The Mech Who Loved Me(57)

"-and bloody hell!" Major Winthrop slapped a hand to his chest, turning around sharply as Ghost made himself visible. "Oh, it's you. Christ. Near gave me a heart attack, creeping around back there."

"It's a good thing you're a battle-hardened ex-Company man," Ghost said dryly, "with nerves of steel." 

Winthrop's mistress hid the faintest of smiles, and then she turned to scurry for the door to pull the blinds down. He tracked her movements. He didn't like witnesses, but her grasp of English extended only just enough to understand his sarcasm.

And she wouldn't be difficult to kill.

"I'm here for the supply," Ghost said, waiting until the room darkened before he stepped completely out of the shadows. He was born for moonlight, yet he'd been trained to live in the shadows. "Jameson told me you couldn't give it to him."

Jameson had not had a reason for this lack, and now he also only had one ear. He should have listened to his instructions.

Winthrop's eyebrow twitched. "Ah, righto. Well, I... I've got just the one bag left."

"One?" He needed more. "I thought you placed an order months ago."

"Aye, I did." Winthrop bustled behind his counter, reaching under it to produce a small bag. "But your man picked up three pounds of mushroom last week, and it's not exactly a swiftly replenished stock. Takes years to get to the point where you can harvest it. Have you gone through your supply already?"

"My man?"

Any sane person would quiver at the soft way he said the words-anyone who knew him well enough, anyway.

Winthrop merely tossed the bag on the counter, and reached for his pipe, packing the bowl of it with tobacco. "Aye. Lord What's-his-name. The one with the toffy accent and high opinion of himself." He seemed to read the lack of recognition on Ghost's face. "The one who came with your lady friend, Zero, several months back. Lord... Lord Albright?"

It hit him like a punch of rage. "Ulbricht?"

The major lit his match, pressing the flame to his tobacco and puffing gently to get it smoldering. "Aye. That's the one. Said you had another job for him."

Ulbricht was becoming a problem. As Zero's little pet, the blue blood lord had made a nuisance of himself and drawn the attention of the Duke of Malloryn and his so-called Company of Rogues. Malloryn didn't scare him, but it had been a mess, and Ghost disliked messes.

In fact, he disliked them so much that when Zero disobeyed him, he made sure she received a dose of her own medicine-a dose of the deadly caterpillar mushroom.

In hindsight, he should have just flogged her, but he'd been... angry.

"And you gave Lord Ulbricht my mushroom?" Ghost asked quietly, just to make sure he had all the facts correct. Zero had dared to bring that bastard here?

Finally, some hint of self-preservation reared itself in the major's reptile brain. Winthrop paused. "He said... he was here on your command."

"What am I paying you to do?" Ghost took a stealthy step forward, fetching up in the major's face.

The man swallowed, his unattended pipe smoldering in his left hand. "You wanted me to find a means to import the rare caterpillar mushroom. You wanted me to provide you with enough of it, and not ask questions. To make sure nobody else asked questions."

"And yet," Ghost said coldly, tugging off the fingers of his leather gloves, one by one, "you gave my mushroom to a man you've never seen in my company-a man who used my name to steal from me?"

The Tibetan girl froze in the corner. She at least had the sense to fear him.

"Aye, well, sir, how was I to know-"

Ghost punched him in the throat, crushing the cartilage there. The girl screamed, and he smoothly withdrew his pistol from inside his coat pocket and put a bullet in her brain. Her body slammed into the wall, spraying blood across the bookcase, but her eyes were already vacant by the time she hit the floor.



       
         
       
        

Winthrop coughed and gurgled, clutching at his throat as he went down to his knees. His eyes rolled, showing far too much white. There was a plea in them.

Ghost knelt in front of the major, watching him slowly choke to death. "I could save your life," he purred, "but I have no real reason to do so. You betrayed me. You cost me a very substantial amount of a medicinal product I need. These events have repercussions. How am I meant to put my plans into place if the people I rely upon are so faithless? So fucking stupid?" Standing slowly, he put his foot against Winthrop's shoulder and kicked the struggling man onto his back. "And there are other dealers I could turn to."