Ludwig Nadir Jump Point

Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine

1 October 3134

Katana Tormark.

Marcus wasn’t sure what to do first: put his fist through a window, or murder his brother. Both were impossible. For one thing, the windows (or portals, or portholes, or whatever was JumpShip-speak) were triply-reinforced ferroglass, virtually indestructible. For another, infinitely more important reason, Jonathan was much more likely to kill him first, not because Jonathan was necessarily stronger or more cunning but because Jonathan had legs that worked and a lot more practice. So what Marcus did instead was turn aside and stare out at all that deadly, silent, beautiful space.

From the outside, his personal JumpShip looked like any other Magellan–class vessel: a stout tube with a bulbous nose collared with six capsule-shaped fuel tanks. Nothing special. (Unless you figured in the windows: they cost. Marcus was nearly as wealthy as Jacob Bannson, but while Bannson’s billions funded his quest for the holy grail of respectability, Marcus bought the thing that revenge demanded: discretion.)

Inside, the Omega screamed wealth. Besides the lack of a grav deck—something Marcus missed not at all—and the addition of an onboard medical facility (sadly, a necessity), the ship was a lavishly appointed home stretched end to end and all around. There were computer workstations positioned at desks along the “floor” and illuminated by specialized full-spectrum UV-blocked lights from “above.” There were rich, handwoven Shirara rugs on grippads; teak and cherrywood furniture bolted to the deck; beds sheathed in satin. Marcus even had a real library: actual leather-bound books with marbled edges and gilt lettering. Worth more than their weight in platinum, the books were held in place by specially made retention belts, and Marcus spent hours reveling in the sensation of cool, smooth leather. And there was ferroglass, whole sections given over to elegant, transparent curves that gleamed with a buttery yellow incandescence, or displayed millions of hard, diamond-bright stars glittering like sequins sewn onto black velvet.

Now Marcus stared out, and his reflection stared back. Space had been kind to him even if life had not. At fifty-four, he still possessed a lean, wolfish face with high cheekbones and sable-colored eyes that took off ten years. He wore his camel-colored hair military short. Weightless the majority of the time, he’d escaped gravity’s fingers, the way they dragged through the putty of a man’s face. His shoulders were broad, his arms bunched with cords of muscle, his abdomen washboard flat, and his hands powerful enough to crush walnuts.

But if space had been good to Marcus, time had been better to Jonathan. Marcus’ moody gaze slid to the reflection of his younger brother floating with infuriating nonchalance on the other side of the room. Jonathan was more than handsome. He was beautiful. Sensuous lips, a lush mane of black hair shot through with silver that might look ridiculous in zero g but cascaded in silken rivers under gravity, and a pair of hooded, smoke-gray eyes that suggested the pleasures of the bedroom. Even before the accident, Jonathan was a quarter meter taller and had a leopard’s sinewy grace.

Marcus scowled. “Why do you insist on taking risks?”

“Because I can.” Sighing, his brother unfurled like a cat working out the kinks. “Where’s the sport in a fast kill?”

“Sport,” Marcus grunted. Pushing off from the window, he twisted left, hooked his left hand into a handhold strategically located just shy of the curve of the room’s “ceiling.” His scrawny, paralyzed legs drifted behind like wind socks snatched by a weak breeze. “This isn’t a game, Jonathan. Katana Tormark must die. Getting rid of the Bounty Hunter was a necessity; we needed to put you in her camp. But toying with ISF agents, that business on Towne…“

“Not business.” Jonathan peered through his lashes. “Practice.”

“Eight murders seems excessive.”

“Nine. Shu’s daughter was a bonus.”

“She wasn’t a bonus. Shu just didn’t know how to finish what he’d started.”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, Marcus. You’re just angry because you couldn’t do the little twat yourself.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Really,” Jonathan drawled. “So why did you insist I record them? Don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed those data crystals. You think you’re the only one who knows how to access a computer and see who’s been listening to what?”

“Jonathan,” Marcus began, then stopped, mortified. What Jonathan said was true. Listening to the women plead for their lives, promise to do anything for Jonathan, and then watching, mesmerized, as they did …even thinking about them made Marcus’ pulse jackhammer in his veins, his mouth go dry. Marcus was fabulously wealthy, yes, but he needed his brother to be his eyes, his ears. His body and the women…

“That’s not the issue,” he managed tersely. “You can’t go around… recruiting people on a whim, then going on a little spree.”

“And why not? What’s a little murder between friends?”

“Shu wasn’t your friend.”

“No,” said Jonathan, frowning in mock solemnity. “You’ve got a point there. He was just in love with me. But what a stroke of luck, eh? Stumbling onto Shu and his lovely daughter during one of their naughty little games… the poor girl was half-dead by the time I cut that scarf.” Grinning, he tucked, rolled, then planted his feet against a slim bulkhead and shot across the room, sailing for a high corner. There he wedged: a human spider at the center of an invisible web. “You know, I’m beginning to understand what you see in zero g. Sex must be quite the experience.”

“Don’t change the subject,”

“Spoilsport.” Then Jonathan sighed. “I had to give the police someone, and dear little Shu was so eager. It was like having a cocker spaniel.”

“He was inept. What about that girl he let run off?”

Jonathan tsk-tsked. “Yes, well. Everyone’s nervous the first time. But if I told him once, I told him a thousand times: No, Shu dear, you cut out their tongues after they’re dead.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I never said it was. I have to admit that when those idiot police only wounded and didn’t kill him, I had a nervous moment or two. Very obliging of him to die in hospital.” Jonathan dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Actually, between you and me? Shu was on the mend, going to regain consciousness any second, that was the gossip amongst the nurses, and I thought, well, that won’t do. So I slipped a little something into his intravenous, a tiny bit of succinylcholine. Paralyzed his diaphragm just like that.”

Marcus jabbed a finger at his brother. “And that’s what I’m talking about. You poison the son of a bitch, and then you think that the police won’t come looking?”

“Succinylcholine is virtually untraceable. I know what I’m doing.” Jonathan screwed up his features the way a petulant child wrinkles his nose at lima beans. “You think it’s easy imitating a good serial killer? Dreaming up a novel signature took me a week. There were so many details, like remembering that blood spatters in—”

“I heard the news feeds. In fact, I couldn’t find anything but for weeks. But here’s what I don’t understand. You plant clues. You lead the police on this wild goose chase before remembering that, oh, yes, there’s this government official I’ve been sent to assassinate—for which I’m being well paid, thank you very much. You even give yourself a damn name!”

“Well, I didn’t like the one they chose.” Jonathan folded his arms and dropped into a cross-legged squat, like a sultan on a flying carpet. “Little Luthien. Sounded like a troll living under a bridge.”