living area was behind them.
That was where I found Fran.
She was laying in the middle of the room, her arms and legs spread wide, her clothes torn and ragged, her corpse bloody. The room around her was just as torn up. Burned out in places; furniture, and vases, and crap thrown everywhere.
I knew the scene of a fight between users when I saw it.
"Doesn't make sense," Amos said from the doorway while I approached Fran's corpse. "Why make a mess inside and steal all the cars and shit? Why make it look like nobody's home?"
There were only two possible reasons. One was that whoever did this was still here, and we were about to get jumped in a bad way. The other?
I saw it when I reached Fran. Her arms hadn't been spread by accident. They were positioned wide above her head in order to frame the message that was scrawled in her blood.
YOU'RE NEXT.
I stood and stared at it, my brain trying to use reason while my intuition told me to get far, far away from Vegas. They knew we had survived the ambush. There was no hint of concern that we might escape them again.
Amos' hand landed on my shoulder, rattling me from my panicked freeze. "That's just fucked up."
A ringtone, Beethoven's Ninth, sounded from somewhere on Fran's body. I knelt down to locate it.
"Don't answer it. Once they know we're here... Boom." Amos waved his arms out to mime an explosion.
I shoved my hand under Fran's ass, finding the cell tucked into her back pocket. I pulled it out and moved my eyes between it and Amos.
"Don't," he repeated.
It could have been Black's team, calling to confirm we were ready to be cooked. It also could have been Tarakona, checking in on his fixer and ensuring everything was going smoothly.
"Watch the door," I said, my thumb hanging over the answer button.
"When we're dead, remember it was your fault."
I answered the call.
"Necromancer," Tarakona said, his voice calm and collected. He knew it was me before I had said anything.
"Tarakona. You've been sold out. Fran is dead. So is her team."
He barely lost a beat. "Interesting." A whole ghost team obliterated, and all he had to say was "interesting?" I felt my heart thump a little harder. "You're in the safe house, I assume?" He was still calm.
"Yeah, though I wouldn't exactly call it safe. They left a message-"
"The Hua, necromancer. That is all that matters. Find the stairs down into the basement. Go into the wine cellar and find the bottle of D'Amalfi. Take it and make your way somewhere that you believe you are safe. Tell no one."
"What's in it?"
"There was a second operative gathering intel on the whereabouts of Miss Red and the Hua, a former associate of Mr. Black's. They were to make daily drops to the house and place the data chip into the bottle. Take the bottle and use the information to help circumvent this unfortunate circumstance."
A second operative? Unfortunate?
"You knew this was going to happen."
"I supposed it might, which is why I had Fran travel ahead of you. It is no secret to House Black that I want my Hua back. It is no secret that if I am to get it back I must do it this week. It is logical that they have been following my movements as closely as I have been following theirs. Now go and retrieve the bottle. Our opponent may not be feeling as magnanimous about letting you continue breathing once they figure out that I have set a necromancer against them."
He dropped the call.
"Well?" Amos asked.
"Go keep watch outside. Call me if you see anything."
"What are you going to do?"
"Try to get us what we need so we can get out of this disaster."
He nodded and turned towards the door.
"Amos," I said. The fat ghost glanced back at me. "I'm sorry."
He surprised me by starting to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"No, you're not. See you outside, Baldie."
TWENTY-ONE
The bargain.
I went back to Fran after Amos was gone, checking her for a sidearm, a knife, or anything else I could use. If she had been carrying, Jet had taken her weapons, along with everything else that had been brought to the house. This was a shitty game of cat and mouse. At least for me.
I was the mouse.
It wasn't the first time I wished I could animate two corpses at once. I could have used the backup because I wasn't entirely convinced I was alone in the house. It