I rose above the rock, whipped my rifle around, and fired in his direction.

  My eyes were still bad enough to turn everything into a glassy motion blur, but my instincts were sharp. If you spend enough time sharpshooting, you learn to trust your instincts as much as your eyes. And my hearing picked up the slack where my eyes failed.

  A miss. A cloud of dust erupted where I’d shot. I couldn’t tell if I’d hit cliff wall or the ground. The important thing was that I forced that shooter to take cover.

  It would have taken time to rechamber my rifle, and I only had a few loose bullets to spare for it, anyway. I tossed it aside. And then I leapt from cover and ran like Hela herself was snapping at my heels.

  Another rifle shot split the air. Nothing touched me. No way to tell if the shot missed deliberately or by genuine accident. If Wolfram hadn’t yet given up on taking me alive, he would soon.

  I ran pell-mell across the canyon. There’d been just enough time for someone practiced at this to slam another bullet into a rifle’s chamber. I half-ducked, half-twisted. The sand behind me exploded in a gray cloud. A rifle shot echoed between the cliff walls. If Wolfram wasn’t aiming to kill, he was certainly willing to risk it.

  But I had almost made it across the canyon. My surroundings solidified from a blur. The person I’d shot at, probably Rayyan, had fired at me from the cover of a rocky cleft. The cleft wasn’t deep enough to be a cave. It had no ceiling. It was a jagged crack that extended all the way up the canyon wall. Its walls and steep shadows had kept me from seeing him right away.

  A metallic, scraping, clunking noise gave my attacker away: he was frantically trying to reload his rifle, and not managing very well.

  I rounded the edge of the cleft and found Rayyan exactly as I’d thought he’d been: crouched over his weapon, pumping the chamber ready. He looked up, saw me, and swore. I could taste his fear-sweat.

  Felt real good to have someone be afraid of me for a change.

  I darted around the rock wall an instant before another of Wolfram’s shots blasted a chunk off it. That shot had been aimed to kill me. Rayyan was crouched behind the cleft. He rose and aimed his rifle at me, but too late. I snatched the barrel and yanked it away from him. Then I smashed the stock into his face.

  He fell backward, too stunned to cry out. He still had some fight in him, though – the fight of the desperate. I stepped beside him, angling to hook him around the neck and drag him farther into cover, but he elbowed me under my ribs and did an admirable job of making it hurt. I stuck my foot behind his ankle and shoved him into it.

  The easier thing would have been to wrestle him to the ground, and count on us being too tangled up for Wolfram to shoot. But Wolfram had already shown me how little he valued his companions. So I did my opponent a favor: after tripping him, I grabbed him by the scruff of his collar before he toppled, and dragged him into the crevice.

  That gave him the chance to kick my shins like a child having a tantrum. Ouch, ouch, and youch. One kick was hard enough to make me break out words dad wouldn’t have been proud of me for using.

  The kicking lasted until I got him back far enough that I could stop hauling and plant a revolver against his head. He stopped instantly.

  “Sorry about the shins!” he said. “That wasn’t personal.”

  “’S OK.” My voice was slurred by the after-effects of his elbow meeting my nose. “You were just doing your job.”

  Several awkward seconds passed. Not very professional of me. I’d been so focused on reaching him that I’d forgotten what I’d planned to do next. He seemed content to just hang out with my gun to his head.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Well – what?”

  “Are you going to apologize for the rest of it, too?”

  “Oh. Nah.” He sniffed some blood back into his nose. “None of that was really my idea.”

  “You were just happy to go along with it.” I’d been happy to go along with the comedy routine for a while, but time was pressing, and that answer had ticked me off. I pushed my revolver’s barrel into him hard enough to tilt his head to one side.

  “Hey, I’m just trying to get as far from Wolfram as I can. Guy’s leapt so far off the rails that we’re in the stratosphere. If he had any idea what I was going to report to my bosses, he’d kill me. You want me to switch sides? I’ll switch sides. Just protect me from him.”

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I’m just a scouting agent. I’m from the Blackguard Network.”

  “I think I’ve heard of you guys. Bigtime international crime syndicate?”

  “More of a bigtime crime franchiser. Anyone who wants to use it, and get our tech and secret bank network, can set up their own branch. But they have to prove themselves first. That’s why I’m here – to scout Wolfram’s operation, see if it’s good enough to join.”

  He really shouldn’t have been telling me this. He was more scared than he was letting on. From rumors and backchannel chatter, I already knew about half of what he had told me, which was enough verification that I figured I could trust the rest.

  I reduced the pressure on his temple minutely. “What’s he planning? What about Johnny Dee?”

  “Forget Johnny Dee. He’s just a tool. Wolfram wants to use Johnny Dee to ‘recruit’ people, powerful people, to do his break-ins and other crimes. If they get caught or killed, well, who cares? They were just the puppets. Can’t be traced back to him.”

  “And I was just the first mutant you chose to target.” It was taking real effort on my part to keep from cracking his skull.

  Rayyan didn’t seem to notice the effort I was making to restrain myself. “It seemed like a reasonable enough plan in outline,” he said, like he was making casual conversation. “Creative. Not so high stakes to begin with, but lots of room for expansion. I’ll admit, though, that the Blackguard Network doesn’t have much experience with mutants. We didn’t expect you’d be able to get help so soon, or that you’d be able to block telepathy. Wolfram wants you back under his control, bad. He should have cut his losses and run. If I can just get out of here alive, that’s what I’ll report back. Wolfram’s too unstable. His plan’s not viable. We shouldn’t work with him.”

  “What kind of crimes were y’all maybe thinking about?”

  “That’s at the franchisee’s discretion. I don’t know, honest. Wolfram mentioned wanting to use mutants for things like bank robberies, but, gosh, doesn’t that seem a little gauche to you? A little old hat?”

  “It is a little Evil Scheming 101,” I admitted. It didn’t quite match with what Johnny Dee had said, either – but I suspected he and Wolfram didn’t plan to be working together for long. Double-crosses always came sooner rather than later with these types.

  “He has a good sense for opportunity. He did a good job getting that mutie from the Reavers and putting him to work – and was starting to do a good job with you, I suppose. He might have eventually come up with something more creative, but, to be honest, I was leaning against giving him a deal even before he started threatening the rest of us. Now I’m thinking the Blackguard Network should do more than refuse him, but should start targeting him as an enemy. Help me get out of here, and I’ll help you ruin all his plans.”

  With the words “that mutie,” any whiff of sympathy I might have had for Rayyan vanished, like a fart into a tornado. “Oh, please,” I said. “You think they’d just let you go? Mind-controlling the henchman as he reports back is on the Evil Scheming 101 exams.”

  “No way. We’re not idiots. They know to watch me when I come back. Johnny Dee needs to maintain concentration to control people. Sooner or later, he’ll slip. And I’ve made sure Johnny Dee didn’t get any scrap of my DNA.”

  “I bet that’s what Milos thought, too. Didn’t stop Johnny Dee from using Milos to chat me up, and then killing him.” Johnny Dee would have had endless opportunities to collect DNA. He wouldn’t need much, not if he could control me with an old hairbrush. I bet even Wolfram thought he was safe.

  A pause from Rayyan. Then: “What?”

  Something in his tone had changed. He sounded afraid in a way he hadn’t before. He covered it quickly by clearing his throat, but seemed to know he’d given away too much.

  He’d been acting, I realized abruptly. Playing scared. What I’d just seen had been real fear coming through. Something was up. He’d only told me so much about the Blackguard Network because he expected I wouldn’t survive the next few minutes.

  I figured that some of his fear had been real, like fumbling with the rifle, but this was the first time I’d heard him shocked. He’d been putting together a plan on the fly, improvising delays.

  “Where’s Johnny Dee now?” I asked, pressing my gun tighter. “Surprised he hasn’t taken you over yet.”

  “No way. He can’t. He’s busy.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  Even Rayyan seemed to realize he’d said too much. He didn’t answer.

  My revolver’s hammer went click right next to his ear.

  I dropped my voice, went all soft and husky and dangerous. “What does it matter if you tell me? Especially if I’m gonna kill you if you don’t?”

  “He’s pil–”

  I couldn’t hear the rest because something blurred moved across the other canyon face, and I was already shooting at it.

  My revolver went off right next to Rayyan’s ear. He flinched away. He must’ve been waiting for me to take my gun away from him. In that same, swift motion, he stomped on my foot and cracked the back of his skull into my nose.

  I didn’t know what I’d fired at. Shooting had been a reflex. I didn’t think it had been a person. It moved fast, whatever it was – shadow of a bird, maybe, or even Wolfram using my own thrown-item trick. But I didn’t have time to be embarrassed about that. Whatever it was had given Rayyan his opportunity.

  In an instant, he’d stopped playing dumb. He grabbed my bad arm, wrenched it, and then drove his elbow into the place where Wolfram had shot me yesterday.

  I had started to heal, but I wasn’t all the way there. My nerves definitely weren’t ready for another blow. My vision went black and red, speckled with motes of stardust. The pulse of agony cleared just in time for me to see Wolfram step around the corner I’d seen the shadow fly over. He leveled his pistol at Rayyan and me.

  My fingers twitched nervelessly, grasping empty air. The pain had been so much I’d dropped my revolver without feeling it. I still had my other weapons, the second revolver and Dad’s Beretta, but didn’t have time to draw either.

  I still held Rayyan in front of me. He slugged my chin, but I barely felt it. All told, he hadn’t had such a bad plan. But he was still an idiot. First, this had exposed him to Wolfram, a man who’d already demonstrated he had no qualms about shooting through one person to hit another. Second, and more importantly, he was trying to wrestle a mutant.

  Not just any mutant. Me.

  I picked him up by the back of his neck and just threw him at Wolfram.

  I caught a glimpse of Rayyan’s eyes bulging with surprise before he tumbled heels-over-head. Then Wolfram’s eyes doing the same before Rayyan crashed into him.

  Rayyan hit with enough force that Wolfram’s feet briefly left the ground. I was pretty sure that my non-gunshot-deafened ear had heard something pop in Rayyan’s chest, probably a rib. The sheer g-forces of the throw would have been as bad as the crash.

  The impact jarred Wolfram’s trigger finger. His gun discharged but the shot went wide. He and Rayyan crashed to the ground in a tangle of splayed limbs and shouting.

  Somehow Wolfram had kept a grip on his gun. He was struggling to aim it at me again.

  I was out of breath from the pain. That snot Rayyan had picked the right part of me to attack. But I wasn’t so winded I couldn’t quickdraw.

  All my hours at the shooting range, practicing drawing from the hip, fantasizing about showdowns at high noon – all of it focused in on this moment. Hell, it may have even been high noon.

  I shot the pistol right out of Wolfram’s hand. I did it by shooting through his hand.

  His arm flew back in a spray of red. That Desert Eagle of his went farther, clattering across the rocky canyon floor. It clinked to a stop a dozen feet away.

  Wolfram’s face was a screwed-up mask of pain, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t find that satisfying.

  Rayyan tried to push himself off Wolfram. Adrenaline got him that far. But he hadn’t gone farther than five feet before lack of oxygen got to him. The force of the throw alone had knocked his breath out of him, and that had been before the sudden crash at the end. Even so, he tried to claw away from me until I leveled my remaining revolver at him and Wolfram. Aside from choking for air, he froze instantly.

  Johnny Dee had said I was too fond of westerns, but he was wrong – about the too part. This was my favorite part of the genre. The sudden reversal of fortunes. The moment when everything changes with the clap of a gunshot. Even Wolfram stopped breathing when I aimed my revolver’s barrel between his eyes.

  I kept my pistol raised, smirked, and advanced.

  “I have some questions,” I told him. “How long you live is going to be determined not just by if you answer, but by how well I like your answers.”

  Wolfram glared at me. He needed a moment to catch his breath, but, when he did, his voice was surprisingly level. “Ask.”

  “Is Josh safe?”

  “Not for lack of trying to kill him on my part. I couldn’t shoot the twerp fast enough when he ran.”

  Bold of him to take that tone about Josh while I had him at the end of my revolver’s barrel. He had given me an answer I’d liked, though: Josh was still alive. I stayed my trigger finger, this time.

  “Next question: when you had Johnny Dee take me over, what kind of crimes did you have me commit?”

  Wolfram’s eyes rolled over to Rayyan. “You told her what the plan was, huh?”

  Rayyan still had some choking and gasping to do before he could speak. “I didn’t figure it would matter.”

  “You are a guest in my party,” Wolfram said. “You were here to observe. Not make decisions.”

  “If you hadn’t taken your time coming to help me, I would have had to.”

  For an instant, there was nothing but murder in Wolfram’s eyes. It lasted just long enough for Rayyan to see it, and then it was gone again.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” Wolfram said. Then, ponderously: “I’ll have to find it in my heart to forgive you someday.”

  Rayyan snapped his gaze to Wolfram. He looked just as sheet-white terrified as he had when I’d told him Johnny Dee had puppeteered Milos.

  I was running out of patience with these clowns. I had one more of them to hunt. “Where’s Johnny Dee?” I asked.

  “I don’t know where he is now,” Wolfram said.

  My revolver’s hammer clicked.

  Wolfram smiled at it. Just a flicker of a smile, with no mirth in it. “I figure I do know what he’s up to, though. And that’s double-crossing me.”

  “How do you figure?”

  He flicked his eyes up a little, like he was looking at something behind me. Last thing in the world I was going to do was fall for that old trick.

  It wasn’t until I heard the whine – steady, insistent, and growing, like metal screaming against metal – that I realized something really was back there.

  I spun. I wasn’t too late, but only because there wasn’t any such thing as late here. I could have turned at any point, and it wouldn’t have given me any more options.

  I had just enough time to see the curtain of metal and white fog barreling toward us.

  Remember how I said that good mercs will always look for opportunities to make their own deus ex machinas? Sometimes that goes really, really wrong. It only takes a little twist of the plot to turn a deus into a diabolus. A devil sweeping in from off-stage, coming to sucker punch me.

  I never saw this coming. Maybe I should have. The fact remains: I didn’t.

  The machine barreling toward us, skinning the side of the canyon wall, belching white thruster gases and moving too fast to stop, was Shoon’kwa’s airship.

  Sixteen

  I’d hoped to see that beautiful Wakandan airship every hour I’d been stuck out here, but this was all wrong. I knew that from the sound of the engines alone. They only made that high-pitched, housefly-like whine when they were stressed. Shoon’kwa was too good a pilot to be doing that. The airship was coming in too fast and too low. As I watched, one of its wings clipped the cliff wall, sending a cascade of dust, splintered rock, and torn metal raining downward. The thunder-crack of the impact shifted the ground under my feet.

  The canyon was too narrow. Half a second after the airship clipped the first wall, one of its many slender, bladed wings smashed into an outcropping jutting from the opposite side wall. The wing snapped in a shower of torn metal and sparks, and then a gout of flame as one of its fuel feed lines caught fire. An explosion rippled across the hull. The whole ship shuddered. Pieces of the wing pattered to the ground, showering smoke contrails like leaves from a willow tree.

  The impact jerked the ship’s nose higher. Whoever was piloting the airship had aimed it right toward us – all three of us – but that last little bit of lift knocked it oh-so-slightly off-course. If anything happened after that, I didn’t see.

  I covered my head and ran – not away from the airship, but toward it, trying to get underneath before it crashed into us.

  What little time I had left to do this meant it didn’t make much of a difference.

  A shadow fell over me. The noise was immense, so overpowering that it wasn’t really sound anymore, but a feeling: a terrible weight in my ears and a rattle in my chest. A split second of intense heat, like the gates of limbo had opened above me. It was followed, strangely, by a gust of intense, bitter cold air. So cold it hurt like fire.

  Later, I figured out that a ruptured thruster feed line must have passed a few feet above me, and all those decompressed, expansion-cooled gases were spilling onto me.