StarCraft II: Devils' Due (6 page)

name—had an eye for finding and removing not only

bel igerent and possibly violent customers, but

morose and melancholy ones as wel . Wayne, for

whom the place was named, once said a sad drunk

was just as bad as a mad one, and neither would be

tolerated in his establishment.

“Evenin’, Mr. Raynor, Mr. Findlay,” Big Eddie said.

Every bit as large as Tychus, he was much better

weathered, lacking scars or a broken nose.

“Welcome back.”

“Hey, Eddie,” Raynor said, and slipped him a

handful of credits. “When you’re off duty, enjoy yourself

on me.”

Eddie chuckled. “I wil at that, Mr. Raynor. Thank

you.”

“Daisy working tonight?” asked Tychus.

Eddie’s smile, wide as the sky, widened further,

showing he stil had al his teeth. “She most certainly

is, but if she wasn’t, I’m sure she’d come in special for

you.”

Tychus grinned.

Lots of people did things special for Jim and

Tychus. They always spent their money freely and with

good cheer, and Wayne, Eddie, Daisy, and the others

looked out for them. Many a time had Butler and his

deputies tried to surprise the two, and each time their

plans had been foiled. Wicked Wayne’s looked after

two of its best clients in every way.

The music was loud, with a heavy thudding boom

that Jim could feel in his bones. The air was thick and

gray with smoke, and the laughter was raucous and

frequent. Tychus took a deep breath.

“That’s the smel of pleasure, Jim,” he said. “Only a

couple scents missing: the sweat of the man who’s

losing to you, and the perfume of the girl you’re

slamming.”

“You’re a poet, Tychus.”

“Heh. Don’t I know it. Ah, there’s my girl.”

The stage was in the center of the place, with the

bar on the left side and a VRcade off to the right.

Several gambling tables were set up in the back, near

an easy exit. On the stage now, wearing luminescent

jewelry and enough scanty pieces of clothing so that

they’d actual y have something to remove for the

customers, were the girls—and boys—of Wicked

Wayne’s.

Tychus went right up to the chairs closest to the

stage. He glared at the man currently seated within

groping reach of the dancers. “You’re in my seat,”

Tychus rumbled.

The man looked up at him. “Don’t have your name

on it.”

“This does.” Tychus made a fist with his left hand

and brought it close enough to the man’s face so that

he could read the letters P-A-I-N—a letter tattooed on

each finger.

Jim chuckled at just how fast the blood drained

from the man’s face as his eyes flickered from the

word to Tychus’s implacable expression. Without a

word, he and his buddies picked up their drinks and

relocated. Tychus settled into the chair, plopped his

booted feet on another one, and grinned up at one of

the gyrating dancers. Tal , red-haired, with legs up to

here
and breasts out to
there
, she wore infinitesimal

scraps of fabric that barely concealed the gifts that

nature and, Raynor always suspected, technology had

given her. This was Daisy, Tychus’s favorite of al the

girls at Wicked Wayne’s, and she gave him a big

smile, a wink, and a shake of her finely curved behind

as she continued to dance in heels so high and so

spiked that Jim always thought they could be used as

weapons.

Jim grinned and headed for the bar on the left.

Misty was tending tonight, and he was delighted.

While the dancers of both genders were permitted

and, frankly, expected to give “private performances,”

the bartenders were under no such instructions. But

Misty liked Jim, and he liked her, and if her shift

ended on time, sometimes she’d serve him a drink

upstairs.

“Jim!” Misty was adorable. Petite, impish, with pale

blond hair, hazel eyes, and a body that had none of

the outrageous curves of the dancers but was

decidedly attractive, she was much more appealing,

Jim thought, than any of the actual performers. “How

you been? I see Tychus has found his usual seat.”

Jim laughed. “Some things never change.”

“Let’s see, Scotty Bolger’s Old No. 8 for the both of

you, and beer chasers?”

“That doesn’t change, either.”

She winked. “Coming right up.”

She moved to get two shot glasses and two beer

steins. He watched her appreciatively for a moment,

then turned his attention back to the dancers.

They were certainly worth paying attention to. One

particularly striking “performer” removed what was left

of her costume and tossed it at Tychus, then turned

her dark head slightly to catch Jim’s eye. He was glad

he’d ordered drinks because his mouth was suddenly

dry. The brunette beauty gave him a sultry wink and

mimed a kiss, then continued performing.

“Her name’s Evangelina,” said a voice behind him,

and he jumped, turning guiltily to Misty as she shoved

the beverages at him. “She’s new. Very popular.”

Her voice held no trace of jealousy. Evangelina. Jim

had to smile a little. The unit to which he and Tychus

had once belonged had gotten the nickname

Heaven’s Devils. Evangelina was an angelic name,

and her face was indeed as lovely as any angel’s he’d

ever seen painted. But that body certainly promised

devilish things.

“She busy tonight?”

Misty gave him an annoyed look. “Jim, I just take

drink orders. Wayne handles everything else.”

Properly chastened, Jim nodded. He leaned over

and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She gave him a

look. He gave her credits.

“That’s better. Go have fun. I’m off later tonight if

Evangelina’s got no time for you.”

He smiled at her and returned to the table, carrying

al four drinks careful y, and set them down. Tychus

handed him the stil -warm brassiere Evangelina had

removed. “Here.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jim said. He placed it down on the

table slightly awkwardly and took a sip of Scotty

Bolger’s whiskey. He smiled at the familiar burn and

looked around. This was home, such as it was, and

had been for almost five years now. Wayne ran a

good establishment: his dancers, bartenders, and

dealers were paid wel and liked working here. He

and Tychus were always made welcome, and even

though he suspected it was more because they

usual y showed up with fistfuls of credits rather than

because they were just so inherently likable, it was a

good feeling.

There had been camaraderie among the Heaven’s

Devils that Raynor found himself missing. He had

some of it stil with Tychus, but most of the Devils—

red-haired, fire-tempered Hank Harnack; kindhearted

Max Zander and Connor Ward; Tychus’s onetime

girlfriend Lisa “Doc” Cassidy—were dead now. Dead

because of the treachery of their commanding officer,

Colonel Javier Vanderspool—the one person they

should have been able to trust. Ryk Kydd, the sniper

who’d saved their asses more times than Raynor

wanted to admit, had gone off on his own. They hadn’t

kept in touch. Most of the memories of those times

were piecemeal and vague; Jim hadn’t wanted to

remember much about it.

But here, while this was hardly a familial

establishment, there was a sense of family. Of

belonging.

“It’s good to feel …” Tychus frowned. “What’s the

word I’m looking for? That word when you don’t have

no more stress and tension and danger breathin’

down your neck.”

“Relaxed?” Jim offered.

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s good to feel relaxed for a while.”

“You better not be spending al my credits. You stil

owe me from that time you pocketed more than your

fair share of the deal.”

Tychus placed a huge hand to his heart, looking

offended. “James Raynor, I ain’t never done no such

thing.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Most of the time, this was just

banter, as it was tonight. But sometimes Jim

wondered. Tychus Findlay could be counted on to

always look out for himself.

Jim took another sip and leaned back in his chair.

His eyes wandered to sloe-eyed, red-lipped

Evangelina. Again Jim swal owed hard.

“Tychus,” he said, “I got a problem.”

“Ain’t never seen a problem enough creds can’t fix,

and we got ourselves a fekkload of creds,” Tychus

said, downing the whiskey in one quick motion and

reaching for the beer. He gave Raynor an amused

glance. “So, what’s yours?”

“Evangelina,” Jim said, nodding at the goddess

parading about on the stage.

“I wouldn’t cal that a problem.”

“Wel , see…. Usual y Misty and I sheet dance if

she’s free. And she’s free tonight. But … Evangelina

…”

“Is smoking hot,” Tychus supplied helpful y. “Stil

ain’t a problem.” He winked at Jim and took a long

pul on the dark amber beverage. “Have ’em both.

Problem solved.”

Jim supposed it was.

The fone had the most horrible noise in the world.

Especial y if you were dreadful y, agonizingly, and

profoundly hungover.

Beep. Beep. Beep.
Raynor felt as if his eyes were

glued shut and his limbs weighed a thousand pounds

each. Fifteen angry elephants were stampeding

inside his skul . “Just shut up,” he told the fone. What

came out of his dry, foul-tasting mouth was

“Uuhhnnggg …”

The girl lying beside him murmured something,

shoved at his chest weakly, rol ed over, and covered

her head with a pil ow. For a terrible moment, Raynor

couldn’t recal which one he had decided to take to

bed. He wrested one eye open. Judging by the length

of the female body under the covers, it was Misty.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Turn it off,” snapped Misty, her voice slightly

muffled. Jim moved his heavy-as-lead body toward

the table and made an attempt to get the fone. He

encountered his Colt first—as he should have—and

shoved it aside. His fingers closed on the fone for an

instant, fumbled, and succeeded only in knocking it off

the table. He swore and leaned over to get it.

The blood rushing to his head only exacerbated

what was vying for the Worst Hangover in the

Universe title, and he almost threw up. With a heroic

effort, his hand closed over the fone. He heaved

himself back onto the bed and looked at the

message, rubbing his bleary eyes with his free hand.

It was from one Myles Hammond. The message

consisted only of a handful of coordinates.

Jim tossed the fone back onto the table. It made an

incredibly loud clatter.

“Shit,” Raynor said, and covered his face with the

pil ow.

PITT TOWN, NEW SYDNEY

The terrain was al but lifeless. Not quite the

unforgiving emptiness of the badlands: there, people

had never quite dwelt comfortably. Here, they once

had thrived. And that made it feel al the more empty.

Once-hospitable land had been bombed into

aridity. No grass, no trees. The only sign that life had

once flourished here were the skeletons—though

merciful y not of humans, not anymore. The skeletons

that loomed on the horizons were those of bombed

buildings. A wal here and there, or a pile of tumbled

plascrete—sometimes an entire house missing only

the roof and people to live in it—stood silent,

accusatory sentinel over the area. These were stark

reminders of what human beings could do to each

other when one faction decided it didn’t like another.

The Guild Wars, the wars in which Raynor and Findlay

and their other friends had fought, had seen to it that

this was al that was left of Pitt Town. Jim would like to

think that people wouldn’t forget, that they would learn

from it, but he knew better than that. There would be

other bombed-out skeletons in other places, in other

planets of the Confederacy. The only difference

between wars was how long the lul s between them

lasted. Once, he had been naïve enough to believe in

things like a “cause” and “justice.” And then he’d

fought in the Guild Wars and seen, up close and very

personal, that the only “causes,” real y, were those of

the individual. With good people, there were good