Under Dark Sky Law (11 page)

The chocolate cake was also fantastic. Being
in Southern Arizona they actually had a fairly decent connection to
some of the Mexican and South American chocolate dealers, but in
most other parts of the country access to real chocolate was a rare
thing indeed. There was artificial chocolate substitutes of course,
but nothing could ever really replace actual chocolate. Heaven. Her
turbulent belly was equally happy to be full and settled.

The staff seemed like they had an uncanny
ability to judge how long it took a guest to finish a meal—just as
she put down her fork after the final crumb of cake was gone, there
was a knock at the door. She would have thought they were watching
via the security cameras if she hadn’t been fairly confident about
ridding the room of surveillance equipment. A look through the
peephole revealed another hotel staff member dressed in a creepy
white suit. There were no soldiers in the hallway anymore, but that
wasn’t all that odd considering they had been switching shifts and
leaving gaps in their coverage fairly regularly. She assumed it was
because they were short-staffed and there were a lot of people that
needed guarding.

When she unlocked the door to bring the food
tray back to the staff member, he suddenly struck her as odd.
Everyone else she’d seen working in the hotel had been homogenous
enough for it to be disturbing—everyone was tall and white with
blonde or very light brown hair, like some inappropriate Aryan
holdover from previous centuries. This guy was short and Hispanic.
It was total instinct, and she briefly thought about how she would
look like a racist fuck if she was wrong, but instead of handing
him the platter, she chucked full force at his face.

The man reacted like a true pro, knocking it
away from his face with his arms in the way that only a trained
combat soldier or martial artist would be able to pull off. Anyone
else would have gotten nailed with the fast moving platter, leaving
them with a broken nose or worse. It was the only information she
needed to process the next decision, and her brain clicked over to
autopilot.

She withdrew the steak knife from the back
pocket of her jeans, very grateful to have had the forethought to
stick it back there. Argon made fun of her for stashing weapons in
any crevice possible, but time and again her paranoia was proven
right. She stabbed towards the man’s neck with enough strength to
force the blunt blade through his carotid, but with the powerful
thrust she sacrificed speed. Even though he was short, he was
incredibly fast, and he moved with the kind of grace that made her
think he had gymnastics or more advanced martial arts training. She
knew Calavera sometimes hired ex-luchadors, and as hilarious as
some people thought pro-wrestling was, she’d tangled with more than
one luchador that really proved their salt. He dodged her stab and
rolled past her into the threshold of the doorway.

Whirling around to face him again, she saw
that he had withdrawn a large knife from within his uniform.
Fortunately within the dome he was very unlikely to have a laser or
other firearm—the dome itself did a good job of tracking firearms,
and most businesses had detectors set up around the entryways.
After the rioting several decades ago had nearly collapsed all of
the major domes, the government got dead serious about gun control.
Knives were much harder to detect and enforce, but at least if you
knew what you were doing you could pull off a decent defense. In a
laser fight, dumb luck could get you shot and killed, and there was
nothing you could do.

Her knife was significantly less useful as a
weapon than the attacker’s, and even with the decent range she got
just from being tall, this guy’s speed let her know not to take him
lightly. One stab wound for the week was enough. It was a gamble,
but she circled right until her back was to the entrance of the
bathroom, and waited. He got impatient and flew at her with all of
his weight, both feet leaving the ground as he lunged. Definitely a
luchador. His short height was actually a benefit in this
situation, and she rolled onto her back, just inches from striking
her head against the toilet or edge of the tub. She flung her legs
upward at a ninety degree angle, catching him in the stomach with
just enough of the right leverage to slow him down long enough to
grab his shirt collar. Using the torque from her legs and the pivot
point where her hand clutched his shirt, she flipped him over her
head. Between the added force from her legs and his own propulsion,
he soared overhead and slammed into the tile wall over the tub.
Tiles crunched and he screamed.

She had hoped that the impact itself would
knock him unconscious, but he thrashed and burbled when he hit the
water. While leverage was still on her side, she leapt to her feet
and used all her weight to press down on his throat, not caring if
she strangled him or he drowned first. He thrashed in the water
like a diver in the jaws of a shark, but Xero’s significant upper
body strength and her weight advantage won out. No matter how hard
he thrashed, he couldn’t escape her grasp. It felt like several
minutes, but in reality it was probably only a few seconds before
his thrashing slowed, and then completely stopped. Through the
water his empty brown eyes stared at her, and she sneered. Served
him right for trying to get the drop on her.

Blood dripped down the smashed tile wall, and
little tendrils of blood were blossoming in the water around his
head from the trauma caused by the impact. Goddamn it, now there
was no way she was going to be able to take a bath in that water.
That upset her more than the attack itself. This would also cause
another big investigation, and there was no way she wasn’t going to
run into an ass load of administrative headaches. It occurred to
her that soldiers should have arrived by now, and it was possible
that more than one attack had been staged to occur at the same
time. Great. Bath time was definitely not in her immediate
future.

In the struggle she had lost hold of her
steak knife, and at some point the attacker had also lost his
weapons. As she was looking around for the knives, another hotel
staff member came in the door. It only took a second for her to
process that it was another of the imposters—he could have been the
brother of the one that was dead in the bathtub. His face exploded
in rage when he saw the fate of his comrade, oozing blood into the
water. Fuck. She wished that she had been able to recover the
knives.

The other man produced an identical combat
knife and lunged towards her. She dodged to the right, hitting the
wall. The man grinned, thinking he had her cornered, but after
another split second of gratitude for being prepared, she grinned
back, snatched the loosened towel rack from the wall beside her
head, and lunged at him with all her strength. She caught him off
guard, which was good because she needed both hands on the towel
rod, leaving her open to attack. He raised the knife to take a
swipe, but it was too late. With both hands she shunted the towel
rack into the meat of his throat.

The force backed him up against the other
side of the wall, and the rod made a sickening noise as it tore
through the meat of his neck. If it had been a sharp weapon it
would have gone clear through to the wall, but the dull towel rack
came to a rest somewhere in front of his spinal cord. Blood poured
down the front of his white uniform. His mouth made gasping
motions, but no sound came out. No air, no sound. He dropped the
knife and it clattered on the floor mere inches from her foot. His
hands clutched reflexively at the rod before his eyes went glassy
and his body went limp. She released the rod and let his body slide
to the floor where it settled in a bloody heap.
Buenas noches,
hermanos
.

She heard voices in the hallway, but couldn’t
figure out if it was more attackers or military personnel coming to
check out the scene. Looking around the floor for the latest guy’s
knife, she saw the glint of more metal behind the toilet and found
where the first attacker’s knife had landed. Awesome. Heads would
really roll now. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror,
wet, covered in blood, Mohawk strands going every which way, dual
blades in hand. The peculiar mix of adrenaline and blood lust
filled her eyes, and she was ready, eager to go again. Bring it on
bitches.

CHAPTER 9

When the next person stepped through the door
it took all of the restraint she could muster to keep from lunging
towards him, both knives slashing. The only thing stopping her was
knowing that killing a solider in the dome, regardless of the
reason, would amount to a heap of trouble so big even she would
have trouble getting out of it.

He was in fact wearing a soldier’s uniform,
but there was only one person, and at this point that didn’t mean
jack squat to Xero. The adrenaline was flowing and everyone was
suspect. “Identify yourself, motherfucker,” she said, both arms
raised to strike.

It was another young recruit, and she knew
from his reaction that he was also a rookie. A seasoned soldier
wouldn’t have flinched at her knives or her appearance, but this
little twat was visibly startled, and he fumbled to draw his
weapon. “Private Johannes, National Guard, drop your weapon,” he
said. His voice quavered when he said weapon, but he managed to get
his laser out of the holster and sighted in her direction. He just
might make it after all.

His incompetence was actually what saved him.
As much as she liked to pick on Calavera, all of her skeletons were
absolutely well-trained in combat. None of them would hesitate to
kill when the occasion called for it, and sometimes when the
occasion didn’t call for it too. If Calavera caught any of them
flinching in the face of a conflict, she’d kill them herself first.
Before moving out to Nogales to expand her drug smuggling ring
she’d been the territory boss of Juarez, and that was a place that
even Xero wouldn’t want to manage. If she ever had a job that
required extreme violence and inelegant force, she called on favors
from the Juarez territory. It hadn’t required a lot of brains,
which was why she’d been so successful, but it required a certain
level of brutality and ruthlessness.

Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t one of the
rogue skeletons, and he likely wasn’t part of any of the rebellions
that were going on. He probably really was one of the fantastically
fresh new recruits that the military was serving up on a regular
basis.

Xero nodded, held her hands up in a surrender
position, but didn’t drop the knives. Hopefully this dude wasn’t so
nervous that he’d have a trigger finger accidentally flinch.
Without knowing the rest of the scene outside, dropping her knives
actually might be more risky than trying to dodge a laser shot.

“Private, can you verify that the area of the
hallway is secure? Is there backup out there?” she said, and he
seemed surprised that a savage like her was able to speak in
coherent sentences.

“Um,” he said as though he was unsure about
giving up important details to a potentially psychotic pit dweller
wielding dual knives over a pile of dead bodies. She couldn’t
imagine what might have him rattled.

“In case you missed the memo, I’m the one
who’s supposed to be under protection here, so you can stop
shitting your pants, lower your laser, and let me know if you have
the hallway secured or not,” she said, leaving her arms raised
until he stopped looking so twitchy.

He hesitated again. “There’s no one in the
hallway. It’s secure,” he said.

She hissed air loudly through her teeth.
“Fuck, you moron. Get back out there and secure the hallway. We’ve
got a pile of bodies in here if you hadn’t noticed,” she said. She
was all out of patience for baby sitting and political games. Once
blood started flowing she didn’t care where she was, she was back
to doing things pit style. Get busy killing or get busy dying. The
dome fucks had no idea what kind of raw brutality lay outside their
little Stepford microhabitats, and it really showed in these snotty
little recruits. They needed to be out in the field for awhile,
torn down, and built back up again before they were worth
anything.

He started to say something, but then coughed
and fell forward. She was expecting to see another server, dressed
in those tacky whites behind the solider, but it was a skeleton in
full gear plunging a knife deep into the recruit’s low back. Before
the skeleton had a chance to retrieve its weapon, she tossed one of
her knives at the sweet spot, towards the gap in the armor. The
hasty toss had its consequences, and she missed. It hit the
skeleton in the upper chest, and though it looked like she’d
pierced the armor, she definitely hadn’t landed a killing or even
disabling shot. The recruit flopped forward, his arm dashing
against the toilet on the way down. The laser case cracked and
ricocheted into the whirlpool tub. Damaged lasers and water didn’t
mix. The tub lit up with a bright flash of electricity, a loud pop
echoed in the tiled room, and the smell of burning meat filled the
air. Skeleton soup, anyone?

Most decent lasers were at least water
resistant—wouldn’t do to be caught in a rainstorm and end up frying
yourself. But if you damaged the casing, all bets were off. Most
newer weapons were extraordinarily difficult to break with typical
forces, but apparently the military was outfitting their trial
recruits with shitty weapons in addition to shitty training. She’d
seen more than one black market laser blow up in someone’s hands,
so it wasn’t that surprising. It was another reason she wasn’t all
that sad lasers were prohibited in the pits.

They were both distracted by the frying flesh
in the bathtub, but Xero recovered first. Trying to keep the
element of surprise on her side, instead of retreating further
towards the back of the bathroom, she took the offensive, leaping
over the fallen Private that was moaning and bleeding on the floor.
This move sacrificed her unarmed left hand that came up to protect
her face as she raised it to simultaneously strike and block with.
The skeleton’s knife sliced across her forearm and into the meat of
her bicep before the force of her fist sent it clattering away. An
expected consequence, but she knew it wouldn’t be a lethal hit.
When they hit the floor with a thud, Xero landed on top of the
skeleton, straddling its waist. With the remaining knife in her
left hand she sunk the blade in the damaged armor chest segment and
drove it in to the hilt. The skeleton screamed, and as she twisted
the blade its cries scaled up in pitch before coming to a gurgling
stop. From the tone of the screams, she realized that this one was
a girl. It was hard to judge gender and body shapes under the bulky
armor.