Chapter 28

"Diana!"

The words had been on my tongue, but the anguished cry did not come form me.

Blitz ran across the park grounds and fell to his knees by her side. He scooped up her limp body, cradling her head in his lap.

I scrambled out of the ditch, extricating myself from the clinging, sucking mud. Almost hesitantly, I made my way across the short span to where her body lay. Her platinum hair, now soiled with a dull mauve mixture of blood and dirt, lay pooled under her head on Blitz's lap. Blood had covered most of her torso, but the ivory skin of her face was strangely free of tarnish. Her chest no longer rose and fell, but her eyes were open. Sightless and glassy, they stared upward at the sky as if seeing something that none of us could see.

The fatigue and physical pain of the last few minutes had faded from my mind, replaced with a dull ache of despair that felt as it if would burst from my chest for its sheer magnitude. Diana's death had been my fault—I had gotten her into the middle of all this, and she had paid for my mistakes. One of the few people who had ever truly understood me—who had ever truly appreciated me—was dead because of me. But despite all this anguish, I couldn't help but think that some kind of shameful silver lining lay at the edges of that dark thunderhead.

I was glad it wasn't Sugar.

I pushed down the disgraceful sentiment and forced my lips to move. "Is she…" I couldn't bring myself to utter the word because I already knew the answer.

Blitz nodded numbly, but he didn't speak. He kept his face bowed toward hers, hiding the anguish evident in his features. Off in the distance, the sound of sirens was growing. I looked around. Viridian and the rest of the Razors helped their wounded off the field, grabbing up bits of equipment as they went. A few intermittent gunshots rang out, but the night was largely silent except for the growing wail of sirens.

I touched Blitz's arm. "We gotta go."

He didn't budge.

Throughout the mere week I had known him, he'd never given the barest hint of anything more than platonic attachment to Diana, but in that moment of supreme grief, it was obvious that he cared for her as more than a business partner. They may not have been lovers, but they were friends. He loved her all the same.

"Lonestar will be here soon," I urged quietly. "We have to clear out."

He nodded and rose, reverently laying her head to the ground. Her dirty platinum locks pillowed beneath her head as her sightless eyes continued to gaze heavenward.

We turned back to the road as Rei approached, walking back from where the Toyota Elite was situated against the bridge. She had a hollow look in her eyes, as if the events of the battle had taken a toll on her. She kept her gaze looking forward as she walked, as if she refused to look on the carnage around her. The deaths of so many people—people that she had employed just weeks before—had frightened her into dull acceptance.

"Michelson's dead," she said without emotion. "It's over."

"Did you find Jesus too?" I asked quietly.

She shook her head. "No. I couldn't find him."

I glanced around, looking for the fixer's body—to assure myself that this was over. But I couldn't see him. Where was he?

The sound of a revving motorcycle broke into my thoughts. I spun, seeking the source of the noise. And then I found both the objects which I had sought—Jesus sat astride one of the Razors' Harley Scorpions. He flashed me a mocking grin, and then leapt into motion, screaming down the street and into the night.

I started toward the vehicles at a dead sprint. The sound of the Scorpion was quickly overtaken by the sirens that were no longer just in the distance. At first I looked to the van, but the crotch rockets were closer. I didn't care what I had to do—I couldn't let Jesus escape.

I swung onto one of the motorcycles. Blitz's frantic cries sounded behind me, but they were soon drowned out by the throaty roar of the bike as the engine rumbled to life at my touch. I hit the gas and howled off down the street like a wolf bounding after its prey.

The road hog thrummed between my legs, its bass crescendo filling my ears with a staccato roar. The feeling of such raw power between my thighs brought back old unbidden memories—memories of my life on the streets. They were memories of a different time—a time before Sugar, before Rei, and before Diana. Thoughts of the dead magician sent a renewed pang of guild slashing at my heart strings. My first instinct was to retreat from it, but instead I grabbed hold, transmuting that pain into raw, unbridled fury. That old rage came back—not anger at any one person. Jesus certainly, but it was more than that. It was anger at the entire fragging world. That unbridled rage threatened to burst from every orifice of my body, and at that moment, all I could think of was making someone pay.

I dodged around traffic, leaning side to side as I cut dangerously close to the cars around me. I caught sight of Jesus ahead of me, stopped at an intersection about fifty meters ahead where a red light had grid locked traffic. He glanced back, and seeing me, he swung the bike around to shoot off to the right down the bisecting street.

I swore as I reached the back of the traffic queue, swinging up onto the sidewalk. The late night diners and club-goers along the curb scattered, pressing themselves against the buildings as I blazed down the sidewalk. Frightened and angry shouts chased my back, but I ignored them as the Harley vaulted off of the curb and back onto the street. The engine howled as I lay on the gas and shot off down the street.

Jesus was about thirty meters away as I rounded the corner. I goosed the throttle with one hand as the other went to my shoulder holster and grasped hold of the Warhawk's ivory handle. Neon reflections glinted along the barrel as the cold chrome met with open air. A split second after it had cleared the holster, I was pulling the trigger.

But the swerving bike wasn't the best firing platform ever. Actually, it was like trying to ink someone's arm on back of a galloping horse—a painful operation. And the results of my attacker were painful to look at.

Jesus' bike was just twenty meters ahead, but each of my shots missed horribly. The first shattered the back of a Ford Americar as the fixer whizzed by unharmed. I continued to work the trigger, bullets striking the pavement around the fleeing bike, but none of them came closer that a meter to actually hitting. By the time I realized this wasn't going to work, I was out of bullets.

Reloading on a moving bike wasn't an option, so I growled and holstered the Warhawk. I squirted between a city transit bus and a delivery van, throttling up to catch up to Jesus. As I closed the gab to about ten meters, I took my cybernetic hand off the handle bars and pointed it at Jesus' skinny backside. But then he swerved, zipping between a taxi and another sedan. I tried to follow, but I had to slam on the breaks as the gap quickly disappeared. I had to clamp down on the handlebars with both hands to keep from tumbling over the front.

Horns blared around me as I fought for control of the Harley. Finally I got it under control again, but as I looked for Jesus again, I saw that he had more than doubled his lead in the next lane. Fortunately for me, though, Jesus hadn't spent as much time in the saddle as I had. I got on his tail quickly, and soon enough his skinny ass was in my gunsights once again. I kept one hand on the throttle as I lined up the shot—then I mentally keyed the trigger.

But nothing happened. I cursed my ill luck, and checked the magazine through my cybernetic uplink. It was more than three quarters full, so what was the problem? I cursed again when I realized what it was. That fireball Blondie chucked at me didn't damage the gears and servos, but it must have fried the firing circuitry.

"Drek!" I shouted, but the words were lost over the howling of the Scorpion's engine.

I was going to have to take a more hands-on approach, but that was fine by me. The more I could make him hurt, the better I would feel.

I leaned forward in the seat, urging the motorcycle closer and closer to Jesus. Finally I got almost abreast of him. I prepared to lash out at his cycle with a kick designed to knock him off balance. A flicker of movement flashed the color of gunmetal under his arm. I chirped the breaks just as a muzzle flash flared. The shot narrowly missed, grazing by my shoulder.

As soon as I began to decelerate, Jesus threw on the breaks too, and I nearly overshot him as he turned down a narrow alleyway. Tires squealed as I leaned into the turn. The front fender sparked against the alley wall, and one of the stirrups caught against a mislaid brick and snapped off, whirling into the darkness. Newspaper and other detritus whirled in my wake as I chased Jesus' tail lights down the alley. I jockeyed closer to the bike in front. As soon as I got my front tire even with his back one, Jesus violently cut the bike toward me. I had to break to keep from turning into a grease stain against the side of a dumpster. Once I recovered, I gritted my teeth and swung in behind him—I was going to have to do it the hard way.

We blazed into a neon pall of light as we cut across another street, but the aura disappeared as quickly as it had come as we whipped through traffic and into the next alley. A few squatters dashed out of our way, but I paid them no mind as I leaned forward in the seat, trying to squeeze more speed out of the Harley's straining engine. As soon as I got close enough, Jesus began to swerve to cut me off again.

Instead of decelerating, I leaned into him. Our bikes met with a screech of grinding metal as I took my hands from the handle bars and laid them on the fixer's shoulders. My legs heaved, pushing away from the bike and onto Jesus' back. He gave a choking scream and twisted out of the saddle as the twisted metal that was our bikes rocketed past. I bore Jesus to the ground, using his body to cushion my fall. His face and chest took the brunt of the impact, but a split second after we hit, physics took over and my grip vaporized like dew on a summer morning.

Jesus disappeared from my vision as a hand of agony seized me. My shoulders and legs whipped along the ground in my somersaulting tumult, my battered body screaming in protest. I tried to tuck my chin to my chest as I tumbled along the sodden pavement, but it didn't do much good. Skin and clothing alike flayed away at the asphalt's touch, and more than once my head snapped back and hit the ground. If it wasn't for my thick orkish skull, my brain would have been dashed all over the pavement. Even though it didn't kill me, renewed pain flashed through my synapses for what seemed like an eternity. And then everything was still. My arms, knees, and thighs were on fire, and my head had taken more than a few knocks, and the world around me spun like a maddened tilt-a-whirl, but whether from the tumble or a concussion, I couldn't tell.

For a moment, I just lay there and watched a dark sliver of sky spin and cartwheel above me, relishing the feel of the cool concrete against my cheek.

But again, I couldn't lie around and wait to catch my breath. If I didn't move, Jesus might escape. And despite all my pain and misery, that thought trumped everything. The knowledge of his betrayal sent a renewed burst of energy through my limbs—but that energy was tempered by a grief that clung to my heart like brackish liken, feeding off of my soul's sorry. Diana was dead. I had to vent my anger at someone—anything that could hurt—that could know the pain I felt.

I staggered to my feet, using the grimy wall for support. Agony shot through my right leg as I put pressure on it. I td idn't give out automatically, so it most likely wasn't broken—fractured, but not broken. It still hurt like a sonuvabitch, though. I gritted my teeth and pulled myself upright anyway, looking around for the object of my ire.

It didn't take me long to find him. He lay with his face buried against the wall a short distance away, legs twisted at impossible angles. I hobbled over to him, pain lancing through my injured leg and throbbing in just about every other part of my body. Despite my seething anger, I calmly reached down and grabbed a handful of his jacket, rolling him over to face me.

At first I thought he was dead. One of his arms hung limply by his side, and raw flesh stood out from his face, oozing blood. I imagined my body looked somewhat similar, but at that moment I wasn't feeling any of the pain. The only thing on my mind was revenge. Then his eyes flickered open—emotionless pits of ebony that seemed to devour the feeble light in the alley.

Despite his pitiful shape, a slight smile cracked his bleeding lips. " Hoi, chummer." He gave a cough, and I saw the crimson film coating his teeth.

I didn't answer as my hand went to my shoulder. Chrome met with ivory as my fist closed over the pistol grip, fluidly drawing the Warhawk from his holster.

A shadow of fear passed over his twisted features. "Now Peaches… let's—let's talk about this a second."

I wasn't in the mood to talk any more, but he jabbered on anyway. "We can cut a deal or something. I have money. I can set you and sugar up real nice. We can work something out!"

"I don't want your money," I growled through clenched teeth.

"Then what? I-I'll give you whatever you want!"

"You keep on trying to treat this like a business deal. You can't buy me off. I told you before. This is personal." I flipped out the cylinder on the warhawk and reached into my jacket pocket with the other hand. With calm deliberance I took out another speed loader and slipped it into the chamber, pressing it closed and cocking the hammer.

That specter of fear on his face manifested in full. Those black eyes couldn't do anything to hide the horror rising in his soul. "Come on, let's talk about this!"

"The time for talk is over."

The feeble light in the alley glinted off the Warhawk's chrome surface. As my finger tightened on the trigger, one thought danced through my mind.

With this bullet, I thee wed.