Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

Domino Tight did not think that anyone was cowering. The return fire was too crafty, too focused. He followed the pointing arm. Yes, there was Epri on the rooftop, sheltering behind an air regenerator with three of his own magpies. A remote-controlled fire center had him neatly interdicted. He could neither advance nor withdraw.

“I entreat you, Lady,” said Pendragon, more politely if a bit peremptorily, “to act posthaste.”

Domino Tight stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Pendragon. When he was within arm’s reach, he pulled the Cloak away and pressed the nub of his knife against the man’s belly. “So I shall,” he said, and extended the blade to maximum.

Dispersal armor was well and good against energy weapons, and its thixotropic properties made it useful against moderate velocity projectiles. But for bladed weapons, the Shadows liked to say, you may as well wear cotton.

The blade squeezed between the threads of the armor and shot through Pendragon. He spasmed, arched backward. The blade exited high from his back, and Domino saw the incredulity in his eyes. “But … you’re dead,” he heard the dead man say. Then he nubbed the blade and Pendragon Jones crumpled to the ground.

“Those reports,” Domino told the corpse, “were greatly exaggerated.”

He had seized the man’s link from his hand as he fell and now spoke into it, modulating his speaker to imitate Pendragon’s voice. “Mums! Fall back!” he said. “We are betrayed!”

At this, the right flank of the assault began to dissolve, as the magpies there in swift obedience to their master’s voice began to withdraw. But Domino Tight saw one of the fighters with Ravn fall and he aimed a bolt at Epri on the roof. Epri, caught from an unguarded quarter, spun and fell.

Domino Tight saw a shimmering in the air on the rooftop, like a heat ghost.

Ah, that is what Pendragon had meant! He blinked his eyes as Tina Zhi had taught him and the whole vista faded to gray scale in which one solitary figure stood out. It was the woman that Tina had shown him, Jimjim Shot, and she was bending to tend to the wound that Epri had sustained. With her left hand, she maintained an inaccurate harassing fire on Olafsdottr’s squad.

The woman was bilateral, then, but not a trained fighter. The Mayshot Bo, Tina had told him, dealt with control of the arts, as the Gayshot Bo dealt with the control of technology. He took aim at her.

He did not fool himself. He knew he was about to fire on a Name. But then, what was this rebellion about if not overthrowing the Names? Why quail at this? Was it only long conditioning that held Those persons sacrosanct?

No, it was a sin to mar such perfect beauty. The lenses by which he saw through her Cloak revealed all. There was not a blemish upon her.

Automatically, he calculated distance and adjusted the power on his dazer so that it would burn, but not kill.

“Do it,” he heard Tina Zhi’s voice say. Disconcertingly, that voice came through his own lips. “Before she can take the quondam route.”

Domino Tight sucked in his breath. His arm wavered, then steadied.

And then Jimjim Shot stood up and away from Epri and stared directly at him, and her eyes were the red of flame. She saw him and saw his lust and saw his hesitation, and her lip curled in contempt, and she raised a weapon that Domino Tight did not recognize.

And Domino Tight shot her in the face.

The scream unnerved the battlefield, for it seemed to come from nowhere. It was a scream of surprise and anger and pain; and both sides in the firefight hesitated, creating for a moment a simulacrum of truce.

Inside the warehouse, where Oschous Dee Karnatika directed the defense, the fox-faced Shadow took a report from Ravn, who was outside and under desperate straits. “Oschous,” she said, “the mums are withdrawing. There is confusion on their right. I thought I saw someone fall from behind the guardhouse. Could have been Pendragon. And three or four of his boys that I had marked, they haven’t moved in a while.”

“That might be tactical,” Oschous warned her.

“Might be, but I think one of ours is out there behind their lines. Someone took a couple shots at Epri up on the roof, and it wasn’t us. Do you think one of the boys in the sniper’s nest survived?”

“I don’t think,” Oschous told her. “I count the dead. But … The iron’s hot, however the fire was blown.” He switched links to Big Jacques’s channel. “Jacques? It’s time.”

Domino Tight watched the Beautiful Name scream and clutch at her face, and he wept that her beauty had been destroyed, for it was more a desecration than an honorable blow. Over the mum link, he heard Magpie Two Pendragon rallying the remainder of his flock. They would learn the deception soon enough. Number One Pendragon was undoubtedly making his way to the guardhouse to verify in person the order to withdraw from the fight. That made this a place not to be.

Below the rooftop where Epri had crouched, some taijis had noticed the disruption and had glimpsed Domino Tight when he had opened his Cloak to stab Pendragon. Two were directing speculative fire at his position, so he shifted to the other side of the guardhouse and went to ground. If he played it right, he might get the taijis to fire on Chrysanthemum One when he arrived.

Domino Tight was still using the special lenses, and so saw a second cloaked figure appear on the rooftop, one who in appearance might have been a male version of Jimjim Shot. Perhaps a fraternal twin; or an identical twin altered in the womb. He rushed to aid the Beautiful Name, and Epri himself scrambled back from the rage in his eyes. Yes, thought Domino Tight. Take her away from this. It is not mete that she should be here.

The newcomer seemed altogether more accustomed to a battle and bore the instruments of valor on his belt. He knelt by Jimjim, touched her gently, and then glared across the battle space with the pitiless gaze of a raptor.

And his eyes found Domino Tight. His mouth set into a grim line and he spoke into his balled fist. Then with calm deliberation, he lifted a hand weapon of unfamiliar design. Death was no more than Domino Tight deserved for marring the perfect beauty of Jimjim Shot, but long years of training in the Abattoir had given his body a will of its own and he raised his own dazer and fired first.

Perhaps it was surprise that he saw in the face of the man of golden bronze, as if he had not expected so defiant an act. If so, it was followed closely by the rage it had momentarily displaced. Domino’s bolt had no apparent effect on him, and he continued to aim.

Domino Tight cloaked himself and ran in a random direction, knowing that he was surely visible to the man of the roof. He changed directions like a rabbit, using the random number generator in his shenmat. Then something hit him hard and he flew aside as if swatted by a great open hand.

It might have been a fatal swat, had his gyros not stabilized his flight and brought him down on crouching feet directly beside Ravn Olafsdottr and three of Oschous’s magpies. He staggered, blocking two of their shots and taking a third on his dispersal armor before he could identify himself.

“Well, well,” said the Ravn, who alone had not fired. “You are quite spry, Domino Tight, for a dead man.”

Big Jacques and most of his magpies had waited in his main headquarters until he had been certain that Sèanmazy had committed herself to attacking the decoy. As soon as he had learned that Pendragon had taken down Domino Tight and most of his boys in one fell swoop, he had sent two more magpies to the decoy site with orders to simulate greater activity, had shut down the link to the main site, and had folded up shop.