Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (20 page)

“I.... didn’t expect you to know that much about her,” Cass said in shock, but Norris merely laughed the assumption away.

“Of course I do,” he said as he bit his lip in his anticipation.  “She’s
supposed
to be funny.”

“Ugh, well, fine, you know what Darrow’s about, but there’s no way you can even compare her works to the Fratellis,” the spotter said with a fair amount of condescension.

“I’m not saying you have to like their antics, Cass,” he started.

“Oh, I don’t,” she interrupted, but Norris continued to speak over her.

“But you can’t say they don’t know comedy.  Slapstick is a comedy art form that has been around since before the Greeks.  The Romans were all about it.  Shakespeare himself, God bless that poet, made a living promoting slapstick.  Humor need not always be high-brow or for the more affluent members of society.  There’s something to be said for a man getting slapped in the arse.  Humans are biologically-inclined to find humor in it,” Norris stated, but Cassandra wasn’t going to let that go.

“Biologically-inclined, Eddie?  How the hell are we biologically-inclined?” she asked with a small laugh.  Even with just that small sound Norris’ heart started to pump a little faster.

“It’s been around for millennia, girlie.  It’s deep in our nature,” he said, his thoughts elsewhere with the statement.

“We don’t have to give into our base nature, Eddie,” she started.

“Oh, yes we do,” he interrupted with a smile.

“Maybe you should look at Darrow agai- shit, ok, the mark’s here,” Cassandra said over the encrypted line.  Norris shrugged and looked through the scope, keeping his aim on the elevator door in the lobby.

“You see that black limo, Eddie?” she asked in a hushed voice, but Norris just smiled at that.

“Nope, not really on my agenda,” he said with a grin across his entire face.

“Ed-”

“Relax, Cassie.  He’s not going to get away,” Edward said as he peered through the scope.  It was a tense few seconds before he saw the skinny, bald man heading towards the golden elevators.  This man meant absolutely nothing to the red-headed killer, but it was Cassandra’s turn.  Edward had already used his on the owner of three luxury casinos on Zion.  In any case, Norris was going to make sure that the skinny man would not live another day.

“Ed!  C’mon, he’s right there,” Cassandra urged, but that only made Norris roll his eyes.

“Be patient, Cass.  I have a plan for this one.”

“He’s going to get away,” she whispered, but Norris just scoffed at the remark.  No one had ever gotten away.

He could hear Cassandra screaming into his earpiece, but Norris just watched as the skinny man got into the golden elevator with three armed thugs.  He wondered who the man was to Cassandra Rhodes.  Norris still heard the Mastodon criticizing him as he breathed out and pulled the trigger.  It was a short distance, so Norris didn’t have to adjust his aim very much.  He felt the recoil from the rifle and looked through the scope just in time to see the man’s neck bent backwards at a completely unnatural angle, a red pattern of gore decorating the wall behind him.  And only half a second later the golden doors of the elevator slid close in front of the man.

“Holy shit!” Cass cursed over the private line, which caused the sniper to grin even more.  He grabbed his gray luggage case, the two of them figured they should use a different case during these unsanctioned missions, and then headed to the stairwell before starting to pack up the weapon.

“Did you mean to do that?” Cassandra asked, unable to believe the skill that Norris possessed.  The killer only laughed at the question.

“Of course.  I didn’t accidentally pull the trigger, Cassie,” he said as he unscrewed the muzzle and placed it in the right spot.

“No, Eddie, I meant the elevator,” she said with slight annoyance, but Norris could tell that she was jubilant; excited, even.

“Hah, yeah, I thought it would be a nice touch.  And this way they’ll be so distracted that they won’t call the EOSF until the elevator gets to that cushy top floor of his,” the jester said as he placed the stock into the case and then removed the bandolier from his sleeve.

“Jesus, Eddie.  I thought you were going to fuck it up,” Cass said as she closed a door on her end.  Edward wondered briefly where the woman was, she hadn’t told him, but he pushed the thought from his mind and put the false bottom on top of his weapon.  He zipped up the luggage and then started down the stairs two at a time.

“You need to have more faith in me, girlie,” he said as he rounded the corner of the stairwell.  Even if she worried too much, Edward liked talking to Cassandra.  It was a dose of levity in a bleak world; in that way the two of them were kindred.

“You keep acting like this I might get some.  Though, if you do end up fucking it all up,” she started, but Norris only laughed and finished the thought.

“You’ll abandon me in a heartbeat.  I understand, Cassie,” he said as he pushed open the stairwell door and walked into the dirty air of Babylon.  He was walking by himself for a moment, dragging his luggage behind him, but soon he found a warm hand intertwining its fingers with his.  He looked over to see golden eyes and felt his heart skip a beat.

“I don’t think you do, Eddie.”

-

The room was swimming around him.  Edward Norris wondered how much he had to drink, but as he looked at the glass moving in front of him he realized that it used to be full.  Between the two of them there were only a few milliliters left and Cassandra was off in the kitchen grabbing another bottle.  Norris hadn’t known too many people to drink him under the table, but that was literally in a previous life.  This body didn’t have years of alcohol abuse or a liver that was used to detoxification.  Norris had tried to increase his tolerance when he got planet-side, but it seems that Cassandra had done a better job adjusting to their home planet.  It was all Norris could do to sit on the blue couch in the middle of the living room.

“Look, I’m JUST saying, you should give Darrow another shot!  Some of the stuff, some of what she says is really fuckin’ funny,” Cassandra said as she walked from the kitchen, already pouring tequila into one of the glasses she was holding with her right hand.  It was spilling over the lip of the glass, but Norris didn’t much care.  He wasn’t staring at the glass in her hand.

“Look, Cass, to me she’s just some pretentious, PSEUDO-intellelctual woahman who’s using her gender to justify bashing on men stereotypez,” Norris said, his speech slurring.  He was doing what he could to keep it together and look anywhere but into Cassandra’s ample cleavage.  The sniper wondered why she was wearing something so revealing.

“Pretentious?!  The FUCK are you talking about?  All she’s doing is pointing out shit that men have been doing for, like, thousands of yerrs,” Cassandra said, her words blending together, as well.  She punctuated her point by lifting the bottle and drinking straight from the container.  The warrior woman then brought it back, breathed in sharply, and then continued to pour the liquor into the other glass.  When she was finished she pushed it into Edward's hand.

“So what, girlie?  It’s not exactly like it’s,” Norris said before burping, “it’s not exactly like it’s the first time anybody’s done it,” he said as he noticed he was looking at her golden eyes instead, realizing that it was just as dangerous.  The Englishman looked around the woman’s apartment and appreciated her taste for aesthetics; which was to say none at all.  He liked the vacant walls, thinking that posters and pictures were just distractions from what really mattered.

“I’m saying that she tried to PORTRAY herself as this radical thinker, this paragon of womanly charm and sophistication and intellectualizm, but the woman is missing the point,” he shouted as his head swayed back and forth.  He brought the glass of tequila to his lips and sniffed, which was a mistake.  The smell of the terrible liquor was enough to make him mildly sick.  Fortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop him from swallowing another gulp of tequila after just a moment.

“And what is that, Ed-dy?” Cass asked, playing with the Englishman’s name.  Norris was about to respond, but he had completely forgotten what the point was.  He sat there for a moment trying to ponder what he was going for, but it seemed lost to time and alcohol.  Edward looked over at the beautiful woman curled up on the other end of the sofa and a completely different thought entered his head.

“Who did I kill today?” he asked, suddenly wary of why Cassandra was helping him with these unsanctioned hits.  Norris would have gone about it with more tact at another time, but the tequila was eradicating what little inhibitions he had.  The woman shifted for a moment, the smile faltering on her face, but she reached out her hand and brushed it against his arm.

“Don’t.... don’t worry about that Eddie.  He was a bad man and now he’s gone.  We don’t ever, ever have to think about him again, right?” she asked, the coy smile on her face begging him to drop the subject.

“I mean, this wasn’t,” he started, but she put her index finger to his lips and cocked her head to the side.

“He’s gone, Eddie, and next time it’s your turn.  I don’t ask about yours,” she said, trying to even the playing field, but Norris knew it was just a ploy.  He knew that he wasn’t hiding the nature of his targets.  But it was becoming more and more difficult to think about any of that.

“Yeah, but,” Norris started, but she just laughed at him and narrowed her gaze, the black eyeliner around her eyes contrasting the gold of her irises.

“Shush.  It’s over.  And we have more pressing matters,” she whispered.

“What are you,” he tried to say, but almost immediately he found her soft lips pressing against his mouth, forcing the words back to oblivion.  Norris gave in for a moment, the heat of her spreading through him, but soon he pushed her away and tried to desperately think about why he couldn’t be doing this.

“Cass, I can’t.  Abrams is,”

“What?  Pregnant?  Your girl?  She’s carrying another person’s baby,” she said, but Norris shook his head at that.

“We don’t know that, and we live together,” Norris said, but as he tried to look away he found himself staring at the woman’s curves, the swell of her breasts and the gap between them.  He looked up at the gorgeous woman on top of him and the breath caught in his throat.

“Eddie, you’re not meant for that.  You’re the kind of guy who breezes into town, finds a bed for the night and then moves on.  You’re a nomad, a warrior and a free spirit.  You don’t deserve to be tied down.  That’s not the kind of woman for you,” she stated as she started to draw closer to him.  Norris could feel the heat from her breath and was doing everything he could not to lean forward into her embrace.

“She and I,” he started, but she grabbed hold of his face with her two, soft hands.

“You don’t have to be with her.  There’s no obligation.  You can move on and be with the ones you deserve.  You can be with the people who know you for who you truly are,” Cassandra said as she maintained eye contact with the red-haired killer.  She kept her left hand on the right side of Edward’s face, but used her right to drag his hand and guide it between her legs.  The material between them was warm and burned away the thoughts in his mind.

“You can be with the kind of woman who understands you,” Cassandra said as she forced her mouth against Edward’s lips.  This time there was no resistance, no fleeting moments of obligation or rationality.

Her lips destroyed all thoughts.

-

The warehouse was dusty, had faulty wiring and a good amount of the window panes were broken, but Charles Kane thought it was beautiful.  He chose to look past the superficial failures of the building and instead looked to the worth of this haven of rebellious attitude.

It had been a week since he had run from the EOSF officers, and his new friends in this little group had welcomed him with open arms.  Charles looked like he came from money, but these men and women didn’t care about that.  They saw him stand up to a thug and found a kindred spirit in their discontent.  Charles stood up and they stood with him.

The accountant looked at the poster board in front of him.  It was quaint by any standard; plain white glossy paper with bold lettering. 
A Return To Justice
was written on the poster, a sentiment that Charles had thought up all by himself.  All of the dissidents had tried to create their own personal messages, but they all meant the same thing.  The EOSF was out of control, and it was high time that they brought it back down to size.  Charles and his new friends were absolutely tired of being afraid of the people that were supposed to protect them.

He had been home every night since the incident, but he couldn’t stand to stay in his cold house for very long.  Charles barely slept anymore, always thinking up the next plan or protest.  Early in the insurgency the EOSF had taken to arresting protestors on sight, but they had proven to be too numerous and crowded the prison system.  Mr. Kane could make his public stand and there wouldn’t be too much in the way of consequences.