Brown River Queen (9 page)

“To know me is to love me,” I said. “What’s his first name, anyway? Your Captain’s, I mean.”

Lou snorted in derision and stomped away.

“Probably Eugene,” I said. I closed my eyes as the wagon rumbled into the street. “Maybe Percival.”

I didn’t nap. I did relax, relive my first sight of the dead woman, try to decide if she’d shown a flicker of emotion at any point during our brief but active acquaintance.

But all I could see were those bright blue eyes and that unwavering lie of a smile.

My afternoon with Captain Holder at the Old Ruth jail was markedly less than pleasant. Despite the two dozen witnesses to the assault and my refusal to draw Toadsticker from his scabbard, the good Captain was determined to hold me on at least one count of being Markhat.

Had Avalante not intervened, he’d probably have made good on that. I once spent a night in the Old Ruth, courtesy of the Watch. It’s not an experience I care to repeat. Until Evis’s lawyers showed up with writs of this and motions of that, I was wondering how to get word to Darla that her brand new husband might be spending the next fortnight pondering the error of his criminal ways.

But the lawyers came, and despite raised voices and much pounding of fists on tables and ominous vows to see me jailed until the Angels descend on pillars of fire come Judgment Day, Captain Holder let me go for the second time in as many days.

As I stepped out into the sunlight before darting into an Avalante carriage, I knew one thing—all the lawyers in Rannit wouldn’t get me out of the Old Ruth a third time.

I bade the driver to make haste, and I rubbed my wrists until the shackle-marks were all but gone.

They opened her up by cutting her from neck to navel and then from shoulder to shoulder. The dead don’t bleed. Much.

Stitches stood a pair of paces from us, her hood concealing her ruined face, her sleeves hiding her pale hands. She’s been standing there when Evis and I arrived, watching through the glass wall that separated us from the body. She hadn’t spoken or otherwise offered a greeting.
 

Evis hid his eyes behind dark glasses. The light in the autopsy room was noonday bright. None of the Avalante doctors were halfdead, and I wondered if that was because the blood would prove too tempting or the light was too intense.

I looked away as they peeled back the corpse’s skin.
 

Evis frowned. The doctors on the other side of the glass wall pointed and peered and moved about, poking and prodding at the dead woman’s insides like schoolboys finding a cache of new marbles.

“I’ll be damned,” said Evis.

“That’s the consensus of modern religious thought.”

Evis snorted. “That creature isn’t human. I’ll bet you two cigars.”

“Why? What did you see?”

“It’s what I didn’t see. But let’s hear what the good doctor has to say.”

As Evis spoke, one of the white-coats headed for the door. Evis opened it for him and the doctor joined us.

“That’s no woman,” he said. His hands were covered in blood. “No stomach. No intestines. No reproductive organs, no bladder, nothing. Doesn’t even have vocal cords.”

Evis spoke first. “What does it have?”

The doctor wiped his long nose, leaving it smeared with red. “Extra muscle. Solid bones, no marrow. Thought we’d never get the sternum cut. A third lung. And a lifespan of two days, maybe three, before it died of dehydration.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. You say it came at someone?”

“Me. Nearly got me. Took a pair of Ogres to put her down.”

He grunted. “Not surprised. We want to open the skull, see how much of a brain it had. You’re a lucky man. If I had to guess, I’d say that thing was created to go out and kill someone and then just sit there until it fell over dead a day later.”

Evis crossed his arms over his chest. “Open the skull. Learn what you can. When you’re done, Stitches will take over. I want to know who made that thing and how they did it, and I want to know by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll do what I can.” The good doctor failed to exude confidence. He did wipe more blood on his nose before returning to his fellows and the still body on the slab.

And behold, there is no new thing under the sun. No, not one.
 

“Nice to see you again too,” I said. “Is that scripture you’re quoting?”

Stitches laughed softly in my head.
Indeed, though it is not a scripture native to the church you know. Evis. The good doctor will discover nothing of value, other than what he has already divulged. Neither, I suspect, shall I.

Evis frowned behind his glasses. “Your quote made me think you knew something already.”

Indeed I do. That creature was once called a bentan in a tongue that predates the Kingdom. They are the product of a potent magic and they are indeed designed to kill and then quickly die.
Stitches turned to face me, though her cowl kept her face concealed.
You have attracted the malice of a powerful sorcerer, Markhat. Doubtless one of the Corpsemaster’s rivals.

“Me? Why waste perfectly good malice on me? Hell, I never even knew the woman’s real name. I’ve got less political pull than Evis’s right boot. Why me?”

The way her hood tilted, I got the impression Stitches was giving me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stare.

“Markhat. You walked with the huldra. More than once. Do you not remember?”

I groaned and settled against the wall.

The huldra. Just thinking the word had nightmarish memories flooding back. I remember holding the cursed thing, right after the Corpsemaster tricked Mama into giving it to me.
 

I remembered walking, guided by the huldra’s whispering. I remembered growing, towering up above Rannit, until people and carriages scurried like ants at my feet.
 

I remembered the things the huldra tried to show me—the dark secrets it wanted to reveal to me, if I would just give it a tiny sliver of my soul.

“I’m never going to be free of that damned thing, am I?”

I assume your question is rhetorical. Unless you do, in fact, still possess it, or the remains of it?

“I broke it into pieces. Stomped them into powder. Dumped that into my chamber-pot. Threw that in a sewer.”

A novel approach to rendering it inert. Novel, but effective. Although you may wish you could wield its power in the days ahead if these attacks continue.

“You think they will?”

She shrugged.
I cannot say. Perhaps the sorcerer is satisfied you no longer hold the huldra and thus are no longer a threat. Perhaps this was unrelated to the huldra at all and was merely done out of petty spite.

“I have a hard time believing anyone took the trouble to whip up a pair of those creatures just out of spite.” Evis was watching the white-coats pull the thing’s face off. “When is the last time you know of these bentan appearing?”

Pre-Kingdom. Prehistoric. They are the stuff of legend, at least until today. But do not ascribe a predominance of rationality to my brethren across the Brown. Most are quite mad by any measure you care to employ.

“How comforting. So they might be after my head because of the huldra, which I don’t have, or because I once wore brown shoes with a black suit, or because the Corpsemaster snubbed them at a dinner party a thousand years ago. Marvelous.” I wished for a chair but none were in sight. “Do either of you have any sage advice about how I might best live through all this sudden attention?”

“Look both ways before crossing the street,” said Evis.

There is a monastery devoted to the brewing of beer some nine hundred miles distant,
noted Stitches.

I sank to my haunches. “Go to Hell, both of you.”

Stitches laughed again.
Evis. Show him the Mark Twos. Markhat. The huldra may be gone, but its reputation remains. Ponder how you might use that to your advantage.
She made for the door as the doctors peeled away the dead woman’s hair, leaving her bright blue eyes set in a wet and grinning skull.

I stood and turned quickly away.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Evis. Maybe it was the room’s harsh light, but he looked even paler than usual. “Let’s go get you a Mark Two.”

I didn’t even ask what a Mark Two was. I didn’t care. It could have been a three-headed billy goat with profound incontinence problems, and I’d have hugged it tight to my bosom just to get away from that room with the doctors and the fresh-skinned skull.

We walked.

“How’d you get the body, anyway?” I asked after a while. “I can’t believe the Watch just handed it over, even to Avalante.”

Evis grinned.
 

“Do you have any idea how much city morgue attendants make in a year?”

“No idea at all.”

“Neither do I, really. But rumor has it they’ll do almost anything for ten times their annual salary in Old Kingdom coin. Look the other way for a half hour, for instance.”

I whistled. “Good Captain Holder is going to burst a vein when he finds out.”

Evis shrugged. “We didn’t get the knife. I wanted that knife, and a sample of whatever was on the blade. Are you sure it never touched you?”

“Next time I’ll remember to get a flesh wound.”

We paused to let a parade of black-clad halfdead float by. Each held a long-barreled version of my hand cannon.

I pretended not to notice. Evis winked and resumed walking as soon as they were past.

“What’s a Mark Two, anyway, and why isn’t it a beer?”

“It’s a new revolver. Smaller than that blunderbuss you have but don’t carry. Fires six rounds instead of four, and in half the time. Small enough to conceal in a pocket. More stopping power, too.”

“Evis, thanks. But I couldn’t have opened up with that hand-cannon in a hotel lobby if I’d had it. I start shooting and somebody’s granny is going to get shot, and Captain Holder won’t need a good reason to bury me under the Old Ruth.”

“So take careful aim. Look. If one of the Corpsemaster’s old enemies has decided to take you out, you’re going to need more than a blade and you know it.”

“You say this Mark Two is smaller and more powerful?”

“We’ve improved the powder. The projectile is smaller but much faster.”

“Any chance I can get two of the miracle dinguses?”

“Get three or half a dozen. Why?”

“I want Darla to have one. Just in case.”

“Not a bad idea.”

We paused again, this time to let a trio of white-coated day folk huff and puff as they shoved some enormous mechanical contrivance around a corner.

I watched them wrestle with the thing, which made ominous buzzing noises as it moved.

“Just what are you people up to down here, Evis?”

He smiled a toothy vampire smile.

“Wouldn’t you love to know?”

Chapter Six

One of the many dark secrets hidden far beneath the neat slate roof of House Avalante is a vast, gloomy chamber they call the New Battery.

The New Battery is a firing range. There, I joined Evis and a few dozen somber, halfdead soldiers who were also practicing their aim with the long-barreled firearms they call rifles.

Evis tried to explain the name to me. The rifle barrels are filled with grooves, also called rifles, which causes the rounds to spin, which causes them to fly straight and true. My Mark Two revolver has grooves too, although at least two passing halfdead marksmen scoffed at the idea any mere handgun could benefit from such grooves.

I spent two hours down in the near-dark and expended several hundred of Avalante’s rounds before I could claim to hit a man-sized target twenty feet away more than half the time. Evis amused himself by using his own Mark Two to add eyes and a cheery smile to his target.

My stomach growled loud enough for the rumble to be heard above the
crack crack crack
of a dozen rifles. I lowered my weapon and stepped back from the firing line.

“You’re a long way from being any good with that,” said Evis.

“I’ll just throw it when I run out of bullets. I’m hungry and Darla will be home soon. I don’t want her to be home alone.”

“You should bring her here. Stay until we get a handle on the stabby brunettes. Ancient bugaboo or not, they won’t get past the front doors. Not in one piece.”

I popped out the spent cartridges, just as Evis taught, and replaced them with live rounds before pushing the cylinder back in place and listening for the sharp snap that tells you it’s ready to fire.

“If it comes to that we will. Thanks, Evis. I owe you. Again.”

He shrugged it off with a grin. “Least I can do for Captain Markhat, Hero of the Realm. By the way, we’ve set a date for the
Queen’s
maiden voyage. We depart in two weeks. Special guests and all.”

“I’ll be ready. Got to earn my exorbitant fee.”

Evis nodded and set about slaughtering a fresh paper target. I headed toward the New Battery’s only door and began the long uphill climb toward the sun.