Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 13

They found the back door by the simple act of looking for the kitchen.

"Why the kitchen?" Mia had asked, following Gideon down the back stairs (the front stairs already being occupied by the sound of boots. Very purposeful-sounding boots, at that).

"Because," Gideon said, leading the way into the Elysium's cooking area, still redolent with the remains of the night's offerings, "kitchens need doors for deliveries and to take out the garbage, making them the emergency exit of choice for those in need of a quick and discreet departure."

Mia, whose attention had drifted to the savory smells of masala from the stove, looked over at that. "You callin' us garbage, then?"

He grinned, and led the way past the keepers in the kitchen, who didn't blink an eye—Mia guessed they were used to the odd emergency exit—and kept at their various tasks of dishwashing, grill scraping, and composting as she, Gideon, and Elvis passed through.

One young fellow did look up long enough to ask Gideon how his dinner had been.

"Better going down than coming back up," Gideon said.

Mia snorted, and dashed past him.

As she darted through the door to the narrow mudroom, she heard Gideon ask the keepers to hold his room for the time being, and then he was behind her, and then in front of her, gently setting her to one side so he could peer out the mudroom door and into the alley which linked Carroll Square to Bard Street.

After a moment, he slipped through the door, waving for her to wait.

She thought that a bit uppity, as it was her supposed to be leading him. Maybe it came from the soldiering?

Either way, even if she wanted to push past, there wasn't room. She had no choice but to wait until he was fully outside before following through the door, which opened right next to the compost bin she'd used to climb up to Gideon's floor.

She'd just hit the threshold when she saw him come to a sudden halt, hissing a gutter curse popular among dodgers.

She took it as a warning, and, rather than step straight out, slid to the right, and tucked herself between the hotel's wall and the bulk of the waste bin, in time to hear a woman's voice say, "If you or the draco so much as twitch, I will kill it."

"Understood," Gideon replied without hesitation.

Whoever this woman was, Mia thought, she was trouble.

She was also still talking.

"I have to say, I am surprised to see you standing upright. We were expecting you to be sound asleep in your room. Nahmin's dosing isn't usually so far off."

Nahmin, Mia thought, that must be the ponce. She had no idea who the woman was, but it seemed the people after Gideon were also aware of the general handiness of kitchen exits.

"Nahmin's dosing wasn't off," Gideon said. "It knocked me pretty well out. Almost drowned me, in fact."

"That would have been a shame," the woman said.

Mia didn't think she meant it.

"I'm not sure you mean that." Gideon seemed to agree.

"But I do," the woman insisted. "You and I, we have unfinished business."

"We do? Oh, you mean because of the thing, back at the airfield."

Mia almost snickered at Gideon's exaggerated tone. Was he trying to make the woman mad?