X was curious to see how Mac handled the netting, but he got up it surprisingly fast. Miles whined as X followed, but a quick hand gesture quieted him.
Next came Rhino, with his spear and a torch. On the deck, he lit the oil-drenched wick, and the four men waited, scanning the shadows as he moved the torch back and forth. The boat rocked, the ancient wood and metal creaking.
“Isaiah!” Mac called out. “You awake?”
“Up here,” replied a gruff voice.
X looked up to the crow’s nest, where someone had popped up with a drawn bow pointed at the men below.
“Easy, brother,” Mac yelled up.
“It’s just Mac and Rhino and a couple of friends,” Rhino said. He held up the torch so Isaiah could see their faces.
The man in the crow’s nest swung his legs over the side and slid down the mast to the deck. He unslung the bow and renocked the arrow on the string.
“Who are your amigos?” Isaiah asked.
“This is all of us,” Rhino said.
Lowering the bow, Isaiah approached slowly, squinting in the torchlight.
“Ah, the new king?” he said.
This man was old, older even than General Santiago, with his receding hair pulled back into a greasy ponytail. A butcher knife hung in a crude canvas sheath from his hip.
He slung the bow over his back and dropped the arrow into the quiver. Then he reached out with a muscular, tattooed arm.
X shook his forearm in the Cazador way.
Isaiah smiled. “Welcome to the Angry Tuna,” he said. His smile was surprisingly white.
“You know why we’re here,” Rhino said, “so I’ll get down to business. I’m going to kill Colonel Vargas, and I need your help.”
Mac pulled out a bag of coins and shook it.
Isaiah’s green eyes flitted to Mac.
“You bring more?” he asked.
Mac nodded.
“How much?”
“What you asked for this morning,” Mac said.
Isaiah smirked. “Unfortunately for you, I changed my mind this afternoon. I’m going to need double your offer if you want my help.” Turning, he waved his arm around them. “As you can see, I need a new boat.”
“I told you he was greedy,” Mac said to Rhino.
“Actually I blame the sky people,” Isaiah said with a snort. “Mr. Tomás Mata sent his goons out earlier this evening. Said he is raising prices on his fleet because of the battle that sank some of his trawlers, and I’m already behind on payment.”
“Double it is then,” Rhino said, “but you get half now, and half when the job is done. That work for you?”
Isaiah walked closer to X, scratching the stubble on his chin.
“I want to do two things before I make my decision,” he said. “First, I want to have a good look at the king.”
The Cazador soldier turned fisherman circled X, looking him up and down.
“You got the scars,” Isaiah said, “and the reputation. But are you really immortal? That is the question.”
“I’m just a man with a killer instinct and a high pain tolerance,” X said.
“Perhaps a man with a lot of luck, too,” Isaiah said, halting before X. “So tell me your brilliant plan to kill Vargas. His Praetorian Guards are seasoned warriors. They won’t be easy to sneak up on.”
“We infiltrate Elysium tomorrow night after Felipe here provides a distraction during dinner,” Rhino said. “As soon as Vargas retreats to his quarters, we take him down in a dark passage.”
“Isn’t that how someone tried to kill you?” X asked.
“Yes,” said Rhino. “Lucky for me, Wendig had my back.”
“Well, she doesn’t now, does she?” Isaiah said.
X didn’t like Isaiah talking about Wendig. She had been a peerless warrior and deserved to be honored, not disrespected.
“No, but I do,” X said.
Isaiah frowned, unimpressed. “You’re talking about sneaking onto a ship with hundreds of warriors aboard,” he said. “How do you expect to get away without being seen?”
“They’re mostly just recruits,” Rhino said. “You saw them with your own eyes, and Felipe is going to create a distraction among the youngsters, then sneak away to help us. Besides, Vargas hardly ever leaves the warship, and when he does, he brings a whole entourage of guards.”
“Wait a minute,” Mac said. “Remember what I told you at the trading post?”
Rhino shook his head. “Which part?”
“Vargas patronizes the brothels regularly, and I know the owners. Maybe I could set something up where we don’t have to sneak onto Elysium at all.”
“That would be better,” X said. “Way fewer threats on the trading rig.”
Isaiah ran a hand over the chipped paint on the bulkhead.
X could still make out “Atún,” but the other word was too faded to read.
“How many of us will there be?” Isaiah asked, still looking at the letters.
“Us, minus Xavier,” Rhino said.
Isaiah’s smile dried up. “I’ll do it for the agreed price, but only if he comes too,” he said. “I don’t trust a man who pays others to do the risky stuff.”
X looked at Rhino, who shook his head.
“No way,” Rhino said.
“Not so fast,” X said. “Count me in. It’s been a while since I had a good fight.”
An hour had passed since the Sirens took wing and headed out to sea. None had returned. Discovery had blown them all back to hell.
With that threat gone, Magnolia and the Cazador team pushed down the rocky shore, battling hard wind as they looked for a way into the city. Acid rain streaked down her visor.
She brushed it away, scanning the cliffs. A Cazador scout team had already tried to climb up in several spots, but the bluffs were too steep and crumbling.
The tsunami of two and a half centuries ago had created the natural barrier around the city, making it as impregnable as an old-world castle. Since then, the tide had eaten into the ribbon of shoreline left behind, narrowing the space between the water and the earthen walls.
And the tide was starting to rise again.
For now, the team was safe on the rocky, debris-strewn beach, but the clock was ticking. Magnolia stayed back from the encroaching waves and close to the bluffs that rose a hundred feet above them.
“Mags, take a look at this,” Rodger said, pointing at a bone that stuck out of the wall. “Is it human?”
She nodded, spotting most of a skull in the rubble. Intermingled with the bones jutting out of the layers of earth, concrete, and rock were oxidized copper pipes and wrought iron, and twisted hooks of rebar. The raw ends were all potentially lethal hazards if any should snag her suit. It made climbing and falling all the more dangerous. They pushed farther down the shore, stepping over driftwood, the roof of a buried vehicle, and a flaking rusty hubcap.
Around the next corner, she finally saw a spot that looked promising. The hundred-foot bluff had partially collapsed, leaving a slope of debris that cut the vertical exposure by half. It certainly looked better than the vertical cliffs, but the jagged and unstable hunks of concrete and metal would still make it dicey.
Lieutenant Alejo was already talking to the scouts with ropes and other climbing gear. They set off while the rest of the Cazadores formed a perimeter, rifles and machine guns up.
“If there is a way up, they will find it,” Alejo said to Magnolia.
She kept against the rock wall while they went to work. The drizzling rain flecked her wrist computer as she checked Team Raptor’s progress. Their beacons again showed slow but steady movement. Since the male Sirens flocked out of the city, they had gone nearly three miles from their drop zone. If she had to guess, Captain Mitchells or Timothy had used a decoy to help them get away from a hive of the beasts.