No Man's Land. James Axler

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      He heard the familiar scritch of the straight razor being trued up on the leather strop and settled deeper into the cushions with a satisfied sigh. He kept his eyes closed. He had a hard road of a day ahead, and Erl intended to take it easy while he could.

      “Not that I’m all that all-fired eager to come into the presence of our esteemed commander,” he admitted. “That sawed-off little bastrich is gonna be hopping around like a toad frog on a hot griddle all day.”

      He spoke frankly to his manservant of many years. He needed somebody he could unburden himself of his many cares and concerns that as a man of power and influence—not as much as he deserved, mind you, nor yet as much as he intended to have—he naturally accrued. He certainly didn’t dare to speak frankly to any of his peers on the Protective Association army’s general staff. Nor needless to say any of his lessers. They were nothing but a pack of ravening mutie coyotes, eager to tear him down to build themselves up. So he let it all hang loose where his servant was concerned.

      The gimpy old fuck knew what’d happen to him if he dared run his face, anyway, Erl thoughts.

      “Not that I blame poor Jed,” he admitted, as the towel was lifted from his face. Erl kept his eyes closed as Watkuns brushed warm lather on his cheeks and chin.

      It was his usual habit. Why did he have to watch? And he was going to trust the man with a razor-sharp blade—being as it was a razor and all—right up against his throat. Of course, Watkuns had a family—a couple daughters, some grand-brats; who had time to keep track? He also knew what would happen to them, while he watched, should his hand chance to slip.

      “I mean, what’s a man supposed to feel in his position? His own son and heir left to bleed out like a strung-up hog by those bitches from that gang of coldhearts the patrol trolled in last night. Be enough to break the heart of a cee-ment statue.”

      Erl started to shake his head. Then he chuckled—as the keen straight edge began to scrape at the dark-and-light bristles that sprouted overnight on his considerable jowls. Triple-stupe move I almost made there, he thought.

      “Before he let us all finally go the hell to bed last night—this morning, more like—he was offering the sun, the moon and the stars to anybody who ran them coldheart fuckers down and dragged them back. Dead or alive. Not gonna happen. They’ve hightailed it all the way to the Red River by now. Along with thirty head of prize cavalry mounts.”

      “Interesting,” a voice said by his ear.

      Erl felt his brows crease in a scowl. It wasn’t like Watkuns to comment on things his master said. It wasn’t his place.

      Then it hit him: the soft, sibilant hiss wasn’t anything like his long-time servant’s half-simp drawl, either.

      Erl’s eyes flew open. The face close to his was as narrow and hard as a bowie blade and had a yellow cast to it. There was a shiny black patch over one eye, and a hint of fine scales at the edges of the lean jaw and around the eyes, and colorless, almost invisibly thin lips. It was as unlike Watkuns’s saggy old face as night from day.

      The big man went rigid with terror. His hands gripped the arms of his comfy chair fit to pop the tendons. For a moment his mind went white in sheer panic. A stranger with a razor to his neck!

      Then he relaxed. He recognized the stoneheart he himself had hired a week or two back to transact certain...business for him.

      “What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, you mutie bastard!” Erl yelled, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to startle the man, to call him that, as a body probably oughtn’t, taint that he was.

      The thin lips smiled. “Ease your mind, Mr. Kendry,” he said. “I just wanted to report the successful completion of my mission. And receive my payment due, of course.”

      He continued to shave Big Erl’s cheek with a steadier hand and smoother motion than his servant managed after almost two decades’ practice.

      “But—Watkuns—my servant...”

      “Don’t worry,” Snake Eye said.

      That was the chiller’s name. Erl remembered it now. A notorious man. A man who always fulfilled a contract.

      That was why Erl hired him. That old sag-bellied bastard Earnie had a way of slipping out of the tightest places. For various reasons connected to his important position in the community Erl couldn’t act against his former partner directly. And none of the men he’d paid to chill Earnie before had come through. Erl reckoned the bastard had bought them off.

      “I persuaded your servant to let me take his place this morning,” the assassin went on, as easily as if he was discussing a fair day’s weather.

      Erl scowled deeper. He was going to need to have words with Watkuns over this. More than just words, mebbe.

      “Tell me about it,” he said, anger and residual fear making his voice husky.

      Snake Eye briefly tipped his head in what Erl took for a form of shrug. The chiller had on a black hat and a white shirt with a black velvet vest over it. He and the clothes smelled clean, not of days, if not weeks, of accumulated sweat. That was an unusual thing in itself, and Erl chastised himself for not noticing the man who shaved him smelled differently than his servant before now.

      “He was in the shop he ran,” Snake Eye said. “Cowering in the basement. Not that I blamed him overmuch. Both your army and your opponents were busy shelling the stuffing out of the place. I found him there. He tried to buy me off. I reminded him of my invariant policy and dealt with him accordingly.”

      Erl had to restrain himself forcibly from nodding in eager satisfaction. “Ace!” he exclaimed.

      “And now,” the mercie said, “there’s the issue of my compensation. Don’t get up—just direct me to where I may find my payment for successful completion of my contract.”

      “In the lockbox by the foot of my cot,” Erl said, rolling his eyes toward the objects in question. “There’s a velvet pouch. Royal blue.”

      “Tasteful,” Snake Eye said with a nod.

      “It’s right on top, now,” Erl said. “Don’t go grubbing around in there.”

      “Tut tut, Mr. Kendry. Surely you don’t mean to impugn my professionalism.”

      The yellowish, dry-backed hand paused briefly with the razor edge close to Erl’s mostly shaved right cheek. Erl’s blood cooled down many degrees in a hurry.

      “No,” he admitted, “I surely don’t.”

      Inwardly he seethed. I don’t care what it costs me, he thought. I’ll make this mutie bastard pay for this! I’ll have his scaly yellow hide stripped off and have him kept alive to watch it made into a pair of boots!

      “I thought not.” Snake Eye resumed his expert shaving. “I charge premium prices for my services. And as you know, I am most exact in delivering them. As indeed I have.”

      “Yeah” was all Erl could manage to say to that.

      “There is one thing, Mr. Kendry.”

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