The Lady and the Tiger
Chapter 1
It was six o'clock in the evening when the blue men arrived at Shera's door. This was rather surprising for a number of reasons; namely, Shera had been told to expect them half an hour earlier. It was the last time she trusted the Shanghai-Tei's owner for accurate information, and the first time she ever suffered a gunshot wound to the kneecap.
They clomped into her home as if they owned it, three of them altogether. Two were dressed in the baby blues and heavy visors of basic Shinra grunts. The third was a completely different creature. He wore a Mideean-tailored suit, carried a walking stick, and radiated danger like heat miasma off hot tin. Shera knew him for a Turk the moment she clapped eyes on him. Worse still, he knew that she knew.
The picture Walking Stick flashed her was an old one. Captain Highwind hadn't smoked Lady Lucks in at least two years. Gabbianis were his brand now, or at least they had been the last time Shera had seen him.
"I expect you're thinking I know where the Captain is. The raw fact of the matter is, I don't. I haven't seen him in six months, and I haven't the foggiest when I will again." It took a supreme effort to keep her voice from shaking, but somehow Shera managed. She had gotten a lot of practise at it since the Captain left. "Would you like some tea? I've got a kettle on the hob, I need to go take it off before it scorches."
She could feel them flanking her as she moved across the kitchen. The kettle had just begun its whistling death-rattle, gurgling and shaking on the stovetop like a mad patient strapped to a gurney. Shera shut off the gas, brought several mugs down from the cupboard - she had gone through this routine so many times it was almost instinct - and swung the red-hot kettle as hard as she could into Soldier #1's face. His flesh actually sizzled under the metal. Try as she might, Shera would never quite be able to forget that sound.
The second was luckier. He had his visor down, for one thing. Heavy-duty shatterproof plastic was no match for buckshot, however, and Shera's labcoat had covered a multitude of sins. This was the other thing that would haunt her dreams - the soldier's face exploding in a mass of blood, bone shards, and plastic. It came to pieces in wet hunks. A memory of throwing stones at abandoned warehouse windows in Junon flashed through Shera's memory and was gone.
Her ears were still ringing from the shotgun blast when the Turk's bullet caught her behind the knee. She screamed, shameful to say. The leg crumpled underneath Shera's weight like sodden newspaper, depositing her onto the linoleum hard enough to make her teeth shake.
Walking Stick's shoes were jet-black and shiny. Tiny fisheyed kitchens glinted in their depths. He click-clacked across the tiles, retrieved the kettle from its landing spot beside the groaning Shinra grunt, and proceeded to pour himself a cup of tea.
"You know," he said, sounding almost cheerful, "this is really, really good. I mean, usually I'm more of a coffee and vodka kind of guy, but this is really goddamned excellent tea. You mind if I make a phone call?"
The last thing Shera saw before darkness took her was the rocket's tip gleaming through the open window, painted red-gold by the setting sun.