Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(91)

As she sped off, she heard an explosion, and then another. She looked back but all she could see was black smoke just beginning to rise above the treetops. Dread began to fill her. A man wearing a robe similar to the one Scythe Curie’s friend wore burst from the trees and into the road behind her. She saw him only for an instant, then the road took a sharp turn and he was gone from sight.

Only after the publicar had wound its way down the mountain pass and was on a main road did she look at the paper that Scythe Curie had given her. For a moment it felt as if her bones had spontaneously reshattered, but the feeling passed and settled into jaded resolve. She understood now.

When you get there, you’ll know what to do.

Yes, she most certainly would. She stared at the piece of paper for a moment more. She needed only to memorize the address, because she already knew the name.

Gerald Van Der Gans.

The Thunderhead had spoken to her, and now, so had Scythe Curie. There was a long journey ahead of Citra, and at the end of it, much work to be done. Citra couldn’t glean, but she could exact vengeance. She would find a way to deliver justice to this scythe-killer one way or another. Never was she so thankful to have a sack full of weapons.

? ? ?

This was a matter too delicate to be left to the BladeGuard—and although Scythe San Martín detested being used as a mere enforcement agent, he also knew that catching this MidMerican girl would be a feather in his cap. He knew the girl was there even before he knocked on the door. His associate, an over-enthusiastic junior scythe named Bello, had already turned on the DNA detector and picked up traces the moment they stepped out of the car.

San Martín drew his weapon as he approached the cabin—a pistol he’d had since the day he was ordained, given to him by his mentor. It was his weapon of choice for all gleanings—an extension of who he was—and although he didn’t expect there’d be anyone to glean today, it made him feel whole to have it drawn. Besides, gleaning aside, it might be necessary to incapacitate someone; although he had been warned not to render anyone—especially the girl—deadish, because that had created the very fiasco he was now attempting to resolve.

He pounded on the door and pounded again. He was ready to kick it in, when none other than Scythe Marie Curie herself came to the door. San Martín tried not to be starstruck. The Marquesa de la Muerte was well known throughout the world for her early achievements. A living legend everywhere, not just in the north.

“There is a doorbell, or didn’t you notice?” she said in Spanic so perfect it threw Scythe San Martín off his game. “Are you here for lunch?”

He stammered for a moment, deepening his disadvantage, then recovered as best he could. “We’re here for the girl,” he said. “No sense denying she’s here; we already know.” And he gestured toward Bello, whose DNA detector was pinging in the red.

She glanced at San Martín’s raised pistol and “hmmphed” with such authority, he found himself lowering it almost involuntarily.

“She was here,” Curie said, “but not anymore. She’s on her way to an Antarctic resort for some skiing. You might catch her flight if you hurry, though.”

The Chilargentine Scythedom was not known for its sense of humor, and Scythe San Martín was no exception. He would not be made a fool of, even by one of the greats. He pushed his way past her into the cabin, where a Chilargentine scythe whose name he couldn’t remember stood as defiantly as Scythe Curie.

“Search all you want,” said the second scythe, “but if you break anything—”

She never got to finish the thought, because Bello, overzealous as ever, jabbed her with a jolt baton that left her unconscious.

“Was that really necessary?” chided Scythe Curie. “It’s me you have a gripe with, not poor Eva.”

On a hunch, San Martín went out the back door and sure enough, found telltale footprints in the snow.

“She’s on foot!” he told Bello. “?Apurate! She can’t have gotten far.” Scythe Bello launched into pursuit like a bloodhound, heading down the snowy hillside, disappearing into the trees.

San Martín went back inside, hurrying to the front door. The road wound down that hill. If Bello couldn’t catch her on foot, perhaps San Martín could head her off in the car. Scythe Curie, however, stood in the doorway, barring his way. He raised his weapon again, and in response, she pulled out her own; a handgun with a stubby muzzle wide enough to fit a golf ball in the barrel. A mortar pistol. He might as well have had a pea shooter against that thing, but he didn’t lower his weapon, no matter how outclassed it was.

“I have special permission from our High Blade to fire on you if necessary,” he warned her.

“And I have no permission from anyone,” said Scythe Curie, “but I am more than happy to do the same.”

They held their standoff for more heartbeats than felt advisable, then Scythe Curie turned her gun aside and fired out the front door.

An explosion blew in the front windows of the cabin, the shock wave knocking San Martín to the ground. . . . And yet Scythe Curie, still in the doorway, barely flinched. San Martín scrambled to the door to see that the blast from the mortar pistol had turned his car into a bonfire.

Then she fired again, this time blowing up her own car.

“Well now,” she said, “I suppose you’ll have to stay for lunch.”