Others

      The next day Kenny arrived in Stohess. The crossing had made him a little tired, but it hadn’t changed his initial mood. This was one of those kills he wanted with all his soul, and he wasn’t going to hold himself back in any way. He had no trouble finding the place, Kiva had indicated, where he could rest, and there was an tavern nearby, where he could replenish his strength. It was foolish to go to Berner’s house now; the girl had told him, that he did not come home until the very evening, and that suited Kenny just fine. The dusk of night and the silence of the darkness were always more to his liking. So there was time for a short nap and a bite to eat.       Ackerman killed his enemy long and painfully, trying to squeeze out of him as much information as possible about the people, who knew the secret of King Fritz. Berner, however, immediately gave out everything he could know, but this did not stop the killer from further torture. Kenny stared into the victim’s eyes, watching the life leave the bloody and tortured body. Only after savoring the sight did the killer leave the house. But something went wrong. Perhaps the Reaper had gotten carried away and missed the arrival of the police squad, or perhaps the nobleman had somehow foreseen something like this, and now the man was in a quandary. The police force was twenty-five men, quite a group, and they were in two teams, which made the situation more difficult. He didn’t want to fight them, the risk was too great, so Kenny went from pursuing one group, of which he counted twelve, to the other, of which there were thirteen.       They methodically tried to corral him and weed him out against each other. Unfortunately for them, Kenny more or less knew the streets of Stohess, and cleverly eluded all these attempts to squeeze him between the two squads. He cut across the streets through throughways, jumped over fences, and tried to get away in the opposite direction from his pursuers. But his luck ran out, when he broke away from the first group of pursuers and unexpectedly ran into the second, who were clearly not expecting him from the direction, he had jumped out at them. No matter what anyone said, Kenny’s reactions were always excellent. His brain immediately recognized, that he was too close to his enemies, and he couldn’t get away. They had rifles, which gave them some advantage.       The decision was made, and he dashed toward the nearest enemy, taking advantage of their shared second of confusion. He plunged the knife into guy’s chest with the expectation, that the fellow would let out as painful a scream as possible, which would make his comrades even more confused, it would give a few precious and decisive seconds. As it happened, the rest of the police were in shock, not yet fully aware of what was happening. The lightning speed of the killer’s movements left them with nothing else to do. Kenny grabbed the rifle from the falling man with his left hand and fired in the direction, where more people were standing, not expecting to hit anyone. But he hit someone, as evidenced by someone’s scream. The assassin didn’t care, who he hit, whether he inflicted a fatal wound, now he needed to incapacitate as many of his opponents as he could, before they started moving and firing. When they came around he killed two more. He was left alone against nine.       When they started firing, he ducked down, simultaneously moving to the side, knocked the man to the ground, and, without getting up, continuing his movement, slit the man’s throat aslant, again intercepting the rifle from the victim’s hands. This time he did not shoot, he threw the rifle at the enother man, it hit him in the face. The rest had time to dodge, and Kenny took advantage of that, leaping up to the nearest girl, who hadn’t yet completed her evasive maneuver, and caught her with his knife. He used her body as a shield, and hurled it at those close to him while following him. Kenny kicked the man in the face, aiming for the temple, and there was a crunch. The killer rushed toward the cop the rifle had hit and finished him off. Kenny bent over again, dodging the shots above his head.       The rifles had an advantage, but they had to be reloaded. The five of them couldn’t do it at the same time, though; they scattered, finally realizing that standing side by side risked more. But their eyes were already filled with terror, lowering their fighting ability. Kenny rushed after the man closest to him, the man held out the rifle he’d reloaded a minute earlier, but Ackerman easily evaded a direct shot, kneeing him in the stomach. The man bent, and Kenny plunged his blade into the back of his head, simultaneously removing the knife from his victim’s leg restraints. He immediately threw the other’s blade at the farthest enemy, he didn’t expect that and didn’t have time to dodge, the blade stabbed him in the eye. Dodging bullets, Kenny reached the guy standing near the wall, he didn’t have time to bounce, and Kenny grabbed his head and slammed his temple against the wall, his body collapsed.       At that moment another young man, apparently taking advantage of the moment, jumped up behind him. But Kenny was ready for such, so he turned around and plunged the knife into the place under the guy’s ear. The killer jumped away from the wall, where the bullets flew. But those shots were the last, it needed to reload, or maybe the last enemy had just run out of ammunition. Now it was decided, the guy ran away. It was a fatal mistake for him to turn his back to the predator. Kenny quickly caught up and killed the enemy with a precise blow from the back. Then he allowed himself to stop and breathe in the night air. It had been less than five minutes since he’d jumped out at them. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught some movement and started to jump away, shifting the knife so that he could throw it at the target. His heart skipped a beat, telling him he was a little too late. A shot rang out.       And when Kenny turned fully around, all he could see was a man with a rifle in his hands falling to the ground, blood oozing from the back of his head. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he saw an indistinct figure retreating into the darkness of the alley. “Don’t relax, Reaper,” the serious voice said quietly, “there are more to come.”       He decided to answer questions about, what Kiva was doing here and how she’d gotten here, later. He ran on, now knowing, that his charge was following parallel to his course, covering him from one side. There was still one more squad of twelve, and if Kiva’s words were to be believed, “more to come”. Kenny grinned at the thought, that the entire city’s police force was here. It was likely that they were. Sometimes a girl would spring out in front of him, telling him where it was best to turn, the police following them at her side. Occasionally, but some distance away, Kenny heard gunshots and screams.       The Reaper stopped in an alleyway to catch his breath and think about the situation, but he couldn’t get away. Kiva suddenly flew at him from another alleyway. There was blood on the girl’s face, flowing from a scratch on her forehead and pouring into her left eye. A light burned in her eyes, as if they weren’t being chased, but were cornering the cops themselves. “We’ll have to go through the sewers, some of them have gears.” “Fuck,” he gritted his teeth, not happy about the news, “lead the way.”       Kenny didn’t like sewers, and now he understood, why he couldn’t get away from his pursuers, the gears gave them an advantage in the open. It confirmed the correctness of the retreat, but it did not add to the mood. The low vaults of the channel negated the advantage of the omni-directional mobility gears, and it would be a while before they searched every corner. All this would give them a chance to get away from the cops.       They moved toward the catacombs for a while. Kiva quickly found a place, where the sewer grate was already open. From the way Kiva walked confidently toward it, Kenny realized, that the girl had been here before. She crouched over the hole in the ground, turned to him: “You go down first, then pick me up, I’ll close the passage with a grate. That’ll throw them off the trail.”       Kenny didn’t mind, so he quickly slid down. The smell of waste and dirt hit his nose, making the man cringe. He could bear the stench, he just didn’t like it. The girl’s legs appeared in the aisle, she was on her elbows, and the man supported her legs, now holding her weight in his arms. Then the girl took the grate and slid down, thus closing the passage with the bar, making it appear, that everything was as it was and no one had gotten in. The man helped the girl carefully down to the floor.       Then Kenny was able to note, that the girl was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing a few days ago. So she was in a big hurry to get him to Stohess. The thought made him chuckle, indeed, if it wasn’t for the girl, he might have had more trouble. And he didn’t like to test his luck. She had helped him. Meanwhile, Kiva was heading somewhere, Kenny followed, the girl could navigate in such places much better than him. “Do you know, where Mitra is?”       The girl nodded, wiping the blood on her face: “That’s where we’re going.”       Even now they were thinking the same thing, they had created the illusion, that they were heading for the catacombs, but in fact they would be going in the opposite direction, and from Mitra they would go to Ehrmich. They walked at a brisk pace, led by the girl; she stopped occasionally, turning her head, remembering the way. Blood continued to flood her eye, and she often brought her hand to her face to wipe it away from her eye, which was stinging and watery.       Once they had passed, what they thought was a safe distance, they both stopped for a short rest. The girl cast a concerned glance at Kenny, who was leaning back against the wall. “You didn’t get hit?” “Well, I’m not you, little one,” he grinned mockingly. “How did you even manage to get hit?”       He glanced at the scratch on his forehead. The girl touched her hand to the scratch again, groping for it. Her hair was disheveled, and blood was visible on her neck and cheek. But despite the tattered appearance, there was still a flame in her eyes. “As always, you don’t have any scratches on you,” the girl said with a sigh of relief, and then she grumbled, rolling her eyes: “I shouldn’t have followed you.” “But you’re here, you had a long walk,” his mocking tone wasn’t going to change. “All day, since I woke up,” the girl answered indifferently, shrugging her shoulders.       The indifference was contrived, though; she feared the next question. “Why did you follow me here in the first place, hm? I told you to be home.”       He came closer to her now, almost right up to her. The man was annoyed, he didn’t tolerate disobedience.       Kiva was silent, her eyes averted, she couldn’t give a specific answer herself. In the morning, waking up on the couch, something clicked in her head and anxiety set in. Without a second thought, she made her way to Stohess. The girl seemed mildly confused, trying to find the right words. “You were in a hurry.”       Her behavior made Kenny take her chin in the lock of his thumb and forefinger, turn her to face him, forcing her to look into his eyes. He looked into them, wanting to see, what she was thinking, he was curious. “You were never in a hurry, Kenny. It was… strange, unlike you, so I thought I’d better catch up with you, before something happened.”       She was silent, embarrassed by the concern and open affection. Kenny watched her in silence. The girl had come to him on time, he could tell himself inside, but not outside. “You did the right thing, little girl,” he stroked her cheek and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The girl mewled, the man didn’t often show warmth. They didn’t need it so much, they understood each other without words. Still, it felt good, and she rubbed her cheek against his rough palm.        Four hours later they were already in Mitra. Their clothes were stinking by then, and they were getting tired. They passed the guards at the gate without much trouble; it was still early morning. As they walked, they had time to discuss, that the police had acted skillfully, that Kiva would not have intervened in the fight, if the enemy had not come from behind, the girl assured, that she had no doubt, that Kenny could handle everything on his own. It was business as usual, not a scratch on Kenny, the girl got away with a cleft on her forehead. There was no one on the city streets, when they reached the house. Kenny politely let Kiva use the bathroom first, he couldn’t decide, what annoyed him more: the dirty girl with blood on her face, or the odor from himself. But the girl looked more exhausted than him, even though he had gone through the case from start to finish, taking a more active part. Most likely, she was in a great hurry to get to Stohess and didn’t make any stops.       Kenny could have joined her in the bathroom to relieve the tension, as he sometimes did, but he felt tired himself. Not tonight. Kiva soon left the tub, and went upstairs, wrapped in just a towel. Kenny headed to the tub to wash off the sweat, dirt and fatigue of the night. When the girl walked toward him, carrying fresh clothes for the man, Kenny was standing in front of the mirror with a towel wrapped around his waist, shaving his face clean. Threw a glance at the girl in the mirror. Her hair was wet, and the top button of her shirt was undone, allowing her skin to breathe and exposing her white skin and collarbones. She looked tired, but after a refreshing shower, peaceful. The predatory glint in her eyes was gone. Kiva hesitated in the bathroom, glancing at the man, and Kenny couldn’t resist a caustic comment: “What, are you peeking at me already? You’re not satisfied with your lack of sex, are you?”        The girl blushed slightly, bending down to pick up the basket of dirty clothes. “I can help you, all you have to do is ask me nicely for help.”       And under his raspy, offensive laughter, the girl retreated from the room, feeling confused and shy.       When Kenny came out, he was wearing clean clothes that smelled nice. It was refreshing. He would buy soap that smelled nice, and make Kiva do his laundry with it. Even though it was expensive, the man felt it was a must. Kenny went into the kitchen, where Kiva was already doing stuff. The girl was frying something on a pan, there was a kettle with brew and a board with sliced bread on the table. That was right, after a night like that all he wanted to do was wash, eat and sleep. Nothing too much, and the girl seemed to share that opinion. He walked over and sat down in a chair. Tiredness gave a peculiar touch to such a homely atmosphere. From the outside, there was no way to tell that they had returned from killing a nobleman in Stohess, killing fifteen policemen and traveling a great distance through the sewers. Kiva served a steaming skillet on a rack with roasted potatoes and some herbs. It was the best thing she could make right now.       Heat was coming from the stove, warming them even more. The girl took out plates, cups, cutlery. When the first hunger was satisfied, they talked business. “So what did you get from Berner?” “All I needed to know. He didn’t know, who the real king was. But he was so talkative, he gave me the names of people, who might know. That’s where he got Fritz’s secret from.” “Curious,” she said, leaning back in her chair and drinking tea. “He had the good sense not to mention them in any conversation.” “That’s right, the son of a bitch was too careful. There are three names, maybe you’ve heard one of them. An official from Orvud, Storn, a nobleman from Krolva, Eisner, and Shiganshina — Karon.” “Two I know, the last one I don’t. I don’t remember his name anywhere.” “The bastard said, that Eisner shared this secret with him, saying that Fritz was not the real king. Then he found confirmation of that by talking to Storn, who in turn hinted, that Karon knew exactly who the real king is, which is why he stayed out of all this shit.” “Wow, that’s something you don’t read in any letter.” “That’s right, people are so reluctant to share secrets,” he grinned wryly.       The grin gave Kiva goosebumps, and she was glad, she hadn’t seen the massacre of Berner. When the meal was over, Kenny went upstairs and laid down on the made-up bed. The sun was already shining outside the window; it had become morning.       He pondered now, which of the three to go after first. It was easier to start with Caron, better chance of success, but he was sure to be cautious after Berner’s murder. Same with Storn, Orvud’s close to the incident. So Krolva to Eisner. Soon Kiva joined him, having finished cleaning up the kitchen. She was beginning to feel sleepy, so she made her way to the bed and lay down tiredly across it. Then curled up in some sort of pose, laying her head on the man’s stomach as if guarding his sleep. Kenny wasn’t embarrassed by this, he lowered his hand to her head and began to stroke it. The natural, familiar movement soothed his thoughts, put his mind to sleep, and the warmth from his stomach calmed him. The two of them fell asleep together after a hard night, approaching the main goal.