Christmas Wishes (novella) (9 page)

My hair was a startling snow-white colour, which I had pulled back in a braid. The ensemble was complete with a pair of velvet brocade boots that had cost more than I’d ever admit to. You’d never find these clothes in The Weald. Back home, the fashion was corsets, long skirts and lace gloves. I mean, lace gloves. Honestly. Don’t keep your fingers warm and impossible to get blood out of.

Squaring my shoulders, I approached the door that accessed Roper’s room. There was a chance I was going to have to knock him around some. If he were really stubborn, I’d have to break some bones. It meant tapping into the bitch inside of me, and she did love to come out and play. I twisted the handle and stepped into the room. Roper was sitting on the bed with his back to me, the woman kneeling in front of him. The door shut behind me with a click. The woman looked up from her unfortunate task, her flat eyes knowing the score. She wiped her mouth and slithered out the door like her stilettos were greased with butter.

“What—?” Roper turned and saw me.

Narrowing my eyes, I focused on Roper’s aura. It flickered dimly around his head, the colour of piss with spikes of purple: a weak man prone to violent acts. I blinked the aura away and tried not to grimace. Roper was even more ugly close up. Three stubs of horns mostly covered by greasy hair. His mouth was a little too wide and he had too many teeth for his jaw, some poking out crookedly from his lips.

Roper’s eyes clocked my hair and my duelling cane with its goat-head. His face went a shade of green and his mouth worked soundlessly. While I’d never met Roper, I was pretty sure he’d heard of me. White hair was pretty rare in The Weald.

“Hello, sunshine.” I gave him a cheerful wink. This was how I liked to greet most of my marks. Nice and upbeat and setting the tone. “Let me tell you how this is going to go, just so we can save some time. I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to pretend to be a hard-arse. We both know you’ll end up giving me what I want after a little slap and tickle. So how about we skip all that and you just cooperate?”

Roper jumped to his feet. Pants falling to his ankles, his Mr Winky bobbed up and down like it was happy to be outside. I arched an eyebrow at him. “Looks like you’re feeling the cold, Roper.”

He struggled to pull his pants up. I moved across the room, swept up my cane and cracked it down on Roper’s head. He squealed and reeled across the bed, clutching his ear. “Whaddya want? Whaddya want from me?”

“A satchel, Roper. You stole it a week ago. Has a nice gold emblem on the front? I think you know the one I mean. Why don’t you hand it over and we all get to go home.”

His eyes slid to my cane, breath hissing out from between his crooked grey teeth. “You work for the goat.”

“A satyr, Roper,” I corrected him. “A satyr is half goat. That’s a considerable difference. And ‘the goat’ prefers to be called Gideon. Or Mr. Gideon to you.”

Roper’s face contorted in pain. “I ‘ain’t done nothing to you. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Give me the satchel.”

Roper clutched his ear tighter and scowled some more. I tapped the end of my cane on the room’s thin carpet a couple of times, signalling my impatience. “Come on, Roper. I believe I’ve already given you my easy or hard way speech. I don’t give it twice.”

“What are you talkin’ about, ya crazy bitch?” Yellow spittle flew from his mouth, arching across the room. I stepped back, my upper lip curling with disgust. Roper was laughing now and it was a phlegm-like sound, bubbling up from his chest. “The only thing you’re getting today is dead.”

He gestured to me with his right hand. I froze. For a terrible moment, I thought he held salt and was casting. Then there was a mechanical snap. A gun shot out of Roper’s sleeve on a spring-loaded quick-draw rig. He aimed at my belly. “Put your hands high,” he said. “Don’t do nothin’ fresh.”

“Relax,” I said with a calm I didn’t feel. “Don’t make this worse. I just want what you took.”

Roper’s mouth twisted. “I knew you were gunning for me. I knew someone would come. You’re Gideon’s pet, the one who loves the Outlands. Who else was he going to send? People think Roper’s so stupid. But he’s not. There’s a bounty on your head, you know that? Benjamin the Bloody posted it. How about I turn in your pretty head instead?”

“You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret, now, do you?” I asked.

“Shut up.” His voice got all squeaky and indignant. “You just shut up!”

“I’m wearing very expensive boots, Roper. I don’t want to get blood on them.”

“I said, shut up!”

My stomach clenched as I realised the prick was going to make me show my hand and reveal my secret. I was going to have to use magic. Which meant I was going to have to get rid of the little shit.

“Relax, Roper,” I said. “Just relax.” We stared at each other for a beat. My heart kicked loud in my ears. Once. Twice. I threw myself to the right.

Roper gave a shout of surprise. I heard the crack of the gun and felt something bite my left ear. My shoulder hit the floor the same time my fingers slipped into one of my belt pockets, pinching some salt. I tossed it at Roper, just as he re-aimed his gun at me. I yelled a quick hex, my tongue tripping over the Sanskrit words. The air-born salt ignited with my will and the hex spat to life like a firecracker. Roper was thrown against the far wall, knocked clean out of his pants. He collapsed into a heap on the ground, heaving and gasping.

“Idiot.” I pushed myself to my feet and picked up my cane. “You stupid, stupid idiot.”

Roper lifted his head and drooled. He half-heartedly raised his arm to aim again. I crossed the room, drawing out the sword hidden inside my cane. With a grunt and a smooth golf swing, I sliced Roper’s arm off above the elbow. The limb bounced away with a fleshy sound, his fingers still twitching around the trigger.

“Shit! Shit!” Roper grasped at the bleeding stump of his arm. His heels rattled against the floor. “Look what you did!”

“Give me what I want.” I lifted the blade high and steeled myself. “Or you’ll lose more limbs.”

“Alright! Alright!” Amber-coloured blood was soaking the carpet under him. His head jerked to a crumpled backpack by the bed. “It’s there. It’s there.”

I lowered my dripping blade, walked to the backpack and checked it. My hands sorted through clothes and jewellery before finding the leather satchel at the bottom. I pulled it with a grim smile. Roper was staring at me, his face the colour of sweaty cheese.

“Is there anything missing?” I asked.

“You used the craft,” Roper whispered, mouth slack at the ends. “That’s impossible. No one can cast magic in the Outlands. No one. It’s one of the rules. Do you know what it means that you can cast out here?”

My knees popped as I stood, my bad leg giving a twinge of warning. I tossed the satchel on the bed, my lips pressed thin. Sure, no one was supposed to be able to cast out here. The medium of salt, combined with words of power, was a conduit to the provider of magic, the ley-lines. But the lines that fuelled the craft were thought to only exist in The Weald. Somehow, though, I was able to make it work here. One of my secrets, and it was one I didn’t
share at any price. At least, not with the living. Roper might have survived the loss of his arm, but I couldn’t allow him to live now.

I bent over the decapitated arm, prying the gun loose from the rig. The weapon was a little Ruger LCP. Popping the magazine, I saw it was packed with nice shiny hollow point rounds. I punched the magazine back home and aimed the barrel at Roper’s head.

“How did you do it?” Roper stared up at me, eyes full of fear.

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of monster are you?”

“I don’t know,” I said again, then pulled the trigger.