Harmonious Hearts 2017 Read online

  “Yes, Kyel. I felt better after getting sliced up.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it for a moment, Kyel. Come, now. I thought you were a good hitter.”

  “I was a good hitter.”

  Sulvan changes his pants, never losing eye contact with her. She’s unnerved. He won’t stop looking, won’t stop waiting. He wants an answer, and Kyel doesn’t know if she can give it to him.

  She just needs to think, but she can’t concentrate. Not with Sulvan right there.

  She turns around and rubs her face. Why would somebody want to get scars on their chest? Why would somebody mutilate themselves like that?

  Maybe she needs to approach this differently.

  What would make her put scars on herself? To remove bullets, of course. She’d done it a few times before when she was younger and still with the stellas. But those scars, they’re too big to be for bullets. Maybe it was for a different weapon.

  She stops.

  Maybe it wasn’t a weapon at all. Maybe he was removing something that was already there.

  “So you got it,” Sulvan says quietly. Kyel spins to face him and spots a small, thin smile on his face. “Took you longer than any hitter would take, but it was certainly faster than any other copper in this pissing place.”

  Kyel brings a hand to her chest.

  “Say what you will about the Tribes of Dagath,” Sulvan says, “but I was happy in finis. And, if they continue to let me live for them, I will continue to be happy.”

  “And if they kill you?”

  Sulvan shrugs. “Then they kill me. And I can die knowing that, once, I mattered to someone, somewhere. And I’ll accept my end.”

  Kyel, shivering, walks away.

  SHE COMES back about three hours later. She looks even more haggard than before, almost staggering to the cell, rubbing her eyes. Sulvan picks at his shirt and stands up.

  “Your fornies should be done processing the scene by now. What’s the news?”

  “Well, they found out who the body was. Hectrr Yce.”

  Sulvan closes his eyes for a moment, and the day before flashes briefly before his eyes.

  Jenzen and Korey, spinning in his hands.

  Screams.

  The spattering of blood, of gray matter, of snarled words from torn lips.

  Yce surrendering to what he knows is the end.

  “Did you kill him, Sulvan?”

  Sulvan’s fingers trace the hem of his pants.

  “Please just give me a straight answer for once.”

  “I’ve never told you anything but the truth, Kyel.”

  She pauses to consider that, probably rewinding through the last day and a half—through every conversation they’ve had. And she seems to be satisfied with what she finds.

  “I told you.”

  Kyel crosses her arms. “Tell me. Did you or did you not kill him?”

  “I’ve killed a lot of people.”

  “Is that a confession?”

  “It’s a statement.”

  “Was one of those people Hectrr Yce?”

  Sulvan is so incredibly tired. He just wants to figure all this out. He just wants this to be over.

  “Answer me, Sulvan.”

  He doesn’t. He refuses to.

  “Answer me, Sulvan, or—”

  “Or what?” He stands now, fast enough that he startles Kyel. She stumbles backward and collides with the wall opposite his cell. “What are you going to do to me, Detective Kyel? Torture me? Force me under the water this pissing, rotting city is sinking into and hope I can’t hold my breath for longer than you can restrain me? Are you going to threaten something or somebody you think I care about? Are you going to throw away the key to this pissing cell?” He slams his hand against the bars and Kyel flinches. “There’s nothing that you can do that will make me give you the answers you want. Nothing.”

  Kyel just looks at him, eyes huge. Sulvan laughs.

  “What, you never deal with somebody like me?”

  Kyel swallows. “I’ve dealt with hitters.” Her gaze seems stuck on Sulvan’s hands, like she’s afraid he’ll do something and she wants to be prepared to stop it.

  “Any like me?”

  The expression on her face is answer enough.

  “I get it, you know.” Sulvan puts his hand over his nose and mouth, pretending he has the comfort of his mask still pressed against his face. “Other tribes—they make hard hitters. They still do. But nobody can make them as hard as does finis, nor as….” He pauses, brings his hand back down, and studies his fingers. “Unnerving. Other hitters are cold and cruel. They hit their mark and they leave a mess and they move on. If you catch them, they’ll spit in your face and laugh when you cry.”

  Kyel steps closer. She can’t help it. Sulvan reaches out and touches her cheek, fingers gentle.

  “Finis hitters, they’re beautiful. They’re smooth and graceful. When you catch them, it’s because they want to be caught, and when you talk to them, you know their eyes are too far gone to ever again be soft, but you can’t help but hope that they’ll trust you over anyone else, that they’ll spill the secrets to you, that they’ll choose you, that they’ll be your friend, and you don’t remember until it’s too late.” He lowers his voice into a whisper. Kyel is almost leaning into his palm. “The hitters in finis, they’re the embodiment of your nightmares.”

  Kyel jerks away. Her chest heaves, trying to catch the breath she lost. Sulvan smiles and walks back to his cot. “Gods,” she says. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sulvan,” Sulvan says. “I’m your second chance.”

  KYEL RETURNS with food. Sulvan studies her as she approaches and drops the pungent sack through the bars but makes no move to retrieve it.

  “You aren’t hungry?”

  “Hitters only trust food that they or their Hand prepared. You know that.”

  “It’s been a long time since you ate last. You’re probably still growing. You need it.”

  Sulvan is tiring of these games. “Ask your questions, Kyel.”

  “Straight to the point now, I see.”

  “Sooner or later, finis will arrive to carry out my sentence. Now is as good a time as any to sort through this mess.”

  “What, and earlier was too soon?” Smug, Kyel crosses her arms and tilts her chin up. “Come on, Sulvan. Just tell me what happened and we can get you out of this. I got out of the stellas. You can do the same with finis.”

  Oh. “You got out of the stellas,” Sulvan repeats.

  “That’s right. What did you think, that I was undercover or something?”

  The last piece of this puzzle slides into place. It’s been a little difficult, sorting through everything. Harder than it’s been in the past, and it’s that damn hitter’s fault. Or was he a Hand? Sulvan never can tell the difference between ranks of the lesser tribes. Finis, they wear colored sashes. Apparently the other tribes just wing it and hope for the best.

  “My Hand helped me get out,” she tells him. “They realized that I wasn’t made for the business. Killing, that is, for purpose of power. I could never be okay with it, so they helped me get out. I can do the same for you.”

  “Hush for a moment,” Sulvan says. “You’re the only one in stella in this sector?”

  Kyel’s taken aback. “What? No. I was a special case. People rarely ever get out of the stellas, and if they did, they’re usually thrown in prison or killed for it. I was only kept around because I was a good enough hitter.” She pauses for a beat. “Why?”

  Sulvan rubs his face. “I need you to do something for me, amicus.” The hitter nickname slips off his tongue easier than he thought it would, and Kyel sucks in a sharp breath. She probably hasn’t heard that since she was a hitter herself.

  “I’m past that.” Her voice trembles. Sulvan’s hit a nerve, and he’s hit it deep. But he doesn’t have the time to apologize for it, nor does he really want to.

  “I need you to get me a knife. Something sharp and small.” />
  “What?” In her surprise, a laugh bubbles out and she backs away a step. “Are you shitting me?”

  “No. I need the knife. I won’t hurt… well, I won’t kill anybody. And I won’t hurt anybody but myself with it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Another step backward. Sulvan’s losing her. He pulls down the waist of his pants until the tiny wound is revealed, just on the edge of his hip bone. Just barely pushing on the skin is a small dark green rectangle. “I was injected with this yesterday.”

  Now she comes closer, squinting to see. “That looks like a transmitter.”

  “It is a transmitter. A Parcel 24, if I’m not mistaken. It can transmit a tracking signal over the entire goddamn island. It also regularly releases a sedative.”

  “Why—”

  “I need you to get me a knife so I can remove it. It’s too far in for me to get it with my hands, but a knife will do the trick.”

  “I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.”

  Sulvan curses and pulls the waistband back up. “Then perform the goddamn surgery on me yourself. I want it out.”

  She’s processing all this slowly. Gods, she’s really lost her touch, hasn’t she? “That’s why you didn’t run yesterday. Why you didn’t try to get out of it. You could have just been tracked.”

  Sulvan doesn’t bother to answer.

  “You could have just taken it out yourself, couldn’t you have?”

  “I could have.” Would have been difficult with his senses so muddled, but he could’ve made a messy surgery out of it. “But I still would’ve been implicated, wouldn’t I have?”

  “You wouldn’t have been implicated. Shite, we still don’t really know who you are. The only reason you’re in here is because you surrendered.” It’s hurting her, but she’s finally admitting she wouldn’t stand a chance against Sulvan if it came down to it. He’s proud of her. But also they don’t have the time for this.

  “It was a joke. Are you doing the surgery or not?”

  “I… I don’t think I can.”

  “You don’t think you can or you don’t think you’re allowed to?”

  The gears in her head are spinning fast. “Come closer,” she says, tugging out her jitte. “If you do anything, people will be here in a snap.” She has to know that isn’t at all threatening to Sulvan, but it might bring her comfort.

  “If I was going to do anything, Kyel,” Sulvan says, “I would have done it by now.” He leans his hip against the bars, and Kyel pulls the cap of her jitte off. Naughty, naughty, Detective Kyel. But also predictable. Once a hitter, always a hitter, and if a hitter knows a way to sneak a knife into the pathetic stick she was issued, she’d do it. It’s probably perfectly balanced too.

  “Thank you,” he says quietly.

  “Why didn’t you just remove this yourself, when you were on the run?” The tip digs into his skin, and Sulvan hisses at the pain that shoots up his side.

  “I had things to do.” Blood is trickling down his leg, soaking his pants. So much for clean.

  “Like what, get arrested?” She has a big enough cut now and steps back, wiping the blade clean, and re-sheathes it. Sulvan spreads open the cut and reaches in with two fingers, finds the hard edge of the chip, and slowly pulls it out.

  “Yes. Like getting arrested. Your shiv balanced?”

  “Yes.”

  “You allowed to have that?” He looks up as he pulls the chip free of his skin and sees a pretty little smile on her face.

  “No. You better not rat on me.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Kyel’s hand is still wrapped around her jitte. “I can’t help but feel like this was all just a test.”

  “What would you do if it was?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why you’re testing me.”

  Sulvan takes off his outer shirt and wraps it around his waist, tying a knot tight over his new wound. It isn’t clean enough, but he can sanitize the wound when he gets out of here. “You don’t belong here, Detective.” Already he can feel his senses clearing—slowly but surely.

  “I didn’t belong in stella.” It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself of something.

  “Just because you didn’t belong in one place doesn’t mean you belong in another. You’ve become stagnant. You had skills once, Detective. You can get them back.”

  Kyel closes her eyes.

  “Think about it.”

  Her eyes snap back open. “Why am I thinking about it?”

  He lifts one shoulder. “Just think about it.”

  KYEL EVENTUALLY stumbles back to her desk and drops into her chair, exhausted. It’s been a long—she checks her watch—almost two days. They need to charge Sulvan or let him go. The captain, he’s pushing for the charges. Everybody is. Sulvan looks good for it. Not to mention they just want to move on to other things.

  But this is exactly the kind of shite that stella would pull. She doesn’t know how, but she does know it’s possible. Kyel was a good hitter, but she was only a hitter. She never became a Hand, and she certainly never became important enough to learn all—or any, for that matter—of the Head’s secrets.

  She might’ve known that finis existed all along. Kyel’s own Hand might have known. Not like Kyel will ever find out the truth from either of them.

  Finis has to exist, right? Sulvan’s mask doesn’t match up with any other tribe, and he certainly acts differently from any other hitter she’s ever seen. That isn’t a lot of evidence, but Kyel can’t let go of it. Finis was the stuff of nightmares. When parents put their children to bed, they warned them to behave so finis wouldn’t come after them. When Kyel was younger and her parents were still alive, they’d tell her that, if she misbehaved, the finis ghouls would crawl into her room and take her away. And they were scary. If they removed their masks, they could suck out your soul.

  Joke’s on them. It was stella who took her away. Stella who stole her soul.

  “Gods,” Kyel mutters, resting her head on her desk. There’s so much going on here she doesn’t know about. Something big. If it’s finis, the entire sector might be screwed. Maybe the legends are right—maybe finis has been controlling the city from the shadows this entire time and they’ve decided the city should finally be put to rest. It’s been sinking for a while now, and nobody in power is invested enough in the people to fix it. Apparently they figure people can just cross into Trebia. Maybe finis is fixing it.

  But what does that have to do with Sulvan? Why hasn’t he escaped? Hitters have been caught before, and none of them found it particularly difficult to escape. His mere presence is perplexing because of that. He should have been gone a long time ago. He shouldn’t have even been caught, if he’s as good as he says he is.

  I didn’t want to kill that many people.

  Kyel picks up her pen and twirls it a few times between her fingers. There’s something more going on here.

  “Detective!”

  She stands up, forcing her body to be more alert. Rylan’s standing a few feet away from her, feet about three inches deep in a puddle, and he looks panicked. “Rylan. Is something wrong?”

  “It’s Sulvan, ma’am. He’s… acting oddly.”

  “Oddly?” Kyel hurries toward Rylan, who spins around when she reaches him and walks with her to the prisoner in question. “What does that mean?”

  “He’s pacing. Muttering. I don’t know what it is, and the guards are getting really nervous. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do.”

  “For how long?”

  “Only a few minutes.”

  Is this the calm before the storm? “Go to the evidence lockup and tell Damiran what’s going on,” she says to Rylan. “Take twelve officers with you. It won’t be enough if he escapes, but we need everybody else in different places.”

  “You think he’ll want his weapons back?”

  “I think he’ll want his mask back.” It’s the only thing he’d asked for when everything else had been confisca
ted. “If he comes back for anything, it’s that. And he might grab the weapons while he’s at it, so make sure you have those heavily guarded.”

  “What do we do if he comes to us?”

  “Pray the gods are on your side. Go.”

  Rylan bounds off, and Kyel runs to Sulvan’s cell. He’s standing equidistant from all the walls, arms stretched out so they’re parallel to the ground. His eyes are closed and he’s saying something under his breath. It sounds like a mantra. Meditation of some sort, maybe? She stays back, just out of sight, and watches him. The guards are getting antsy, pacing back and forth, gripping their jittes tightly. If Sulvan got ahold of one of those, it would be more deadly in his hands than a gun would be in a copper’s hands.

  Then his mouth stops moving. His eyes open and his arms drop to his sides. He approaches the bars. The guards pull out their jittes, brace themselves.

  They’re screwed. Sulvan is trapped in a cell and they’re still screwed.

  His hands wrap around the bars. He smiles. He pulls.

  The bars, groaning, bend.

  Like he’s pulling apart a curtain, Sulvan parts the bars and very gracefully steps through, looking dangerously calm. One of the coppers screams—he can’t help it. They attack, all at once, and Sulvan doesn’t swing into action so much as he begins dancing.

  That’s what it’s like, Sulvan’s fighting—dancing. It’s effortless. He ducks and twirls around the bumbling coppers, his bare hands so much more effective and dangerous than the coppers and their glorified sticks. One copper falls with a sharp rap to the back of his neck. Another with a sweep of Sulvan’s leg that catches her ankles and sends her tumbling down—caught at the last moment by Sulvan before her head slams against the floor, who promptly knocks her out in a gentler manner. Kyel can’t move. She’s mesmerized. Sulvan is faster than anyone she’s ever seen—Kyel was the best hitter in stella in her day, and even then, she wouldn’t have been a close match to Sulvan, not to mention his apparent super strength. He’s brutal without ever being violent. He’s effective without causing death. The coppers are falling one by one, but they all have recoverable injuries. Nobody’s dying tonight, and Kyel has no idea why.