The creepy crawler might be off Onyze’s throat, but it was clearly too late for the young man. Some powerful poison was at work. The death rattle was loud as Egyon lowered the Ilkazam pretender to the floor. Jay expected some kind of respect for the dead, but Egyon sprang to his feet, leaving the sightless eyes staring fixedly up at the painted mural on the ceiling. His hand was in his pocket, and Jay somehow suspected he wasn’t jacking off.
“This is murder. You’ve broken House Peace,” Egyon said.
Zabb laid dainty fingertips against his chest. “I?” He glanced around the circle of nobles. “I think a more useful question is who gave Onyze the ankatai’li?”
Silence like the grave. The eyes of the Kou’nar slid toward Egyon. Anger gave way to confusion gave way to belligerence.
“What?” he demanded truculently.
“My lord,” said one of the nobles. “It was you who placed the badge on Onyze’s lace.”
“Impossible! I didn’t see the boy until we gathered here.”
A bitshuf’di, one of the neutered women, spoke up. “I saw you, my lord. Do you call me a liar?”
Meadows looked like a man who’d had the crap kicked out of him. Jay didn’t exactly understand how Meadows’s ace power worked, but he had a very strong feeling, honed by years of careful observation, that one of the gawky ace’s “friends” was behind the tragic demise of young Oinky and old Eggy’s current predicament.
“A rather drastic way to signal the transfer of your support to Tisianne,” Zabb goaded.
And Egyon bit, firing directly through the material of his pants pocket at Tisianne.
Only Tisianne wasn’t there. A split second before the destructive thread of light could strike her, Zabb flung the girl into Jay’s arms. Her balance was lousy, front heavy as she was. Jay had one foot on the dais, the other down a step. The conclusion was foregone. They went tumbling down the steps to the parqueted floor of the dining room. It suited Jay fine. Overhead he could hear the roar and snarl of weapons fire. And Jay hated guns. Any kind of gun. So he unlimbered his. Making a gun out of his finger, he pointed it at Tisianne.
She grabbed his forefinger and bent it painfully back. “No!” Her voice was a harsh whisper. “Don’t reveal your power. Save it for a real emergency.”
“I’d say this qualifies,” Jay spat as a bullet threw chips off a marble tile.
Guards had formed a protective wedge about the detective and their princess and were blazing away. Jay spent half a second worrying about Trips, hoping the gawky ace had the good sense to keep his head down – he couldn’t stand it. Curiosity won out over his very rational fear of guns and the people who used them. Jay abandoned Tisianne in the center of her nest of guards and went crawling back up the steps to the dais. He was half-afraid she’d follow, but apparently the sex change had endowed the alien with some brains.
Ackroyd cautiously poked his head above the level of the top step in time to see Taj snatch up a rifle from a fallen guard, blow the back of Egyon’s head off, and duck back into cover beneath the table. Zabb, a few feet away, frowned in annoyance. “?***@^? you, I wanted to kill him.”
“I didn’t have time for your posturings,” grunted Taj.
Jay wanted to cheer the old man. The detective didn’t know Tachyon particularly well, but even on short acquaintance there had been so many times when he’d felt the same irritation with all the Takisian bullshit. Taj was a Takisian, but apparently his bullshit threshold was as low as Jay’s.
“Did you arrange this?” Taj asked as he bounced up and snapped off another shot.
On the other side of the dining room a man screamed, clutched his gut, and pitched onto his face. Jay might like Taj, but he was going to be really pissed if the old guy turned out to be a crack shot. Then he comforted himself, there were so many tracers, both laser and bullet, that there was no telling who’d shot the poor dumb bastard.
“Naturally,” Zabb replied, and he fired. Zabb was a crack shot. Of course, thought Jay.
There was no sign of Meadows.
Then, rising on a pillar of flame like a Hebrew phoenix, came an amazing figure, short, wiry, with bright red hair and a sharp, sardonic face. The skintight orange jumpsuit bordered with flames and cut down to the navel was a shout of bad taste – except on Takis.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash opened both hands with an unfolding lotus gesture, and gouts of flame washed from his palms, down the length of the head table. The effect of this apparition on the Takisians was profound. The gun and laser fire stuttered to a halt, there were a few seconds of silence, then whispers ran like playing children around the large room.
“Burning Sky,” breathed Taj, and Jay thought it was an appropriate exclamation.
“Ancestors, how many are there?” Zabb said.
J. J. Flash, twiddling his feet like a faggy ballet dancer, descended to where Tisianne lay huddled in the center of her guards. The heat of his passage was like a sunburn across Jay’s back. Flame dripped off his fingertips, and sparks danced in his red hair.
Hovering over Tisianne, he lifted one hand and bestowed a kiss on the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. “Hey, princess, heard there was a damsel in distress. What dragons would you like slain?”
“You could start by killing the people who are shooting at us,” gritted Tach as she snatched her hand back.
“Sounds like a plan,” and Flash was gone, propelled by a gout of fire that left a singe on the rose marble floor.
The appearance of this fire elemental in their midst had taken the fight out of all but the most dedicated Kou’nars. The rest of the Takisians seemed to have decided that if Tisianne and his cadre had this kind of fire power, they would probably like to be on Tisianne’s side.
A few shots were directed at the flying ace. The bullets affected him not at all, and the lick of laser fire he positively enjoyed, giggling as if it tickled. One bright Kou’nar thought to pick up a pitcher of water and fling the liquid toward the ace. It was a good idea – badly executed. Flash encased him in a suit of fire, reducing his attacker to a cinder.
Taj glanced over at Zabb. “Are you responsible for him?”
Zabb hesitated, grinned. But whatever he said, it was too fast and too complicated for Jay’s rudimentary Takisian. He became aware of Tisianne yelling.
“Jay, tell them to stop congratulating each other about how brilliantly the experiment succeeded and get control!”
Jay yelled back. “Come up here and tell ’em yourself.”
“I can’t. They won’t let me.”
That got his attention. Sure enough Tis was being forcibly but gently restrained by a pair of guards. She looked mad enough to bite nails, and Jay thought that if she really were a woman, he’d hate to be the man who married her.
Nobody seemed to be shooting anymore, so Jay risked a brief sortie into the erect position. “Hey!” he shouted in English. Zabb’s head whipped around. “Her princess-ship wants you to shut the fuck up and take the fuck control of the bad guys.”
The council had reconvened. There was a much larger crowd this time, partly because the rulership of their House was to be decided, but mostly because Takisians were actually a lot like humans. The ones who’d missed the momentous dinner party were pissed and wanted to get at least a taste of the excitement. And who could tell… maybe the fire creature would appear again. Maybe there would be more bloodshed.
Jay circulated through the room while they waited for the seven old broads to show. From the snippets of conversations he could hear and understand, the citizens of the House Ilkazam were positively misty-eyed over the success of their pet virus and regretted that the experiment had not been carried to fruition. Jay had seen the same expression in the eyes of retired Vietnam generals – if only we’d been allowed to really fight. For the Takisians the argument was – if only we’d known how successful the field test had been. We’d have used the virus. We’d rule Takis now.