“It’s a regular peaceable kingdom in here,” I said.

Saint Jerome grinned like a shark. “A real businessman knows when to cut a deal.”

“Fifty percent’s not a bad cut,” Lauder said. “He gets everything below the church. I get everything above.”

“Seems fair,” I said. “As long as you don’t think Jerome here’s going to stab you in the back first chance he gets.”

Lauder said, “Deals forged in fire are often the strongest.”

“He’s not really a saint, you know,” I said.

“That’s enough,” snapped the Saint. “Let’s get moving.” He disarmed Beck and patted Maurice and I down. All around us, the art of old Earth sat ready for the taking. He looked up at the Garden of Earthly Delights. “Ugly thing, isn’t it? Can you believe there’s all this fuss?”

“It’s considered revolutionary for its time,” I said. “A real insight to the nature of heaven and hell.”

Lauder stepped up next to us. “Is that a pig wearing a nun’s habit?”

“It’s symbolic,” I said.

“What about the knife with ears?”

“Close it up,” Saint Jerome said. He gestured with his pistol at Maurice and me. “You two move this thing. The lady can carry some of these smaller relics.”

To my surprise, Beck obeyed. She picked up the ornate box—the one that contained a relic of Saint Catherine of Bologna.

The painting was heavier than it looked, and once removed from its sealed case and detached from its mounting brackets it swayed dangerously in my grip. Luckily, Maurice was in better shape than he looked, and we were able to get it under control. Both crime bosses led us out by gunpoint.

I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye as we left. Something in the lower ventilation shaft.

“I used to fly in ships like this back in the day, you know,” I said to Saint Jerome, who walked next to me. “My family didn’t like waiting in customs like regular citizens.”

“Keep walking,” Jerome said.

“It’s interesting, all the places you can go in these ships when you’re small enough. You can crawl all the way down to the control center and mess with the lights. You can throw the whole ship into lockdown, too. It’s really something they should have considered when they designed it. Gotta think of rats when you design a ship, right?”

The Saint jabbed his pistol into my ribs, causing me to stumble and my end of the painting dipped dangerously.

“You can’t shut him up,” Beck said. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

I smiled. “I’m just saying it’d be a shame if anyone crawled around in the maintenance tunnels to the ship center. They’d be able to trigger the lockdown.”

Lauder narrowed his eyes at me. He knew Retch was around, but couldn’t do anything about it.

When we got to the foyer, we found both the Mercury and Venus airlocks standing open. A knife jammed into the bulkhead track prevented the door between Venus and the ship’s foyer from closing. That must have been Beck’s handiwork.

But somehow the door after that stood open.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Lauder said as we passed the foyer into the sprawling Venus compartment. “The airlock can’t cycle if the next door won’t close.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” said Beck. “Guess I was wrong.”

“More of your people?” Saint Jerome asked Lauder.

“Not mine,” said the gentleman. “Might be the blue.”

The police didn’t have the authority to override the airlock mechanism. Only one man I knew could do that. Only one man had the ability to be ignored by Trinity’s safety mechanisms. He had the skills needed to hack the airlock consoles and the moral fiber necessary to put the station in danger to do it. There was only one man I knew who would and could break through the airlock.

And last I’d seen I’d tossed him over the longest fall in the entire city.

“Richard,” I called, my voice booming in the open lobby. “Come out so we can talk.”

After a stutter of a heartbeat, Richard Ruiz stepped out from behind the display case of an enormous statue. “I was hoping you might not notice,” he said. The man’s gray hair was frazzled and his face was covered in bruises. He looked almost as bad as I felt.

“How did you get access to the airlock?” I asked.

A mischievous smile crossed his lips. “I’ll be out of your way, Demarco. No hard feelings.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“So, we’re even.”

When I didn’t say anything, he took it as an affirmative and stepped past me. When he reached the bulkhead, I said, “She might not be happy to see you.”

He ran a hand along the painting’s heavy frame and let out a long sigh. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t imagine she will.” With that, he disappeared into the ship.

“What the hell was that about?” asked Saint Jerome.

Before I could answer, the lights died and plunged us into darkness.

Beck moved the fastest, slamming her relic box into the Saint. A gunshot went off, and Maurice grunted in pain. The other half of the painting dropped, so I lowered mine as well as I could, leaning it against the wall.

Another shot—aimed at me this time. The muzzle flash blinded me, but the bullet didn’t hit. Another shot.

I was already on the move. Lauder’s shoe scuffed the steel floor. He stood feet away. I swung, blind in the dark but with a burned memory of his location in the back of my eyelids. I struck something. Hard. His gun flew away.

A red light flashed down one hall. Retch had triggered the lockddown sequence. The ship was going to prepare for launch.

Too soon.

I grabbed Lauder and threw him against the wall. Behind me, Beck fought Jerome, but the man was a stack of bricks.

The bulkheads descended. “Retch!” I shouted. “Get back here now!”

The room strobed between emergency red and complete black. I moved. Lauder disappeared. He had to be close. Behind the display cases.

Or behind me.

He struck hard and fast, fists pounding into my kidneys. A kick crunching against the back of my knee. Size didn’t mean anything if an opponent was fast.

Luckily, I could be fast. I swung a fist when the lights went black, pounding his solar plexus. He flailed wildly at me, but nothing connected. I grabbed his wrist and twisted, feeling bones pop. Lauder screamed. Keeping the wrist, I shoved, walking him back into Mercury.

The bulkheads between the entryway and the ship were halfway down. The outer airlock shield hadn’t closed yet, but it would start soon.

“Retch!” I shouted. He had to get back before the disengage lockdown completed or he might not get out at all.

Saint Jerome heaved Beck over his head and threw her into the entryway. She’d opened a dozen cuts on the man’s arms and torso, but, pale as he was from blood loss, he still had the advantage of strength. A solidly built Heavy wasn’t anything to scoff at, even if he was the kind of guy who usually ordered others to do his dirty work.

There wasn’t time. I shoved Lauder farther back into the wide-open Venus airlock and slapped a hand on the airlock console.

Trinity’s cheery font appeared. Reconcile?

“Not today, Trinity,” I growled. “Close the airlock door between Mercury and Venus.” If I could trap Lauder I could help Beck. The giant airlock door complied.

But it was too slow. Lauder scrambled to his feet, favoring his broken wrist. His eyes locked on the pistol Saint Jerome had dropped in the center of the Mercury airlock. It lay next to the massive painting and Saint Catherine’s ornate relic box. The three items arranged almost as if on display. A work of art, a relic of the dead patron saint of artists, and an implement of death.

The ship’s main bulkhead was closing. Fast, but not fast enough. Lauder lunged, his foot slipping at first, but he got his momentum. He scrambled forward. I dove, too.

We hit it at the same time, just as the Venus airlock door sealed. My elbow hit the box as I scrambled for the gun, sending it sliding toward Beck and Saint Jerome. Lauder grasped the pistol’s grip. I had a hand on the barrel. I twisted.

Not fast enough.

Lauder fired. Fired again. The barrel grew hot in my hand. Burned. He fired again and again until I smelled the burning flesh of my palm. Still, I didn’t let go, and I didn’t break eye contact with Lauder. The pain became a purgatory in my journey to redemption. It grew into the only thing I ever knew or felt.

Then, the gun clicked empty.

A grin grew up from deep in my chest to spread across my face. It must have been a frightening thing to behold, because Lauder crumpled under it, dropping to his knees. I threw the gun away, hefted him to his feet, and tossed him through the airlock back into the ship’s entryway.

Saint Jerome shoved Beck to the ground. She slammed into the ornate box, which cracked open, spilling its contents across the floor. Jagged bones and dessicated leather wraps scattered across the thick carpet. Beck lay in a crumpled heap, and Saint Jerome, the monster of Heavy Nicodemia, stepped forward, ready to stomp her head.

I wanted to call out to her. Warn her that he was coming. My voice failed me. Beside her, the broken bone of Saint Catherine lay in a haze of dust. A real relic, passed down through thousands of years of the Catholic Church, only to be deposited gracelessly next to a dying assassin.

But Beck was more than an assassin, wasn’t she? She was a woman wounded by the loss of her parents. She was a lover, and she was the only woman able to ever break me out of my shell. I cared about Beck. Loved her, maybe. She was more than a killer. More than the assassin traveling across the stars to seek revenge for her parents’ death.

Or was she?

Beck’s fingers wrapped around the shard of bone. As Saint Jerome raised his boot to stomp her, she spun and stabbed the bone deep into the Saint’s calf.

He collapsed backward, landing in a heap, yowling in pain. The bone shard jutted from his bleeding leg. The Saint grasped it with one hand and yanked it from his wound.

But he was too slow. Beck pounced, shoving the big man backward onto the shattered remains of a display case. He slammed, splintering wood and shattering glass. With a single smooth movement, Beck snatched a falling shard and slashed the big man’s throat. Saint Jerome burbled in horror, grasped in a last fit of rage, then collapsed to the floor in a bloody heap. His lifeblood mixed with the dust of the true saint and the sparkling remains of a shattered porcelain God.

Lauder moaned at Beck’s feet and struggled to rise. She kicked him, and he stayed down. “Not now, asshole.”

Beck stood very still, her eyes searching mine. She shot a glance at Maurice, who still cowered in the corner of the Mercury airlock.

I nodded to Jerome. “He had it coming.”

Tension fell from her shoulders. She had been expecting harsh judgment. “He did.”

The lockdown bulkhead continued to grind down. Inside the ship, the boom of several bulkheads closing resonated outward. The entire ship was prepping to disengage, locking down bulkheads slowly in preparation for the shift back into the void. In a matter of seconds, the final entryway bulkheads—those three doors that separated the ship from Nicodemia—would finally close and Violet Ruiz’s ship would leave forever.