Chelen City: Chapter Four, Part One

Notes: More story, and it’s actually on time! YAAAY! Assassins, they’re not always what they appear to be…

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Four, Part One

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Chapter Four, Part One

It was a little unusual for a would-be assassin to stick around after their attempt failed, but given the personal relationship Elanus had with this one, he figured the least he could do was have a chat with the man before he threw him out.

“What the fuck was what?” Elanus asked. “The part where I didn’t let you get the drop on me thanks to Kieron, or the part where you ought to be drooling out on the floor but are still standing instead?”

Ryu made a noise of exasperation. “The first, obviously!” He glared at Kieron. “Look, I don’t know much about you, but if this idiot hasn’t explained things to you yet, you ought to know that my attempts to kill him just now were completely superficial.”

“He did tell me about that,” Kieron said, managing to keep a level voice despite the tension Elanus saw through his shoulders. Kieron didn’t like surprises, and Ryu now represented an unknown. “And obviously I would never step in your cultural norms. That was all self-defense.”

“That’s shit and you know it.”

Kieron shrugged. “I’m not responsible for your shitty timing. I walked in first, I felt endangered, I took care of things. Now.” He lifted his gun again and pointed it at Ryu’s chest. “I’d like to learn some more.” And then—

Three more shots before Elanus could stop them—gut, chest, and head. “Whoa!” Elanus shouted, reaching out for Kieron’s shoulder. “That’s plenty, that’s more than plenty. You’re going to overload his nervous system at this rate.”

Kieron shook his head. “But I’m not. Look at him.”

True to Kieron’s word, Ryu was already straightening up. He looked fine, physically, but the expression on his handsome, angular face was incredulous. “What the fuck.”

“Nothing, huh?” Kieron switched the gun for a knife. “What about this?”

Ryu held up his hands. “I can see this has gotten off to a very bad start,” he said placatingly. “I didn’t realize you’d hired a bodyguard. I can—”

“He’s my lover, not my bodyguard,” Elanus clarified, caught between appreciating Kieron’s willingness to cause damage and satisfying his curiosity about this whole thing. “He just really likes me whole and healthy and, y’know, not threatened in the quiet of my office by a former employee in a stealth suit.”

Ryu narrowed his eyes. “Current employee.”

“Former. You fucked off to be Deysan’s personal assistant, and his employment with LifeShip Enterprises has been very thoroughly terminated.” The ship he’d died in had been destroyed by asteroids three days after Elanus and Kieron had orchestrated his downfall, in fact.

Ryu didn’t seem to believe Elanus’s claim. “Look, I don’t care where you stashed him or how you’re making him suffer, but I need information only he has about a personal situation of mine. It’s time-sensitive, so if you can give me access to him for just a standard day, I would appreciate it.”

Elanus was starting to get a sinking feeling. “I can’t.”

Yep, there it was, the lines around the eyes and pursing of the lips—signs of mounting desperation in a man as good at hiding his feelings as Ryu. “You can. You have to. I need to talk to him.”

“No, believe me, I genuinely, absolutely, literally can’t give you access to the man. He’s dead.”

Ryu’s bronzed skin took on a faint green patina. “No.”

“Yes.” Kieron was talking this time, but the underlying air of animosity had completely vanished from his voice. “He’s very, very dead. Take what I did to you and multiply it by radiation poisoning. The real question is, what do you want from him?”

“I…” Ryu seemed to have run out of air. His posture, so square and strong, folded in on itself, his shoulders bowing along with his head as some terrible reality suddenly drilled through his layers of confidence and bluster. “No,” he whispered. “Oh no. No, that can’t—no, I need him.” He staggered backward until he hit Elanus’s desk, but instead of using it to support himself, he sank down onto the floor in front of it, eyes staring at some horror Elanus could only guess at. “No, no, no…”

Kieron lowered the knife, then put it away entirely. “Gania doesn’t subscribe to ritual sacrifice, does it?” he asked Elanus quietly.

“What? No!” Only the most sophisticated barbarism was allowed on Gania. “Why do you ask?”

“Because the way your assassin is behaving makes me wonder why he’s suddenly expecting to die. He didn’t expect to die when I was shooting at him, but a few words about Deysan Moritz being dead and all of a sudden he’s lost all his self-control. So, no culture of required suicide to follow someone of a higher class into some bullshit afterlife?”

“No!” How completely abhorrent. “Do places like that even exist in the Federation?”

“Not in the Federation, no,” Kieron said mildly. It occurred to Elanus that there were a lot of things he didn’t know about Hadrian’s Colony, but one of the things he did know was that they had essentially wiped themselves out in a mass suicide at the behest of their leader. That was…it was…

It was something Elanus was going to table to talk about at a later date, because right now he had his former partner’s former personal assistant hyperventilating on his floor and he didn’t want that. “Ryu,” Elanus tried, coming over and kneeling down in front of him. Not too close, not stabbing-close, but close enough to make a connection. “Why do you need to talk to Deysan so badly?”

“He…” Ryu made an effort to focus on Elanus. His big dark eyes were wide and scared—he had never let himself appear scared in front of Elanus before, never. “He’s the only one who can fix me.”

“Why do you need fixing? What’s wrong with you?”

“Elfshot,” Ryu said, and Elanus went cold. Kieron stiffened as well. “Deysan discovered a cure for Elfshot Disease. I was halfway through the trial treatment when he left. He said he would transmit the rest of the program to me, but he never did. Everything I’ve been through, all the progress, it’s going to be lost if—I—I need him to tell me the rest!”

Deysan worked out a cure for Elfshot Disease?

My disease?

There had to be an angle here, and Elanus was going to find it.