Dangerous Women Part 17

"It was never signed," he said. "Mostly because of you, Miss Carpenter. While Svartalfheim does not pay debts which were never incurred, we appreciate your role in this matter. It will be considered in the future."

"The Fomor don't deserve an honorable ally."

"It would seem not," he said.

"What about the turtlenecks?" I asked.

"What of them?"

"Will you ... deal with them?"

Etri just looked at me. "Why would we?"

"They were sort of in on it," I said.

"They were property," said the svartalf. "If a man strikes you with a hammer, it is the man who is punished. There is no reason to destroy the hammer. We care nothing for them."

"What about them?" I asked, and nodded toward the dead girls in the Fomor's chamber. "Do you care what happened to them?"

Etri looked at them and sighed. "Beautiful things ought not be destroyed," he said. "But they were not our guests. We owe no one for their end and will not answer for it."

"There is a vampire in your custody," I said, "is there not?"

Etri regarded me for a moment and then said, "Yes."

"You owe me a favor. I wish to secure his release."

He arched an eyebrow. Then he bowed slightly and said, "Come with me."

I followed Etri out of the suite and across the hall to room 6. Though the door was shattered, Etri stopped outside of it respectfully and knocked. A moment later, a female voice said, "You may enter."

We went in. It was a suite much like the Fomor's, only with way more throw pillows and plush furniture. It was a wreck. The floor was literally covered with shattered furniture, broken decor, and broken turtlenecks. Svartalf security was already binding them and carrying them from the room.

Listen walked out on his own power, his hands behind his back, one of his eyes swollen halfway shut. He gave me a steady look as he went by, and said nothing.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Etri turned toward the curtained door to the suite's bedroom and spoke. "The mortal apprentice who warned us has earned a favor. She asks for the release of the vampire."

"Impossible," answered the female voice. "That account has been settled."

Etri turned to me and shrugged. "I am sorry."

"Wait," I said. "May I speak to him?"

"In a moment."

We waited. Thomas appeared from the doorway to the bedroom dressed in a black terry-cloth bathrobe. He'd just gotten out of the shower. Thomas was maybe half an inch under six feet tall, and there wasn't an inch of his body that didn't scream s.e.x symbol. His eyes were a shade of deep crystalline blue, and his dark hair hung to his wide shoulders. My body did what it always did around him, and started screaming at me to make babies. I ignored it. Mostly.

"Molly," he said. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing a bucket of aspirin won't help," I said. "Um. Are you okay?"

He blinked. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I thought ... you know. You'd been captured as a spy."

"Well, sure," he said.

"I thought they would, uh. Make an example of you?"

He blinked again. "Why would they do that?"

The door to the bedroom opened again, and a female svartalf appeared. She looked a lot like Etri-tiny and beautiful, though she had long silver hair instead of a cueball. She was wearing what might have been Thomas's s.h.i.+rt, and it hung down almost to her ankles. She had a decidedly ... smug look about her. Behind her, I saw several other sets of wide, dark eyes peer out of the shadowy bedchamber.

"Oh," I said. "Oh. You, uh. You made a deal."

Thomas smirked. "It's a tough, dirty job ..."

"And one that is not yet finished," said the female svartalf. "You are ours until dawn."

Thomas looked from me to the bedroom and back and spread his hands. "You know how it is, Molly. Duty calls."

"Um," I said. "What do you want me to tell Justine?"

Again he gave me a look of near incomprehension. "The truth. What else?"

"Oh, thank goodness," Justine said as we were walking out. "I was afraid they'd have starved him."

I blinked. "Your boyfriend is banging a roomful of elfgirls and you're happy about it?"

Justine tilted her head back and laughed. "When you're in love with an incubus, it changes your viewpoint a little, I think. It isn't as though this is something new. I know how he feels about me, and he needs to feed to be healthy. So what's the harm?" She smirked. "And besides. He's always ready for more."

"You're a very weird person, Justine."

Andi snorted, and nudged me with her shoulder in a friendly way. She'd recovered her dress and the shoes she liked. "Look who's talking."

After everyone was safe home, I walked from Waldo's apartment to the nearest parking garage. I found a dark corner, sat down, and waited. Lea s.h.i.+mmered into being about two hours later and sat down beside me.

"You tricked me," I said. "You sent me in there blind."

"Indeed. Just as Lara did her brother-except that my agent succeeded where hers failed."

"But why? Why send us in there?"

"The treaty with the Fomor could not be allowed to conclude," she said. "If one nation agreed to neutrality with them, a dozen more would follow. The Fomor would be able to divide the others and contend with them one by one. The situation was delicate. The presence of active agents was intended to disrupt its equilibrium-to show the Fomor's true nature in a test of fire."

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" I asked.

"Because you would neither have trusted nor believed me, obviously," she said.

I frowned at her. "You should have told me anyway."

"Do not be ridiculous, child." Lea sniffed. "There was no time to humor your doubts and suspicions and theories and endless questions. Better to give you a simple prize upon which to focus-Thomas."

"How did you know I would find the bomb?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Bomb?" She shook her head. "I did not know what was happening in any specific sense. But the Fomor are betrayers. Ever have they been, ever will they be. The only question is what form their treachery will take. The svartalves had to be shown."

"How did you know I would discover it?"

"I did not," she said. "But I know your mentor. When it comes to meddling, to unearthing awkward truths, he has taught you exceedingly well." She smiled. "You have also learned his apt.i.tude for taking orderly situations and reducing them to elemental chaos."

"Meaning what?" I demanded.

Her smile was maddeningly smug. "Meaning that I was confident that whatever happened, it would not include the smooth completion of the treaty."

"But you could have done everything I did."

"No, child," Lea said. "The svartalves would never have asked me to be their guest at the reception. They love neatness and order. They would have known my purposes were not orderly ones."

"And they didn't know that about me?"

"They cannot judge others except by their actions," Lea said. "Hence their treaty with the Fomor, who had not yet crossed their paths. My actions have shown me to be someone who must be treated with caution. You had ... a clean record with them. And you are smoking hot. All is well, your city saved, and now a group of wealthy, skilled, and influential beings owes you a favor." She paused for a moment and then leaned toward me slightly. "Perhaps some expression of grat.i.tude is in order."

"From me, to you?" I asked. "For that?"

"I think your evening turned out quite well," Lea said her eyebrows raised. "Goodness, but you are a difficult child. How he manages to endure your insolence I will never know. You probably think you have earned some sort of reward from me." She rose and turned to go.

"Wait!" I said suddenly.

She paused.

I think my heart had stopped beating. I started shaking, everywhere. "You said that you know Harry. Not knew him. Know. Present tense."

"Did I?"

"You said you don't know how he manages to put up with me. Manages. Present tense."

"Did I?"

"Auntie," I asked her, and I could barely whisper. "Auntie ... is Harry ... is he alive?"

Lea turned to me very slowly, and her eyes glinted with green, wicked knowledge. "I did not say that he was alive, child. And neither should you. Not yet."

I bowed my head and started crying. Or laughing. Or both. I couldn't tell. Lea didn't wait around for it. Emotional displays made her uncomfortable.

Harry. Alive.

I hadn't killed him.

Best reward ever.

"Thank you, Auntie," I whispered. "Thank you."

Carrie Vaughn New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn is the author of a wildly popular series of novels detailing the adventures of Kitty Norville, a radio personality who also happens to be a werewolf and who runs a late-night call-in radio advice show for supernatural creatures. The Kitty books include Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty Goes to Was.h.i.+ngton, Kitty Takes a Holiday, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand, Kitty Raises h.e.l.l, Kitty's House of Horrors, Kitty Goes to War, and Kitty's Big Trouble. Her other novels include Voices of Dragons, her first venture into young adult territory, and a fantasy, Discord's Apple. Vaughn's short work has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov's Science Fiction, Subterranean, Inside Straight (a Wild Cards novel), Realms of Fantasy, Jim Baen's Universe, Paradox, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and elsewhere. Her most recent books include the novels After the Golden Age and Steel; a collection, Straying from the Path; a new Kitty novel, Kitty Steals the Show; and a collection of her Kitty stories, Kitty's Greatest Hits. Coming up is another new Kitty novel, Kitty Rocks the House. She lives in Colorado.

In the vivid and compelling story that follows, she takes us to the front lines in Russia during the darkest days of World War II for the story of a young woman flying the most dangerous of combat missions, who is determined to do her duty as a soldier and keep flying them, even if it kills her-which it very well might.

RAISA STEPANOVA.

My Dear Davidya:

If you are reading this, it means I have died. Most likely been killed fighting in service of the glorious homeland. At least I hope so. I have this terrible nightmare that I am killed, not in the air fighting Fascists, but because a propeller blade falls off just as I am walking under the nose of my Yak and cuts my head off. People would make a good show of pretending to mourn, but they'd be laughing behind my back. My dead back, so I won't notice, but still, it's the principle of the thing. There'd certainly be no Hero of the Soviet Union for me, would there? Never mind, we will a.s.sume I perished gloriously in battle.

Please tell all the usual to Mama and Da, that I am happy to give my life in defense of you and them and Nina and the homeland, as we all are, and that if I must die at all I'm very happy to do it while flying. So don't be sad for me. I love you.

Very Sincerely: Raisa "Raisa!" Inna called from outside the dugout. "We're up! Let's go!" "Just a minute!" She scribbled a last few lines.

P.S. My wingman, Inna, will be very upset if I am killed. She'll think it's her fault, that she didn't cover me. (It won't be true because she's a very good pilot and wingman.) I think you should make an effort to comfort her at the very first opportunity. She's a redhead. You'll like her. Really like her, I mean. I keep a picture of you in our dugout and she thinks you're handsome. She'll weep on your shoulder and it will be very romantic, trust me.

"Raisa!"

Raisa folded the page into eighths and stuffed it under the blanket on her cot, where it was sure to be found if she didn't come back. David's name and regiment were clearly written on the outside, and Inna would know what to do with it. She grabbed her coat and helmet and ran with her wingman to the airfield, where their planes waited.

The pair of them flew out of Voronezh on a routine patrol and spotted enemy planes even before reaching the front. Raisa breathed slow to keep her heart from racing, letting the calm spread to her hands to steady them, where they rested on the stick.

"Raisa, you see that? Two o'clock?" Inna's voice cracked over the radio. She flew behind and to the right-Raisa didn't have to look to know she was there.

"Yes." Raisa squinted through the canopy and counted. More planes, dark spots gliding against a hazy sky, seemed to appear as she did so. They were meant to be patrolling for German reconnaissance planes, which only appeared one or two at a time. This-this was an entire squadron.

The profile of the planes clarified-twin propellers, topside canopy, long fuselage painted with black crosses. She radioed back to Inna, "Those are Junkers! That's a bombing run!"

She counted sixteen bombers-their target could have been any of the dozens of encampments, supply depots, or train stations along this section of the front. They probably weren't expecting any resistance at all.

"What do we do?" Inna said.