The Wind After Time: Book One of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (4 page)

“As you were saying?” Joshua prompted.

“Never mind. I don’t need to ask. The wine kinda slowed me down,” she said. “I understand you not making your move down there, in front of his goons and all. But you’ll go out sometime tonight, right?”

Joshua took her hand and gently drew her to him.

“Cease remembering.”

“Understood.”

Her lips parted and met his, her eyes closing. His hands held her shoulders, moved down, found the slits in the gown, and cupped her bare buttocks as she pressed against his hardness.

The gown was a pool of black on the floor, and her hands moved over him, touching fasteners, finding clips, until he, too, was naked. He stripped off the chainknife and the holstered tube projector and tossed them away.

His hand went to the light control.

“No,” she said throatily. “I like to see.”

He lifted her toward the bed.

• • •

It was deep in the night.

“Ah, Christ. Jerusalem. Oh, God.”

“Now?”

“No. No.” She rolled over, pulling a pillow under her hips. “Now!”

He moved over her.

“Yes. Yes. Now,” she said, voice guttural. “Now!”

“Like … this?”

“Yes, oh, please, yes. God, yes. There! There! And … and the other way now! Do it, God, do it to me!”

Her nails clawed his supporting hands, and she arched against him.

• • •

His tongue led him to her nipple. His teeth nipped gently. Her breathing, lowering toward sleep, caught. “Jesus! Don’t you
ever
get sleepy?”

“When I’m tired.”

Her fingers moved downward.

“You’re …
not
tired!”

She turned on her side and slid one thigh over his. He rolled onto his back, and she came to her knees above him and guided him into her. She gasped as he lifted, then lowered his thighs.

“What … what about
him
?” she managed just before words stopped for them both.

“Tomorrow …
is
another day.”

• • •

Joshua’s mind told him it was dawn. He and Lil were lying on the floor, the pillows from both beds piled around them. Lil was sleeping soundly, one hand under her cheek, the other between her thighs.

Joshua went to the window overlooking the garden. He brought both hands up from his waist and extended them outward, breathing deeply, gaze fixed on the space between them. He took the centering stance, then began the slow movements, lifting, blocking, striking, guarding.

When he was finished, he showered and dressed in a casual lounging outfit in a nondescript, friendly shade of brown that he’d bought the previous day. He scribbled a note on a hotel pad and set it beside Lil. The note read:
PACK AND GET READY
. He opened the door, went out, and slammed the door loudly enough to wake the woman.

“Begin tracking.” There seemed to be no reason to speak Al’ar now when he communicated with the ship. He felt the acknowledgment against his breastbone.

He went down the corridor, avoiding the slideway, mind setting aside all things, ship, resort, Lil, the night, the future. All that existed was Innokenty Khodyan.

He carried no weapons.

• • •

He asked some casual questions about room service as he sipped a cup of tea in the breakfast room. He studied the brochure he’d gotten from the desk clerk the night before, periodically checking the time. He finished his tea, left a lavish tip in cash, and went toward the lift banks. He stopped at a waste receptacle, tore the brochure into fragments, and threw them away.

He entered a lift that was exclusive to one of the resort’s three towers, and touched the sensor for the floor the Vega Suite was on and for the floor above it, as well. The lift went up quickly, floor indicators blurring. It stopped once, and a harried-looking maid got on, pushing a laundry cart heavy with soiled towels. Joshua thought:
warmth … sunlight … a day off … a perfect meal … a laugh from a child …

The maid looked at the man in brown, saw nothing worrisome, and smiled impersonally when she got off two floors later. The lift went on to the floor Joshua had first selected.

The resort’s architect had understood the needs of those with enemies. The tower was cylindrical, and the ten suites on each floor jutted out independently from the central core, not connected to the floor above or below. From above, the tower would look like a ten-pointed star. Separate corridors led from the lift shaft to the entrance to each suite. In the central area, aimed at the lift, was a sniffer that would be programmed to allow only the weapons a guest, his friends, or the hotel staff carried without shrieking alarm or possibly even opening fire.

Joshua moved swiftly along the corridor toward a suite the desk clerk had said was unoccupied. Halfway down was a niche for a maid to park her room cart without blocking the passageway. He melted into it.

He waited:
wind, wind, blowing, wind unseen, not strong, not moving even the grasses, not even whispering …

Twice the lift doors opened and hotel employees got out. Neither of them took the corridor leading to the Vega Suite. One glanced down the corridor Joshua was waiting in, then went on. Joshua
heard
the door to the Vega Suite open, a low voice, a man’s laugh, the door closing.

Wind, wind …

One of the two bodyguards, the one with the beard, moved silently into view, near the lift.

Wind, wind …

He checked each corridor but did not go down any of them. He went to a window, looked up, looked down. He returned to his post near the lift door and waited, not moving, showing no sign of boredom or impatience.

A few minutes passed.

The lift door opened and a roomboy pushed out a cart laden with old-fashioned covered platters. The roomboy grinned and said something to the guard, who replied in a neutral tone. The bodyguard made sure no one else had ridden up in the lift, then followed the roomboy toward the Vega Suite.

Wind blowing, embers, flameflicker, fire, fire …

• • •

The heavyset man inside the suite appeared to be listening politely to Innokenty Khodyan’s tirade. The thief’s whine had stood him in good stead as a child, and the habit was now unbreakable.

The holoset blared unnoticed, and the ruins of the night’s snacks were scattered around the large living room. Doors led off to freshers, bedrooms, a small pool, a bar, other rooms. A hide-a-bed sat against one wall. At night one bodyguard slept there, the bed moved against the door. There was a safe near one couch.

“I’ll be peeling wallpaper, I tell you,” Khodyan said. “Look. If Sutro don’t show today, I’m gonna get a couple of doxes sent up.”

“No whores,” the bodyguard said. “You told us you’d be wanting them but you weren’t allowed. Not until your connection leaves.”

“Listen to reason, would you? I was bein’ a worrywart, right? When you come off a job, you’re like that, afraid everybody’s out to do you. I took it a little too far. Right? You guys’ll be here. Hell, you can even watch if you want.”

“No leg.”

“So all I get to do is whack you guys for matches, try to teach you how to bet right, look out the friggin’ window at everybody down there relaxing, or else out at that friggin’ desert? Shitfire, I can’t even open a window and breathe the local air. I guess I oughta be grateful you let me eat.”

“Those were your orders.”

“Magdalene with a dildo, but you bastards are hard. Look. The essence of gettin’ along is knowin’ when to go along, right? So how about — ”

The door chime went off.

“Breakfast,” Khodyan said in relief.

A gun was in the heavyset man’s hand. He checked the screen that monitored the outside corridor.

Wind, blow …

For an instant the screen fuzzed.

Neither the heavyset man nor his client noticed. The bodyguard opened the door, and the roomboy pushed the cart inside, the other bodyguard behind him.

Fire roar …

A man wearing brown cannoned into the bearded man, driving him into the roomboy, who screeched and sprawled, the meal cart skidding ahead of him.

The heavyset man’s pistol lifted as Joshua rolled off the floor inside the man’s guard. He snap blocked with his left, and the pistol thunked to the rug. The man had a second to howl, reaching for his paralyzed wrist, as Joshua’s open-palmed right hand slipped past the bodyguard’s neck, index and middle finger brushing skin near the carotid, and the man slumped, boneless. He was dead.

Innokenty Khodyan had his mouth open, but Joshua did not hear what he was shouting.

The bearded man yanked a heavy pistol from a waist holster as he came to his knees. He fired, but Wolfe wasn’t there. The blast spiderwebbed a window, and dry desert air rushed in. Before he could fire a second time Joshua was next to him, left hand tweaking the gun barrel back, and then Wolfe held the pistol. He continued his spin, dropped into a crouch, and was five feet away from the bodyguard, the man’s own pistol leveled. He glanced at Khodyan, who wasn’t doing anything dangerous.

The bearded man half raised his hands.

“Good,” Joshua approved. “Stay a pro. You blew the contract. Stay alive so you can feel guilty.”

The bodyguard squatted, grabbing for an ankle-holstered backup gun. Joshua touched the trigger and blew a fist-sized hole in his chest. The roomboy had stopped squealing and was going for the door, scrabbling up from his hands and knees. Joshua kicked his legs from under him and knuckle rapped, with that seemingly gentle touch, against the back of his head. The roomboy went on his face and began snoring loudly.

Joshua held the gun steady on Khodyan. He back kicked the suite door closed.

“We don’t need company,” he said. Formally: “I am a duly constituted representative of the Federation. I am serving a properly executed warrant, issued within the Federation and presented to me by a Sector Marshal. According to this warrant — ”

Innokenty Khodyan launched himself at Joshua, fingers clawing. Joshua sidestepped, turned, lifted a knee, and sent the smaller man tumbling, almost onto the heavyset bodyguard’s corpse. Khodyan saw the man’s pistol and had it, fast for a man who’d begun as just a thief.

It was too far, even for a dive, as the blast crashed past Joshua’s ribs. He fired, and there were three corpses in the suite.

Joshua walked over to Khodyan’s body and looked down. The thief’s final expression was petulant. He glanced at his own image in a mirror. It matched the thief’s. As a corpse Khodyan was worth only expenses.

Outside the suite he heard dim shouting through the soundproofing; then someone hammered on the door. Joshua paid no attention. He knelt over the body, thinking. Then he looked at the safe.

Joshua tucked the pistol in his pocket, grabbed Khodyan’s corpse by the collar, trying to keep from getting bloody, and dragged it to the safe, He looked at both of Khodyan’s palms carefully. Deciding that Khodyan was left-handed, he pressed that index finger to the porepattern sensor on the safe’s door. It took two tries before the door slid open.

Inside was another gun, which Joshua ignored; a wad of currency from various worlds; a vial of tablets claiming to be aphrodisiac; and two medium-sized jeweler’s traveling cases. He took both to a table and started to open one. An unexpected sensation — like small chimes felt, not heard — made him hesitate. He opened the second case. There were three rows of drawers. His fingers went, as if drawn, to a drawer in the case’s center, and surprise shattered his hunter’s mask.

There was one single stone in the drawer. It was oval and uncut but appeared to be machine-polished. The stone was unimpressive, gray, although there were a few flecks of color, like quartz flakes in granite.

It was a stone the Al’ar called Lumina.

This was the third time he’d seen one.

The last time the stone had been on a headband worn by a Guardian who stood just behind an Al’ar leader-officer on the bridge of a warship, the last of his fleet. The officer had spit contempt and scorn at Joshua and his plea for surrender. The stone had flamed, echoing the defiance. Wolfe hadn’t needed to translate to the Federation admiral standing next to him. He turned away from the com screen, refusing to look as weapons officers sent missiles flashing into the Al’ar ship, and there was nothing but swirling fire and black.

The first time had been in a sandy clearing, when a Guardian had given the boy human-named Wolfe his Al’ar name, the Warrior of Silent Shadows, and told him to become worthy of it.

Wolfe picked up the Lumina.

Quite suddenly the stone flared; the kaleidoscoping colors would have shamed a warmed fire opal.

The fires went out, and Joshua was holding an uninteresting rock. His eyes iced as he regained control. He carefully tucked the Lumina into a pocket. Then, whistling tunelessly, he went to the door.

“I find,” Sector Marshal Jagua Achebe dictated, “after a complete survey of the evidence, that the deceased, Innokenty Khodyan, met his death while resisting being served with a correctly drawn warrant for … for … you put whatever the charges were in, David, before you final this document for my signature. I further attest that Innokenty Khodyan’s body was inspected by me, on this date, and I certify the corpus is in fact that of the charged being.

“I also certify the warrant hunter, one Joshua Wolfe, is well known to me as a reputable citizen who has previously served warrants, on a freelance basis, for the Federation and at no time has behaved in an unprofessional, careless, or bloodthirsty manner.

“This inquest is duly closed.” She released the microphone, and it disappeared into the ceiling. Achebe looked down once more, and Innokenty Khodyan’s frozen eyes stared back. She slammed the drawer shut.

“That’s that. No known estate, no known next-of, nobody gives a rat’s ear, so we can crispy the critter after a decent spell. Maybe this afternoon, when we get back from lunch.” She went out of the morgue, and Joshua followed her down a long corridor.