Blood Royal Page 5

  ‘Spy camera,’ said Kal. He ground his boot into the circuit boards, catching one of Scabbs’s fingers under his heel. ‘See that metal rod at the top?’ Scabbs nodded as he sucked on his finger. ‘An antenna. Somebody was watching us. Spying on us!’

  ‘Any idea who?’ asked Yolanda. She looked at the dead ganger lying crumpled at her feet, his head twisted almost completely around.

  ‘Too many ideas,’ said Kal. ‘He’s a Delaque. I’d guess from the colours he’s wearing that he belongs… used to belong to the Silent Vipers. House Delaque doesn’t like me much. Perhaps another bounty hunter hired him to follow us to Svend. Or, maybe he’s just one of my hundreds of adoring fans, and all he wanted was an autograph.’

  ‘More likely he was one of your hundreds of enemies looking to cash in the bounty on your head,’ said Yolanda.

  ‘I paid that months ago.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t get the message,’ said Yolanda, pointing at the dead ganger. She bent down and began searching his pockets. ‘No. No bounty posters,’ she announced. ‘Some loose credits and weapon reloads, though.’ She pocketed the found treasures. ‘Killers keepers, I always say.’

  ‘Nemo,’ said Scabbs a moment later. He was still poking through the shattered spy camera.

  ‘Yeah. Could be Nemo,’ said Kal. ‘He’s got a thing for messing with my life.’

  ‘No, I mean this is Nemo’s gadget,’ said Scabbs. ‘I recognise the imprint pattern on these circuit boards. Only Nemo uses anything this sophisticated downhive.

  ‘He could have been outfitted by one of the Noble Houses,’ said Yolanda as she stuck the ganger’s weapon in an extra holster. ‘Most of his other gear is pretty standard Hive City issue.’

  ‘Nemo,’ said Jerico. He dropped his head and ran a hand through the locks of braided blond hair that constantly flipped into his eyes. ‘Helmawr’s rump. It’s Nemo alright. I can feel it. Something nasty has been crawling up and down my spine all morning. Our lives are about to get a lot more interesting.’

  ‘What do you mean our lives?’ asked Yolanda, a note of hysteria entering her voice. ‘The last time Nemo got his claws into you, I almost died. You can handle this round on your own.’ She kicked the dead Delaque agent in the ribs and stalked off down the street, her loin-cloth slapping her legs in a syncopated rhythm with the steady beat of her boots.

  ‘Yolanda!’ called Scabbs. He stood and started running after her.

  Kal grabbed his scab-covered sidekick by the shoulder as he ran past, almost pulling him over backwards. ‘Let her go, Scabbs,’ said Jerico. ‘She’ll be back. Besides, if Nemo is after us, we have more than enough problems of our own. We don’t have time to deal with women issues.’

  ‘But she might get into trouble without us to back her up,’ whined Scabbs.

  Kal looked into the scabby face and saw real concern in his friend’s beady eyes. Possibly for the first time, Kal realized that the little half-breed really cared for the Amazon-sized bounty hunter. Scabbs constantly complained about the time he had spent as Yolanda’s partner. She was reckless, he said, even more reckless than Jerico, and had almost gotten him killed on more than one occasion. But he obviously enjoyed the danger. Why else would he stick around with both Kal and Yolanda, as they took him to death’s door every other day? And then forced him to knock on it.

  Jerico softened a bit toward his sidekick and put an arm around Scabbs’s shoulder, instantly regretting the contact as he was sure he could feel some small critter crawl up his arm. He cringed and kept the arm where it was. ‘Yolanda can handle herself just fine,’ he said. ‘She’s tougher than a Goliath and trickier than a Delaque.’

  ‘Yeah,’ sniffled Scabbs, ‘and crazier than a scavvy.’

  ‘That’s our Yolanda,’ agreed Kal with a chuckle. ‘What in the Underhive could possibly threaten her?’

  ‘I want the head of Yolanda Catallus!’ screamed Vicksen Colteen as she stormed into the Wildcats’ hideout. Spiky blue hair waved around above the Escher gang leader’s eyes like an enraged sea anemone. The sides of her head had been shaved clean to allow the Wildcats tattoo on her forehead to wrap around her ears, but behind the shock of blue spikes, auburn locks flowed straight over Vicksen’s head into a long ponytail that reached the small of her back.

  She wore a spiked collar on her long, muscular neck, to which were attached the straps of a skin-tight half-vest that ended well above her pierced and tattooed navel. This was no frilly, feminine vest like those a Spire noblewoman would wear over a silk blouse. This leather vest was pulled taut around the ganger’s ample bosom, and was studded with brass rings that held live grenades or empty pins from used munitions.

  Below the half-vest, the Escher wore a double bandolier as a belt. The bandolier, which swayed up and down atop Vicksen’s hips as she strode through the doorway, was filled with shotgun shells and also held the sheath for her chainsword. A pair of tight, tan breeches that looked almost painted on hung low on her hips and hugged her long legs all the way down to her knees, where they met black, spike-heeled boots that shone in the candlelight.

  ‘What’s she done now?’ asked Themis, Vicksen’s second-in-command. Themis Van’Upp had grown up inside House van Saar, but struck out on her own at eleven, fed up with her role as a housemaid in the male-dominated van Saar world. She’d been a Wildcat ever since Vicksen had found her, half-naked and screaming at the top of her lungs, in the middle of a street brawl over a loaf of bread. Themis had run off into an alley with the loaf, while the boys she had beaten limped away, bent over and groaning.

  Themis wore a vest similar to Vicksen’s, but topped by a leather overcoat with long chains that hung down from the shoulder to bang against her waist. Her long, blonde hair fell in sheets around her round face, outlining the Wildcat tattoo that circled her eyes and ran down her cheeks to her jaw-line. She was sitting at a makeshift table crafted from a petrified piece of wood that might once have been a door lying across cinderblocks. Themis’s heavy stubber sat in several pieces on the table in front of her. She finished wiping down the firing pin and laid it on the table as Vicksen dropped onto a cinderblock across from her.

  ‘It’s not anything that witch has done,’ she began. ‘It’s her scavving legacy!’ She snapped her fingers twice and a moment later a scrawny man wearing dirty, cotton shirt and breeches scurried into the room through a rusted iron door near the back of the room. Vicksen and Themis sat in the burned-out remains of what must have once been a bar or bistro back when this dome had been a thriving hub of commerce. The front walls were all but gone, just a few blocks to either side of the entrance giving little more than the suggestion of walls, and the furnishings had long since been stolen or rotted away. But in the back, the Wildcats had found a complete kitchen with working stoves and ovens, once power had been redirected to the dome.

  The bistro was the nerve centre of the Wildcat camp, which encompassed all the buildings on the square. Most were nothing more than burned-out shells, but the gang members found more than enough prime sleeping quarters in the houses, shops, and inns situated on the square, and Vicksen herself lived above the kitchen, which was both warm from the ovens, and close enough to the kitchen for the mavants, who were little more than male slaves, to hear her frequent summons.

  The soiled servant shuffled up to the gang leader, hanging his head low to avoid eye contact. ‘Yes, mistress,’ he said. ‘What do you wish?’

  ‘Soup,’ she demanded, ‘and a bottle of Wildsnake.’ She kicked the male slave in the rear as he turned to trundle back toward the kitchen. ‘Make sure the soup is hot and the ‘Snake cold this time!’

  ‘If only I could get that kind of fear and respect from the other gang leaders,’ sighed Vicksen as she turned back to the table. Themis was busy rebuilding her weapon, and the gang leader watched with awe as her second-in-command snapped pieces together with almost unnatural speed and precision. After a few seconds, the heavy stubber sat gleaming on the table. Themis picked up the large weapon and spun
it twice in her hands before slinging it through the chain hanging at her side.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Themis. ‘We need to show the Manic Miners, the Circuit Breakers and all the other local gangs who rule this section of the Underhive again?’ Her eyebrows furrowed and a frightening glare flared in her eyes as she spoke.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Vicksen. ‘Since Yolanda left, the Circuit Breakers have encroached on several territories and taken archeotech that is rightfully ours, while Trogan, the Orlock gang leader, has nearly convinced the merchant guilds that the Wildcats are a leaderless, outlaw gang, so they won’t deal with us.’

  ‘But you’re the leader!’ snapped Themis. She grabbed the butt of her heavy stubber and swung the weapon forward. ‘Let me show them some fear and respect.’

  ‘The real problem is Yolanda,’ huffed Vicksen. ‘A Wildcat leader doesn’t just leave. A Wildcat leader dies defending the tribe or at the hands of the new leader in a challenge battle. Until Yolanda is dead, the Wildcats have no leader.’

  ‘What can we do?’ asked Themis.

  ‘We must find and kill Yolanda Catallus. I must kill Yolanda to claim my rightful place as leader!’

  ‘Then find her we will,’ said Themis, still holding her heavy stubber. ‘No matter who or what gets in our way.’

  ‘Gather the cats,’ said Vicksen. ‘We’re going hunting.’

  Yolanda stormed through the mostly deserted streets of Glory Hole like a hivequake rumbling through layer after layer of domes. At this time of day, most residents of the Underhive settlement were out prospecting for archeotech or still sleeping off the previous night’s ‘Snake. Those settlers who were on the street took one look at the dark cloud surrounding Yolanda’s face and the swift gait of her long, muscular legs, and quickly decided not to be there any longer.

  The constant slamming of doors and scurrying of feet in front of her didn’t improve Yolanda’s mood either. ‘Rotten, moth-eaten, slug of a scav-worm,’ she grumbled as she walked. ‘Acts like the whole Hive revolves around him, like he’s the emperor of the scavving universe. Didn’t even try to stop me from leaving. Too much trouble to be around. What in the Hive is their problem anyway?’

  She yelled at a retreating figure carrying several bags overflowing with bread and meats, some shopkeeper heading to the market, or perhaps a thief retreating from the market, who had paused to glance at the stalking bounty hunter. ‘What are you looking at?’ she demanded. Then, when the plump, little man scurried off, she added ‘That’s it! Run away from me. I’m a scavving nuisance to your pitiful life!’ Yolanda drew her pistol in a flash and shot at the now running man, barely missing his head and chipping off a chunk of concrete from the partially-collapsed wall behind him.

  Yolanda’s feet had taken her nearly to the far side of Glory Hole, but she hardly even noticed where she was going or where she’d been since stomping away from Kal and Scabbs. ‘At least Scabbs had called after me,’ she grumbled, continuing her running rant against Kal Jerico. ‘But no! Don’t let my former partner show any loyalty to me, Mister High-and-Mighty-Bounty-Hunter. You don’t own the whole, scavving Hive, Jerico!’

  This last line was screamed at the crumbling buildings of Glory Hole with an intensity and rage rarely witnessed in the Underhive. At least, rarely witnessed by anyone who survived to tell the tale. The entire street went quiet in the wake of Yolanda’s primal scream. The only sound was the rhythmic stomp of the bounty hunter’s boots.

  In the almost unnatural silence, a shadow passed over Yolanda’s head. Pistol immediately in hand, her eyes darted toward the rooftops. A flash of movement drew her gaze to the conduits emerging from the top of the building next to her. She fired.

  ‘Where we going, Kal?’ asked Scabbs as they wandered the streets of Glory Hole. Jerico’s meanderings since Yolanda left had led the scabby half-breed to believe that they were searching for their wayward partner. They’d been going up one street and down another all afternoon, often going in circles or retracing their steps from hours earlier.

  They had currently stopped in front of a burned-out factory that Scabbs was sure he’d seen at least twice already. The rear of the building no longer existed. A hivequake had long ago brought an entire section of dome down on the stone and steel building. All of the useful equipment inside the factory had been demolished or buried under tonnes of stone, never to be recovered; at least not until the next quake shifted it all into a deeper cavern. The quake had opened a handy escape passage that Scabbs knew about, which led from Glory Hole out to an abandoned strike in the wastes.

  As Scabbs looked at the landmark they had passed twice in as many hours, he knew one thing was certain; if Kal Jerico was actually trying to get somewhere, they should have been there long ago.

  Jerico ran his fingers though the dyed gold locks dangling in front of his face and gave Scabbs a sheepish grin. ‘I’m looking for Hagen’s Hole, but I think it must have moved.’

  ‘You mean you’re lost, don’t you?’ admonished Scabbs.

  ‘Not lost exactly,’ said Kal, now smirking like a mischievous cat. ‘I’d say more like momentarily between landmarks.’

  Scabbs sighed. ‘What you need,’ he said while pointing one podgy finger at the nose of his smirking partner, ‘is someone skilled at finding their way through the back alleys of the Underhive, perhaps a tracker who knows shortcuts, secret paths or just the most direct route from one side of the scavving dome to the other.’

  Kal slapped Scabbs on the back. ‘Excellent idea. A guide. We can hire one at Hagen’s.’

  ‘If you can ever find it,’ muttered Scabbs. He took a deep breath. He could tell that Kal was never going to ask for help, let alone admit he was lost. But the little man was determined to give it one more try. ‘I do have some skills as a tracker, you know.’

  ‘Picked that up from me, have you?’ asked Kal, his grin broadening across his chiselled face.

  ‘Helmawr’s rump!’ exclaimed Scabbs. ‘The Hole is just around the corner.’

  Kal walked to the intersection and looked down the street. ‘So it is. I’ve found it!’ he said.

  ‘Go in there and find yourself a new tracker, you ungrateful…’ Scabbs fell silent as Jerico strode out of sight and then, after only a moment’s reflection, ran to catch up to his partner.

  Hagen’s Hole was abuzz when Kal stepped through the door. Oddly, though, the noise all came from the front room, which was filled past capacity with bounty hunters from all over the Underhive. At least two dozen mercenaries packed the room. Kal could see Dungo and Skreed, regulars in Hagen’s for many years, along with Gorgh, Hern, and Lebow from Dead End Pass, and The King (nobody knew his real name), who rarely came up from Down Town unless chasing some mutie that was trying to escape uphive. Big names all, and Kal couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen them all in the same watering hole.

  The gaming tables in Hagen’s back rooms, which normally would be the focus of attention for most of the patrons this time of night, sat vacant except for those poor souls on the perimeter of the throng who couldn’t push their way through to the centre of all of the attention.

  That wasn’t a problem for Kal Jerico, though. He pulled out his trusty lasgun and fired at the ceiling. The sharp report of the blast and the sudden hiss of air escaping the neat hole he’d just put into the grey conduit above him brought all eyes in the room to Kal Jerico.

  The moment would have been perfect if not for the untimely arrival of Scabbs, who rushed through the doorway and slammed into Jerico’s back, sending them both to the floor in a heap. The room erupted into laughter as Jerico tried to roll over and kick the scabby half-ratskin tracker off of him and onto the floor. For his part, Scabbs must have realised what would happen to him once Jerico got to his feet, and simply scuttled over and over Kal as the much larger bounty hunter rolled around on the crowded floor.

  The laughter had reached a fever pitch when Jerico stuck his lasgun into Scabbs’s gut and shouted, ‘Get off of me you little
runt or, so help me Helmawr, I will turn you into a pile of ratskin droppings!’ This had the effect of redoubling the laughter in the room, but also scared Scabbs enough to make him jump off and dash into one of the back rooms.

  A hand reached down and grabbed Kal by the arm, hoisting him easily to his feet. Kal looked down into the smiling and still chortling face of Hern. Tears rolled down his plump, red cheeks and fell the short distance from his stubbly chin to his huge, rounded shoulders. Hern was a short man, but had arms the size of most men’s thighs. What scared the renegades that Hern hunted the most was that the muscular bounty hunter wore no visible weapons. Most of his friends called him the headhunter, but never to his face.

  ‘Thanks for the laugh, Kal,’ said Hern as he released his grip on Kal’s arm. Jerico was sure the five red imprints on his forearm would still be there in the morning. ‘We can always count on you for a moment of levity at our darkest hours.’

  Kal and Hern easily pushed their way back through the crowd to the bar where a bottle of Wildsnake awaited Jerico. ‘Darkest hours?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened? Why’s everyone here tonight? Did old Helmawr finally die?’

  ‘Now why would that upset any of us?’ asked Dungo. ‘No, we’re all here about the Underhive vampire. Hadn’t you heard?’

  ‘Underhive vampire?’ asked Kal as he took a swig of ‘Snake. Hagen’s best was just as bad as he remembered, but he forced it down and enjoyed the warmth that spread through his body a moment later.

  Hagen spoke up. He seemed to be the local authority on the subject. ‘It’s killed two people in Glory Hole so far,’ he said while mopping the bar with a drab cloth as well as part of his long beard, which had gotten stuck to a particularly nasty stain in the cloth. ‘Killed ’em and drained all their blood.’

  ‘Anybody we know?’

  All the heads in the bar bobbed up and down as one.