Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,101

came at her. Now she needed every ounce of her training. Her hands were cuffed, but Bokator was more about elbows and legs than it was about hands. She didn’t need to decimate them, all she needed to do was disarm them and keep them off balance. One came at her with a jolt baton that she kicked out of his hand. Another had a club, which missed its mark as she dodged, and she used his momentum to flip him onto his back. Two others didn’t waste time with weapons; they lunged for her, hands outstretched—a textbook case of how not to attack. She dropped to the lawn, swung her feet, and bowled them down like pins.

And then she began to run.

“There’s nowhere you can go, Citra!” called Xenocrates.

But he was wrong.

Forcing strength and speed into her legs, she ran across the rooftop lawn. There was no guardrail, because the High Blade wanted nothing to impede his view of his domain.

Citra neared the edge, and rather than slowing down, she increased her pace, until the grass was gone and there was nothing but one hundred nineteen floors of air beneath her. She held her cuffed hands over her head, grimacing against the wind and the uneasy feel of freefall, and plummeted feet first, surrendering her will to gravity, relishing her defiance, until her life ended for the second time in a week, this time with what was undoubtedly the best splat ever.

• • •

This was unexpected and inconvenient, but it changed nothing. Xenocrates didn’t even run out to the edge. That would just be wasting time.

“The girl has a spark,” said Mandela. “Do you really think she’s working for a tone cult?”

“I doubt we’ll ever understand her motives,” Xenocrates told him. “But removing her will certainly help the Scythedom heal.”

“Poor Marie must be beside herself,” said Mandela. “To have lived with the girl for months, and not known.”

“Yes, well, Scythe Curie’s a strong woman,” Xenocrates said. “She’ll get over it.”

He had his guards call down to the lobby. The site of Citra Terranova’s remains was to be cordoned off until her unpleasant little self could be scraped off the sidewalk and brought to a revival center. It would have been so much cleaner if she could just stay dead. Damn the immunity rules! Well, when she was once more pronounced alive, she would find herself in a cell with no possible means of escape, and more importantly, no contact with anyone who might take up her cause and petition for her freedom.

Xenocrates went to the express elevator, not trusting his security detail to handle the situation down below. “Will you accompany me, Nelson?”

“I’ll stay here,” said Mandela. “I have no desire to see the poor girl in such an unpleasant state.”

• • •

Xenocrates assumed this would be a simple scrape-and-soar maneuver—and indeed, an ambudrone had already landed on the street ready to spirit away what was left of Citra. But something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t his security detail surrounding her remains; instead, there were at least a dozen men and women, all in cloud-colored suits, forming a circle around her. Nimbus agents! They ignored the threats and jeers from the BladeGuard officers who insisted that they needed to get through.

“What’s going on here?” Xenocrates demanded.

“The damn Nims!” said one of the guardsmen. “They were already here when we came outside. They won’t let us near the body.”

Xenocrates pushed his way through his security detail and addressed a woman who appeared to be the head Nimbus agent. “See here! I am High Blade Xenocrates. This is scythe business, and as such, you and the rest of your Nimbus agents have no place here. Yes, the law states she must be revived, but we shall bring her to a revival center. The Thunderhead has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

“On the contrary,” the woman said. “All revival falls under the auspices of the Thunderhead, and we are here to make sure its domain is not infringed upon.”

Xenocrates sputtered for a moment, before finding mental traction. “The girl is not a public citizen. She is a scythe’s apprentice.”

“Was a scythe’s apprentice,” said the woman. “The moment she died, she ceased to be anyone’s apprentice. She is now a rather damaged set of remains that the Thunderhead must repair and revive. I assure you that the moment she is pronounced alive, she will be fully under your jurisdiction once more.”

A team of revival workers made their way from the ambu-drone and began to prepare the