THE BLASTED CONTRACT COIN BOOK 1

CHAPTER 2 WEIGHT OF GOLD

POV Mercy

The transition from Alistair's polished office to the Docks was a descent into a different kind of hell. Here, the sky didn't hold the sun; it held a bruised, metallic haze and smelled of brine, rotting fish, and wet hemp.

I performed the act of breathing with the same rhythmic indifference as the steam pistons thumping in the nearby mills. My lungs didn't burn anymore; they simply processed the soot like they would normal air.

I stood on the rain-slicked pier, my black wool coat buttoned to my chin. The coat was heavy, treated with a Weave to repel the drizzle that never truly stopped in this part of town. I had reached my destination in short order, the mist parting around me as if even the weather knew to give the Syndicate a wide berth.

"The tally is short, Mr. Hobbes," I said.

The foreman trembled. He looked at me and saw his own death reflected in my gray eyes. He tried to explain something about canal delays and coal shortages, but I wasn't listening to the words. I was listening to the math. Words were variables; math was the only constant, and I was here to fix his equation.

"Syndicate Law isn't a suggestion, Mr. Hobbes," I replied. My voice remained level, devoid of the Authority Alistair carried, yet heavy with the promise of consequence.

"Ten percent of this shipment pays the wages for the people who protect this pier. If you don't pay, they don't work. If they don't work, the pier burns. Logic dictates that you are becoming a problem, and the Syndicate has no use for problems."

"I have a daughter, please!" Hobbes cried.

I watched, unmoved, as sweat beaded on his lip.

Stress response. High cortisol. To me, his plea wasn't an emotional appeal; it was the desired biological reaction to my threat.

"I will be back here at 6 with Vane," I said.

"If you do not provide what is owed, and worse yet, if you also lie, he will know. He will pull the truth from you whether you wish it or not. Decide which you prefer to lose: a finger for being short, or your life for lying."

I turned and walked away hearing the man take a deep exhale. My boots made no sound as I slipped back into the crowd. To the people of the docks and those of the Lower Circle that surrounded the docks, I was revered as the Shadow Second. My upcoming six o'clock meet with Vane gave us more than enough time to balance Hobbes's ledger, keeping me perfectly on schedule to return to the Main House not long after sunset, just as Alistair expected for dinner and stargazing.

As I ascended toward the Middle Circle, the air cleared slightly, the sulfur giving way to the silver mist of the marketplace. Here, the gears were smaller, hidden inside gold watches and clockwork toys. I liked the analytical precision of this circle; it was the heart of our trade, where Weaver talents were bartered for coin.

As I made my way through the market, a Weaver street vendor selling clockwork songbirds caught my eye, instantly executing a jerky, fearful nod of profound respect. To him and his kind, I was a fearless egalitarian, adopted into their world to uphold what was right and wrong without prejudice.

A few paces later, a non-Weaver drayman, spitting into the gutter, eyed my coat with a sneer of condescending pity. To the non-Weavers, I was a class traitor, a human who associated with people they didn't even consider human.

Yet, when my gaze snapped to his, he quickly looked down and stepped aside. They resented that I treated Weavers as equals, but they still ultimately recognized me as one of their own. A non-Weaver enforcer was infinitely preferable to a Weaver who could twist their minds or look down on them with magical arrogance. I was the only one they would willingly negotiate with, granting me more leverage than any other member of my Family, all of whom were Weavers.

This was how Weavers and non-Weavers happened to be selling their goods on the same street. I had instilled equality, fairness, and a strong message that actions had consequences. For example, the thieves who operated among the stalls knew to pinch from tourists, but you never touch anyone who pays the Syndicate. A breach wasn't an inconvenience; it was a glitch in my machine, and I used collective punishment to ensure the thief guilds kept each other in absolute check.

One of the fully functioning cogs of that machine had a stall just up ahead. Elias was a 21-year-old Weaver merchant freed from slavery to attend the Foundry, where he was learning to control his volatile Weave through the crafting of glowing glass lamps.

By the grim reality of nature, most of Weaver kind burned out from the inside and expired by age thirty, but the Foundry was changing the status quo. Surviving past thirty would be a monumental triumph for Elias, and a genuine statistical probability now existed. His ledger was entirely clean; he had paid off every last debt to the Family for securing his freedom.

Peace never lingered for long in this city. A non-Weaver man in a soot-stained tunic suddenly lunged forward, snatching a leather pouch from behind Elias's counter. The thief bolted. I didn't move out of anger, and I felt no adrenaline. I simply saw an error in the equation that needed immediate rectification.

Calculating his trajectory, I took a sharp right, moving with fluid efficiency to meet him at the mouth of a narrow alley. The thief skidded to a halt, the heels of his boots scraping against the damp stones. He looked at me, assessing me, no doubt, and noticed I had no weapon in my hand and my breathing was perfectly level.

"Return the coin, and I will only break a finger. Otherwise, it'll be your wrist," I said.

"Out of my way!" the thief hissed, pulling a jagged blade.

I moved. It wasn't a fight; it was a correction. I stepped inside the thief's guard, my hand snapping out to seize his forearm. With a sharp, practiced twist of my palm, the sound of snapping bone echoed off the damp brick walls.

The thief let out a strangled scream as the blade clattered to the stones. In the same motion, I swept his lead leg and drove my knee into his solar plexus, pinning him into the muck of the alley floor. He lay there wheezing, his broken wrist cradled against his chest, eyes wide with a terror that usually preceded a plea for Mercy. Ironic, considering my name.

I didn't look at his face. I didn't care about the tears or the snot mixing with the alley grime. I retrieved the merchant's pouch, but I didn't stop there. This was a professional audit; if this thief had struck one protected merchant, he had likely preyed upon others, and I would not allow stolen Syndicate assets to circulate in my market. My fingers moved with surgical lightness as I patted down his tunic to clear out whatever else he had unlawfully hoarded.

"P-please," the thief gasped, his face turning a sickly shade of gray.

I ignored him. My hand dipped into a hidden pocket near his belt. Pressing past a layer of loose fabric, my fingers first brushed against a heavy, round object resting at the very bottom. I felt its weight, heavier than any coin I'd ever dealt in. I pulled it into the dim alley light. It was a heavy, odd-looking trinket, an anomaly, so I slid it into my coat pocket for later analysis..

Ensuring no secondary compartments remained, I slid my hand back into the dark recess. This time, my thumb collided blindly with a sudden, jagged edge. A cold bite of hidden steel sliced a clean line across the pad of my thumb.

Ignoring the sharp sting and the immediate well of blood, I clamped my remaining fingers around the concealed handle, dragged it out, and flicked the broken folding knife around in my hand.

I stood, leaving the thief groaning in the mud.

"Find your way out of my town," I said. My voice lacked malice, but the flat coldness of it was its own terror.

"And never let me see you again."