Needle Rain Read Free

until he was discharged or dead. He supposed if the priests spoke true he might see them after death, as a ghost. But ghosts couldn’t feel, couldn’t touch their wife or daughter or son.
    As the ghost of an Immolator he might not even recognize them or remember loving them.
    A chill had swept him at that thought.
    And so, when a friend of Punka’s pulled him aside on the way to the commander’s office and told him about a certain Needle Master who had a desperate need for money, he listened very carefully and memorized the name.
     

C H A P T E R   T H R E E

     
    Trinketologist – a magience practitioner who makes magical objects
    from wood, metal, or plant.
     
    *****
     
    “Oh Gods!” Heloise sat up and threw back the sheets. Sun streamed in the window. Nana’s rooster next door was crowing. She could smell the bacon frying upstairs, so Jana was up. It was late.
    “Got to go! She shoved at Kane but he only grunted. His bare, muscled back looked tempting and she almost leaned over to give him a bite. Instead she shook her legs free of the sheet and began to clamber over him.
    His arm snaked up and he wrestled her back to the bed with a grin then rested above her propped on both arms. The delicious press of his skin against hers and his deep black Hastino eyes reminded her of their love-making the night before.
    “One kiss?” he murmured, his deep voice reverberating in the pit of her stomach.
    “No!”
    Kane stooped to lick at her nipple, circling it with his tongue.
    “Mmm. Nice.” She wriggled. “One. One kiss.”
    The melting sensation as they kissed made her wish she hadn’t work to go to, but it was the day of the Needle Master. She tried to get up and Kane held her tighter. With a quick push on his chin to bend his head back, a chop to the inside of his elbow, and a flip of her body, she sent him off balance and tumbling to the side.
    “Hey!” From the look on his face she’d startled him.
    Too bad. No time to explain where she’d learned the move.
    As she tugged on her red leggings and a white shirt, and laced up her gray vest, he watched her lazily. She brushed her short, straight hair. The ends bounced up with that annoying wave. Disgusted, she tossed the comb onto the dressing table, scattering a hodgepodge collection of glass toys, coins, bead bracelets, a booklet on known-to-be-extant trinketton armaments, and a stuffed owl.
    It being Sonday, this would be Kane’s day off. Legal clerks mightn’t work rest days but this was the best time to visit Uncle’s customers. It unsettled, made them realize they were up against the wall.
    She strapped on a slim Sung steel knife then went to her strongbox, unlocked it, and took out Dogrose. Dogrose was a compact dartzinger she’d found at the dock markets a few months ago –a gorgeously detailed trinketton. The tiny embossed daisies snaking round the octagonal barrel and the butt spoke of a plant animus. Every few months the daisies went through their cycle and changed from buds to tiny blossoms. The perfume the weapon exuded was subtle and elegant.
    Not many trinketologists played with the spirit energy of plants.
    Some days she wondered about its history. Surely a master trinketologist had created Dogrose?
    She’d never fired it in anger, and she hoped she never needed to. She weighed it in her hands, wondering if she should’ve applied fresh tincture to the darts last night.
    “What’s that? Are you planning to use that?” Kane’s voice sharpened. “Where is it you’re going, Heloise?”
    She slipped Dogrose back into the strongbox then clicked it shut. “Out. Don’t worry your pretty little head.” She took two strides and ruffled his thick brown hair, jumping back when he tried to grab her again. “Don’t forget to lock up!” Last of all, she knelt in the doorway to give her cat, Grunt, a pat. “Bye!”
    One day she’d have to tell Kane what she did for a living. Collecting debts might not be glamorous but she made good