There was no las-snub.
‘Looking for this?’ asked Banda. She was standing in the doorway of the parlour’s small kitchen, wearing hand-me-down combats and baggies. Her feet were bare. She was aiming the las-snub at them.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ asked Urbano.
‘No,’ replied Banda.
‘Put that toy away,’ Urbano laughed. ‘Put that toy away or I’ll kill you.’
‘Oh, Banda, please–’ Elodie began.
Urbano reached into his coat and calmly produced a massive double-celled laspistol. He raised it and aimed it at Banda.
‘Is this some kind of frigging joke?’ he repeated, over-carefully.
‘Permission to take the shot,’ Banda said.
‘Who are you talking to?’ Urbano asked.
‘She’s talking to me,’ said Rawne. He appeared in the kitchen doorway beside Banda. Behind him, Varl was aiming a lasrifle at Urbano.
‘Shit!‘ exclaimed Urbano, and lowered his pistol.
‘Good boy,’ said Rawne.
‘You’re Hark, right?’ asked Urbano, looking at the commissar uniform Rawne was wearing. ‘Listen to me, Hark, it doesn’t have to go like this. We can do business. Didn’t you get enough last time you were here? Why the frig are you on me like this?’
‘Because we’re pissed off,’ said Rawne. ‘Because we’ve been through hell. Because we need some serious kill-power, and you were the nearest outlet we could think of.’
Rawne paused and looked at Banda, who was still aiming the snub at Urbano’s face.
‘Thanks for leaving the toilet window open,’ he said.
‘No problem. You want me to take this shot?’
‘Whoa, whoa!’ said Urbano. ‘Kill-power. I can get you kill-power. What do you need, Commissar Hark?’
‘You still think I’m a commissar?’ Rawne asked him.
‘What are you, then?’ Urbano asked.
‘Serious bad news for Cyrus Urbano,’ Rawne replied.
‘Come on!’ Urbano exclaimed. ‘You want kill-power? I’ve got it. What do you want? Las? Hard-slug? Hell? I’ve got it all!’
‘Good,’ Rawne said.
‘We just need to discuss price,’ Urbano said.
‘Price?’ Rawne echoed. ‘You’re serious? In this situation?’
‘Of course,’ Urbano replied. ‘I’m a businessman.’
‘And I’m a bastard,’ Rawne replied. He looked at Banda. ‘Take the shot.’
‘What?’ Urbano managed.
Banda shot him through the forehead. The las-round made a scorched hole in Urbano’s brow. He smashed backwards into the cooker, and brought the pan of frying eggs and rashers down on top of him as he folded onto the floor and lay still in a lake of his own spreading blood.
‘Holy Throne!’ Elodie cried.
‘I guess we’ll be negotiating with you now,’ Rawne said to Elodie.
They opened up what Elodie referred to as the ‘gun room’. It was little more than a reinforced closet in one of the private rooms. Inside it, arranged on wooden racks, was the stock of side-arms kept to defend the premises. There were two combat shotguns, two lasrifles, and a lot of solid slug pieces, including a massive bolt-action rifle, and a crate of brand new, forge-fresh small pattern laspistols with their Munitorum tags still on them, a trophy of the lucrative crossover between underworld rackets and Guard quartermasters on the take.
‘Nice,’ said Leyr, lifting one of the pistols and arming it.
‘Pull what you want,’ Rawne told them. It seemed as if he was going to be staking personal claim to the Blood Pact lasrifle he’d taken in the cells at Section. The two lasrifles in the gun room went to Daur and Meryn, and Varl and Banda took combat shotguns. Cant, lower on the pecking order, armed himself with an old autogun and a bag of reloads. Leyr took the big bolt-action.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Varl.
‘Used to hunt with a baby like this back home,’ Leyr replied.
The gun room, due to its hefty locks, also held the club’s stash of obscura and other narcotics, stored in tins and paper folds.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Daur said.
Varl and Meryn looked at him.
‘Go feth yourself, Daur,’ said Meryn.
Daur took a step forwards.
‘Whoa, whoa!’ interjected Varl, getting between them. ‘We’re all friends here!’
‘We’re really not,’ said Daur, glaring at Meryn. ‘We are deep in it, and I don’t want the fether who’s supposed to have my back to be anything less than wide awake.’
‘Listen to yourself, Daur,’ Meryn mocked, popping the lid off a tin of obscura leaf and sniffing it, ‘it’s like you’re still in the fething Guard. You are so straighter-than-straight. Like I’m going to listen to you or even care what you say.’
Daur lunged at Meryn, but Varl held him back.
‘Meryn?’ said Rawne from behind them.
‘Yes?’
‘Throw it away.’
Meryn turned to stare at Rawne.
‘What?’
‘Throw it away.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ said Rawne, ‘we are deep in it, and I don’t want the fether who’s supposed to have my back to be anything less than wide awake.’
Meryn glared.
‘We’re still fething Guard, Meryn,’ said Rawne, ‘we’re just in a temporary bad place. So throw that shit away and start observing the chain of command, or I’ll have Leyr shoot you with his ridiculously big rifle. No, no, worse than that. I’ll have Cant mow you down with his stubber. Then there’d be shame involved.’
‘You can mow Meryn down with that, can’t you, Cant?’ Varl asked.
Cant smiled.
‘Yes,’ he promised.
Meryn lowered his hands.
‘Feth you all,’ he said and tossed the tin away.
‘I didn’t hear you, soldier,’ said Rawne.
‘I said: feth you all, sir,’ said Meryn.
‘Better. Now perhaps you’d like to take yourself off and investigate what this place has to offer in the way of comms. Varl, assist him.’
Daur watched Varl and the glowering Meryn leave the room.
‘Thanks for the support,’ he said to Rawne.
‘Please don’t think I did it for your benefit,’ Rawne replied.
‘Perish the thought,’ said Daur. He walked back into the main bar. Leyr, the big bolt-action resting across the crook of his arm, was watching Elodie, who had been left sitting on a sofa. The strong-arm, Xomat, was sitting in a chair by the back wall, tied up and gagged with adhesive tape. His eyes were wide.
Daur walked over to the bar and rested his lasrifle on the nalwood top. He sat on one of the stools, the same stool he’d sat on the night of the sting. He’d taken a pack of the club’s hand-coloured cards from one of the gaming tables, and began to flip through them absently, placing them face-up on the counter.
‘What size are your boots?’ Banda asked. She had strode into the bar, barefoot, the shotgun lodged over her shoulder, and gone right up to Xomat.
Mmgggh! he replied.
Banda stripped the tape gag away from his mouth.
‘What?’
‘Nine!’ Xomat stammered.
‘Oh, you’re no use!’ Banda declared, and wedged the tape back into place.
‘You’re what, a six?’ asked Elodie.
‘Yes.’
‘Upstairs, in my room. The blue door at the end. There’s a pair of work boots under the bed. Size six.’
‘Thanks,’ said Banda. She turned to go, but paused. ‘I never meant to feth your life up,’ she said.
Elodie shrugged.
When Banda had gone, Elodie rose and walked over to Daur at the bar. Leyr watched her, but made no comment.
‘I’d like you to do me a favour,’ Elodie said to Daur as she sat on the stool beside him.
‘And that would be what?’