Page 34 of Assassin Anonymous

That god-fear.

I call Kenji. He doesn’t answer. It should be…noon there? He must be waiting for me to check in. I made my first amends. This is a big deal. Maybe he’s busy. He’ll call back in a few. He always does.

The lobby is empty, besides a pretty Indian man with a blue vest standing behind the desk, a pair of felt antlers on his head. He barely glances up when I walk in. I dig around in my pocket for the key card as I step onto the elevator. We’ve got an hour until we have to be at the port. Wish I had enough time for a shower, but just to be safe, after leaving Billy, I rode the train to the far west side of the country before taking a cab back. If I had a tail, I would have seen it, or lost them in the process.

I get to the door at the end of the hall and give it two knocks, then one, then two, so Astrid knows it’s me. After a moment she knocks back.

Three times.

It’s supposed to be twice.

Which leaves me with a fast decision to make. Someone’s in there, but the Agency can’t be here in full force. There would have been a Taser in my neck the moment I stepped out of the cab. I don’t want to abandon her, so I open the door to find her standing by the beds with a look on her face not dissimilar from the look on Billy’s after I drove the knife into the table.

There are two men at the far end of the room, dressed all in black. Both have scowls that look practiced, and the kind of bulk that comes through the tip of a needle. That’s the first thing that pegs them as B-team material. The guy on the left has a shaved head the same circumference of his neck; the guy on the right has a Viking beard and long brown hair tied into a ponytail.

They’re not like me, more like blunt instruments. Strong enough to do some damage but not always smart enough to get away with it, so ultimately expendable.

The guy with the shaved head—the Neck—is resting his hand on the gun holstered at his waist, finger on the trigger guard. “The rest of the team is on its way. Won’t be long now.”

“Are you hurt?” I ask Astrid.

She shakes her head. P. Kitty is nowhere to be seen. His carrier is in the corner and empty. He’s a smart cat. I mean, he’s not, he’s burned his tongue five separate times chewing through electrical wires. But he probably had the sense to seek refuge under the bed.

I close my right eye and tell Astrid, “Everything’s going to be all right.”

She lowers herself to one of the free chairs. This is a micro hotel, so the room is longer than it is wide. There’s a small table and two chairs to my right. To the left, a small kitchenette and TV. Beyond that is a raised platform with two beds almost directly next to each other, the heads pushed against the right wall. There’s barely a foot of clearance on the left side.

The two men are standing at the far end of the room with their backs to the window, against the fully drawn, light-blocking curtains.

I reach up and rub my closed right eye.

“Hey,” Ponytail says. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing what?”

“Your eye.”

“Got something in it. Some dust maybe.”

The Neck takes his gun out and holds it to his side. “Don’t you move, chief. Orders are to bring you in alive, but shit happens, you know? Being the one to cap the Pale Horse might mean a promotion.”

There’s a toiletry bag on the table that Astrid must have picked up. Not ideal, but I can work with it.

Ponytail clears his throat. “So you’re him?” Just a touch of awe in his voice.

“In the flesh.”

“Don’t look so tough to me,” the Neck says.

Though his voice has a little rattle.

I keep gently rubbing my eye. “Stories get bigger in the telling. Truth is you two look pretty tough, so I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“Ought to knock the living shit out of you for what you did,” the Neck says. “Though it looks like someone already did.”

It takes me a second, then I remember: Billy.

“You should see the other guy,” I tell him. “Not a scratch on him.”

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