*

Proval was lucky. He’d left the safety of the Shanty to visit the public bar of the Kripshire pub, which was at the back of the building with its entrance in the alley leading off Broad Street, when he saw her: the blissfully sweet teenager. Proval didn’t like using the main streets in any town, not with all the people walking and riding about. Main streets were all clean and proper, a town’s pride, where the sheriffs kept an eye out for trouble and troublemakers. But underpinning them were the smaller streets, where it was possible for a man to walk without drawing any kind of attention. Home to the kind of people and places he preferred.

He’d already pushed the door open when she passed the end of the alley. Late teens. Long emerald-green skirt swishing about, white blouse with plenty of buttons undone to show off great tits. She knows she’s doing that. Slut. Red hair falling halfway down her back, all clean and glossy. Freckled skin with a wonderful clear complexion. Sunny smile showing off happy confidence. Pretty. Oh so pretty.

Proval got all that in one swift glance before she passed the alley. He did a perfect one-eighty turn and walked smartly away from the bar. You have to grab opportunity when you see it. And he recognized one instantly these days. As he walked back down the alley he ’pathed his mod-bird, which was circling high overhead. The bird banked and glided down along Broad Street. He watched through its eyes.

She was carrying a big shoulder bag that bulged. Out shopping, then. Bag’s full, so she’s heading home. Where? Where is home, sweetness?

Proval hurried along the backstreets, keeping more or less parallel to Broad Street. The exquisite girl kept walking, heading for the west end of town, away from the river. Proval barely knew which town this was, just another set of jetties with houses sprawling along the Nubain tributaries – one of hundreds. The whole river basin was his territory. Travel here was easy, and the sheriffs just minded their own patch.

The girl turned off down a side street, bringing her just that fraction closer to him. He couldn’t help the smile. Luck. When you were due it, luck came like a torrent. Was she heading for the stables? Please, Giu. Please.

Proval almost ran the last two hundred metres to the livery. He was actually in the saddle of his mod-horse, leaving the main gates when she arrived at the front.

Yes. Oh yes, today Giu is smiling on me.

His horse ambled along the road out of town. A kilometre further on, the neat fields had begun and there was a fork in the road. He hesitated. The mod-bird showed him the sweetness on a terrestrial horse leaving the livery, the bag slung on the back of her saddle. She lived out in the countryside somewhere. Probably a nice well-to-do farmhouse. The sweetness was that type.

Decision. He took the left-hand road, lined with tall goldpines. Behind him the mod-bird glided lazily on a thermal, keeping the sweetness in sight. If she took the right-hand road, it didn’t matter: he could ride fast and catch up. But if she turned left – well, that would be so easy.

Giu continued to bless Proval. The girl came to the fork and turned unhesitatingly down the left-hand road.

This close to town there was still a fair bit of traffic. Horses, carts, even a few walkers. Proval carried on, keeping a kilometre or so ahead of the sweetness until he was in a steep valley with heavily forested slopes. The midday sun burnt hot overhead, and the air was dry and still. He was sweating when he finally dismounted. His mod-bird raced ahead, keen eyes searching the road for traffic. The day’s luck was amazing. There was nothing about, not a solitary rider or farm cart. They were the only people for kilometres. He could carry the sweetness through the dense trees into the valley and no one would ever see them. He wouldn’t even have to gag her like he did some. There was nobody to hear her screams.

Just as she came round the last bend, he bent down as if examining his horse’s hoof. Nothing suspicious here. Just another traveller with a bit of difficulty. And you know, don’t you sweetness, that there’s nothing bad here. Not on the road home which you’ve ridden down a hundred times in your lovely young life. Here you are safe.

‘Trouble?’ the girl asked as her horse came close.

Proval didn’t even have to answer. She swung a leg over the saddle and hopped down.

So strong. So agile.

He stood up in the shade of the tall goldpines and smiled a hungry smile. That was when they normally started to realize something might be wrong. He was under no illusion about his looks. The busted nose, missing teeth, shabby clothes. Most people instinctively shied away from someone like him, certainly young girls. ‘Kind of you to stop.’

Her smile was still suffused with confidence. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ she asked matter-of-factly. ‘Get me off my horse. Middle of nowhere. Nobody around. Perfect for you, right?’

Proval’s hand slid down his grubby shirt to the pistol under his jacket. Something not right about this. Not at all. He checked the mod-bird’s eyes. But nothing had changed; they were completely alone. ‘Perfect for what?’

‘You’re Demal. Or Proval. Maybe Finbal. I don’t know for sure. The name is different most of the time, but the description fits.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Do you normally ask any of your victims’ names?’

Proval drew the gun, pointing it at her in one smooth movement. Unnervingly, she didn’t even flinch. ‘Are you some kind of sheriff’s trick? Answer me, bitch. I’ll make it worse for you if you don’t.’

‘Uracus, no! If they knew I existed, the sheriffs would probably give you a reward for telling them. The Captain’s police certainly would.’

He clicked the safety catch back, enjoying the loud snik it made. So she’d understand he wasn’t bluffing. Not even the strongest shell could withstand a bullet. ‘Start talking.’

‘I know you’ve raped over eleven girls in the last two years. I think you killed three farm families when you raided their houses at night. And the sheriffs suspect another two. There are plenty of highway robberies with extreme violence around the Nubain tributaries, too. Right? That’s you?’

‘Very smart. But it’s seventeen girls,’ he snarled. ‘And you, eighteen, you’re going to be the sweetest of them all.’

She nodded seriously, as if she’d just confirmed a fact with a library book. ‘Thought so.’

Proval lost the vision ’pathed from his mod-bird. ‘Huh?’ He glanced up instinctively. Sight and ex-sight revealed his dead mod-bird dropping from the talons of a huge avian predator that was still plunging down in its kill-dive.

Something smashed into his chest. He was thrown backwards as if the world’s strongest teekay had punched him. Arms windmilling helplessly as he crashed to the ground. Then the pain flooded across him from the agony point that was his sternum, and he wailed. But through all the hurt and terror, he still managed to bring the gun up, tracking it round towards the bitch from Uracus. There was some small metallic egg-shaped thing poking out of her blouse sleeve, held steady by what looked like a slender white tentacle. Crazy it might be, but Proval knew a weapon when he saw it. The thing emitted a green flash, and his gun hand ruptured. Blood splattered over his face and jacket. He stared manically at the tattered remnant of his hand, and screamed again – high-pitched and hysterical now.

*

‘I said intact,’ Nigel complained when he, Russell and Demitri drove the cart up to Kysandra three minutes later.

She frowned up at him. ‘You want me to go back in time and try again?’

‘No, no,’ he said cheerfully. ‘This will do. I suppose.’ He and Demitri exchanged a quick glance of amusement.

Proval was sprawled unconscious on the dirt. Kysandra had sprayed his damaged hand with a specialist dermsynth, a lot thicker than the usual application. ‘He’s hardly broken. I think two fingers are still intact. I just set the pulse a bit high.’