Caine's Law by Matthew Stover

Author:Matthew Stover [Stover, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345532541
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

“Fuck the city. I’d burn the world to save her.”

— “CAINE” (PFNL. HARI MICHAELSON)

For Love of Pallas Ril

“If you move very, very slowly, he probably won’t shoot you again,” Jonathan Fist said to the dying assassin. “That can’t be comfortable.” Very, very slowly, Tanner rolled himself off his crossbow. “You’ll excuse me not getting up.”

The front of his tunic glistened with blood, black in the moonlight. “What do you fuckers want to know?”

Orbek leveled the rifle. “How about one reason we shouldn’t torture you till we get bored, then shoot you in the head?”

“Please yourself,” Tanner said. His voice was cold as the stone he lay on, and had the flattened urban whine of Seven Wells. “There’s nowhere I have to be.”

Fist sighed. “I liked you better folksy.”

“Well, whatever suits you just tickles me plumb to death.”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Maybe start with your name,” Orbek said. “Also why you’re trying to kill my little brother.”

Tanner lifted his head and frowned at Fist. “Did he say brother?”

“It’s a long story.”

“It would have to be.”

The young ogrillo took a step forward and peeled his lips away from his tusks. “Your name, fucker.”

“Orbek. You’re too close.”

He looked at Fist. “What’s he gonna do? Bleed on me?”

“Well, shit, Orbek, what the fuck would I know about it? It’s not like I know shit about fighting or anything. You want to put your grey leather ass inside the reach of a guy who just now came within an ace of beating me to death while armed with nothing but an empty crossbow and a bad attitude, you go right the fuck ahead. I’ll just sit over here with my broken wrist and my broken ankle and cheer you on until my fucking eyes swell shut, huh?”

Orbek glowered, but took a step back. Then another. “Guess it’s no trouble to shoot him from over here.”

“It was no trouble to shoot him from a hundred yards uphill. Which is where you need to go back to,” Fist said. “Really. Right now.”

Cords bulged in Orbek’s neck. “First he says his name.”

“Y’know, I was lying there wondering why a grill would carry knives. Didn’t make sense,” Tanner said. “But now I see you favor long sleeves, and that pretty much answers—”

Orbek snapped the rifle to his shoulder. “The next you say that ain’t your name—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Fist said. “Don’t you assholes realize you want the same thing?”

They looked at him. He was too tired to make a joke out of it, and some of the pain had begun to trickle through his Control Discipline. “He wants to shoot you. You want to be shot. Both of you need to back the fuck off and give me some room to work.”

Tanner looked skeptical. “What’s in it for me?”

“If you want to find out, quit fucking around.”

“Is that how you always play it?”

“Only with you. And only when I’ve got you bleeding out. Orbek, take a fucking hike. If you spot the horse-witch, let her know where we are.”

“Easy peasy. I tell my horse.

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