Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy (32 page)

The club came down when he did, the spikes tearing at the flesh of my left forearm. Too much blood. Way too much blood. But it was my left arm, so I could still fight.

I turned and saw one of our other dealers splayed in the choking dust. He was holding a laser pistol in what I could only assume, from the bullet hole in his forehead, was a dead hand. Now there was a weapon I could use. I knelt, pried his fingers away, and swung around in a crouch. Where was that bitch Hannah? There, taking aim at someone— Zack? Drew? No— she was arcing the gun toward me! I squeezed my pistol’s button just as someone crashed into me from behind. My aim was knocked to the side and I barely winged her right hand. Good enough to stop her for a minute anyway. She dropped to her knees, trying to grab her laser with her left. How good was she? Could she shoot with either hand?

I glanced behind me. Nothing to deal with there. The blow to my back had come from a grappling pair and Blackjack’s guy, a cashier I recognized, name of Quinn, definitely had the upper hand, as well as a knife to the throat of a thick blond woman who looked like she’d spent her life swallowing too much alcohol and seeing too much ugliness.

I’d lost track of Samm— there he was. Crouched behind a shrub shooting at Hannah, who had recovered, scrambled to her feet, and was now shooting back, left-handed, from behind a tree at the head of the trail from the road. A dozen dead lay sprawled on the ground, some ours, some theirs, and Hannah’s remaining army was in retreat, falling back under a roaring charge and heavy fire from our troops, led by Zack, Drew, and Samm, and now Emmy, who had finally recognized that this was no game. Probably when she noticed the dead guys. I revised my estimate of her age downwards. More like twenty-one.

I ran to join them, firing at everything human and semi-human that moved ahead of us. We were still taking fire ourselves. Samm, at my right, fell into the crackling brush at the edge of the trees with a wound to the leg. I heard a grunt and a cry somewhere near me on the left, but was too busy to look. We tore through the woods in pursuit and broke out onto the road. The enemy was already stirring up the brown dust with their escape cars.

God damn Hannah got away.

It took a while to find everyone in the woods and in the clearing who needed help or could be helped. We’d lost five soldiers, including poor Monte and the cashier whose pistol I’d taken. Hannah’s troops had carried off all of their wounded, nothing left of them but the dead. No one to take prisoner. Emmy was laser-burned in the side, but would be okay. Samm’s leg wound looked pretty bad. I saw a pool of vomit near his head. Zack tied a tourniquet around his thigh and Drew got through to the doctor on a small sys he was carrying— almost as small as mine. Doc was on his way to us now, he said. Drew had blood on the side of his head but didn’t seem to notice, several others were limping or bleeding or both. I was in the process of binding Emmy’s wound when she looked at my arm and did a double take.

“Rica, your arm looks worse than my side.” Bullshit, I thought, you were shot. I was just—

I glanced down at my arm and like Emmy, looked again.

I wasn’t thrilled with the sight. The forearm was swollen with bruises, deeply punctured, and the ugly merc had also managed in his death drop to inflict two four-inch gashes. And now that I was looking at them, the wounds were starting to hurt really badly.

For some reason the reality of those marks of battle focused me enough to make me realize where my mind had been through the fight.

Our troops. We lost five… The Enemy.

Unless Hannah was taking over, she was Newt’s. These soldiers were his.

But even though he was supposedly still paying me, I clearly no longer thought of myself as his. I’d fought with Blackjack’s army. I’d killed for them. I had blood all over me. Ours. Theirs. Mine.

I guess you could call it bondage

After he’d taken care of our most immediate medical needs— bandages, pressure dressings, painkillers— Doc followed us all back to the casino to finish the job. Samm couldn’t drive his floater; his leg was bad, burnt through at the calf by a laser. He was sweating with pain. Zack took the two of us back, and Emmy who offered to come along to help.

My arm throbbed. Doc had packed it tight and said he’d do the stitches in a cleaner environment. He ordered both Samm and me to go immediately to our rooms, Samm accompanied by Zack, Emmy taking care of me until he got to us.

I walked into Blackjack, woozy but upright; Emmy and Zack carried Samm. Doc came in right behind. The gasps and whispers followed us and I caught a few horrified stares and noticed several tourists heading for the doors. How many of these people had been around when the mercs invaded the place the week before? This could be one scare too many for them.

Emmy was very nice to me, pushing the elevator button, asking me if it “hurt really bad.” Yes, I said. It did. I was tempted to tough it out, bullshit a little, but I suddenly realized I didn’t have the energy. I hadn’t lost a lot of blood but my legs felt weak and I was considering the need to curl up on the floor.

In my room, she helped me take off my half-shredded shirt and wrapped another one around my shoulders, buttoning two buttons across my chest but leaving the wounded arm exposed.

“Lie down. Right now.”

I laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled back, barely. “Sorry. It makes me nervous and a little sick to see people get hurt.”

“Won’t that make it hard to be a soldier?” The second I asked that, I was sorry. After all, my problem with blood didn’t exactly make it easy to be a merc. Yet I managed.

“No.” She shook her head, hard, as if she were trying to convince herself. “It will not.”

A protective wave swept over me. She was just a kid. Trying to do the right thing, or her version of it. Once again, it was clear the Colemans commanded a great deal of loyalty from some of their people. I’d been trying, and had so far failed, to find a reason why they shouldn’t.

“Good for you. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” I realized then how patronizing that sounded but she just nodded and I let it go. I didn’t think I could do better at the moment.

She brought me water and sat down in the chair beside the bed, silent, waiting with me. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. She went to open it and Jo strode in, nodding to Emmy and not stopping until she was standing right beside me, looking down, her eyes strafing my body in a disturbingly asexual inspection. Well, screw you too, gorgeous.

“I heard you were wounded.” She gazed at my bandaged arm. There was no need to answer; it certainly wasn’t a question. “Is it bad?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth.” Was she worried I wouldn’t be able to work? Hoping I’d be incapacitated? “What exactly is wrong with it?”

“A few punctures and a couple of gashes.”

She nodded. “What’d they hit you with?”

I described the club. There was no softness, no compassion in her face. She either made a habit of concealing emotion under difficult circumstances or she’d gotten over me really fast.

“How is Samm?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” she said, watching my reaction. Maybe she didn’t want to admit the general was in trouble.

“No, he’s not,” I snapped. “I was there, remember? I came back here in the car with him. It’s your turn to tell me the truth.”

She studied my face for a moment, trying, I thought, to decide how to react to what— my insubordination?

A softening, then. She’d decided. “Not so good. It’s a bad wound. Doc is working on him now. He’ll be okay, but…” She shrugged. All the time she spoke, she watched me. Searching for some clue to my attitude. It wasn’t hard for me to look upset about Samm, and that seemed to satisfy her.

Another knock on the door. I hoped it was Doc. I was ready to get past the stitching and whatever other misery he had in store for me. Again, Emmy went to open it. This time, Lizzie came rushing in, followed by the big limping black dog. Her cast was filthy. Lizzie’s name was scrawled on the side of it in black paint or ink. The dog wagged a couple of times and dropped in a furry heap on the floor.

“Hey, Rica. I heard you got hurt, too. You okay?”

“Sure.”

That satisfied her. She had other priorities. “Jo, Drew told me you were in here with Rica. I want to talk to you right now.”

Jo’s eyes slid to me, then back to Lizzie. There had been no trust in that look. “About what?”

“I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in a few months—"

“Eight months, Liz.”

“So what?” Nyah nyah— she was still a kid, for sure. “This is happening right now and you know I’m strong enough and smart enough and all I need is the training, and…” Her tirade slowed, fizzled. “Please, Aunt Jo. I want to help. I want to fight. Emmy’s doing it.” She tossed a challenging look toward the young soldier.

“Emmy’s twenty— what, Em?”

“Two.” Emmy responded.

“She’s twenty-two. Five years older than you.”

“You can’t make me sit around like some little kid. I just won’t do it, Jo! You can’t make me do it.”

Jo sighed. She seemed trapped by the girl’s adamancy. “Tell you what, honey. If your mother says you can start training— I didn’t say fighting, just training— I’ll go along with it. If Samm says it’s okay.”

The girl fell into the chair Emmy had vacated. The dog hauled herself to her feet, limped over, and dropped with a sigh beside Lizzie.

“She won’t agree if you don’t. You can’t just bounce me back and forth that way.” Wow. These Colemans learned stubborn and righteous at a young age. But even though Jo was taking Lizzie’s demands seriously, she wasn’t giving in.

“Talk to her, then come to me. And Samm.”

“Can’t talk to Samm. Doc wants him to sleep.”

Jo gave Lizzie a warning look: stop arguing. The kid got up and left the room, trailed by the dog. I could understand their not wanting Lizzie to get involved in the army, but if things really began to explode, there wouldn’t be a way to keep her out of it short of sending her away. Everyone would be in it one way or another. Just like I had been back at the clearing. And now there was the added threat of Rocky’s invasion plans. I had to find out more about that.

Jo took the chair that first Emmy and then Liz had sat in. “Emmy, Could you go see how Samm is doing?” It was a fairly obvious ploy to get her out of the room, leaving us alone. I was feeling helpless. My arm weighed a hundred pounds and burned like laser-fire. My legs were weak. I couldn’t even imagine standing up, let alone defending myself.

After Emmy had gone out, closing the door behind her, Jo contemplated her thumbs for a moment. When she raised her eyes to me again I thought I saw some sweetness in them, but I didn’t know what to believe, what to feel, and her eyes iced over again almost immediately.

“When was the last time you talked to Chief Graybel, Rica?”

Oh, plague-shit. Did she really know I was working for the chief or was this a trick to get me to admit I was? I fast-played my conversation with Graybel the night before. Jo knew something. But I didn’t know how much and it just wasn’t in me to give up so fast.

“Chief Graybel?” Duh.

Jo smiled and shook her head. “Try again, Rica. When was the last time you talked to Newt Scorsi?”

Still not ready to quit. You show me yours, first, Jo-baby. “What’s going on, Jo? What are you saying?”

“I know your reference from the Riverboat Queen was phony. I know you’re a merc.”

“I’ve done a lot of things for a living, Jo.”

A flash of anger. “That may be, but at the least you’re a liar, aren’t you? Tell me who hired you. And tell me why you’re here. Tell me all of it and do it right damned now. I don’t have the time or the inclination to be patient with liars or traitors or game-players.”

I had to give her something. “Okay, I am a merc. I’ve known the chief for years. She just wanted me to spend some time here, see if there was any truth to the accusation that you or someone in your family killed Mayor Madera.”

This time, her sigh was loud, an exasperated explosion of air. “The Chief doesn’t give a toxie’s ass about Mayor Madera.”

“And other things. The medicine shows. She wanted me to see who was behind them.”

“What else?”

My arm was on fire and my head was pounding. My stomach was in knots. But adrenaline was making my legs feel stronger. The right one twitched. I considered jumping up, knocking her down with my good arm, running out the door and getting the hell out of Tahoe. I tensed, and at that moment, someone knocked and Doc came strolling in. He stopped abruptly, seeing and feeling the tension.

“Can you give me a few more minutes, Doc?” Jo said.

He pursed his lips. Amazing to see someone hesitate even briefly over a request from Jo. He looked at my bandaged arm. Blood was showing through the white gauze. He nodded slowly but he didn’t leave. Jo showed no impatience. She respected this man.

“How’s the bleeding, Rica?”

I considered telling him I’d bleed to death if he didn’t tend to my arm right that minute, but I thought Jo might order him to leave anyway. And there was no way to know how far his independence went. Might as well see it through with Jo.

“I’ll be okay for a bit.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in five-ten minutes.” He wasn’t comfortable leaving, but he did it anyway.

After the door had closed behind him Jo started right in again.

“What else, Rica?”

And again I tensed, ready to take off. She noticed.

“Rica, forget it. I’ve got people out in the hall and you’re not in perfect shape. Just settle down.”

I did. A little. How many people? I could still…

“Here’s how I see it happening, Rica. The Chief wouldn’t have hired you on her own.” The chief had never, as far as I knew, been reluctant to use mercs to investigate problems. Which probably meant Jo thought she’d be reluctant to investigate problems that had to do with the Colemans. “And I don’t believe Newt would have, either. So I think he demanded the chief check things out. Pushed her into it. He’s got his own spies, but they’re not worth much. Except for Hannah. She was pretty good. You, Rica, you’re better.”