Chapter 11

I’d imagined with my enhanced strength that I could overpower Kagura, but she quickly proved me wrong. Over the next few hours, I logged more flight time than most pilots, along with a good number of painful crashes that left me bruised and battered. At least the armor repaired itself over time when I dismissed it.

I took the elevator up a level to the crew’s private floor. Even as an uninitiated member of Whisper I was entitled to a private cell of a room with a bed and desk, but I intended to use the chamber as little as possible. I did intend, however, to avail myself of the men’s shower room. Immediately.

I limped into a room with ten showers lined up in a double row along a center aisle, each stall bordered by chest-high tiled walls. Hot water came blasting out of the overhead waterfall faucet the moment I turned the handle. “A handle instead of a wrench? Now that’s soft living.”

Battling Kagura had drenched my outfit in sweat. I peeled the layers away from my flesh like I was ripping off a scab, then draped them over one of the low tiled walls and stepped into the water. Blistering heat scorched my anguished muscles and massaged out all the aches like hot fingers on my flesh.

I groaned in appreciation. When I could finally crack my eyes open against the pleasure, I scanned the low shelf in the tile wall in front of me. Whisper kept a variety of soaps and shampoos to choose from. I picked up some sort of fancy green bar with swirls, sniffed it, and grimaced. “Flowers? What the—"

The door opened. Jim strode in with a towel over his shoulder. He seemed surprised to see me but waved. I double-checked to make sure the low wall gave me privacy on my most sensitive area, then nodded at him in greeting. “Jim.”

“Eddie.” Jim walked into the stall next to mine and stripped out of his grease-stained clothes, hanging them over the wall like I had. He saw me holding the green soap and curled his lip. “That green stuff’s for girls, man.”

“Yeah, I feel my estrogen levels rising just holding it.” I tossed the uneven green bar back on the shelf and rinsed my hand in the water. “What’s it even doing in here?”

“Haven’t cleaned the place out in a while.” Jim grabbed a brown bar with chunks of rough stuff in it. Looked pretty manly, so I found one on my shelf that matched. It didn’t smell quite like machine oil, but close enough.

“So who used the green stuff?” I asked as I lathered up. Beside me, Jim did the same. It was kinda weird talking to another guy while showering but the privacy walls worked to preserve any visual tragedies. And anyway, he seemed like the most down-to-earth member of the cult. Probably best to find an ally in the den of crazies.

“Thomas. He ran with us about two years back.” Jim paused his lathering with a solemn look. “Dang, it’s been a while. I guess we need to get the maids in here to sort the remnants out. It’s really just been me and the guards using this place. Well, and Jonathan, but…”

“Yeah. Sorry about him. Were you two close?”

“He was pretty much an arrogant jackass, so we got along great.”

I laughed.

“No, I’m serious.” Jim shot me a grin. “You can always trust an arrogant jackass to be exactly who he is. You just need to figure out his leverage and you can bend him any way you need to. It’s the quiet guys to watch out for. They’re wild cards who only play by their own principles, and unless you think exactly the same way they do, it’s hard to guess how they’ll interpret their principles in each circumstance.”

“I’d like to imagine I’m the second type, but here I am working for you guys with a minimum of arm twisting. Looks like I’m Team Jackass this week.”

“What’s Wyatt twisting that’s keeping you here?”

I scrubbed some anti-dandruff shampoo into my hair. I’d guessed it would be the unscented type, and I was right. “He’s got someone I care about hooked on his services.”

“The girl? Hilde?” He mulled it over as he scrubbed. “Yeah, I could see you going for her.”

I shot him a scrutinizing look from the corner of my eye. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He looked surprised, then burst out laughing. “She’s just a fun kid. Easy on the eyes, to be honest. Nothing meant by it, though. I’ve got my eye on someone else.”

“Kagura? I saw you kiss her.”

His eyes softened. “Yeah. She’s got me hooked for life, man. We’re engaged.”

“Congratulations.” I tried to imagine the dour Kagura in a white wedding dress that wasn’t stained with blood. It proved a challenge. “She just beat the living crap out of me all morning, so my advice is to never make her mad.”

“Nah,” Jim said softly. “I’d never do anything to hurt that woman. She’s been through enough. Probably like your girl, huh?”

I blanched. “We’re not a couple.”

“No?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Ah.” He nodded knowingly. “Isn’t it always? Life down here is hard, Eddie, but life in Whisper is even harder. Sometimes our crew is all that stands between innocent families and a gruesome death by dismemberment. But no one’s watching out for us. This is a hard life, I won’t lie to you. And it takes its toll on couples.”

His voice sounded hard, but sad, and when I glanced at him he wasn’t scrubbing, just standing and letting the hot water wash over him as he stared at something only he could see.

“What do you mean?”

My question shook him out of his trance. He grabbed the shampoo bottle. “It’s murder on family stability, for one thing. Kagura and I are engaged but we haven’t set a date because she’s hesitant to put children through having parents like us. Two Whisper parents means kids could end up orphans overnight. That’s what happened to Kagura.”

That revelation made my eyes bug out. “She’s an orphan?”

Jim nodded. “Assassin parents, both members of Whisper. She was born with a lot of the genetic mutations already active. You could say she was bred for this work. One bad mission took out both her parents in a single night. Chased a werewolf pack into their den but didn’t realize there were more members than intel had counted, and that was it.”

“Werewolves?” I shut off my water. “Freaking werewolves? You’re serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t. That personal vendetta against Protos shaped her from early childhood to be a ruthless killer. She took all the tests early, got the genetic mutations and implants she needed, and now here we are. But she’s afraid she’ll abandon her own kids someday.” Jim shut off his water and let himself drip dry for a moment. I did the same, wishing I’d brought a towel to wrap up in.

The door opened again. Jim and I both turned as Niles the butler glided into the steamy shower room with a bundle under one beefy arm. He placed a fluffy white towel and a set of black clothes on the shower wall between Jim and me and bowed slightly to me. “I took the liberty of bringing you some supplies, Master Salt, as you seemed without gear when you entered the castle this morning.”

I smiled at the old man and gave him a thumbs-up. “Good looking out, Niles. Thanks.”

His gray mustache bristled as he smiled back. He turned on his heel and strode from the room with crisp steps, shutting the door behind himself.

I toweled off with what had to be the softest cloth in the whole world. The clothes he brought me were simple but luxuriously comfortable on my skin. “Whatever Niles does with the laundry, he needs to teach my sister.”

Jim laughed as he toweled off. “That man is a miracle worker. This whole team runs like clockwork because of his constant oversight. I don’t think we could operate without someone like him running the place.”

I slipped a shirt on over my head. “Thanks for the heads up on Kagura. I’ll try to be less of a jerk to her, but no promises.”

“None expected. Just keep in mind what I said. If you and Hilde were complicated before, it’s about to jump to a whole new level.” Now fully dressed, Jim stuck his hands in his pockets and gave me a level look. “Just don’t let love pass you by because of danger, Eddie. We must not forget to live our own lives as we work to give others a chance at peace.”

He strode from the shower with a casual wave tossed over his shoulder. I stood alone in the shower with the steady drip of water and mulled over his words.