The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company) Read Online Free Page A

weapons collection and family portraits were still on the walls, otherwise Sergei might have thought he had entered someone else’s cabin.
    “You met Ankari,” Mandrake said from the standing desk next to the porthole, guessing what Sergei had been thinking.
    “Yes. She’s pretty.” A vapid compliment, but Sergei hadn’t spoken to the woman during the flight, everyone being rather distracted by the attack that turned out to be an attempt to communicate. Besides, against his better judgment, he had been spending more time paying attention to Jamie.
    Mandrake grunted. Still as garrulous as ever. A few flecks of gray were sprinkled into his dark hair, but other than that, he hadn’t changed much. He still had that dense armoring of muscle that, at first glance, gave the illusion that he might be slow in a fight. Sergei knew better. Sergei’s lean wiry build and fast-twitch reflexes let him dance circles around most opponents in the boxing ring, but Mandrake’s muscles twitched just as quickly. He rarely got hit. And when a man did land a blow on him, he was lucky to do any damage. Sergei almost smiled, remembering how cocky he had been as a young private, fresh from his assassin’s training. And how he had gotten angry and challenged then-Sergeant Mandrake to a brawl. Sergei still had a scar from that battle. Rather than having a medic repair it, he had kept it as a reminder of the lesson learned.
    “You looking for your old job back?” Mandrake asked.
    That wasn’t exactly what had brought Sergei to the Albatross , but out of curiosity, he asked, “If I were, would it be available?”
    “Always available for you.”
    “But not for others with my skills?” Sergei doubted Mandrake Company employed an assassin, a dedicated one, anyway. Once upon a time, Sergeant Mandrake hadn’t been tickled to have one added to his squad, especially one who had lied about his age and entered the service at fifteen. Funny how Mandrake had been the first person to figure that out. Sergei had always been tall for his age, and he had sprouted chin hairs young; even if the ones he had worn to the recruitment office had been glued on, he’d had a decent set of his own by the time he had finished training at sixteen.
    “Kept the job for you. Figured you’d get bored and be back. Twenty-five was young for retiring.”
    “I was older than that,” Sergei said dryly, though he hadn’t been much older, he admitted. He still had a couple of years to thirty, but at times, he felt old enough to have some of Mandrake’s grays. Because he’d never had a childhood maybe, or because he’d seen so much of the dark side of human nature, so much of his own dark side. More than a man ever should.
    “And the rest?”
    “You’re right. I was bored. I tried not to be. Didn’t want to miss the job.” The killing, Sergei added silently and gazed wistfully toward the porthole and the distant stars. “Didn’t like what it said about me that I did.”
    Still leaning against the end of the desk, his arms folded across his chest, Mandrake gazed back at him without judgment. He was one of the few people who did. Maybe because he had killed as many people, if not more, in his day. The difference was that he shot men in the chest, not in the back. Sergei supposed it didn’t matter in the end, the result being the same, but society said one act was brave and one was cowardly. Sergei had looked a few men in the eye and killed them in a fair fight, but it was the challenge of the hunt that drew him, the stalking, the seeing without being seen, the striking out of the ether, a phantom never heard, never sensed.
    “I might take the job for a while, as long as you’re offering it,” Sergei said, “but there’s another matter that brought me here.”
    Mandrake’s gaze did not waver. If he had a curious bone in his body, it never showed.
    “There’s a bounty on your head. Fifty thousand aurums.” Sergei jerked a thumb toward the porthole.