box cutter from his pocket and dragged the blade across her throat.

She stared at him through shocked eyes. The blood bubbled from her neck as she tried to speak. He stepped back quickly, taking her machine pistol with him.

She slumped down against the wall, clutching her throat. He reached into her pocket, took her keys and a spare magazine for the gun, and left her there.

He stepped through the revolving door. No one in sight. No one manning the reception desk or the bar. Most of Leone’s people would be on the streets, searching for the stalkers.

He hurried across the lobby, wiping his box cutter blade clean on his sleeve. He punched the elevator call button and stood glaring at the floor countdown for a second before growling with frustration and heading for the stairs.

He’d waited years to get her back, and the years had turned into months and then days and then hours. And now he was so close he couldn’t wait another second. This was the one thing that had kept him going through the long dark hours in that tiny box floating through the void. The one spark of hope and rage that had propelled him to freedom. Knowing that the demented bastard who he once counted among his closest friends had his paws all over Lilian. The only reason to not put a belt around his own neck and end it all.

Now he’d love to put that belt around Leone’s neck and watch him go blue and then grey, smell his stink as he pissed himself when the last vestiges of life crawled out of that disgusting husk of a man. And maybe he still would, one day. But first he had to get Lilian off the station. Get her safe. Then he would have all the time in the world.

He emerged from the stairs on the first floor and ran down the hallway, banging on doors as he went. “Lilian! Lilian, it’s me.”

He could hear the nervous cries and whispers of people inside the rooms. But no answering call came. He ran back to the stairs and up to the next level and started down the hallway again. “Lilian!”

A woman’s voice caught in a room as he passed. He stopped and turned back to the door. He hammered on the door with his fist. “Lilian. Lilian, is that you?”

He stepped back and kicked the door. It shuddered. He kicked again. Again. The synth-wood splintered. He growled and slammed his weight into it. The wood around the lock gave and the door flew open.

A female escort in a red gown cowered in the corner of the room, both hands and one bare foot lifted as if to ward him off.

Roy snarled and ran back down the hall and up to the next floor. And the next. And the next. Where was she? She had to be here. She had to be!

Top floor. He banged on door after door. Nothing.

“Lilian!” he bellowed.

He slammed his injured palm against a door, leaving a bloody handprint behind. The door creaked open under the force of his blow.

He stopped, stared at the door as it opened a crack. “Lilian?”

He pushed open the door and stepped into the hotel room. A pair of high-heeled shoes sat lined up next to the front door. The curtains were pulled, but the lamp in the corner was on.

He brought the machine pistol up and moved through the central room. An open door led into a bedroom. The bedspread was dented where someone had been sitting on it. A tab lay forgotten on the bedside table. He picked it up, stared at it. Put it in his pocket.

“Lilian?”

He checked the bathroom. Empty. The whole room was empty. But she’d been here. He could smell her scent in the air. Even after all this time, he hadn’t forgotten her smell. But where the hell had she gone?

A black mark caught his eye on the skirting board running along the wall next to the front door. He bent down. It was a mark made by a shoe. Not the high heels. A man’s leather shoe. It could’ve been there for years for all he knew. But a place like this didn’t leave marks like that on the walls. It was recent.

There’d been a struggle. Someone had come and taken her. Taken her without letting her get her tab or her shoes.

They knew he was looking for her. They’d heard him shouting. So she’d only just left. There was only one set of stairs, one set of elevators. He hadn’t heard anyone running down the stairs. The elevator hadn’t moved.

She could still be in the building.

He ran back to the stairs and took two steps back down. Then he stopped and turned back. Though the main stairs ended at the top floor, there was another door beside it. The sign on it read:
Roof Access
.

He tested the handle. Locked, but he could feel the flimsiness in the design. Once more he stepped back and aimed a kick at the lock. The door splintered and flew open, revealing another set of stairs. His heart pounded as he hurried up them.

He threw open the door at the top and looked out over the roof. The city spread out around him, all the way to the spaceport where he could watch the approach of tourist ships through the transparent panels that roofed the station.

But he didn’t pay attention to any of that. He only had eyes for one thing.

Lilian Mayweather. Her dark brown curls framed her face. A black stripe of makeup ran across her eyes and the bridge of her small, upturned nose. The black gown she wore caught the light reflected off Eleda VI overhead, giving it a hint of blue.

There was a hand across her mouth and a pistol barrel pressed against her temple. Behind her, a skinny grey-coated man stared at him with bared teeth and wild eyes.

A roar of applause echoed from somewhere a few blocks away. But there was only silence on the rooftop. Roy couldn’t take his eyes from Lilian’s. His heart ached.

“Get the fuck out of here,” the man in the coat said. “I’ve got backup coming. You better run, pal.”

Roy took slow, steady breaths. “Listen to me, boy. You let her go. You let her go and you get to live. That’s a promise. You don’t let her go, you die. That’s also a promise. And if you knew who I was, you would take that very seriously.”

“Fuck you!”

The man aimed his gun at Roy and fired. Roy ducked back inside the stairwell as two bullets pinged off the doorway.

“You come any closer I’ll fill her full of lead,” the man yelled. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it, goddamn it.”

Roy checked the machine pistol to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. You win. Just let me talk to her, okay? I’ll stay right here.”

“Fuck off!”

“I just want to talk. I just want to make sure she’s okay. Are you okay, Lil?”

A muffled grunt in response.

“Shut up,” the man said.

“Listen,” Roy said. “You really don’t want to hurt her. And not just because I’m threatening you. Because your boss, Mr Leone, will be very, very upset if you harm her. Do you know who she is? Do you know why she’s so important to him?”

“Just…just shut up. I’m not moving until backup gets here.”

“She’s important because, well, it doesn’t matter why. You know she’s important because otherwise she wouldn’t be in this hotel. You know that, don’t you?”

He was silent. Roy peeked out.

“Stay back!” the man yelled, pressing the gun barrel against Lilian’s temple. “I told you to stay back.”

“Look, I’m putting down my gun.” Roy slid his machine pistol out and showed his hands. “See. I just want to talk to her. What’s your name?”

“Don’t you step out of there.”

“I’m coming out. I just want to tell Lilian I love her.”

“Don’t come out!”

“I’m coming out.”

He stepped out of the stairwell, empty hands out to his sides. He took two steps towards them.

“Stay back!” the man yelled. His eyes were wide.

Roy took another step.

“Fuck!”

The man brought the gun from Lilian’s temple and aimed it at Roy. He thought he could see the tendons in the man’s hand tightening as he began to squeeze the trigger.

Lilian bit down on the hand covering her mouth. The man screamed and fired. The shot went wide. Roy was already moving.

Before the man could squeeze off another shot, Lilian grabbed his left arm and pulled him down, teeth still sunk into the web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He cried out and raised the gun to bring it crashing down on the top of her head.

Roy drew the box cutter from his pocket as he ran and plunged the blade into the side of the man’s neck.

The thug stared up at Roy with round eyes. The pistol dropped from his grasp as he clutched at the knife embedded in his neck.

Finally releasing the man’s hand from her teeth, Lilian scurried out of the man’s grasp and kicked the pistol away. Roy snarled and grabbed the man’s head and pounded it against the ground. Over and over. Something cracked in the man’s skull. His screams became slurred.

Roy didn’t stop until the man’s eyes went glassy. There wasn’t much left of the back of the man’s head by then.

He sat back, panting. Lilian stood over him, her face hidden in shadow by the glow of the planet hanging above her.

“Honey,” he said, wiping the man’s blood from his hands. “I’m back.”

24

Leone’s thugs weren’t even trying to hide. Eddie watched from a doorway as a group of them swaggered past, coats swaying as they walked to reveal the guns holstered beneath. Tough looking guys and girls, but not very bright. Eddie traded jackets with a homeless man, hunched himself over, stole a shopping cart and filled it with trash off the street, and pretty soon not a single thug even glanced in his direction. Bunch of saps.

Most of the stores on Temperance were abandoned, but the one thing still in supply was booze. Eddie consulted a vid screen displaying a tourist map and followed its directions a few blocks towards the station’s bow.

Below a neon sign proclaiming
Best Stims in Town
, he abandoned his cart and went down a set of narrow stairs leading off the street. He passed through a heavy door into a grimy liquor and stim store packed with equally grimy locals. With his tattered jacket—unwashed smell included—he fitted right in.

The place was more a gathering place than a store. Friends laughed and kissed and told each other lies that sounded like the truth. For a few moments he was immersed in the local culture as he picked up what he wanted and waited for the man behind the counter to get his tongue out of a plump woman’s throat.

He returned to his cart a few minutes later with a case of imported beer—Carousel’s finest dog piss. He popped the top and drank one straight away, then started sipping a second as he headed back towards the hotel. The booze mingled nicely with the painkiller he’d injected. He felt like he could sleep for a week. If it wasn’t for the hunger battling it out with the nausea in the pit of his stomach, that was.

He went back and forth on the idea for a while, said, “To hell with it,” and bought a meal from a street vendor off the strip. The meal consisted off some unidentifiable dry meat drenched in a savoury sauce and wrapped in limp lettuce and flatbread that tasted like cardboard. He took a seat in the alley beside a brothel—ribs aching as he sat—and choked down the meal with the aid of another can of beer. His stomach didn’t thank him for it.

The details of the day swam in his head as he ate and drank. He knew he was missing something, but he didn’t let it worry him. It would come. He just had to wait.

An off-duty stripper in a heavy coat went past the alley, head down. He listened to the click-clack of her heels fading away as she walked. The grav train screamed past somewhere overhead, shaking dust loose from the wall he was leaning against. He took out his tab and scribbled down some notes for himself, snatches of dialogue and descriptions. He pictured Roy Williams in his mind’s eye. He would do as the villain of the story, although a few aspects would have to be exaggerated to make him more memorable. He decided to add a few inches to the man’s height. It was a start.

For a few minutes he considered what he’d title the story, tossing ideas back and forth, but it was pointless. He didn’t know how it ended yet.

That was another thought, one that made his heart tighten curiously. If he got Cassandra off the station, if he found a ship and they went off to live out the rest of their lives, then this might be his last book. There wouldn’t be much adventure to be had floating around the Reach. No contracts to hunt down.

What would he do? He could continue to write, he supposed, just making up tales. But somehow that didn’t feel right. He wouldn’t know the truth of the matter if he wasn’t there to see it. And if he didn’t know the truth, then what was the point in writing it?

It didn’t matter. They were just some scribbles. When the system was dying around you, what did his stupid stories matter?

He’d miss it, of course. As much as he and Dom fought, as much as they drove each other crazy on the lonely trips through space, he’d come to respect her. Once they left Temperance, he couldn’t risk contacting her again if he smuggled Cassandra off the station. The
Solitude
, the contracts, they were everything to Dom. He couldn’t risk that for her. So be it. She’d probably be glad to see the back of him.

He opened another beer, his thoughts turning back to Roy Williams. The fugitive had known he was looking for Cassandra. He’d recognised Eddie on sight. How had he found out so much about him in the short time they’d been on Temperance? Knox? But no, Knox didn’t know Eddie was looking for Cassandra. All the questions he’d been asking must’ve got back to Williams.