Alex Bledsoe - Burn Me Deadly

Angelina picked up the coin. “For Gary, that speech was medal-level bravery. And since he paid for his own drink, he must be really scared.” She tucked the coin somewhere out of sight, wiped his spittle from the bar and looked at me. “And since you won’t take his advice, what are you going to do?”

“Right now he’s going home,” Liz said. “Finish your drink and let’s go.”

“She sounds like your mother,” Angelina said.

“And in bed she sounds like yours,” I said. Angelina’s harsh laugh trailed us out the door.

When we reached our building, I was surprised to see Liz’s wagon and horses tied up outside it. I’d been so preoccupied by the emergency that I hadn’t noticed them before. The animals whinnied and tossed their heads when they saw her, but she ignored them and helped me up the stairs. “Is that your wagon?” I asked needlessly.

“Yeah. Didn’t feel like walking all the way from the office.”

“That’s lucky,” I said. Normally both wagon and horses would’ve been at the livery stable. “You bring home your most important assets just before your office burns down.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” she agreed, with no sign of suspicion or guilt. She opened the door and went in ahead of me. While she lit the lamp, I undressed at the door and dropped my smoke-ruined clothes atop my earlier bloodied ones. At this rate I’d need a whole new wardrobe before the week was out.

I fell across the bed yet again, adding soot and sweat to the bloodstains I’d left there earlier. The muscles of my chest hurt when I coughed and the back of my head throbbed anew. My knuckles ached whenever I moved my fingers. Liz poured me a drink of water, handed it to me, then went to the window. The glow had almost vanished, and she had to lean far out to see past the corner. “Looks like they’ve kept it from jumping to any of the other buildings.”

“Good,” I said.

She turned and sat on the windowsill, her eyes on me. “That was, by any conventional wisdom, a thoroughly dumb-assed thing to do. I knew you were going in, but I didn’t expect you to have to be carried out.”

I nodded, and coughed. “Me, neither.”

“In the last month you’ve scared the daylights out of me more than anyone ever has. I’d really rather you not, from now on.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” I croaked.

“It never is. That’s pretty damn little comfort, though.”

She crossed the room and knelt beside the bed. It reminded me of the way she’d looked when I woke up at the hospital. “I’m not some giggly girl, Eddie. I fell in love with you with my eyes open. I’m not asking you to change, just… remember that your actions affect someone else almost as much as they do you.”

I stroked her hair. It was damp with sweat. “I will,” I said softly. But all I could see in my mind was her talking to the old man with gloves, and all I heard was her lying about it.

The next morning the ruins of the livery stable were still smoking. So was Liz; just before dawn she awoke me by draping her long bare leg over mine, while her hands brought me to life despite a colossal collection of aches and pains. Certain parts of me stirred before my consciousness, so we were actually in the midst of, ahem, battle before I was fully aware. Her skin smelled of sweat, smoke and something deliciously, uniquely her; I let my hands and mouth devour it with all my remaining gusto. She was no tentative, inexperienced girl, and knew how to get what she wanted while making sure I wasn’t shortchanged, either. It was intense, quiet and with the hint of violence along the edges that we both seemed unable to avoid. Neither of us minded.

By the time we finished, sunrise peeked through the window and illuminated air still hazy with diffused smoke. I smiled at the thought that maybe we had generated it. Liz drifted back to sleep, but I was restless. I slipped out of bed and looked outside. The streets were empty; well, unless you counted the half-dozen drunks passed out in the well-trampled earth. It had been a dry couple of weeks, or else these poor bastards would’ve found themselves waking up in six inches of mud. The fire’s smell permeated everything.

My muscles and joints were not happy with me. Every movement reminded me of what I’d gone through yesterday and last night, and I choked down the grunts and groans they inspired. I started the fire in the stove and put water on to heat. There was actually a slight chill in the room; this would be the only cool part of the day, vanishing as soon as the sun rose high enough to reach over the buildings.

I turned and stopped, momentarily transfixed by the sight of Liz. Sprawled on her back, one arm over her eyes and a foot dangling off the edge of the bed, she again looked golden, like a treasure. I watched her breasts rise and fall as she breathed, and unbidden, the memory of the time I’d seen her identical twin sister naked returned vividly to me. It was a lifetime ago, of course; Cathy Dumont was dead over a decade now. But she lived on in my memories, and her shade grew incrementally stronger the longer I kept the secret from Liz.

Would I ever work up the nerve to tell her? Did I need to? I was used to keeping secrets, especially my own, but this was the first time I had to decide if something really qualified as a secret. I’d never been intimate with Cathy, and had not been present at her death, but as far as Liz and her family knew, Cathy had simply vanished years ago. Did I owe it to them to resolve their memories? Or, given the circumstances surrounding her death-decapitated in a bathtub by a mercenary I subsequently killed-was ignorance better for all concerned?

Liz shifted on the bed, dislodging the sheet and showing me a smooth unbroken line of flesh from ankle to shoulder. As my eyes traveled up her skin, I realized her own were open and regarded me with wry amusement.

“Most people pay when they go to a show,” she said sleepily.

“I already paid you this morning.”

She smiled and stretched, revealing even more pale skin. “That you did, my friend.”

I put some tea in two cups and poured hot water into them. She smiled and blew me a kiss when I handed one to her. Patches of sweat still gleamed on her pale skin and lightly freckled shoulders as she sat on the edge of the bed. She took a sip, sighed contentedly; then her expression grew serious. “I should go see if anything’s salvageable at my office. And find somewhere to stable my horses.”

That comment brought back every bit of the previous night’s doubt and worry, which I’d completely put out of my mind. She stood, picked up the heated kettle and went into the next room. I heard water splashing as she washed up.

I stared down into my own tea, my appetite suddenly gone. “Good thing you brought the wagon home.”

“Yeah, if I hadn’t been so beat from that run to Pema, I wouldn’t have.” She leaned out, her wet upper body sparkling in the morning light. “Funny how things happen like that, isn’t it?”

I nodded. She resumed washing.

After she left I also washed up. The soap and water cleaned out all the minor cuts I’d accumulated, and there were a lot of them. With Liz gone I was free to curse and wince as much as I wanted. I applied some of the moon priestess salve to the worst of them, although after a good night’s sleep they’d scabbed over pretty well on their own.

My knuckles, as expected, were swollen and bruised. I could still make a fist, and grab my sword hilt, but I doubted my grip was up to too many parries.

I got dressed and formulated a plan. Well, sort of a plan. Actually more of a next step. As in the next step a blind man locked in a dark room might take as he looked for a key that wasn’t there. The dragon people were connected to Gordon Marantz, which meant he was connected to the death of Laura Lesperitt. That explained why Argoset and the Sevlow big shots might be interested, too. What I didn’t know was why, and it seemed Marantz would be the best one to ask about it. So it was time to find him.