Chapter 70 Died Doing What He Overcharged For

The woman fell backward off her stool.

The rattlecat's jaws closed through the rail where her knee had been.

Jin dragged its hind leg toward him. His heels dug twin furrows in the sand.

Lark hit the tail again.

The fan split. Its outer half fell away, still rattling against the ground.

The creature turned on Jin.

He let go and rolled beneath its belly before the forepaw could pin his head. A claw opened his sleeve. He drove his knife up, felt it scrape the breastbone and pulled the blade clear before the creature's weight came down.

—please remember that my last words were not “I can probably manage this”—

Jin came up beside the white start stone.

The pressure behind his knees had eased. He could use the skill again.

He chose the right-hand route.

Four strides. The thing's snapping mouth cut across his shadow.

At the post, he braced, turned and caught the hanging gate chain with his free hand.

Nell was already pulling from the other side.

The counterweight lifted.

The gate began to drop.

The rattlecat lunged under it.

Jin gave one hard pull and let go.

Iron struck the creature across the hips. Its forelegs scrabbled beneath the falling weight.

Nell caught the chain in Catchweight's stance.

The gate stopped short of the ground, pinning the animal without letting the counterweight bounce it open.

Lark came in from the side.

The creature snapped at him.

Jin stepped into the space beneath its raised jaw and drove his knife behind the hinge.

Its head jerked.

He turned the blade and pushed.

Lark's sword held the reaching foreleg clear until the body stopped moving.

—because I distinctly said I would charge extra.

Jin's recorded voice paused.

Light spread beneath the gate before the speaker reached its closing line.

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Thank you. Please leave by the exit with the fewest teeth.

Jin caught the chain as the body vanished, helping Nell lower the gate without dropping it onto the empty sand.

For a moment nobody said anything.

Then the woman on the floor began laughing.

She pointed at the phone.

“Again.”

Jin retrieved it from the rail, breathing hard.

“The speech or the death?”

“The speech.”

“Excellent choice.”

The woman touched the little nick in her stool where a tooth had caught the wood.

Her laughter faltered.

Jin held out a hand. She gripped it until her fingers stopped shaking, then let go with a fierce little nod.

The man beside her helped her up the steps toward the back row.

Jin watched them go, then played the last sentence. The remaining front row applauded.

Nell was staring up at Merrit's platform.

He'd lowered his hands. He looked considerably less like the man painted on his sign.

“You said you'd bring it back in,” she said.

“There was hardly time.”

“There was time to shout.”

Lark lifted the split tail fan off the sand. Bone and the broken collar remained where the creature had vanished; the tail had come off before its death.

“Scrap,” he said.

Merrit looked down at the ruined clasp.

“Naturally.”

Jin wiped his knife on a discarded rag and put it away.

“And my fee.”

“Your advance—”

“Two silver. Three gold promised. You owe two gold and eighteen silver.”

Lark rested the wooden sword against his shoulder.

The woman in the back row folded her arms.

Merrit came down and counted two gold and eighteen silver into Jin's hand.

Jin checked the coins once, pocketed them and offered Nell his free hand. She was still watching Merrit's empty platform.

She took it and stepped down into the ring.

“You should have left,” she said quietly.

“At several points in my life.”

“Before the show.”

He looked at the rail she'd kept the animal from crossing.

“So should you.”

She gave him a tired, crooked smile.

“I will. After I hand the keys to someone who feeds things before displaying them.”

Jin nodded.

He put one point into Strength, two into Agility and two into Endurance.

His hands tightened around the phone. He loosened them, testing the new strength against the case instead of the glass.

Nell picked up the broken collar. She worked the shattered spring housing free and held it toward him.

“You wanted to know how it catches a tug.”

“I wanted it to work somewhere else.”

“Where?”

He hesitated.

She saw the hesitation and closed his fingers around the metal.

“Then ask someone you trust about the other part.”

At the inn, Lark put the tail fan into the wire cage. Jin kept his pin on, his phone in his pocket and the sheathed knife at his hip. The broken clasp lay cold in his hand.

He added the fee to his purse and left it in the chest: four gold, fifty-five silver and ninety-seven copper.

He'd already tried Catchweight on Earth that afternoon. He had the failed pattern; now he'd seen the collar catch a real pull and spend itself keeping a woman alive.

His private window laid the two together.

He read the last line again. Charged.

He'd watched the spring break open. Putting it in a box wouldn't put that moment back. He'd need the woman who'd caught it, and she was still handing over the keys to a job she no longer wanted.

Lark reached for the candle.

“Not yet,” Jin said, lifting the clasp.

“We're going back.”