“Much better. I have work with the family for this weekend, and this little beauty will be just the ticket."
Rani’s face fell, knowing exactly what work with the family meant.
"The real thing, you know?” He caressed the sleek steel barrel of the heavy pistol, handling it with as much love as if it were a newborn baby. “The Ares Predator II, perfect smartgun link,” he beamed, holding out the handle to show her the interface. “And a fifteen-clip of armor-piercing! Real UCAS stock, none of that spamming East European imitation.” He flourished the vicious APDS bullets with an air of triumph. “You could knock a rhino over with this." He laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, if you could find a zoo that had a rhino left, you know? I’ll be busy this weekend, so you’re going to have to stay behind the bolts and chains and wait for your brother to bring back serious money!"
Rani did not reply. The moment he glanced up at her from his precious hardware, he saw by her crossed arms and the firm set of her jaw that she was prepared for a showdown. He decided to be reasonable first, insistent later.
"Let’s talk about it over dinner. You should honor your brother for doing his work. Where’s my dinner, woman?” He was trying to be jocular, and Rani acquiesced with the appearance of a real smile, but only for a fleeting moment. Imran knew that Sanjay wouldn’t be any help in his present state, so he scurried to the telecom while she went to the kitchen to dish out his food. He had just finished tapping in Aqib’s telecom code when Rani pressed the cancel button.
“No, brother. This one we will talk about alone.”
He had tried the standard appeals and tactics, praising her cooking beyond remotely plausible limits, telling her that handsome Ravi wanted to call on her this weekend, and then finally serving up his usual trump card of tradition. “We survive as family," he had pleaded. ‘‘Our customs and traditions keep us together. You bring me honor when you care for me in our home, which is your workplace. But the world is my domain. I am a man and that is my place. We survive because we hold to what is established, safe-real. Our father would not wish it otherwise.”
That had been unwise, and Imran regretted it immediately. Appealing to the authority of their dead father was a low blow. Tears formed in Rani’s eyes at the mere mention, but she would not budge.
“Imran, brother, if I were only a nice little sari-wearing gopi in the kitchen I would have been dead two days ago. I would have walked up the street to buy chicken and fish and they would have ripped me apart. I’m alive because I am not like that.”
"If you had stayed at home where you belong, you would not have been walking the streets at night at all! Perhaps they were the sort of men who attack the kind of filthy women who do that. One of them was killed that very same night, did you know that?" His disapproval was strong, but she had a crushing rejoinder.
“Me? Take me as a streetwalker? Who’d have me? I’m an ork. Who’d pay to have my body?" As she shook with anger and hurt, his arguments evaporated instantly. They had transformed together, brother and sister, and that bond was too close for him not to register her pain. He rose and took her gently into his arms, hugging her gingerly, but he sensed the strength in Rani that allowed her to express hurts he’d never been able to face within himself.
"I want to go with you," she said softly. “I want to help.”
“Rani. Sister. I fear for you, you know that. If you come with us. I will be so worried about you that I won’t be able to do my own job. Please, stay with Sanjay. You’ll be safe here." It wasn’t going to work, and he knew it.
“No. I’m coming. I can use a gun as well as you can. I’ll stay out of trouble, but I want to be there. Who could you trust more?"
He accepted defeat gracefully. “It will be family; Aqib, Wasim, and Sachin, maybe Rajiv if he can get away from that wife of his.” That broke the tension, leaving them laughing together at the thought of poor Rajiv and his huge, domineering wife who ruled the home as tyrannically as any corporate CEO.
"All right, then," Imran said finally. "The job is set for tomorrow. We’ll be using a friend of Mohsin’s for wheels, because the place is somewhere sixty miles north of here. All we have to do is take potshots at a suit visiting a laboratory. We don’t even have to hit him to make our money. I suppose they just want to put a good scare in him."
Rani was curious to know more. “Why you? Why not hire some slints from the Squeeze? That would be the obvious thing to do.”
“I guess it’s because the people racking up the nuyen know better than to do the obvious. They’re smart. I think I like working for smart people, judging by the size of the credstick. And we got a slice upfront plus the hardware. Rani, go see Old Chenka tomorrow. Ask for her blessing and a little something, huh?”
His sister smiled ruefully in reply. Chenka, ancient and toothless, always knew whenever the family was involved in a run because they always came to her for a blessing and one of her paper-wrapped herbal tuixtures. As always, they would sit in silence, drinking steaming green tea, the old woman rocking slightly in her chair and gazing fixedly at them with squinting, half-closed eyes. Seeing everything, most likely.
Imran had not told Rani the exact target of the run. He figured she didn’t need to know until they were well beyond the Smoke, safer because they’d be traveling by night. Otherwise, she might ask too many questions, and he wasn’t sure he’d have enough of the answers.
6
Geraint pushed his way through the bead curtain, past the main shop area, and sat down opposite the tiny elf. Skita, the long-haired black and white cat, strolled over, his splendid tail held proudly aloft, and parked himself on Geraint’s lap. The Welshman smiled, curling his fingertips around the cat’s ears and under his chin, the animal responding by closing his eyes and purring in pleasure. Serena returned his smile, sitting with her hands folded in her lap, the spell focus on the table between them.
As always, she had crafted it so lovingly that it was a thing of real beauty. She had chosen crystal, roseate quartz, and set it within a silver dragon’s claw. It also had a small clasp that would let him wear it on a silver chain or as a brooch. Serena always attended to such fine points whether in her work or in her appearance. Today she wore a flowing silk blouse and cotton skirt in tones of dark blue and ivory, the lines classically elegant. She also wore her azure spinel earrings. The deep blue of the stones matched her beautiful eyes, and flashed with tiny points of magical golden light. Serena’s head was tilted slightly to the left as she looked at him, and he wondered if she was using her magical skills to probe his mind.
“You’re looking tired, my lord." She used the formal term, without any mockery, when reproaching him. “There’s gray under your eyes. You’ve been spending all your time in the world of false power. You will have to let go of that or you will suffer."
She handed him a glass of sparkling iced liquid, cloudy apple juice settling in pure spring water, wonderfully cold and refreshing. He took a deep draught and relaxed back against the pile of cushions. Skita moved slightly, too, stretching out his front legs, licking the side of one paw to wash his ears. The animal seemed to especially enjoy cleaning himself when Geraint was wearing a dark suit, all the better a carpet to deposit white belly hairs. The cat purred with a deeper tone, but then seemed to think better of rolling over to have his belly rubbed. Skita preferred to hold on to his dignity until he was fully relaxed.
"It’s just that time of year, Serena. Lots of corps are finalizing the third-quarter turnovers and announcements, and it’s been busy in the House. But then you’d know that." More than a few elven nobles counted Serena as a good friend, and it was probably their influence that allowed her to operate beyond the rigid legal constraints of the Lord Protector’s Office. She didn’t always need to fill out the quadruplicate paperwork or obtain the full array of permits most registered talismongers needed in Britain’s highly regulated society.