Breath of Winter, A (31 page)

After a few tense moments we were all on solid ground, regrouping behind Shane. I took my gun out, as did Shane, and Siobhan retrieved her baton. Only it wasn’t a baton anymore. I didn’t see if she squeezed it, twisted it or whispered some weird druid incantation, but the baton had extended and grown in length, transforming into a bow.

She unstrung the tiered silver necklace she was wearing, and as she looped it around the ends of the bow I realized it wasn’t a necklace at all. The crazy woman was wearing a bowstring as a necklace. She must have noticed my slack-jawed expression because she gave me an uneasy smile. “I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but I do like to be prepared.”

“Hey, who am I to judge? I brought a gun to my own wedding. I’d just be worried about an accidental garroting.” A bow was one thing, but where the hell was she hiding the arrow—

She slipped a small silver blade out of her belt and squeezed, and I watched in amazement as it unfolded into a full-sized arrow. Apparently the druids had come into the twenty-first century with open arms. Cool.

Holden was the only one of us to remain unarmed, and it made sense because he didn’t
need
a weapon. With no further need to worry about falling to our deaths, Holden led us down the nearest hallway just in time for the whimpering girl’s voice to escalate to screaming.

This time her screams
were
those of pain, and my heart hammered. Adrenaline pumped through me, and I restrained myself from running headlong into danger. I had a bad habit of being impulsive and putting myself at unnecessary risk, and though I’d started to control those urges better, I still had them.

Holden must have known what I wanted to do because he raised a hand as if he could use invisible force to keep me back. “Hold on.”

The screaming petered out into a pain-filled mewling noise like an injured animal. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I glared at Holden, silently insisting he get this show on the road.

Shane was getting anxious too because he edged past Holden and moved to stand outside the room where Grendel would be waiting. His large gun was trembling slightly in his hands, and I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, rage or both.

“Let’s just fucking do this,” Shane growled, and kicked the door open.

Standing inside the room was one of the largest men I’d ever seen, undead or otherwise. He towered over seven feet, and his hair was a scraggly, grease-coated mane falling beyond his shoulders. Like Shane, he had a layer of blood over his bare chest and forearms, but in one meaty fist he was holding a skinny girl—no older than twelve—around her neck. It was hard to tell if the blood on her was from his skin or a fresh wound.

Behind him, on the periphery of the room, were three vampires. They were a normal size, but next to Grendel they looked like toddlers.

The girl started crying when she saw us, gasping sobs that racked her whole body. Grendel gave her a rough shake to silence her.

“I was beginning to wonder if you fools were just going to tromp around in the hall all night, or if you’d ever knock.” His voice was a deep, booming rumble, and it made me imagine the whole floor quaking with each word.

This guy was scary.

I’d killed scarier.

When the banshee howls, start looking for the lifeboats.

Brown River Queen

© 2013 Frank Tuttle

The Markhat Files, Book 7

Take a simple, three-day cruise on a lavish steamboat casino, they said. Just keep an eye out for trouble while the Regent rolls the dice, they said.

Markhat should have known the maiden voyage of Avalante’s vampire-crewed Brown River Queen would be anything but a finder’s dream job. Especially when he charges a ridiculous fee—and gets it without a peep of protest.

Then a pair of identical murderous maidens attack him and his lady love, and it doesn’t take a banshee’s howl to confirm his sinking suspicion he’s about to earn his fee the hard way.

As the heavily guarded steamboat casts off, Markhat is forced to navigate shoals of old enemies, treacherous political undercurrents, and rogue waves of assassins. All to keep the walking dead from turning the Brown River Queen’s decks red with blood.

Warning: This is a work of fiction. Please stop trying to apply it as a cream directly to your forehead. The characters depicted herein are quite real despite this disclaimer and will be deeply hurt if you peek ahead to the ending. This prose is certified gluten-free. Not intended as an emergency substitute Flight Manual, no matter what the nerds at
Popular Mechanics
claim.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Brown River Queen:

Outside, wrapped in a mainsail’s worth of black silk against the midday sun, was Evis himself, peering back at me through his tinted spectacles. The halfdead don’t love sunlight the same way I don’t love being bathed in red-hot coals.

“Hurry, please,” said Evis as I fumbled with the lock. “I can’t pay you if I’ve been baked to cinders on your doorstep.”

I managed to swing the door open. Three-leg Cat darted out, heedless of the halfdead at the door. I’ve noticed most animals shy away from Evis, which I believe pains him deeply.

I stood aside and motioned Evis in. He glided into the comfortable shadows of my office, not quite running but not ambling either. I closed the door quickly and resolved to fashion some sort of shade for the window-glass. Even that much light would be a nuisance for Evis and his dead-eyed kin.

“Sorry about the light,” I said as Evis stripped off the top layer of his flowing day suit. “I’ll do something about that before your next visit.”

Evis shrugged it off but kept his dark glasses on. “Thank you. Everything getting back to normal?”

I sat. Evis sat. He kept his hat on and tilted his head so his face remained in deep shadow.

“As normal as normal gets. Business has picked up. Gertriss is out working now. She’ll be sorry she missed you.”

And she would. My junior partner and Evis were spending a lot of time together of late. Had been since their trip up the Brown River on House Avalante’s new-fangled steamboat.

If I was Mama Hog I’d be making pointed comments about all that. Gertriss is Mama’s niece, and Mama is none too thrilled about Gertriss and her recent choice of company. But since I’m not a four-foot-tall soothsayer who claims to be a century and a half old, I don’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong unless someone is paying me for the effort.

Evis just nodded and put his feet on my desk. His hand moved to his jacket pocket and produced a pair of the expensive cigars he normally keeps in a humidor in his office.

“Uh oh,” I said, opening my desk drawer. I pulled out my notepad and my good pen. “Who’s dead, who’s missing, and how much of the story are you going to leave out?”

Evis kept his lips tightly shut but managed to feign an expression of deep and sincere injury.

“Now is that any way to respond to an offer of a Lowland Sweet?” he asked. “The last time we smoked these you remarked that it was your absolute favorite.”

“And you suddenly remembered that and grabbed a pair and ran all the way down here in the sun just to have a puff. Remarkable.” I put the tip of the pen in my inkwell and then down on the paper.

Evis ignored me and began cutting off the ends with a fancy steel cigar clipper. I found my box of matches and plopped them down on the table.

“So spill it,” I said. “And thanks. I do enjoy these.”

Evis handed me a cigar and struck a match. I let him light it.

It’s not every day a free Lowland Sweet walks through the door.

“Times are changing,” Evis announced after lighting his Lowland and puffing out a perfect smoke ring. “That run at restoring the old Kingdom was the last.”

“So say you.”

“So I do. Care to guess where Prince got the money to rebuild?”

Word from up the Brown is that the storm that nearly wrecked Rannit was a mere ghost of wind compared to the one the Corpsemaster loosed upon our erstwhile enemies in Prince. We’re still getting the odd rooftop or twisted shell of a building, lifted whole from streets in faraway Prince, drifting past on the lazy, muddy water of the Brown. No bodies, though. Not a one.

The Corpsemaster’s wrath is both thorough and lingering.

“No idea. I thought the city fathers in Prince went broke financing their invasion.”

“They did. But our very own Regent graciously made them a loan. At thirty percent interest. Rannit owns Prince now, Markhat. And the Regent won’t be letting them forget that for a very long time.”

I whistled. I hadn’t even heard that rumored.

Evis grinned a brief toothy vampire grin.

“Looks like our military careers are over,” he said. “It’ll be a hundred years before anyone takes another stab at Rannit. Maybe longer. But here we are, still drawing down a Captain’s pay. By the way, any word from the old spook lately?”

Old spook was code for Corpsemaster. Neither Evis nor I had seen her or her black carriage since the dust-up with Prince. Evis had gone so far as to hint that open speculation in some circles indicated the Corpsemaster might have fallen in the fray, or been reduced by the effort to such a state that she’d gone into hiding or hibernation.

I wasn’t quite ready to write her off so quickly, so I just shrugged.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned ‘pay,’ you know.” I tried and failed to blow a smoke ring. “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but what really brought you out for a stroll in the sun?”

“I’m here to hire the famous Captain Markhat on behalf of House Avalante.”

“Didn’t you read the placard? I’m a humble finder, not a Captain. My marching days are done. I’ve taken up pacifism and a strict philosophy of passive non-violence.”

“What’s your philosophy on five hundred crowns
—
paid in gold
—
for taking a relaxing dinner cruise down the Brown River to Bel Loit and back? With meals, booze, and as many of these cigars as you can carry, thrown in for free?”

I blew out a ragged column of grey-brown smoke.

“I’m flexible on such matters. But I’m troubled by the offer of five hundred crowns.”

“Make it six hundred, then.”

“I will. If I decide to take it at all. Because that’s a lot of gold, Mr. Prestley. Even Avalante doesn’t just hand the stuff out to see my winning smile. What exactly is worth seven hundred crowns to House Avalante?”

Evis winced. “You are, believe it or not. Look, Markhat. This isn’t just any old party barge outing. The
Brown River Queen
is a palace with a hull. The guest list reads like Yule at the High House. Ministers. Lords. Ladies. Opera stars. Generals.”

“And? You said it was a pleasure cruise. We won the war and didn’t lose so much as a potato wagon. Handshakes and promotions all around. Why do you need me for eight hundred crowns?”

Evis lifted his hands in surrender.

“Because the Regent himself is coming along for the ride,” he said in a whisper. “Yes. You heard me. The Regent. For every ten who love him there are a thousand who want to scoop out his eyes and boil them and feed them to him.”

“On your boat.”

“On our boat. This is it, Markhat. It’s the culmination of thirty years of negotiations and diplomacy and bribery. House Avalante is a single step away from taking its place at the right hand of the most powerful man in the world. He’ll have his bodyguards. He’ll have his staff. He’ll have his spies and his informants and his eyes and his ears, and that’s just fine with us. But Markhat, we want the man kept safe. We want trouble kept off the
Queen
. We want a nice quiet cruise from here to Bel Loit and back, and the House figures if anyone can spot trouble coming, it’s you.”

“When you look at things that way, nine hundred crowns is really quite a bargain.”

“Nine hundred crowns it is.” Evis blew another smoke ring and then sailed a second one through it. “And one more thing. Bring the missus. She eats, drinks, stays for free, courtesy of Avalante. Is that a deal?”

“An even thousand crowns for watching rich folks drink. I think you just bought yourself a finder, Mr. Prestley.”

“Surely you have a pair of those awful domestic beers hidden away in your icebox,” said Evis. “I believe we have a toast to make.”

I hurried to the back, knocked damp sawdust off the bottles, and together Evis and I toasted my regrettable return to honest work.

Evis stuck around and drank beer and we talked dates and times, which I dutifully scribbled onto my notepad. He wrapped himself in black silk and darted back out into the sun maybe an hour later, leaving me to my thoughts.

A thousand gold crowns in good solid gold coin. All for a week of work that, on the surface, seemed to involve nothing more perilous than lounging around a floating casino while maintaining an aloof air of menace.

A thousand crowns, though. That’s a lot of money, even in Rannit’s booming post-War economy. A fellow could live quite well on a fraction of that.

Which meant someone high up at Avalante considered the threat of violence against the Regent quite real. Evis didn’t seem to agree. But he hadn’t blinked when I’d upped the ante, either, which meant his bosses had instructed him that money was no object.