About the time he was deciding that no one would ever think the worse of him ifhe just walked away from this one, left Ischade's stone unturned, and said shehadn't been at home, the door reopened and a delicate, white hand reached out tohim: "Come in, Straton," said the vampire woman. "It's been a long timesince one such as you has come to me."
Sync had saved the fabled crimelord Jubal for himself. The Sanctuary veterans hehad on staff had warned him about the vicious squalor of Downwind, but he hadn'tbelieved them.
Now he believed, but he believed more in his good right arm and theattractiveness of the offer he had to make.
This Jubal was black and stout as a gnarled tree, older than Sync had been ledto believe by half, and sporting a fey blue hawkmask that would have botheredSync more if the sycophants around the ex-slaver weren't verifying Jubal'sidentity by every deferential move they made.
The head bootlicker here was named Saliman; the hovel was reasonably commodiousonce you got inside, but the band of pseudo-beggars ranged around it would giveSync a strenuous afternoon if he had to cut his way through them to get out.He'd unbridled his horse as a precaution: if he whistled. Sync was going to havetwelve hundred Rankan pounds of iron hooves and snapping jaws to back him up.3rd Commando training told him he didn't need more than that: one man, onehorse, one holocaust on demand.
Sync wasn't a politician; he was a field commander. But he wasn't in thisDownwind potty to fight; he was here to talk.
Jubal, in a flurry of feathered robes, sat down on something very like a throneand said-in a muffled voice through his mask: "Talk, mercenary."