Carnival

“Drink more,” Pretoria reminded, keeping him on the shady side of the street. He obeyed, the sugary fluid a relief. He finished the globe quickly despite his attempts to regulate his intake. They’d stopped walking, pausing in a much smaller side street—more of a service access route, too narrow for a hovercar and tight even for ground transport—without the press of foot traffic. As Shafaqat pressed another globe into his hands—this one a little warmer, but also dripping condensation—Miss Pretoria turned aside and placed one hand on the wall of a nearby structure.

“House,” she said, “I need cold water, please, in a basin.”

He still felt unwell—disconnected—but it was his body, now, and not his mind. He sipped the second beverage, and asked, “Is this Pretoria house?”

“It’s the back wall of a marketplace,” Miss Pretoria said, and a cubbyhole appeared about a meter up the violet-gray wall.

Shafaqat urged Vincent toward it. He went, finishing the second drink before relinquishing the spent globe into the security agent’s hands. She crushed it and made it vanish.

“Roll up your sleeves,” Miss Pretoria said. He didn’t bother; his wardrobe didn’t mind wet. He plunged arms webbed with distended veins in water as frigid as if it flowed from a cave. The cold first saturated his arms and ached in the depths of the bones, and then the slug of chilled blood struck his heart and spilled up his throat. He gasped and remembered to knock his hat off before sticking his face into the water.

When he straightened, water dripping down his forehead and under the collar of his shirt, he was suddenly clearheaded. He turned and slumped against the wall, tilting his head back to encourage the water to run from his braids down his neck and not into his eyes. He coughed water, blew it from his nostrils, and panted until the last of the dizziness faded. His wardrobe, out of the sun now and given half a chance to work, cooled him efficiently, evaporating sweat and water from his skin, drawing off excess heat.

“Thank you,” he said, when he dared open his eyes and try to focus. It worked surprisingly well. First he saw Shafaqat, and then, over her shoulder, he saw something less encouraging. Five women, sidearms drawn, faces covered by Carnival masks.

“Miss Pretoria?” He surreptitiously dialed his wardrobe up.

She turned, following his gaze, and stiffened with her hand hovering above her weapon.

“There’s only five of them,” Shafaqat said.

“Good odds,” Pretoria said. She sounded as if she meant it. Vincent pushed away from the wall and stepped up to cover her flank. If it were histarget, he’d have another team covering the side street. “Three more.”

“Thank you.” Pretoria’s right hand arched over her weapon, a gunslinger pose, fingers working. She’d unfastened the snap; Vincent hadn’t seen her do it.

Pretoria and Shafaqat shared a glance. Shafaqat nodded. “Run,” Pretoria said. Flat command, assumed obedience.

“I don’t know where I’m running to.”

“Pretoria household.” Miss Pretoria stepped diagonally, crowding him back.

“Lesa, there’s eight—”

Her grin over her shoulder was no more than a quick flash, but it silenced him. He looked again, saw the way the masked women paused to assess every shift of balance—Pretoria’s even more so than Shafaqat’s.

He recognized that fearful respect. Lesa Pretoria had a reputation. And for whatever reason, they didn’t want to kill her. He acquiesced, though she probably couldn’t see him nod. “How do I get there?”

“Follow the ghosts,” Pretoria snapped, as the first group of adversaries picked closer, fanning out. If Vincent were in Pretoria’s shoes, he’d wait until they were close enough to get in each other’s way. If he were gambling that they didn’t want to kill him.

“Ask House,” Shafaqat clarified. Slightly more useful. She stood with one shoulder to the street, narrowing her profile, her hand also hovering over her holster. “We’ll delay them. Go left”—through the line of three, rather than the line of five—“Go on. Go.”

Vincent went.

Angelo might looklike the dangerous one, but that didn’t mean that Vincent had no idea how to take care of himself in a fight. He charged, zigzagging, and trusted his wardrobe to soak up any fire he didn’t dodge.

When the fire came, it wasn’t bullets. A tangler hissed at his head, but his timing was good, and his wardrobe caught it at the right angle and shunted it aside. Gelatinous tendrils curled toward him, and sparks scattered where they encountered the wardrobe and were shocked off. Two of the masked women grabbed for him as he sidestepped the tangler, and his wardrobe zapped their hands. He shoved past them as shot from a chemical weapon pattered behind him, spreading the sharp reek of gunpowder, while he twisted against grabbing hands.

Firearms echoed again, and one of the women who was clinging to his arm despite the wardrobe’s defenses jerked and fell away. Vincent shouldered the other one aside and ran.