Talina stood in her blasted bedroom, hands on her hips. Her bed—the one she’d shared with Mitch and then Cap—was smashed against the far wall. Her dresser now consisted of crushed plastic. The splintered end table would make passable firewood. The back wall, of course, looked beyond repair where it had been blown apart. The rest of the room showed pits and gouges from shrapnel.
No one had bothered to clean up the dried blood where Felicity had died. An unjust end for the woman who had selflessly dedicated her time to binding up peoples’ wounds, treating their fevers, and sometimes spending entire nights holding their hands to keep them from dying alone and in terror.
Talina closed her eyes. Tried to let the rage and sorrow wax before she did something stupid.
Her quetzal, too, was stewing.
The beast made no sense. Half the time it was rooting for her ruin, and at other times, like this, shared her rage and wanted to initiate combat at the least provocation.
“Piece of shit,” she growled at it.
“Fight now.”
“Not yet. Have to figure out who did this first.”
“You know.”
“Yeah. I know. But it’s not that easy. At least not among humans.”
She made a face, turned, and had a last look around. Trish had taken Talina’s few possessions, packed them after Cheng and Mgumbe had gone through them looking for evidence. Not that Talina had much, just her rifles, some changes of clothes, and a few knickknacks and mementos that she’d picked up over the years. Those few belongings had been moved a few domes down to a vacant house.
All that remained were a couple of chairs and the kitchen table, along with her pots, pans, plates, and silverware.
She turned, stepped out the door, and left it gaping wide behind her. Anyone who wanted in could step through the holes in the walls.
With Trish minding Rocket and keeping tabs on the hospital, Talina walked cautiously toward Inga’s. The quetzal’s disquiet and her own awareness that someone was trying to kill her sent that eerie jitter through her bones, and she turned her ever-more-acute quetzal senses to her surroundings. She carefully inspected the rooftops, the gaps between buildings, whether a door was ajar or a window open from which a sniper could take a shot.
She had never been hunted like this before. Over the years before Turalon’s arrival, Donovan had become a straightforward kind of place. Face-to-face, person to person.
So this is what it feels like to be on the other side.
The depths of her hypocrisy gave her a sour sense of amusement. Made her wonder at the lengths to which she’d go to mislead herself.
As she once had with Pak Simonov and Paolo Su.
Back then she’d convinced herself she was just doing her job. How much misery would she have saved people from if she’d just turned and shot Clemenceau down instead of following orders?
The quetzal squirmed around inside, a shiver running along her muscles as it did.
“You’re not the only monster living in my skin,” she told the beast.
At Inga’s, she glanced around, nodding to passersby, aware of the looks they were giving her. Hell, the whole town knew that someone had tried to kill her. She could see the difference in their eyes as they called their greetings, as if to say, “See, it isn’t me.”
And then there were the darker looks that said, “Why Felicity? It should have been you.”
Talina opened the door, stepped inside, and took a moment at the head of the stairs. With her quetzal sense, she placed faces, noted where people were sitting, made a hasty assessment of which could be possible assassins. The uncomfortable conclusion was that over the years, she’d had occasion to piss a lot of people off.
“I guess no one lives forever,” she soliloquized, and started down the stairs. All eyes turned her way. Brazenly she walked down the central aisle between the long tables, and nodded in response to the occasional call and tip of a hat.
At the bar she climbed into her chair, calling to Inga: “Got a mug of that stout?”
“Coming up, Tal. Cash or credit?”
“Cash.” Then she added, “But to offer me credit? It’s nice to know that someone thinks I’ll be around long enough to pay my bills. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Inga chuckled in time to the somewhat-forced laughter from those close enough to have overhead.
Talina rotated her chair, bracing her elbows behind her on the bar to look over the room. As Inga set her mug on the counter, Talina asked, “So what are people saying?”
Inga lounged on the bar, her thick arms crossed. “There’s a whole lot of mad out there. First over the quetzal and why it’s still alive. Let alone in the damn hospital of all places. And then there’s Felicity. People loved that woman, and they’re ready to gut whoever did it, string the culprit’s intestines around like bunting, and flay the son of a bitch’s ever-loving hide off with dull knives.”
“I don’t blame ’em. First for Felicity, and second, she went there on my account. Doesn’t matter that I couldn’t have known. I’m partly responsible. Not to mention the bomb was meant for me.”
“Don’t you go torturing yourself, Tal. Got any idea who’s behind it?”
“Trish thinks Spiro. I hear she’s got an ironclad alibi. That she was drinking in here all night with her marines.”
“Maybe.”
Talina shot a sidelong glance at the big blonde woman. “Maybe?”
“You know how it is in here at night. And that night the place was packed. It’s not every day that a little girl flies in with her pet quetzal. Or that a murdering monster is locked away in the hospital while the little girl’s undergoing surgery. Most of the town was either here, the cafeteria, or standing around watching the hospital, waiting for carnage to ensue.”
“And Spiro?”
“Oh, she was here all right. You heard about the scene she made?”
“I’ve been locked in the hospital since Rocket arrived. Haven’t heard a thing.”
“Spiro sat just over there. Talking pretty loud and free, too. All about how you were a back-shooting bitch who wouldn’t dare to meet her face-to-face.”
“I see.”
“Well, you might want to know that a lot of people groused about it. Muttering among themselves that the Talina Perez they knew never belly-crawled from a fight. But given that Spiro was armed, backed by two of her marines toting automatic rifles, no one pushed it. And everyone knows that with Aguila’s people, you, Shig, and Yvette want them to keep their noses clean.”
“Smart of them.”
“So Spiro was here.” Inga paused. “Off and on.”
Talina straightened. “Off and on? You want to elaborate on that?”
“I wasn’t paying any more attention than normal, but I can tell you that a couple of times that night, she was gone for a while.”
“How long a while?”
“Sometimes to use the bathroom. And once for maybe a half hour or so. Long enough for me to wonder if she was going to stiff me on her tab. That was just after dark. Then, I look up, and she’s back. Acting up. Ordering drinks and making sure those two marines were draining them down. By the end of the night, they had to carry Abu Sassi out between the two of them.”
“And everyone else is talking about the quetzal,” Talina mused.
“And lots of people coming and going,” Inga reminded. “Like I say, it wasn’t the same as a normal night when everyone was minding everyone else’s business like they usually do.”
“You remember what Spiro was wearing? She have her pistol with her?”
“Sure. Had her whole utility belt. The one with all the pouches, equipment, and such. Generally they only wear those when they’re wearing armor. Sort of bulky, you know?”
“Yeah, Inga. I know.”
And a cold certainty settled in Talina’s bones.
From here on out, the course had been set.
Talina placed a two-SDR piece on the bar. “Keep the change. And until this is finally over between Spiro and me, you’d better insist on cash up front. I wouldn’t want to see you getting stiffed if you give that woman credit.”