Page 54 of On A Rift's Edge
Giana put her wine glass on the table, her focus now entirely on Winkie. The playful flirting had disappeared. “What do you think I want?”
“You want your son to start speaking with you again.” Winkie leaned forward, as intent as Giana. “He has a new life, a new partner, and you’re not part of it. You’re worried he’s not happy or safe with his scary dragon boyfriend, and you didn’t like it when your husband put him in danger. Kat can’t fix the relationship between you and your son, but he can convince Remi and Kaveh to meet you, and you can take it from there.”
Giana drew back, biting her lower lip. The femme-fatale mask fell away for only a second before her face smoothed into a confident facade again.
“Well, Kat.” Giana turned to him. “Is that something you can deliver?”
Kat found all this lying exhausting, so he went back to telling the truth. “I can’t make Remi do anything, but I can ensure you get a chance to talk with him and with Kaveh too if you want. Lyall always tried to keep Remi safe, even when he wasn’t under this indenture contract. Remi wants him to be free as much as I do.”
Giana sat back in her chair, her gaze so arresting Kat couldn’t look away if he tried.
After what seemed like an eternity, Giana Gatti nodded. “All right. We have a deal.”
20
Lyall was in no mood to talk with Teo. Beating him to within an inch of his life, on the other hand, had a certain amount of appeal.
“If you don’t want your ass handed to you, I suggest you turn around and go away.” Lyall didn’t bother to look up from his work. The desk in front of him was covered in paper—maps of the surrounding area, blueprints of the empty commercial building they were in, and even city records of underground structures like sewage pipes. The material had been printed from satellite images and other, older sources. Lyall could use computers, of course. He just didn’t like the fucking things.
“Another parlay?” Teo sounded hopeful. “An informal one. I have a gift.”
Lyall gave up and raised his head.
The hopper held a large bottle of scotch in one hand. “I threatened to break Fable’s arm if he didn’t tell me what you would consider a proper offering.”
Well, he could use a drink and more importantly learn why the hopper wanted to risk bothering him again.
“Five minutes.” Lyall held his hand out, and Teo cautiously came forward to hand him the bottle.
“What are you doing?” Teo examined Lyall’s work surface with interest. The hopper continued to improve his Earth alterform, although he had odd quirks that would raise the suspicions of anyone paying attention. It would be good enough to fool most humans, though.
“My fucking job,” Lyall answered as he opened the scotch. It was a decent brand. Fable had no interest in alcohol, but he was quite good at stealing stuff that was worth a lot at resale. Lyall didn’t have a glass handy, so he took a gulp from the bottle.
Teo showed no sign of comprehension. In addition to Lyall’s personal dislike of the hopper, Teo provided an added layer of complication to his plan. Lyall hated wild cards like that. Unlike Mabel and Fable, the hopper was dangerously naive about human society. He was an excellent fighter, better even than Zale, but lacked a sense of self-preservation, as evidenced by the fact that he was here.
Lyall didn’t need the currently fucked-up situation to get any worse. Kat was safely out of Arimanius’s grasp, and as much as it hurt to lose him, Lyall had always known that even the Matchmaker couldn’t create a world where the two of them could be together.
As for his friends, Remi had enough sense to tell Kaveh not to confront Arimanius while Lyall was once again the mafia boss’s indentured servant. The boss would love a fight between Lyall and the drakone who taken both the control object and his half-human son. That battle would leave either him or the Azdaha dead, and Lyall’s money would be on Kaveh.
Then there was the control object. Since Arimanius had Zale as his only asset in the monstertown, there was a good chance the don would cut his losses and take Lyall and his new froggy recruit back to Boston. Arimanius knew Lyall would be the best person to train the hopper, partially because Lyall wouldn’t be able to handle Teo’s current level of cluelessness and the contract regretfully stopped him from killing the hopper.
Maybe it was best to start with the basics.
“We’re here.” Lyall showed Teo several different views of their current location, a penthouse at the top of an abandoned downtown office building in Tucson. The building was empty of anyone but Arimanius and his Colony enforcers. “I’m going over possible escape routes in case of attack by either riftpeople or humans, as well as assessing any weak points in the defense of our current position. There are wards preventing portal entry to this space, but direct assault remains an option. Mabel and Fable are far better at grand larceny than holding off a fighting force, and Zale is away failing miserably as a spy. That leaves the two of us unless the boss gets involved, and we’ll never hear the end of it if that happens.”
“There are human technologies that can help with this type of risk assessment.” Teo held out his wrist, which was encircled with one of the human e-watches that could be used to interface with a cyberbug. A pair of inquisitive antennae popped up, and then a cyberbug with red wings speckled with black dots rose out the phone.
Arimanius had let Teo borrow Evangeline. Giana was going to be furious.
Teo made a decent attempt to talk to the cyberbug with a series of trills and chirps, but she ignored him and flew over to rest on Lyall’s hand.
“Hello, Evangeline.” Lyall lifted up his hand and smiled at the cyberbug, dropping his mental shields to allow for better communication. Given that she spent most of her time with Giana, Evangeline was better at using voice mimicry to set up cons than planning for a fight, but she could get the job done. “Teo’s a little slow on the uptake. Show him a 3-D version of the data on this table and add in any online human data sources, please.”
Evangeline gave a delighted trill and buzzed over the papers before zooming back into Teo’s watch.
A few moments later a hologram began to form on the desk, creating the building and the surrounding neighborhood in miniature form. Potential security vulnerabilities and escape routes were highlighted in glowing colors, as were load-bearing supports inside the walls of the high-rise. Evangeline kindly added in a timer to count down the minutes of Lyall’s painful conversation with the hopper.
Teo furrowed his brow. “I didn’t think the ratkind planned out war strategies like this. They’re a group of thieves, not soldiers. Also, how did you get the cyberbug to obey you? It won’t listen to me at all.”
