Crucible Zero Page 26

  —W.Y.

  “You’ll have to name another price,” I said. “I can’t give you the cure.”

  “But that is all I want.” He spread his hands, as if helpless to change his actions.

  I shook my head. “It’s not mine to give. Even if I agreed and signed a contract, there are other people who know about it. People who knew about it before you and already staked their claim.”

  “I’ll buy them out.”

  “The answer’s still no. If that’s all you’ll accept in payment, then I’ll be going. Thanks for your time.” I turned to leave.

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait. Even I can be . . . flexible. Offer me a price.”

  “I don’t have anything you would want.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said. “Try, Matilda.” His words were deceptively encouraging.

  I was getting such mixed signals from him. He had been a good man before, and I defaulted to wanting to believe he was good still. It was messing with my ability to close this deal.

  What did I have that a man like Oscar, whom I really didn’t know anymore, would want?

  Not the farm. The thread, the jam.

  No! Jelly!

  “There’s a healing balm unique to my farm,” I said. “Can’t be reproduced anywhere else in the world. It makes wounds heal faster and keeps infection at bay. I’ll make you the exclusive distributor of sixty percent of the product we manufacture.”

  “I’m not a man who buys snake oil, my dear.”

  “It’s not snake oil. Ask Abraham. I put it on his gut wound.”

  “Is this true?” Oscar asked. “Did you get stabbed in the very short time since I’ve last seen you?”

  Abraham stood, took a breath, and let it out. He shook his head at me. “You should have given him the unproven plague cure,” he said as he pulled off his jacket. “Never offer up something of real, proven value,” he said, dragging his shirt off over his head, “when you can get away with providing the fake crap that a man desires.” He stripped down, then turned toward Oscar, bare chested.

  “Bullet hole.” He pointed to three almost healed holes in a tight configuration just below his right pec muscle. “Slash from a fall down a cliff.” He pushed aside the bandaging to show the stitches across a cut that looked like it was at least a week old and healing.

  “You fell down a cliff?” Oscar asked. “How clumsy of you, Abraham.”

  “Well, if someone would have canceled the contract on the Cases after I told him we were coming this way, maybe I wouldn’t have had to thin Coal and Ice’s ranks.”

  “I don’t see how your poor reflexes are my fault,” he said. “Also, I am not one to miss an opportunity. I knew you’d take care of the mercenaries who were on your trail. And since most of them hated you and had shortchanged a few contracts with me, I’m not sorry to have lost any of those assholes. Win-win.” Then he looked back at me. “Ninety percent of what you manufacture.”

  “Fifty,” I said.

  He grinned. “Are we talking a bucket or a teaspoon? How much of this balm do you make in a year?”

  I thought about it. I could put up about fifty pounds of it from the one lizard I’d had back in my time. And Quinten had cobbled together three dozen lizards. Even if they yielded only half the scales, it should be a decent amount.

  Still, I’d been taught to never overpromise. “I don’t have my records on hand,” I said, “and I haven’t taken inventory. But I can safely guarantee a hundred pounds over a year’s time.”

  “I’ll want a ten-year exclusive.”

  “I’ll give you two.”

  “Eight.”

  “Six months.”

  His grin was back. “Three years.”

  “Thirty months.”

  “Thirty months of ninety percent of your production?”

  “Thirty months of fifty percent of our production.”

  He considered it for a moment, and I tried not to let him see how nervous I was about it.

  “Does it work on humans?” he asked.

  I pointed at Abraham. “Yes?”

  “No, humans. Not galvanized.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I hadn’t thought you’d be such a judgmental man, considering your line of work.”

  He laughed and clapped his hands together. “My line of work is nothing but judgment, my dear Matilda. I take your answer to mean that your balm will work on those of us less long-lived?”

  I’d used it on Quinten, and he’d told me he used it on his own wounds too. “Yes. It works on humans. Animals too.”

  “Good! Most of the people in Coal and Ice tend to be one or the other.” He stood and walked around his desk again, his hand extended. “It is a true pleasure to do business with you, Ms. Case.”

  I shook his hand. “You too. So when do we get our guns?”

  * * *

  It turned out guns were the easy part of our resupply plan. Information took a little longer. Oscar invited us to stay in one of the many rooms of his building while we waited. While I thought there probably wasn’t a safer place to stay than with the head of Coal and Ice, and Foster agreed to stay with a quiet grunt, Abraham refused.

  “There are some things I need to pick up at my place,” he said. “Matilda?”

  I don’t know why I was so surprised. I mean, Abraham had to actually live somewhere. It made sense that he live here, with the other killers and assassins.

  I just hadn’t expected him to want to take me home.

  “Sure,” I said, suddenly itching with curiosity. In my world, Abraham had lived with Oscar, as a personal bodyguard and advisor. And Oscar, being the head of House Gray, had lived richly and provided fine living to Abraham.

  I wondered what sort of place Abraham would settle down in, given his own means.

  “You’re in a good mood,” he said as we walked along the sidewalk and toward the north end of town.

  “It’s after dawn and I’m not dead yet,” I said. “What’s not to smile about?”

  He glanced over at me. “You do know every one of these people we’re passing is a thief, killer, and reprobate?”

  “So?”

  “Aren’t you worried about how far you’ve fallen, Ms. Case? Why, just a few days ago, you were nothing but an honest, hardworking farm girl.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I was that. And I was a lot more than you can ever imagine.”

  “A time traveler.”

  “That too.”

  “Sister, fighter, hero, healer.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Lover?”

  “Are you offering or are you asking?”

  He stepped around a sandwich-board sign advertising fresh fruits that was propped in the middle of the sidewalk. “It depends. Are you accepting or explaining?”

  “No. Nuh-uh,” I said. “No weaseling out of it. Give me a straight answer.”

  He kept his eyes forward. Was he searching the alley and second-story windows for assassins? Probably. But he was also trying not to look at me.

  It was kind of cute.

  “I just thought . . . well, back there in the van.” He paused, and we let a car rumble past before crossing the street.

  “Back there in the van,” I prompted.

  He bit at the stitches on the side of his mouth. It was a nervous habit.

  I liked that I could make him nervous. Liked it a lot.

  “We . . . you . . . well.” He finally looked over at me. He let go of those stitches and pursed his lips into a smile. “We might just be something a lot more together than apart,” he said.

  “Is that you telling me you like me, Mr. Vail?”

  “I did search the whole world for you.”

  “So you did,” I said. “Are you happy with what you found?”

  “Other than you do se
em to attract more trouble than any woman I’ve ever met?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. You can’t tell me in three hundred years, you’ve never run into a single troublemaker like me.”

  “Troublemakers, yes.” He stopped. Half turned toward me. “But no one like you.”

  I looked up at him. At the sincerity in his eyes. At the man I could easily see myself spending the rest of my life with.

  “That’s really sweet,” I said, meaning it. “Anyone tell you how sweet you are, Abraham?”

  “Yes,” he said softly, sincerely. “And you, well, you have guts in your hair.”

  “Really? That’s how you take a compliment?” My hands flew up to my hair.

  “It’s . . .” He pointed toward the other side of my hair.

  I combed my fingers through as much as the tangles would allow.

  “That’s not helping much,” he said. “You sort of spread it around. Might want a bath.”

  “And how much is that going to cost me in this town? No, wait—let me guess. I’ll have to barter for it.”

  “Under other circumstances, yes. But since you offered to take on half the cost of funding our hunt for Slater, I’ll throw a shower in for free.”

  “How generous. Do I get soap with that?”

  “Probably.”

  He walked up the three stairs onto a porch of a small, well-built house. He slipped three keys into locks, pressed something else that looked a lot like a digital keypad, and then opened the door.

  “This is your place?”

  He glanced at it, glanced back at me. “You sound surprised.”

  “Sturdy walls, solid roof, and no obvious bullet holes. Exceeds my wildest expectations.”

  “Might charge you for hot water if you keep that up.” He strolled into the place. “Come on in.”

  I walked up the stairs and into Abraham’s house.

  Oscar’s church office had a heavily polished wood interior, each thin board slatted seamlessly into the other. Abraham’s home looked like a modern log cabin. A short set of stairs directly to my left led up to a loft bedroom that looked out over the living space. A stone hearth rose from floor to ceiling along the back wall, and tasteful furniture set about the room in deep burgundy and browns contrasted nicely with the wall painted pale sage, beyond which I could see a kitchen.

  “Bathroom there.” He pointed to the left of the kitchen to a white door. “Water will be hot, and it’s plumbed. Since you don’t have a change of clothes . . .”

  “I’ll make do with what I have in my duffel,” I said.

  He paused, looked at me from head to toe. “I’m getting you new clothes.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “It will take days to get the stink of feral blood out of them, including the things in your duffel. I’d rather not draw ferals to us. We’re leaving today. In two hours, tops. Not enough time to wash and dry your clothes.”

  “I’ll wear them wet.”

  “Tempting,” he said, tipping his head sideways, “but impractical. I’ll get you a new set.”

  I walked across the hardwood, trying to avoid getting dirt or blood on the expensive-looking throw rugs in the living room. “There is a lot left to be desired by your inability to take no for an answer,” I said.

  “You’ll get used to it, since I’m always right.”

  I shook my head and walked into the bathroom.

  The walls were wood painted white, and the ceiling was wood left bare. But it was the enormous lion’s-foot bathtub that had me drooling.

  I locked the door, then stripped out of my clothing. Abraham wasn’t joking. My shirt was covered in blood and chunks of stuff I didn’t want to identify. When I turned to the full-length mirror, I was a little horrified at the state of my hair.

  If this was how I looked and Oscar hadn’t batted an eye about doing business with me, it said a lot about his clientele.

  I turned away from the mirror and opened the tap. Hot water steamed into the beautiful cast-iron tub, and I crawled into it, sluicing away the worst of the grime from my body and hair before setting the plug to let the tub fill for a good soak.

  Yes, there was soap, and I intended to use it all.

  * * *

  I was out of the tub and wrapped in an oversized towel, using the brush I’d found in the vanity to get the tangles out of my hair. I’d done my best with my clothes, using a damp washcloth to scrape most of the gore off. They were still filthy, and as much as I hated to admit it, Abraham was right: they stank to high heaven.

  I had carefully removed the three slender vials of Shelley dust and made sure they weren’t broken. Luckily, they were still intact and stoppered. I made sure to wrap them back in the handkerchief.

  I worked my hair into one loose braid, then checked my stitches, bruises, and cuts to make sure nothing was going bad.

  I was procrastinating, taking the time to enjoy being clean. And maybe not wanting to tell Abraham he was right. I needed a new set of clothing.

  Abraham knocked on the door. “Matilda? I have a pile of clean, dry clothing in your size.”

  Crap.

  I walked over to the door and unlocked it.

  He didn’t smile as he very solemnly handed me the stack of clothes. “Just in case you changed your mind,” he said, eyes twinkling.

  “Thank you.” I took the clothes from him and shut the door in his smug face.

  Abraham had a good eye for size—all the way from long-sleeved flannel outer shirt, down to pants, underwear, and bra, the clothing he’d picked out fit perfectly.

  It was wonderful to be dry, clean, and warm.

  I tugged on the thick socks and put my boots over that, then pulled into the jacket last and tucked the vials of Shelley dust into the inside breast pocket.

  The jacket was a beautiful thing, brown leather that ended at my waist, with a couple old-time patches on it I didn’t recognize. I shrugged into it and it settled over me like a protective wing. It was a little too big, but I liked it.

  Might even have to talk Abraham into letting me keep it once this was done.

  I took a quick look in the mirror, shook my head at how well everything fit, and stepped out of the room.

  Abraham had changed too, and washed the blood out of his hair and off his face and hands.

  He had two backpacks out on the table in front of the couch where he sat, and was going through the contents of one of them.

  “Everything fit okay?” he asked without looking up.

  “Good enough,” I said. “Have we heard anything from Oscar—I mean, Binek—yet?”

  “No, but I expect to any minute. No matter what you think of him, he is reliable.”

  “I know.” I sat down across from him and looked through the second backpack.

  “You know?”

  “I knew him.”

  He finally glanced up at me. His eyes widened a bit, and one eyebrow slipped upward. “You underplayed the fit. Those look great on you.”

  “I do like the jacket,” I said, running my fingertips down the metal zipper teeth. “Who did it belong to?”

  He tipped his head. “Old history, really. A woman I was very fond of.”

  “Your wife?”

  “No. Jealous? She was a . . . she was . . . remarkable.”

  “Not jealous,” I said. “What war was this?” I pointed at the patch of a diamond with wings.

  “World War Two. She flew in the ATA.”

  “World War Two. That’s a long time to be keeping a jacket.”

  “I was very fond of her.” He said it clearly. And I knew that would be the last he would talk of it.

  “You might want to look through the backpack,” he said, changing the subject. “This is all we’ll be taking in with us to House Fire.”

  “You mean this plus
weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Oscar’s going to cover that too?”

  He smiled at me using his first name.

  “Binek,” I corrected.

  “Weapons are easy. It’s the intelligence to get into House Fire that’s taking time.”

  “And the vehicle?”

  He shook his head. “No problem with that. We’ll want to leave soon, though. I don’t want to wade through another night of ferals.”

  I suppressed a shudder. I knew how to kill, and had done it many times with the ferals that roamed our land. But last night had been a bloodbath. If Abraham hadn’t signaled Coal and Ice, and if the other vehicles hadn’t shown up to draw the beasts off us, we would have been buried beneath the sheer mass of them.

  We’d be dead.

  I dug through the backpack. Fresh medical supplies, a walkie-talkie, a rope, rations, and a case of lockpicking tools.

  “Ooh,” I said, pulling out two very nice daggers. “I likey.”

  He nodded. “Those are yours, of course. Also . . .” He got up, walked across the room, and opened a cupboard.

  He pulled two doors away to reveal a nook, in which hung very carefully maintained firearms. “Handgun. Preference?”

  “Semiautomatic if you have one, but I’m not picky. I can handle anything.”

  He chose a firearm, checked the breach, then picked up a couple extra clips.

  “What about the big guns?” I asked.

  He chose a handgun for himself and then closed and locked the cabinet. “Too much of a chance we’ll be stopped if we are carrying visible firepower.”

  “Stopped where? I’d like a clear idea of exactly what you think we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.”

  “You’re the planning type suddenly?”

  “When it comes to dealing with Slater, we will need all the plan A’s, B’s, and Q’s, R’s, X’s, Y’s, Z’s as we can. He knows us, Abraham. Knew us in a different time, and knows us in this time. And he’s had three hundred years to think about how to keep himself safe from us. He’s had three hundred years to try to kill us.”

  “He hasn’t been successful,” he reminded me.

  “I don’t know why he didn’t just kill you the first day he saw you, but he only recently found out I exist. And he knows I have my memories of what he’s done. Of that time we were all caught in. He knows about time travel, the way the Houses used to be ruled. He told me he wants to kill us all. Kill Quinten. Kill me.”