Thrill-Kinky (6 page)

Drax smiled. “There’s some questionable footage of me floating around the Galaxinet already, so I wouldn’t much care if Rita doesn’t. But I’ll do what I can to see your crew is suitably recompensed for your trouble.”

Mik shook his hand. “Deal. We’re all angry enough at being screwed over that we’d do this one for free. Still, paid is better. Plus, fast healer or not, you’re a little battered for holo-porn at the moment.”

Formalities out of the way—and being teased about sex by Mik passed as a formality aboard the
Malcolm
—Mik announced grandly, “Buck, make dinner. Rita, fire up the projection device. It’ll actually work for you. It’s time to plot and scheme.”

Drax was considerably more comfortable now. He’d taken only enough pain blockers to take the edge off, and topicals on the worst wounds, but that helped. Plenty of food and water had done the rest. The food was hardly gourmet, but Buck was surprisingly good at turning nutri-base into something edible by adding spices and a few fresh ingredients. Someone, probably Rita, had adjusted the
Malcolm
’s gravity so he felt less weighed down. It wasn’t as low as home, but the improvement was noticeable, and not just for him. Buck was moving more gracefully on his prosthetic. As for Xia, she’d literally been bouncing off the walls until Mik scruffed her like a misbehaving kitten, marched her over to a chair and said, “Play later.”

She whined, “Oh, Dad! You’re no fun!” and stuck out a slightly fuzzy pink tongue, but obeyed.

The projection device was an old model. No fancy graphic software, no 3D projections, none of the tools to which Drax was accustomed. Rita just wrote things down on her com-pad, or drew crude pictures that the device translated into something prettier, if not, he quickly realized, necessarily any more accurate. “I wish I still had my com-pad. I had blueprints for the museum and schematics for the alarm system.”

“But you don’t,” Buck said bluntly. “Welcome to our world. Gotta make do with what’s on the Galaxinet most times.”

Luckily, while full blueprints weren’t available without more digging than they had time to do, Rita was able to find floor plans of the museum and from those and Drax’s sharp memory, they were able to reconstruct a lot.

“Are we going in through the skylight?” Xia asked eagerly. “I love that game!”

Drax twitched his wings. “That was my original plan. There are actually two skylights, one in the front in plain sight of the street, the other facing the flyer bay in the back, and a park that’s usually deserted this time of night.”

“I like that one!” Xia voted.

Mik scratched behind one tawny, striped ear, and said, “Good choice.”

“Dad! I’m not a kitten anymore!”

Mik explained for Drax’s edification, “Xia was very young when she joined us. I helped her learn to judge which risks will be fun and which will be just plain foolish. Sometimes I forget she’s all grown up now.”

Drax and Rita smiled at each other before Drax continued, “Yes, the rear skylight’s definitely the better choice. Though if there weren’t likely to be people with guns around tonight, I bet it would be exciting to climb the front of the building to see if any noticed, right?”

Xia bounced in her seat. “Yes! But if you’re climbing the front of the building just to see if you can get away with it, you do that in daytime so you draw a crowd. This is serious, though, so we’re sneaking.”

Maybe Xia had rubbed on her a bit too much, Rita reflected, because she had to agree that under the right circumstances, climbing a national monument would be an amazing stunt. Especially if Drax then flew to the roof and joined her…

“Both skylights are minimally alarmed,” Drax continued, with a hitch in his voice that Rita noticed, even if no one else seemed to, “since the roof is too high and sloped for a San’balese to get up there without a flyer. They’re not good climbers and don’t care for heights. I’m usually good for a short flight even in this gravity, but not now. I flew a very short distance this morning and I’m still feeling it. I’d never make it that far.”

“The skylight’s not a problem,” Rita said. “Xia’s serious about loving in-through-the-roof jobs.” She looked from one crew member to the other, then shrugged when no one told her to shut up. “Usually she does it because it’s funny, but sometimes for other reasons.”

Mik confirmed with examples. “We’ve been hired to get back family valuables someone’s ex took when he left, and we’ve helped folks get off some awful backwater planet where they still persecute queerbent people. And we have a sideline in getting kids in trouble to safety. That’s all on a volunteer basis, though.”

“Once we got to rescue a baby whose grandfather had kidnapped it for some stupid reason that was actually legal on that planet, so the police couldn’t help. She was so cute,” Xia squealed, “and she giggled when I was taking her out through the skylight. Her mama and daddy were so glad to have her back they paid us lots and lots, but we’d have done it anyway. It’s not right to steal babies from parents who love them.”

“And sometimes we don’t get paid for honest work even though we’ve filled the contract, so we collect payment in what you might call involuntary trade,” Mik admitted. “Small but valuable items that young Xia can stuff into a backpack, sometimes while she’s dangling from a line through the skylight.”

Drax blew a kiss to Rita and then, feeling generous, to Xia and Mik. He included Gan, who was glowering, because Drax had been beaten up enough for one day. While it would be funny in retrospect to get into a fistfight with a jealous partner who didn’t get his sense of humor, it would simply hurt now, and he could do without any more pain today. Well, ever, but certainly today. “I knew you were my kind of people. Buck, I’d include you in the round of kisses, but I get the feeling you wouldn’t appreciate it.”

Buck gestured expansively at the crew. “Takes all kinds.” Drax blew a kiss, grinning as best he could. “You’re all right,” Buck slurred. “I wouldn’t mind raising a glass with you once you’re not on blockers. Even I know drinking when you’re medded up is a poor idea.”

Drax nodded, thinking he wouldn’t mind a drink when it was over, but he planned to have that drink with Rita, preferably something champagne-like while between the sheets of a comfortable bed, in a high-end hotel with grav-control.

“All right, we send Xia in through the skylight,” Mik said. “No need to worry about getting her up there and having someone spot the flyer. I saw the National Museum today. They obviously weren’t thinking about keeping felinoids off the roof when they built it. A kitten could climb that thing, let alone our girl.”

“Once you’re in, Xia, you can open this side door”—Drax pointed to a fire exit marked on the floor plan—“for the rest of us.” Xia nodded, bouncing slightly in place.

“Buck,” Mik asked, “up for fighting on the ground or do you want to be ready with the flyer?”

Drax was relieved when the ex-soldier stretched a few times, then said, “I’m slow as usual, but if there’s butts to be kicked, I want in.” He’d seen how much Buck was drinking. Fighting drunk could be effective. Flying drunk, not so much.

“Fine, then. Gan, the flyer is yours.” Mik turned and kissed his lover with a passion and thoroughness that Drax couldn’t help enjoying. Drax didn’t have queerbent inclinations, but he always liked to see enthusiastic displays of loving lust, no matter who was involved. He also figured the kiss was Mik’s way of getting Gan to shut up and agree to letting Mik go into a potentially dangerous situation without him. Luckily it seemed to be working.

“And then what?” Rita thought to ask. “We’re in. What are we looking for and what do we do once we find it?”

“They have targeted a particular piece of art, a Banjali planetary treasure that’s on loan for a special exhibit. My original plan was to switch the artwork with a fake embedded with a tracking chip and then drop the original at the Banjali embassy. But the fake was lost last night, along with my clothes, my credit chit, my com-pad, the tech that would allow me to open the case without triggering the alarm system, and far too much of my blood. So we’re stuck with trying to stop them from taking it.”

“Or taking it first!” Rita sang out. “We get Xia in and out before they get there, bring the thing to your embassy, and send the police around after the real thieves.”

Everyone shouted at once, even Xia, about the inadvisability of letting Xia get her hands on a piece of art. Ordinary stuff, she’d give back, but felinoids loved art, and the purloined kind was even better. Finally Drax whistled to cut through the noise. “Under the circumstances, it’s better to catch them in the act. If we just
take
the piece, people might interpret it as the Banjalis ‘stealing it back’ to cause trouble or something. One hundred percent nonsense but it could still cause a diplomatic issue.”

“Oh. Didn’t think of that.”

Rita sounded so crestfallen that Drax had to get up and hug her with arms and wings. “No reason you would have. You don’t have to think the convoluted way politicians and people who work with them do.”

Stars, she felt good against him, so good that his cock twitched and desire passed over him like a lovely, warm wind on his skin as he flew.

“How do you think the Blemondians’ll get in?” Mik asked. “I can’t see those great lunkers mucking around on roofs.”

“Expect they’ll use tech of some kind,” Buck suggested. “Mightily nerdy and big-brained, them Blemondians. Big-fisted too, as Drax can attest, but that makes ’em poor at lock-picking and delicate work.”

“They’re big-brained enough to come up with an even simpler way. They have an accomplice who works for the museum. I imagine she’s letting them in.”

“That woman!” Mik’s voice quivered with barely contained fury. “Nitari Belesku, she said her name was. She had a National Museum button on her suit, bold as a solar flare. And she had the nerve to flirt with me!”

Drax felt as if a layer of ice was settling over him at the sound of that name. This was worse than he’d imagined. Far, far worse. “Nitari Belesku. Nitari Belesku was there, and she gave you her real name, or at least the name by which my government knows her. This makes the situation much trickier.”

Mik laughed. “I think maybe she’s not too bright. The whole galaxy knows I’m queerbent one hundred percent and half of it knows I’m a married man at that.”

The chill set in more thoroughly. Drax knew he should rest, conserve his strength for the night, but instead he got up and began to pace, wishing that he could fly instead. Movement, any movement, helped him think beyond that icy dread. It didn’t banish the cold fear, but cleared the ice from his brain so he could think. “Belesku would have known. She always does her homework. She was putting you off your guard by playing a rich woman interested in a little rough trade, someone who saw your face and body without seeing
you
. Someone not to be taken seriously. And if she gave you that name, it means only one thing.”

“Which is?” Gan moved in behind Mik and put both beefy arms around him protectively. “You didn’t tell me the bitch flirted with you. Scary criminal types flirting with you turns me on.” He sounded like he was trying to lighten the mood but wasn’t doing a great job of it.

Rita met Drax’s gaze. Her mouth was pulled in a tight, worried line, her eyes wide and frightened, and Drax had the curious feeling she knew what he was going to say before he spoke.

“Belesku is an assassin. Not Blemondian, as far as we know, probably a genetically enhanced human, but she looks close enough to pass. If she told you her real name, she means to kill you all. Make it look like a falling-out among thieves, most likely, so any investigation would be minimal. If the Blemondians can afford her, this is bigger than I imagined. Than any of our governments imagined.”

Silence fell over the common room, except for the quiet rustling and splashing of Buck pouring himself another drink. Drax focused on Buck’s ritual as a way of
not
focusing on the fact Belesku had been added to the equation, in addition to the players who he’d known were involved.
He uses a glass, at least. Not just slurping from the bottle.
Maybe Buck wasn’t entirely hopeless.

“How come this Belesku bitch didn’t kill you, if she’s such a nasty piece of work?” Buck growled, his glass halfway to his lips. Apparently pouring the soy whiskey had been his way of collecting his thoughts, like pacing was for Drax. “You’re beat all to hell and back, but you’re alive.”

“Good question,” Gan kicked in. “I’m willing to buy that you’re a bad-ass. You move like one, even hurt. You
think
like one. But if she’s one too, one of you should have killed the other.”

“That’s a valid question.” He hated that they were so distrustful, but then again, they had no particular reason to trust him. He was a stranger to them. To all of them, although Rita didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. “I had no idea Nitari Belesku was involved, or that she was even on this planet, or I’d rotted in that bin before bringing Rita or anyone else into this mess. The only woman with the Blemondians last night was San’balese. Probably the person you thought was hired muscle, Mik, since she was hurting me with a great deal of enthusiasm and a modicum of expertise. She’s museum security, their inside person. Last night, Nitari Belesku must not have known I was on San’bal, or I’d be dead already. But she knows now. I thwarted her a few years ago. That was before I’d…turned my talents to more legal uses.”

“Let me guess,” Rita said, “you were robbing the person she meant to kill and scared her off.”

He twitched his wings and let the others laugh at the seeming joke. As it happened, Rita was right. He’d had nothing against the Legamian billionaire whose real antiquities he’d been systematically replacing with fakes. He wanted the man to stay alive and extravagant for a good long time, since he was pleasant company for a mark and didn’t have the sense not to trust Drax. When Drax realized someone else was paying far too much attention to his mark, someone who was passing as a gawky Blemondian tourist but moved differently when she thought she wasn’t being watched, he’d warned the Legamian that someone was out to kill him and he might want to hire a passel of bodyguards. Then he’d anonymously tipped the police and the Legamian ministry of intelligence to the situation. While they never caught Belesku, they did get the over-eager heir who’d hired her, wanting his inheritance before Grandpa spent it all on art.