The old man was as still as if he’d turned to stone, even when the dealer went on over and fell, and leaked out everywhere. Standing there with his hands in front of him. But now Boss saw the blade; some sort of knife, though he had no idea where it’d come from.
“What’d you do?” Boss heard himself say. The old man didn’t answer. Wing reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, and Boss could’ve told him that was a bad idea if he’d just asked. It looked like the old man just kind of shrugged and brushed Wing’s hand, but somehow the next thing anyone knew, the old man had Wing’s hand flipped over palm up and bent the wrong way back, and Wing was howling like a woman with her hair on fire.
A sudden motion caught Boss’s attention, and he saw Cauld had pulled out his little pocket popper, and almost had it aimed — when the old man flicked his other hand out. The knife came sliding out — flying straight like a dart — and stuck right in the middle of Cauld’s chest. Cauld stumbled back, and tried to get the pistol up anyway, but he acted like it’d gotten too heavy all of a sudden.
Boss looked back in time to see the old man slam a fist into Wing’s throat. Wing choked up and stopped screaming then. The girl was just standing there, watching the whole thing happen, and Boss knew if he pulled the trigger, he was going to hit her and probably Wing too. But at that point she didn’t seem so valuable anymore, and Wing was probably dying anyway. He reached under the desk and grabbed for the grip of his short-barreled two-gun.
The old man took a funny little half-turn and kind of windmilled like he was doing a dance, and Boss realized the old man had produced a sword from somewhere and was bringing it down in a surprisingly fluid arc. He’d obviously misjudged the distance, though, and was coming down well short of his target. Boss almost felt sorry for him as he squeezed the trigger. Almost.
The two-gun thundered and Boss was caught off guard by the recoil. He completely lost his grip on the massive weapon, and his arm flew backwards with surprising violence. Strangely enough, the old man hadn’t reacted at all. He was just standing there with his sword extended, having apparently cut Boss’s desk through the middle. The girl seemed to be alright too. She just had her hands over her ears.
Boss noticed his hand had gone numb from the blast, and when he flexed it to check for damage, he noticed his hand wasn’t there anymore at all. Just a ragged mess of bone and pulpy flesh hanging where his wrist used to be.
“What in the world?” he said. Then he saw under the desk where the two-gun was all mangled and blown out, and it dawned on him that the old man hadn’t been so far off the mark after all. He’d cut clean through the two-gun and blown it up in Boss’s hand.
The old man finally relaxed from his stance and walked casually but confidently around Boss’s desk. He knelt over Cauld and whispered something.
“Who are you?” Boss asked. Or at least, that’s what he’d wanted to ask, but the words came out slurred and with too many syllables. He tried again with the same result.
“You’re going into shock,” the old man said quietly. He stood, and Boss saw he was holding his knife again. “There isn’t much time.”
The girl, sadly, was stranger neither to the violence she’d endured, nor to that which she’d just witnessed. And she knew in this case, as in most cases, the very best thing to do was to stand very still and to be very quiet. She kept her head down, and watched carefully out of the corner of her eye. The old man with the blindfold was crouching in front of the big man behind the desk. The one that was going to buy her. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked like Old Guy was talking and the buyer, well… if she didn’t know better she would’ve said he was crying. He looked over at her once with wet eyes.
After a minute or so, Old Guy stood up with his hand on the buyer’s shoulder. The girl had to see what was going on then. She dared to raise her head — just enough to get a better look. The buyer had Old Guy’s knife in his remaining hand and was just staring down at it. Old Guy stood over him, head bowed a bit. Maybe it was some kind of honor thing… not wanting to kill an unarmed man. Or maybe Old Guy was giving the buyer one last chance.
From that close, the girl figured the buyer could stick Old Guy pretty quick. Either way, she was feeling pretty good about her chances of escape; couldn’t be too hard to outrun a one-handed fat guy in the process of bleeding to death, or a blind old man — no matter how good he was with a sword.
She saw the buyer shift his weight and sit up a little straighter. He looked at her one more time and then nodded to himself. The buyer took a strong breath, exhaled sharply. He nodded again. And then plunged the knife into his own abdomen. In the next instant, Old Guy brought his sword up. The girl squeezed her eyes shut before it had a chance to come down again, but she heard the sound of steel through flesh and bone, and the thump of something falling to the floor.
That was the time to run. But the girl found herself frozen in place, not wanting to open her eyes and see what she knew she’d see. There were soft sounds she couldn’t identify, and the next thing she knew, she could feel the old man standing in front of her. And then he was kneeling.
“Don’t weep, child,” he said. “You are safe.”
His voice wasn’t particularly deep, but it was warm and kind, like a grandfather’s. She dared to open one eye. He was there, on a knee in front of her, his head tilted back slightly, looking up at her. Though he had the blindfold on, so obviously he couldn’t be looking up at her.
His hands moved up and she flinched reflexively. In response, he held his hands open, palms out, for a moment, before reaching out for her wrists. With skillful fingers, Old Guy went to work on the cords that bound her hands together, and she wondered at how well he could apparently feel the knot.
“Will your parents be looking for you?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“Have you any family left?”
“No.”
“Friends? Anyone to care for you?”
She said, “I take care of myself.” Old Guy reached up and began gently removing the collar. “You’re gonna let me go?”
“Of course, child. Do you have somewhere to go?”
The girl thought about that. It’d been three days since that man had caught her the second time, after she’d escaped the first. “Yeah, I know lots of places,” she lied. She’d figure it out. Always had. She walked over to the corpse of the man who’d caused her so much pain and sorrow over the last week. His eyes were still open. “I appreciate what you done.”
“It was necessary.”
“Yeah, well,” she said. She nudged the dead man with her toe, just to make sure. Then she bent and went through his coat pockets, taking back what was hers and some of what wasn’t. She found her eight-kilojoule pistol and checked the cylinder. Still had all eight rounds. “I don’t reckon you’re headed back south?” the girl asked.
She flicked the cylinder shut with a snap of her wrist and slid the weapon into her waistband. When she looked, she realized she was alone with a bunch of dead men. Old Guy was just gone.
She sniffed once and thought about checking out what was in that case on the desk. But then she remembered what was behind the desk and thought better of it. Better not to push her luck. Better to move on and find a place before nightfall. For one final time, the girl looked at the man who’d tried to sell her.
The girl cleared her throat. Spat right on his face. And set out once more on her own.
EIGHT
Cass surveyed the weary faces around the table. The Council had gathered yet again, this time before dawn, and patience was thin. Though saying they’d gathered was misleading, since they hadn’t ever departed after the chaos that erupted during Wren’s address. That had been intended to soothe fears and tensions. Instead, it had ignited them. Or rather, certain elements had chosen that particular moment to ignite them. Looking around that table, Cass couldn’t help but wonder who among them could be trusted. At the moment, she felt like there were none.