Brynna

Brynna walked out into the chill sunlight of the pickup point outside Rindburg airport, trying to remember which kind of jetlag she should be feeling. There were nine hours between Occidens and Cao Wei time, the journey time was close to twenty-four hours, and this was effectively her fourth trip like this in the last three weeks. She'd slept on both of the flights this time, but only the hazy, incomplete sleep that was the best aeroplanes could generally offer.

The brightness of the morning, the bitter blue of the sky, were dazzling. Parts of the front of Brynna's brain felt fizzy, and though her eyes were focussed it felt like she wasn't really seeing anything. The temporal dissociation felt like her memories of looking at the Earth from the celestial plane. She couldn't tell if her faint nausea was from the airline food, the fatigue, or the all-too-timely reminder of what might be at stake for her if she couldn't find some way to keep Phoebe and Thessaly safe.

There was no grey sedan with a missing front-right hub cap waiting in the pickup bays. A feeling like fingernails on glass started to spread across the back of Brynna's shoulders. She blinked a few times and shook her head, and it seemed to help a bit. It was early enough in the morning that there weren't many cars queueing for pickup at all.

A screech of anguished tyres sent a fresh wave of chill down her spine. Somewhere nearby, a car was doing something distinctly unsafe. The gang killings hadn't stopped, Brynna knew. Was someone targeting Jesse? Was she vulnerable herself? She started to shuffle backwards, hoping it would help to put her back to the wall of the airport building.

The car swerved around the end of the pickup lane, leaning hard on its springs, back end sliding. It put on a sharp turn of speed for a second, then slammed to a halt in front of Brynna. Under the sun, its paint was a grubby off-white, but the front wheel was a bare black hub and the door was swinging open.

She barely recognised the man inside. His hair had been shaved short, and his wide chin was ugly with stubble, patchy in colour between his usual blonde and grey. Instead of the fancy coat that was his pride and joy, he wore an ill-fitting pin-striped shirt, threadbare at the elbow of the arm he had opened the door with and was now using to wave her over.

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Jarred into motion, Brynna ran to the car as Jesse heaved himself across the back seat to make room. Pulse racing, she didn't hesitate to fold herself inside. The car smelt as bad as it looked. In the front, the driver was a size too big for her suit and three too big for her seat; the front passenger seat was occupied by someone perhaps even bigger.

Rubber squealed again as the car lurched into motion. Brynna banged her knuckles reaching for the door to pull it shut, but acceleration closed it without her help. She turned to try to wrestle the seatbelt, then thought better of it. Instead, she grabbed the handle over the door and did her best to wedge her body into the corner.

As the car swung around the end of pickup bay and headed for the exit, she faced Jesse. His expression was uncharacteristically grim, and there were deep bags under her eyes. Still, she couldn't see any sign of injury on him. She started to speak, but he held up a hand for her to wait. The car shuddered with the sound of its engine, so that it would have been hard to hear anything he said anyway.

The journey was fast and harsh, right at the limit of what you could do on public roads without trouble. Probably it was early enough in the morning to get away with it. Brynna clenched her jaw and clung on, just about managing not to bang her already-muddled head.

Eventually they pulled up somewhere and the driver and bodyguard got out. Watching Jesse, Brynna stayed put. He turned in place to fix her with a baleful glare.

Before he could start, Brynna said, "Conspicuous enough, dear?"

"We don't need to be inconspicuous, just unrecognisable." There was a sneering twist to his lips. "Those Calabrian bastards can hunt us, but they can't do what the cops could, surveillance and infiltration and shit. But you see what it's come to for us."

Brynna folded her arms. "Sorry."

"What do you want, Miss Brynna? This had better be important."

There had been no hope in the mobster's voice, not even a hint of his usual bravado. He sounded exhausted, and probably this was also fear at work. The part of Brynna that was most human actually responded in sympathy, sorrowful to be adding to his burdens. "Tenebrae received a blackmail threat claiming to have proof that Soot isn't Phoebe's. Signed 'The Raven'"

"Fuck." Jesse punched the seat between them and looked out of the window. The driver had moved to stand outside of it, so all Brynna could see was the back of her suit.

When Jesse didn't immediately speak again, Brynna said, "Who's the Raven?"

"Who d'ya think?" He shrugged darkly. "Don Alessandro Corvino. Head of one of the Four Families of Nosa Costra."

Brynna's blood rushed chill. In the icy state of alertness that followed, she felt the currents of thunder leashed in the hollow behind her stomach. Her throat tightened as she said, "Where did Phoebe get Soot, Jesse?"

He looked at her with an expression as old as she felt. "You should ask her, if you haven't already. You should hear it from her."