“Yes, I will,” Dante agreed in a disturbingly cheerful voice. “But not before you die with your blood on my blade.” Dante eased into the open. Regi's heart constricted until he thought Poque had come to collect him for the next world.
The Styl didn't fire. He gave a low, rumbling chuckle and lowered his weapon. “I am enjoying watching you die.”
“I'm going to enjoy watching you die first.”
Regi tried to quiet his fears and focus on the target in front of him—the center of the Styl’s chest. If Regi missed, he would not get a second shot before the pirate could return fire. With Dante standing in the open, that was unacceptable. Dante advanced, and Regi breathed out slowly. Cool whispers of determination displaced the hot rage in his soul. He watched the pirate take one step and then a second. His chest was angled the wrong way.
“Stupid slave doesn't even know how he's going to die.”
“Oh I've been exposed to enough radiation that I know exactly how I'm going to die,” Dante said. “I'm just not terribly upset by it. After all, I get to see you die before I go.”
The Styl eased forward so that his chest was angled towards Regi and a cool breeze filled Regi with a sense of rightness and completion. He squeezed the trigger and watched as the pirate slammed back into the wall, a purpleish stain spreading dead center on his chest.
Instead of sanely retreating, Dante rushed forward and drove his knife straight into the pirate’s eye. “I told you, bastard. You die first.”
Chapter Twelve
Regi considered Dantethrough new eyes. He had considered Dante a victim to protect, but now he stood with a bloody knife and a look that would have been satisfaction if it were on a Kowri’s face. Dante took a step back, and dark blood dripped off Regi’s anelace. The whole time, Dante kept his eyes on the fallen Styl.
“He’s dead,” he finally said. That did seem obvious, but perhaps Dante needed reassurance.
“Yes. Exceptionally so,” Regi said.
Dante turned toward him, his eyes dark. The blue had retreated to a thin line around a black center. “He’s really dead.”
“He suffered two fatal wounds,” Regi said. It was too late to retreat without irradiating every part of the ship they entered, so the discussion was best held here as well as anywhere.
“I never thought—” Dante spun around and retreated deeper into the mechanics of the ship. Regi hesitated, not sure how to help Dante. Many cultures had beliefs about death, and self-exile for a period following the taking of a life was a common one. However, Regi hated the idea that if Dante’s world required that, he would die alone. Worse, he might refuse the pain medicines that would soon be their sole relief.
Despite the risk of offending the god Texas, Regi followed. Dante had not retreated far—only to the next oversized conduit. He stood with both forearms resting against the mechanical housing, his body hunched forward in a way that suggested radiation poisoning already weakened his muscles. Regi eased closer, searching for the right words. “My shot had already ended his life,” Regi said. He hoped that would ease Dante’s mind.
Dante turned. “He was still breathing when I put the knife through his eye.” Dante lifted the anelace and studied the smooth surface as though he had never seen its like. “I got your knife dirty.” He wiped it off on his pants, leaving a deep reddish-purple stain on the rough cloth.
“I am unbothered,” Regi said. He inched closer. “It is not the first blood on the blade,” Regi said.
“You killed someone with it?” Dante asked, finally making eye contact with Regi.
