Engines and werewolves

Chapter 39

It’s too loud to hear much, but he just bows and gestures me to my table, then scurries off to fetch drinks. I take my time on the way across the room, looking over the regulars for anyone out of place. I get a few quiet nods, and offer a few in return. The majority of the crowd are honest folk, at least in theory. Sailors, dockworkers, fishermen. But here and there are thugs, prostitutes, thieves, and killers. My people.

When I sit, Grog takes himself elsewhere. It’s a small table, with just one other chair across from me. It’s not long before someone takes a seat, a plump, well-dressed woman who’s sweating freely through her too-thick makeup. She stares at me for a while, throat working nervously. I sigh.

“Spit it out,” I tell her. “Or else go have some more drinks until you work up the nerve.”

“Right,” she says. “Sorry. It’s just … sorry. I…” Then she pauses again, and I want to scream.

People. I don’t rotting know how to talk to people.

But it’s expected in my position. As long as the gold keeps trickling upward, I’m in the clear with my bosses, but there’s a little more to it than breaking heads. As ward boss, people want to ask me for favors, or to adjudicate disputes, or beg me to cut them a break, just one more week, swear to the Blessed. I’d heard every story a hundred times over before I was fourteen, but I still make time to sit and listen. A little goodwill goes a long way. People are more likely to tell you things, or clam up when the Ward Guard pokes around.

That doesn’t mean I don’t sit and fantasize about doing horrible things to them while they blather on. I swear, if one more shopkeeper tries to tell me that he’s behind on his payments because his grandmother is ill, I’m going to carve him and the old lady into chunks.

The well-dressed woman is here to ask me to find her daughter, who’s working in one of the dockside brothels. Mom thinks she was captured by slavers, but my guess is the girl just ran off on her own. I promise her I’ll look into it. I’m not in the business of returning runaways, but if she is being held against her will some brothel-keeper will need sorting out. Keeping slaves is illegal in Rachtown, and one of the few things likely to bring the Ward Guard down on all our heads.

I don’t get any sick grandmothers, but there’s a couple of bad backs and a fishing boatswamped in a storm. By the ragged state of the fisherman, his story is probably true, but I make a mental note to visit the others unexpectedly and make sure they know my patience isn’t infinite. There’s also a shopkeeper whose place was rolled by a g**g from the Fifteenth Ward, which I’ll complain about to the appropriate authorities, and a young p********e who claims his client skipped out without paying.

“Who was he?” I ask the boy, a pretty little thing in soft silks.

“Some aristo.” He snorts and tosses his long hair, a move I’m sure wins him many a customer. “Toyara something.”

“A little detail would be useful,” I tell him. “Find out hisfull nameand send me a note. I’ll have someone look into it.” I will, too. It’s bad enough when highborn parasites come down to the Sixteenth Ward to slum it, but if they start getting the idea they don’t have to pay, it’s going tocause problemsfor everyone.

After a few hours of this, I’m itchy and bored. The heat is stifling, and I’ve already loosened the collar of my kizen as far is it will go. Orlean’s beer is barely chilled when fresh, and not strong enough to even give me a fuzzy head. After another shopkeeper bows his way out, swearing that he’ll pay any day, I decide I’ve had enough. Grog rises from his own table and meets me on the way to the door.

“Getting on your nerves already?” he says, grinning.

“They were getting on my nerves an hour ago,” I mutter. “I’m half a minute from kicking someone in the balls just to liven things up.”

Still, once we step out the front door, I’mfeeling good. The glow of Vee’s company, of seeing the life I’ve built for her, step by painful step, is still with me. And now that I’m finished at Orlean’s I can get out of the damned kizen.

The sun is sliding down to meet the ocean, tinging the waterfront with orange. The docks are crowded, workers and sailors coming off shift and flowing up into the city, regular as the tides that float the ships. That flow, up to the wineshops, gambling dens, and brothels of the Sixteenth Ward, is what keeps us all alive. It pays for Vee’s house and Harry’s salary. The city breathes, in and out, and I feel it in my own chest. Rachtown may be halfway to the Rot, but it’s my city.

“Where to?” Grog says.

“Bleak Street.” It’s another of my hideouts, just a cheap room in a tumbledown building at the district’s edge, but it has the virtue of spending the day in the shadow of the walls. “I need to get out of this rotting heat.”

He nods and falls in. I stop at a street stall for dinner—fried gripper andchestnuts, wrapped in old rag paper. I eat as we walk the rest of the way, tearing apart the flaky fish with my fingers and blowing on it when it’s too hot to touch. I’ll take Sixteenth Ward street food over the “cultured” stuff they serve at Vee’s every time. Except that plum juice. They get that right.

The apartment at Bleak Street is on the second floor, up a rickety exterior staircase. Grog pauses at the bottom, and I wad up the paper from dinner and toss it in the gutter.

“I’ll head back, then.” He has his own place, down on Larker’s Row. “Meet at the square in the morning?”

I c**k my head. “Or you could come up.”

“Or I could come up.” He looks at me with a widening grin.

It’s probably a bad idea, but I feel good enough that I don’t care. I tug at the collar of my kizen. “If you’re coming, hurry up. I need to get out of this thing.”

He doesn’t take much convincing. I turn on him as soon as he closes the door behind us, kissing him while I tug irritably at the knotsthat hold the kizen closed. Sometimes I’m tempted to take a Melos blade to the thing, I swear to the Blessed One. Grog helps, with his strong, clever fingers, and I sigh with relief as the silk slides off and puddles on the floor. Then I sigh again, for other reasons.

“You really don’t care, do you?” he says.

He’s standing by the window, where the light is fading through the rag curtain, highlighting his smooth, lean muscle. I’m lying on the sleeping mat, sweat cooling pleasantly on my skin.

“Care about what?”

“About Nathan.”

“Oh, blessed above.” I sit up, cross-legged, and glare at him. “Do you want me to lie to you? Should I tell you I’m hurting deep inside?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“I’m just trying to understand you.” He shakes his head. “We’ve worked together, what? Three years?”

“Four, by now.”

“Four years. I knew Nathan for two months and I knew him better than I know you.”

“Remember the first thing I said when I hired you,” I tell him.

Right. No personal questions.” He turns away from the window and comes back to the mat. “I don’t want to pry. I just wish I knew what you were thinking.”

“What’s to understand? I hurt the people I’m supposed to hurt and collect the money and pass it along.”

“The perfect ward boss?” He gives a sour smile. “Like a little clockwork machine.”

“That’s right.” Even Grog doesn’t know about Vee, of course. As far as he’s concerned, the house in the Second Ward is just another part of my business. “Look. Nathan was just a kid I hired to back me up. If I’m going to feel bad about him, why not feel bad about those poor rotscum working for Firello?”

“They were trying to kill you.”

“Because he paid them to back him up. Just because somebody took my money instead of someone else’s I’m supposed to be broken up about him?”

“What if I’d gotten stabbed, instead of Nathan?” Grog makes a face. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

There’s a long silence, as the last of the light from the window dies. The room goes dim, only the aggregate glow of the never-sleeping city outside providing any illumination. I grab Grog by the shoulders and drag him down, my lips finding his. He only resists for a moment.

It’s easier than trying to figure out what to say to him. I don’t rotting understand people.

It’s probably a mistake, sleeping with Grog. Not the s*x, exactly. I’d never pretended to innocence, and when I was old enough to feel the urge I’d gone to a ghultouched—swallowing my disgust at dealing with such a creature—and for a ward against unintended consequences. And it’s not really Grog’s fault, either. He’s a good lieutenant, easy to get along with, a good rut. I like him. Which is the problem.

If it had been him instead of Nathan, would I have done what needed to be done? Or would I have gotten stupid? I don’t want him to understand me. I want him to have my back.

It’s a good image he used, and it stays in my mind as we clutch and kiss and gasp. A clockwork machine, like toys they make for little rich boys. A windup doll. It’s all I want to be, all I need to be. No room for doubt or sadness. Just a machine.

When I open my eyes, it’s to the sound of boots on the stairs outside. There’s a pause, then the mutter of voices.

“Rot,” I swear, coming fully awake. Grog’s eyes are open, but he looks confused. “Get up! I think—”

There’s a splintering crash as the door bursts

inward

. Early-morning sunlight pours in, framing black-clad figures. A

half

dozen of them line up, three on either side of the doorway. I get to my feet as a seventh strolls in.

“Gelmei Victoria,” he says.

He’s wearing lacquered black armor from

head to toe

, with a subtle inlaid

pattern

that

glitters

in the sun, a pair of swords hanging at his side. His helmet includes a drape of blackened

chain mail

in front of his face. The others are the same. They might as well have come off a printing press.

“Who in the Rot are you?” I say, standing n***d on the sleeping mat, Grog still crouched at my feet. But even as I say it, I realize I

already know

. I’ve lived my entire life in fear of this moment.

The Immortals have found me.

Their leader doesn’t respond to my question. Instead, he tilts his head slightly, chain mask jingling, and says, “You will come with us. Do not attempt to resist.”

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“What about the boy?” one of the others, a woman, says.

“Bring him in for questioning,” the leader says.

Options, options. None of them good.

Nowhere to run. Theback windowis too small to fit through easily, and it only leads to theenclosedcentral yard. The walls are thin, but not thin enough that I can break them before the Immortals are on me.

Fight them? But these are Immortals, not street thugs. Every one of the seven could be an adept as powerful as I am. And if they’re here, they know about my power, so I have noadvantageof surprise. I could try anyway, and probably die. Not necessarily the worstoption.

I’m not getting out of this room alive and free, then. What happens if I go along quietly? Unclear. Maybe r**e, t*****e, breeding-stock for some noble family. Maybe execution. Maybe, maybe. Not enough information.

What happens to Vee? There’s money stashed away, hidden against the event of my death. Secret letters with people I trust. Insurance. I’m not a fool. Can they find her? Only if someone talks.

Everyone talks, if you hurt them for long enough. But I’ll always have the option of dying. If I ignite my blades and summon my armor, I can always make them kill me, and then the pain will stop. Vee will be safe.

Grog. He doesn’t know the whole truth. But he knows enough. I’ve gotten sloppy. Has he put the pieces together? Would he, when they’re pulling out his fingernails?

He meets my eye. It’s the same look he gave me in the gambling parlor, a split-second silent conversation. How are we going to play this?

He’s terrified. I can see it.

He’ll talk. He doesn’t owe me anything. He’s just someone I pay to back me up. I’ve made that clear, haven’t I?

My eyes say, I’m sorry.

I bring my left hand up, underneath Grog’s chin. I turn my gaze to the Immortal leader as I ignite my blade. There’s a soft, wet sound, and a warm spray against my fingers.

Several of the Immortals take a threatening step forward. I dismiss the blade and raise my hands. Grog’s corpse collapses with a thud.

The Immortal leader crosses the room in a few strides and slams his gauntleted fist into my stomach. As I double over, my face meets his knee on the way down, and I feel my lip split. I hit the floor, and a moment later the first boot slams into my side. Bone crunches.

This time, I don’t dream at all. Not even of Grog.

When I wake up, I’m expecting pain. I’ve been beaten before, but never this badly. I think the Immortals had instructions to keep me alive, but I’d felt the sick-making c***k of a snapped rib, and at least one of my fingers had broken where a stray boot had come down on it. So I open my eyes and keep absolutely still, waiting for the avalanche of agony.