“The Katre ’49,” Gyre repeated, raising his voice.
“What the fuck is a Katre ’49?” the boy said.
One of his companions behind the bar, an older man with a salt-and-pepper beard, leaned in with a growl. “This look like the kind of place that keeps a bottle for fifty fucking years?”
“It’s still my order.” Gyre drummed his fingers on the bar top and glanced around. “Katre ’49.”
“Well then, of course, m’lord,” the older bartender said, putting on an obnoxious Republican accent. “Would that be the north or west side of the vineyard you’d be wanting? And would you care to sample the cherry-crusted sparrow penis?” He barked a laugh, and the boy snickered. “Order a real drink, or piss off.”
Maybe it’s a test. Gyre’s finger tapped a little harder, and he took a deep breath. “I think—” he began.
He got no further, because someone grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him, and kissed him hard. This was so unexpected that it took Gyre a moment to react. He got the impression of a young woman, pressed against him by the crowd, her lips soft against his. His hand went to his back, where a knife was hidden under his coat.
“This is my man,” she announced, pulling away from him and turning to face the crowd. “And he’s a hundred times better than you Auxie scum.”
Gyre blinked.
*
There was a long, dangerous silence.
It gave Gyre the chance to size things up, at least. First there was the girl at his side. She was his age or a little younger, dressed in dark pants and a tailcoat, with a scavenger’s leather jacket thrown over the top making a decidedly odd ensemble. Nearly his height, she was long and lean, with only the slightest of curves. Her hair, a brilliant teal, was cut short in wild spikes.
Second was the group she’d been speaking to. There were half a dozen of them, all large men, wearing identical trousers and gray shirts. Now that he was looking at them, Gyre could identify these as the underpadding for Auxiliary armor, dark with sweat at the armpits and collars. This bunch must have just come off shift. The closest, with a shock of red hair and a thick beard the color of old blood, was just starting to turn his attention to Gyre.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gyre saw more gray shirts moving in the crowd behind him, heading his way. So much for a quick exit. He returned his gaze to the red-bearded man in time for the Auxiliary to grab Gyre’s collar with one massive fist.
“What the fuck is this, then?” the man said. His breath, of which Gyre was the unfortunate recipient, was thick with alcohol.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Gyre ventured. His hand was still on his knife.
“I’ve been buying this plaguepit drinks for an hour,” Red-beard said, glaring at the blue-haired girl. “Now you’re gonna come in and take her? Fuck that. She’s mine.”
The girl raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond. Gyre started to make another attempt at politely disentangling himself, then paused.
Plague it. His mission here was totally fucked at this point, whatever happened. Plague if I’m going to bow and scrape to an Auxie. The look in the girl’s eyes—not afraid in the least, almost expectant—played more of a role than he’d care to admit.
“I don’t think she belongs to anyone,” Gyre said. “And I don’t like your language. And furthermore—”
At this point he kneed the Auxie in the balls. Holding someone’s collar, while it might be intimidating, left you open to all sorts of nastiness. Idiot’s just lucky I’m not spilling his guts.
Red-beard doubled over, letting go of Gyre’s collar. Gyre gave him a shove to send him to the floor and danced clear. The Auxie’s closest companions pushed forward into the rapidly clearing space around the bar, roaring threats. Gyre met the first one with a downward stomp to his extended knee, buckling the leg and turning his shouts into screams of pain. The second one swung a punch at Gyre’s face, and he ducked, came up inside the man’s guard, and drove an elbow into his jaw from below. There was an audible clack as his teeth came together, and he stumbled backward, blood bubbling between his lips where he’d bitten off a chunk of tongue.
There was a brief, hushed silence. The remaining three Auxies had squared off, but for the moment they didn’t charge. Behind Gyre, the bartenders had vanished into whatever secret place bartenders go when fights break out, and the rest of the crowd had backed off far enough to be out of danger but close enough that they could still see the show.
To Gyre’s mild surprise, the blue-haired girl hadn’t taken the opportunity to run for it. She stood beside him, looking down approvingly at the groaning Auxies.
“Not bad,” she said. “I’m Kit. Duck.”
“What?”
“Duck.”
He ducked. A moment later her foot whistled through the space where his head had been, a perfect arc of a kick that connected beautifully with the jaw of another Auxie who’d been creeping up on him from behind. The momentum of it picked the man up and sent him tumbling across the bar top, scattering mugs and glassware.
Gyre looked around frantically. It was worse than he’d thought—there were at least three more groups of Auxies, maybe twenty men and women in gray shirts closing in. At the edges of the room, the establishment’s security wasn’t rushing to interfere. This probably counts as tonight’s entertainment.
He looked back at Kit. “What do you say to getting out of here?”
“Probably for the best,” she said with a grin. “The beer is frankly swill.”
“Great.” Gyre stuck his hands in his coat pockets. “Follow my lead.”
*
Most of the Auxies were between Gyre and the front door, making a quick break in that direction impractical. The stairs, however, had only five gray shirts in front of them. One decision made.
His hands came out of his pockets with an alchemical cracker in each. These were smaller versions of the stunner he’d used against the Legionary, not much more than a distraction, but it couldn’t be helped. In the dense crowd, a stunner was likely to seriously hurt someone who didn’t deserve it; Gyre had no sympathy for Auxies, but most of the patrons of the Smoking Wreckage hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, he amended after a moment, they haven’t done anything to me, anyway.
Darting away from the bar, he lobbed the first cracker in a low arc behind him. It landed among the groaning Auxies just as their comrades gathered their courage to pursue, detonating with a crack and a brilliant flash. He waved the second one in front of Kit, who got the idea and squeezed her eyes shut. Gyre hurled it forward and put a hand over his good eye.
The group in front of him scattered when they saw him hurl the bomb, and the detonation disoriented them. The closest was a dark-haired, well-muscled woman who got her hands up in a fighting stance in spite of eyes streaming with tears. Gyre didn’t even slow down, ducking under her clumsy blow and sweeping her legs out from under her. She hit the ground with a meaty thud, and he popped back up, just in time for a younger girl to slam a fist into his face. Gyre wobbled backward, head ringing, but had the presence of mind to grab her wrist and sidestep her next blow, twisting her arm to send her into a painful flip that landed her on her downed comrade.