Chapter 25 Chapter 25: The Team
Nate’s intense magnetism had been clouding my focus. I turned to the one-legged man. “Who, Max? Rangers?”
“Yes,” Max said, his voice gaining a sliver of confidence. “But it’ll cost.” He almost shouted it, eager to contribute.
Nate cut in, his distrust immediate. “I don’t trust them. They’re loyal to coin, nothing else.”
I snarled back, the options narrowing to this one desperate gamble. “Then who else? Your friends are being watched! Who else is there?”
Max butted in again, desperate to be heard. “Rangers are okay, they’re my friends! I drink with them!”
Nate and I snapped in perfect, exasperated unison, “Shut it, Max!”
I took a deep, steadying breath, the plan forming in the space between panic and resolve. “Alright. Nate, you get me the pass. Max, you talk to the Rangers. I need to go see someone about the money for them.”
Nate’s gaze flicked between Max and me, deeply uneasy. “I don’t like this. It’s a house of cards.”
“It’s our only choice,” I said, the words final. “Max, get me a team for tomorrow morning. Three armed guys, no more than 120 Chids per man. Meet me at The Spill in an hour. Nate, can you get the pass to me there within the hour?”
Nate still looked like he’d swallowed something sour, but he gave a tight nod. “Yes. I’ll send Rebel with it. He’s the only one I trust right now who won’t be followed.”
“Good. Then we’re agreed. The Spill in one hour.”
Stepping back out into the alley, the door closing on Nate’s worried face, I was alone again. The buzz of a new mission began to hum under my skin, a familiar and terrifying energy. This is what I was made for. Not a leader. Not a teammate. A virus. A singular, targeted weapon.
I was The Sisters of Mercy’s prime instrument against the horrors of the New Eighth Day. The one forged in secrecy to tear down the would-be giants, the new Nephilim rising from the ashes of man’s pride. To twist men’s greed and lust into the very nooses that would hang them. To infiltrate, manipulate, and burn their empires to ash. The machines would never rule again, not while Tillyanna, the Trojan horse, lived to corrupt both man and metal alike. Assassin in the dark. Spy in the bed. Liar in the light.
And now, a new mission. First, the bait.
I cut straight for the Hammer Cogs Quarter, my boots echoing on the cobblestones. It was early afternoon, but the streets were already thick with the Quarter’s usual trade: leather-clad bikers hawking stolen machine parts, drunks guzzling cheap synth liquor from brown bags, and sullen punks looking for cheap trouble. Ragged men with hollow eyes tracked my progress with a hungry avarice as I crossed the grimy square toward the familiar, grease-stained exterior of Georgy-Porgy’s workshop.
Nothing had changed. The same sunglasses-wearing, mohawked biker was slumped at the same grease-stained table out front. Inside, two men in long trench coats,“ party guests” puffed on cheap cigars, playing cards with Georgy himself amidst the chaotic clutter of salvaged tech.
I stepped inside, the smell of ozone, oil, and stale tobacco washing over me. I lingered by a workbench cluttered with disassembled firearms, watching the game.
Georgy-Porgy glanced up from his cards, one eye squinting through a haze of smoke. “You again, Tilly? Weren’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He snorted, a phlegmy sound. “I knows you, and I knows you’re funnin’ me. No ‘sirs’ here. Pour yourself a finger or two.” He jerked his chin toward a half-full bottle of amber liquid on a nearby shelf.
I moved to their table, glass in hand. Just as my fingers closed around the whisky bottle, one of the trench-coated guests vaulted up from his chair, his face purple with rage. A pistol appeared in his hand, jammed right in Georgy’s face. “You lyin’ cheat! Ain’t nobody that lucky five hands in a row!”
Instinct, older than thought, took over. The heavy bottle swung in a short, brutal arc. It shattered across the back of the man’s skull with a wet, crunching thud, glass, blood, and expensive whisky spraying across the floor as he crumpled into a groaning heap.
“Waste of good liquor,” Georgy sighed, unperturbed. A sawed-off shotgun now rested casually in his lap, though I hadn’t seen him move. The mohawked biker from outside was suddenly inside, pressing a cannon-sized revolver to the other guest’s temple.
“Think Georgy don’t know how to look after himself, girl?” He laughed, a sound like grinding gravel, then turned his cold eyes to the trembling man. “You think I’m too lucky too?”
Silence. The only sound was the drip of whisky and the ragged breathing of the unconscious man on the floor. Sweat gleamed on the remaining guest’s forehead.
“Smart. Your friend talked too much. Now leave your iron, drag his sorry ass outta my Quarter, and don’t come back. Got it?”
The man, moving with slow, deliberate care, laid a small, sleek pistol on the table. He nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, then hooked his hands under his buddy’s arms and began hauling him toward the doorway.
“You owe me a good bottle of whisky, girl,” Georgy said, his eyes now fixed on me, assessing. The sawed-off vanished back beneath the table. “What else can I do for you, Tilly?”
“I wanna offer you a deal, Georgy.”
He barked out a laugh. “A girl’s gonna offer me a deal, in me own shop? Away with ya. What do you want, and what are you sellin’?”
I straightened to my full height, locking eyes with him, letting the predator I was show through just enough. “I never got that drink. Business is thirsty work.”
Another chuckle, this one warmer. “Roy, fetch another bottle. From the bottom shelf. Not the rotgut.” He turned back to me. “Now, Tilly, you’re a real piece of work, ain’t ya?”
Roy returned with a dust-covered bottle and poured three generous glasses. Georgy raised his. “To luck.”
“To luck,” Roy and I echoed. We threw back the drinks. It was liquid fire, smooth as a lady’s thigh and twice as expensive.
“Five-year-old Eden brew. Good stuff,” Georgy said, watching me over the rim of his glass.
“Sure is,” I agreed, setting my glass down with a definitive click. “Just like what I’m sellin’.”
His tongue flicked out, nervously wetting his lips. The trap was set.
“T-5000. Pre-Fall. Two interchangeable barrels, Picatinny rail, two extra mags, original case. Pristine.”
He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with avarice. “Guess we’re all lucky today,” he muttered, his palms visibly glistening. “You got a price in mind?”
“I knew you’d be fair.”
He laughed, a nervous, eager sound this time. “Fair, aye. Gotta see it first, but if it’s as you say… 1,200 Chids.”
Time to play the gamble. “Take a chance, Georgy. The rifle’s exactly as I described, I swear it on my mother’s grave. But I need cash up front. The gun’ll be here tomorrow night. And I’ll only take 700 Chids for it… plus a box of .38 ammo.”
Sweat beaded on his brow. He wanted that gun bad; I could smell the desire on him. “So, I just hand over my money and just hope a fucking T-5000 shows up on my doorstep tomorrow? That what you’re sayin’?”
I smiled slow and cold, holding his gaze without blinking. “You feelin’ lucky, Georgy?”
He exhaled sharply, a man defeated by his own greed. “Six hundred Chids now, plus the ammo. You bring the gun tomorrow, or I start collecting in fingers. And you’re runnin’ low.”
I thrust out my hand. “Deal.”
He spat ceremoniously in his own palm, and we shook on it, his grip crushingly tight.
“Don’t make me come after you, girl,” he said, but there was a grudging respect in his voice and maybe a little lust “I kinda like you breathing”.