Endgame (35 page)

“Does anyone bother to consider that Tsecha wouldn't want this?” Jani paused to breathe as her heart monitor once more beeped a warning. “He was Vynshà. They're his people. Do you think if he were alive now he'd let this happen?”

“He's dead.” Lucien shrugged. “What he'd think doesn't matter.”

“So it's come to that already?”

“Ani is saying that history is repeating. You did the same thing at Knevçet Shèràa. Drew down fire. You killed Rikart Neumann, and because you did that, Acton van Reuter had to act, had to order Evan to take care of you. You force people to do things they don't want to do because you don't know when to lay low. When to lay off.” Lucien tugged at his lid's gold braid too hard, ripping it away from the brim. He swore under his breath and massaged the cording with his thumb, trying to work it back into place. “You always have to push.”

“You've made your point.”

“Have I? Is it really getting through?”

Jani watched him set his lid back on the bench beside him, then lean forward again, hands flexing. “Lucien?”

He raised his head and looked at her. His eyes glittered like the stones that lined the bottom of the pond, dark and cold and devoid of life.
“What?”

Jani sighed as she felt the last piece in a long running puzzle slip into place.
I always knew it would come to this.
Always knew that someday, the man who had spent his life playing all sides of the game would eventually make a choice. “Speaking hypothetically, of course, because it's all I can do to get up out of this chair. But if I were to attempt to run out of this garden right now, I wouldn't make it to the entry, would I?”

“Ani prefers Feyó.” Lucien fixed on the fish again. “Feyó knows something of how humans operate, but she's not an expert. Ani thinks she'll have an easier time manipulating her if you're not around.” He smiled, shook his head. “No, that's not all of it. Ani hates you and wants you dead.”

Jani nodded. Odd, that she didn't feel scared. That she
didn't feel angry or betrayed. That she didn't feel the least urge to fight for her life.
I'll be able to apologize to Tsecha in person for destroying his people.
And to the d'Abos, and the Seligs, and the other passengers of the
Capria
. As for the pain or the sensations, well, she'd died often enough to have felt them all at least once. The only thing she had yet to experience was that last letting go, and odds were that it would slip right past without her realizing.
Paying forward for the millions.
Yes, it was right. Yes, it was just. Insufficient repayment, but all she had to offer. All she had to give.

“I've risked everything I ever wanted, everything I ever earned.” Lucien picked up a stone and hurled it into the midst of the fish, sending them darting back to the rocks as water splashed. “And every goddamned time, I'd have to stand there and listen as you told me that whatever I did, it wasn't enough. Not enough risk. Not enough blood. You're not running for your life this week, so you can't be serious. What the hell else do you want from me?”

“Not a thing.” Jani shook her head. “Not anymore.”

Lucien bulled on with no indication that he'd heard. “I can't be what you want me to be—I'm not made that way. I can't say what you want me to say. I can't feel what you want me to feel.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don't love you.”

“I should have realized when you told me all about assassins who needed to get close to their victims that you were trying to tell me something. If I made a list of all our encounters since Elyas, I would guess that each one was an opportunity you let slip. The clinch on the catwalk—that was your best shot, I think. Overcome by guilt over the
Capria,
bit of a push and over the railing she went. Clear case of suicide. No wonder Anais seemed so upset each time she saw me. I wasn't supposed to survive the journey here, was I?” Jani took as deep a breath as she dared, then slid to the edge of the chair. “Well, you'll do the job good and proper now, and you'll be set for life. Ani will never question you again. Hell, she'll probably write you into her will.” Using the chair arms
for support, she worked to her feet. Then she undid the collar of her pajama top and pushed back the collar of her robe, exposing the area around her neck.

Lucien straightened. “What are you doing?”

“Would it be easier if I turned my back?” Jani turned to face the garden entry, then reached up and tapped the place where her neck and shoulder met. “I've done this before, so watch where I'm pointing. Edge of your hand, right here.” She lowered her hands and clasped them in front of her, then stilled. Strange how she'd never felt so calm. She had no trouble keeping the cardiomonitor silent. “I'll keep looking straight ahead. The sun's in just the right position—I won't even see your shadow. One hard shot, Lucien. All that stands between you and everything you ever wanted.”
And between me and everything I deserve.

Nothing, for long seconds. Then she heard him rise, the crunch of the soles of his polished tie-tops against the stone rim of the pond. Sensed him close in, as she always could, and shut her eyes.

Felt him grip her shoulders and ease her around to face him. Opened her eyes as first he pulled her pajama top closed, then straightened the collar of her robe. He didn't look her in the face. He barely looked at her at all.

Then, his ministrations completed, he rested his hands on her shoulders for a scant moment, before letting them slide away. “Happy now?” He stood before her, head bowed, then circled around her and started toward the other end of the garden.

“You—” Jani inhaled. This time her heart skipped, stuttered. The edges of her sightline blackened and her knees buckled.

Lucien caught her before she hit the ground, and lowered with her. Held her, drew her closer, and pressed his lips to the place were her neck and shoulder met.

“So you're going to kill me after all.” Jani heard the cardiomonitor start to skitter. “You've just settled on your weapon of choice.”

“I learned from an expert.” Lucien's arms tightened as he hugged her closer.

“Damned fool.”

“No argument there.”

“Let her go.”

Jani saw John push through the garden gate, Val at his heels. She sagged against Lucien, felt the hybrid lawn prickle through her pajamas. “He's not doing anything.”

“There's something wrong with her.” Lucien released her and scuttled backward as Val and John linked arms beneath Jani's legs and behind her back and hoisted her up. “She's not her usual self.”

“If you had a twelve centimeter gash in your gut courtesy of a Sìah barbed blade and a hole in your heart that didn't want to close, you wouldn't be your usual self either.” John glared at Lucien as he and Val maneuvered Jani back to her chair and lowered her into it. “Perhaps you'd like to experience the sensation firsthand?”

“John.” Jani laid her head back. “Shut up.”

“Jani, you can't afford—”

“Just shut—” She grabbed the front of his medcoat and shook as hard as she could. “—up.”

“That sounds more like—” Lucien fell silent as both John and Val turned on him.

Jani looked past her twin guardians to her singular—what was he? Ally? Lover? Never a friend.
Just…Lucien
. “Do you have a skimmer?”

Lucien nodded. “I can get one.”

Jani slapped the sides of her chair, then jerked her thumb at the garden gate. “I have to go to the enclave and get Dathim and Meva out.”

“You're not going anywhere,” John said as he checked the various analyzers on the chair.

“I'm going to the enclave to get Dathim and Meva.” Jani stared at the side of John's face until he finally looked at her. “Then I want to talk to Wuntoi.”

“He's been advised not to talk to you.” Lucien stood off to one side, hands behind his back.

“Then we're going to have to persuade him otherwise.” Jani tugged on John's sleeve. “John.”

“You're in no condition.” Val picked up the standard while his colleague fussed with a balky readout.

“Just give me something to get me through.”

John's head came up, eyes blazing.
“That's not how I work.”

“Just get me through the next twelve hours. If I can't get something started by then…” Jani took John's hand and squeezed. Felt the initial resistance, the slow softening.

His eyes brimmed. “You were all I cared about.”

“I know. That was the problem, wasn't it?” Jani leaned close enough to kiss. “Whatever it takes. Please.”

“The dominant's name is ná Dena Lau.” Scriabin read the name off his handheld display, and did a decent job of pronunciation. “Ava always found her quite reasonable, but now that she has a possible death sentence in her future, all bets are off. Word is that if she cooperates with Wuntoi, he'll exile her enclave instead of killing them.”

Jani pondered the view through the skimmer window. City Center appeared much as it always had, the walkways filled with both bornsect and Haárin, all proceeding in an apparently orderly manner.

“Jan?”

Jani touched her ear. “I'm here.”

“I'm with Galas…”
Niall paused, said something to the Haárin male.
“We're north of the Temples, near the site of your Sermon on the Park Bench. Lots of Haárin gathered here, and more streaming in from the surrounding streets.”

Jani looked to the north, past the domes and spires of the City Center. Imagined Niall guiding the small two-seater along the river, Galas riding shotgun. “Any Pathenrau security?”

“A few. No warriors, though. Galas said that he heard they were calling up a few brigade equivalents from the southern encampments in preparation for—”

Jani waited. Tapped her ear a few times. “Niall?”

“In preparation for the slaughter.”
A shaky sigh.
“Jesus Christ, there are kids out here. Youngish. Some of them can't even walk yet.”
Another pause.
“We're going to get started here. Feyó's crew has shown up. What's your timing?”

Jani checked the view. “Coming up on the enclave now.” She tapped the bug, shutting it down. She didn't want a stream of Niall-speak interrupting her, distracting her. She still felt tired, despite the stimulant John had reluctantly given her.
As for the wound…
She reached beneath her shirt and touched the bandage, a mass of sensor wrap and healing accelerants that sent out signals, she felt sure, to anyone with a handheld who wanted to know the state of her heart.

“You all right?”

Jani looked over at Val, who watched her from the other end of the seat. “I'm fine.”

“Then why do you keep touching it?”

“Just to drive you crazy.”

“Already there.” Val entered a notation in his handheld. “Bobbing along like a ping-pong ball in your wake.”

“I know the feeling, Doc.” Scriabin looked up from his handheld and gazed out the window. “She makes Tyotya Ani seem meek and retiring.”

“You can both shut up any time now.” Jani scooted to the edge of her seat as the embassy double-length floated to the curb. The driver's side gullwing swung up, releasing a uniformed Lucien, who hurried around to her side of the vehicle and opened the door.

Jani emerged, taking Lucien's offered hand and holding on tight because she needed the support. Continued to lean on him as she slowly straightened while trying to ignore the pull of bandages and healing tissue. Her propitiator's overrobe, a clean backup she'd salvaged from the depths of her luggage, unfurled to her knees.

A crowd gathered, Haárin and bornsect both, ripples of hushed speech propagating as she walked to the enclave entry.
I don't look too bad for someone who died three days
ago, do I?
She squeezed Lucien's hand, and he released her and stepped to the side, far enough away so that she appeared fully ambulatory, but close enough to catch her in case the unthinkable happened and she collapsed.

She reached the gate just as ná Dena emerged, a middle-aged female wearing the headwrap and rough clothes of a laborer.

“Glories, Kièrshia.” Dena spoke Low Vynshà Haárin, a language stripped of gesture. She looked Jani in the eye as well, her Vynshà gold laced with amber and streaks of brown. “I know why you are here. I can do nothing. NìRau Wuntoi compels. I must obey. Ní Dathim and ná Meva must remain until all is decided.”

Jani started to speak, then stopped as cold sweat broke out and flecks of light shimmered in her sightline.
Not now, goddamn it.
She bent forward at the waist. Hunched her shoulders. Prayed as she never prayed before that Dena would interpret her posture as growing rage, not an attempt by a weak half-humanish to remain standing by any means possible.

Saw the brown-streaked gold flicker, and knew her prayer had been answered, at least for the moment. “Blood trade, Dena. You hold them for Wuntoi, he lets your enclave leave Shèrá. But if you leave, and Vynshà here die, all will know you betrayed. All will know, because I will tell them.” She heard Lucien shift his feet, and knew he understood enough of what she said to glean the threat.
Too harsh? Too bad.

Dena's shoulders started to curve. “Tell what you will, to who you will. NìRau Wuntoi said that they were of ní Tsecha, and ní Tsecha died.”

“So?” Jani parsed Wuntoi's words, searching for the slant he'd given them, the meaning that would have convinced Dena to imprison her own.

Then it hit her like a blow. Her heart stuttered.
“He told you they helped kill ní Tsecha?”
She drew up straight without thinking, looked to the sky, felt the pain across her midriff like the swipe of claws. “They both lived here once.” She
rounded her shoulders again, stepping away from Lucien as he edged closer. “You knew them.”

Dena nodded. “I know of Meva.” The harmonics of irritation in her voice indicated that she had known Meva all too well.

“You know she studied ní Tsecha's writings, that she followed him.”

“Yes, ná Kièrshia, but—”

“You know ní Dathim, the tilemaster?”

“All know ní Dathim.” This time the tone was softer, kinder.

“You say this. Yet you believe that this ní Dathim who you know would participate in secret killing? That ná Meva, who one can hear through walls, would do so as well? Ní Dathim would face you in the circle and strike you down—” Jani poked Dena in the chest hard enough to jostle her. “—and ná Meva would talk you to death, but she would never strike in secret.”

“NìRau Wuntoi will slaughter us as we did the Laum.” Dena's eyes darkened. Yes, she was of an age. She may have witnessed. She may have even participated.

“Wuntoi will slaughter—no one.” Jani stopped to breathe. “Give them to me now, and I will guard you as I guard them. I will guard all Vynshà as I guard them.”

Dena looked to the street, the idomeni who crowded from three sides. “NìRau Wuntoi will hear you,” she said in halting English. “But will he listen?”

Jani nodded. That was the sticking point, the one thing in all this that she could work for, but not guarantee. “If I can't save you, I'll die with you. This I swear, on Tsecha's soul.”

Dena stood quiet, her eyes fixed on nothing. Then she gestured to her suborn, a hulking male who gestured affirmation, then reentered the enclave. A few minutes later he emerged, Dathim and Meva in tow.

Meva grabbed Jani's sleeve and made as if to speak, but Jani shook her off. “Get into the skimmer,” she said in Sìah
Haárin. “Before they change their minds.” The two followed Lucien to the vehicle, piling into the rear seat while Jani walked toward the crowd. They pushed forward as she approached, a few raising their arms above their heads in displays of abject respect.

“I have taken ní Dathim Naré and ná Meva Tan.” Jani spoke High Vynshà, every word replete with change in posture and gesture. “They were ní Tsecha's, as was I. Now they are mine. I care for that which is mine.” She paused, until the tension ramped and it seemed as though the air itself would shatter under the stress. “Line the streets from Council to the river, where I met some of you four days past. Do this in the time after mid-afternoon sacrament. I will await you there.” With that, she turned and swept back to the skimmer. Waved off Lucien's offered arm, maintaining her show of strength until he closed her gullwing after her. Then she slumped forward, arms crossed over her stomach, while Val knelt on the skimmer floor in front of her, handscanner at the ready.

“John is going to have a fit when he sees these numbers.” He checked her vitals, then dragged a slingbag from beneath the seat. “What was that all about? A meeting by the river? Who are you expecting?” He pulled out an injector already loaded with a cartridge, pushed up Jani's right sleeve and pressed the device to her skin. “You can't take much more of this, you know? If John doesn't come up with the right protein soon, we're going to have to open you up again.”

Meva and Dathim sat on the opposite bench seat, crowding Scriabin on both sides. Dathim watched the medical ministrations with the skeptical eye of an owner who wondered if his horse would make it through the race. “The Vynshà will not die as did the Laum.” His voice was a rumble. “They will take as many with them as they can.”

“No one will have to die. Not even me.”
I hope.
Jani sagged against the seat as whatever Val dosed her with took effect. “Now here's what I need you all to do…”

The skimmer pulled away from the curb, its progress slowed to a walking pace by the idomeni who crowded in from every side, touching the vehicle as it drifted past, like a talisman.

 

By the time they reached the river, Niall, along with Feyó's crew, had completed their end of the project. The awning they'd erected on the edge of the river proved a drab thing in dark grey, which Jani suspected had been creatively reappropriated from Rauta Shèràa Base stores by a certain colonel of her acquaintance.

“Afternoon, gel.” Niall strode beneath the awning, clip-wrench still in hand. He tossed the tool aside and helped Val and Scriabin maneuver a skimchair out of the skimmer boot, eyeing Jani all the while. “You've looked better, you know.”

“I've felt better.” Jani sat in the chair as soon as Val activated it. “Is she here?”

Niall stepped back outside and motioned to someone standing alongside the awning. “Your turn.”

A shadow moved along the fabric wall. Then a small face framed with dark brown curls peeked around edge of the polycloth.

“Come on in, gel. She only bites if you bite first.” Niall gripped the young woman's sleeve and tugged her inside. “This is Bailey Schiff, an enterprising stringer for Chan-Net, who has already imaged one event of the century and is ready to move on to bigger things.”

“It's good to—” The young woman held out a hand to Jani, her eyes widening. “—meet. You.”

“Thank you for agreeing to this.” Jani gave Schiff's hand a squeeze, because the young woman looked like she needed it. “If this goes according to plan, you won't have to do anything.”
We won't think about what will happen if it doesn't.
“All you'll have to do is stand near my chair.”

“And an exclusive interview after it's over,” piped Schiff, her nervousness evaporating like morning dew in the Rauta Shèràa sun.

“And an exclusive interview after it's over.” Jani turned her chair around and motioned to Lucien. “You should get going.”

“Are you sure he'll be there?” Lucien's voice emerged tight, his business-as-usual facade showing its first crack. “You never contacted him. You never asked for a meeting.”

“If he looks out the window, he can see what's going on.” Jani heard a rise of voices, looked out to the river to see that the crowd had doubled in size in the few minutes since their arrival. “He'll be there.”

“From your mouth…” Lucien lapsed into French as he returned to the skimmer and got in.

Jani watched him pull away. Saw Meva's face in the rear window and raised a hand. Felt a flicker of relief when the female bared her teeth and waved back.

“Ava received a communication this morning.” Scriabin grabbed a folding stool from a stack and shook it open. “Li Cao is still insisting that this is an idomeni matter.”

“I'm sure she has her reasons.” Jani edged her chair behind the draped fold of the awning, then rolled up her sleeve so Val could give her another injection.

“If you pull this off…” He shook his head and concentrated on positioning the injector.

Jani winced as the injector pinched, sighed as the drug warmth wandered up her arm. Watched the street that stretched from the enclave to the river, already obscured by the idomeni who gathered there. “Did you bring it?”

Val sighed. “It's right here.” He reached into his slingbag, pulled out the plastic hospital dispo bag and handed it to her.

 

“He's coming.” Niall appeared at the front of the awning. “Pascal picked him up at the front of the Council building. He drove him as far as the enclave, then let him off. Dathim and Meva are leading him here.”

“Through the crowds?” Jani smiled.

Niall touched his ear, listened for a moment, then nodded.
“It's just like it was in the station. They've closed in on both sides—there's barely enough room for him to pass.”

“Well, time to get ready for company.” Jani shifted her weight so the chair tipped forward and stood.

Niall gaped.

It had taken Val the better part of the day to find the clothes Jani had worn the day she killed Rilas and Cèel. They had been bundled into a biohazard bag during her pre-surgical prep and avoided the incinerator through sheer happenstance. Permanent bends and ripples had been created in the shirt and the front of the trousers by Jani's and Cèel's dried blood. The overrobe, streaked with Rilas's blood, had fared a little better, but still looked like something that had been used to wrap a butchered animal.

“Jani?” Scriabin licked his lips. He'd watched her remove the garments from the bag and put them on, and still hadn't recovered. “Do you think it wise to greet a new Oligarch while wearing clothes soaked in his predecessor's blood?”

Jani bared her teeth. “Welcome to Shèrá, Your Excellency.”