Page 1 of Throwing Fire

CHAPTER 1

Ihang in an exhaust vent, trying not to drool, and listen to the Bale brothers plot to kill my kitten.

They’re eating Makan while they plot. Kez introduced me to the old Earth cuisine, and I can’t get enough of it now. A rich mélange of coconut, galangal, native thet grass, garlic, ginger, and chili fills the airvent. In a minute I’m going to take out these fuckers just so I can steal their midnight snack.

The smell wafts up from the table where they’re eating, which is almost directly below the shaft. The rest of this floor is empty except for some tables, or it least it was this afternoon when I did my last reccie. A burned, chemical smell lingers in the wide vent, mingling with the food. Reminds me of Phogath: smudges of smoke from the PB-Ex fires smearing the cool morning air.

I shake my head to clear out that old memory. I need to stay focused on the here and now.

“I still think we’re better off doin’ their ship. We might get him, too,” Chaz Bale says. Chaz is the brightest of the three, although plotting to kill me while I’m hanging three meters above him is not all that bright. To be fair, there’s no way any of the brothers couldknow I’m here, since I took out their piece of shit security system first. Still, bright or dim, his designs on my ass seal his fate. He dies first.

“Cracking that ship’ll take weeks. We can take her tomorrow. She’s got a regular run: Hemos to Nock.”

That’s Reg Bale, the youngest brother. He’s been quiet during the family pow-wow, but what he’s had to say has bothered me the most. He knows entirely too much about Kez’s schedule. Either he’s been watching her, or he’s got inside information. I’m inclined to let Reg live until I find out which it is, although none of the Bale brothers will be leaving the warehouse tonight, so leaving Reg to last might not be any kind of mercy.

“She won’t have any comms while she’s passin’ through Red territory,” Reg continues.

He’s wrong, as it happens. Kez has a kick-ass viewie that can punch through even the Reds’ comms blanket. But he’s got no way of knowing that.

“No one will miss her for a couple of hours. We’ll have some time with her.” His voice thickens. The skin on the back of my neck crawls. I can guess what he plans to do to my kitten during those couple of hours.

Definitely not any kind of mercy.

“How much you think it’d cost to get the Reds to do it?” Thumb Bale asks. He’s been looking for a way out of the wetwork since the start of this little conclave.

“Stop bein’ such a pussy,” Chaz snaps to an accompanying impact of flesh on flesh. “Keep your eye on that hundred hard.”

Curiously, for someone calledThumb, and in a time when it’s as easy to regenerate body parts as is it to change the color of your skin, Thumb Bale only has one eye. He wears a patch over the other, and rumor has it there’s nothing under the patch. I might see if the rumor’s true, after he’s dead.

“It’s not enough if he finds out it was us,” Thumb insists.

Assuming I’m thehe, it’s nice to know my reputation issomething of a deterrent. But evidently not enough in the face of all those hard credits.

Since all I wanted to know was how much they were being paid for the hit, and since hanging upside-down with the smell of their dinner filling my nose is beginning to make me both hungry and queasy, I drop out of the airvent.

I spin in my spidersilk harness as I drop, and land on a crouch on the table, careful to keep my boots out of the food. Chaz Bale meets the business end of my kukri first. I follow the slash across his throat with a crouch-kick to his stomach. I don’t want him spraying whatever drug-laced crap is running through his veins over the very fine food.

Thumb backpedals away from the table, knocking over his chair. Reg is smarter, keeping his ass in his chair and reaching for a weapon. But he wasn’t smart enough to keep his holster on while he was eating, so as he’s fumbling around on the back of his chair, I reach up, grab the harness line, pull myself up for leverage and slam the fist I’ve got gripping the kukri into the side of his head.

I want to talk to him before he dies. And maybe make him suffer a little for what he was thinking of doing to Kez.

Thumb is just drawing breath – to yell, maybe, although I don’t know why he’d bother because no one is coming to save his ass – when I snap a throwing knife out of my wrist-sheath. He goes down with the knife in his one eye. It’s a good throw, but even if the knife didn’t penetrate his brain, he doesn’t present much of a threat blind.

I grab the harness line again and use it as a pivot as I kick-over to the floor, keeping the kukri out to my side. If Reg is faking, I want it ready. A quick check shows he’s not, so I clean the kukri on his shirt and sheath it. The cessation of wet noises from where Chaz landed reassures me that he’s bled out. Thumb’s not moving, so the blade probably did penetrate his brain.

I unwind some spare spidersilk from my harness and tie Reg to his chair. Slap him until he revives. Then I lean against the table, pickup a container ofrendang, clean the chopsticks Reg was using, and take a couple of bites while I wait for him to come ‘round.

Tasty.

Reg groans before he opens his eyes and looks up at me. His right pupil is blown. Concussion. Hope I’ll still be able to get some sense out of him.

“Know who I am?” I ask, before popping another piece of incredibly tender, spiced meat into my mouth. Fuck, I need to find out where they order from. This is even better than the stuff Kez gets.

He turns his head and spits blood onto the floor. He must have bitten his tongue, ‘cause I didn’t hit him in the jaw.

“No,” he mumbles.

“No? Never saw me while you were watchin’ Kez?”

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