Hold The Dark: A Markhat story (3 page)

“Whoa,” I said, gently. “I got all that from the brothers. What I want to know from you are the things they didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell.”

“The deep dark secrets all us girls share you mean?”

“The very ones.”

Darla frowned. “Damn.”

“Oh no. Surely you don’t mean there aren’t any.”

She shrugged. “Martha was a saint.” She noticed the pencil for the first time, and put it down on the desk, neatly aligned beside the ledger. “She didn’t drink. She didn’t carouse. She sewed, she fed birds in the Park at lunch, she loved violin music and all the girls liked her.” Darla spread her hands. “Hooga and Hooga brought her ogre hash every Armistice Day,” she said. “You know anybody ogres actually like?”

I didn’t. I nodded no.

“She ate it, Markhat. If it tasted like it smelled, it was awful. But Hooga and Hooga were standing there watching, and she thanked them and tore off a chunk and ate it right there. Ate Gods know what just so she wouldn’t hurt an ogre’s feelings.” She sighed. “That’s Martha Hoobin. Good to the bone. Now where does a person like that run away to?”

“I don’t know. Yet. And it’s entirely possible she didn’t leave of her own volition.”

“True. But Martha wasn’t stupid. You wouldn’t catch her roaming the streets after Curfew, or counting her pay out on the street. Don’t think she was some kind of wide-eyed New People bumpkin, finder. She hadn’t been in Rannit long, but she knew the lay of the land.”

I leaned forward. The mojo still whispered suggestively in my ears, and I caught myself breathing in her faint, subtle perfume and admiring the way her face moved when she spoke.

“Let’s talk about men. Did Martha have any I should know about?”

Darla laughed, showed her teeth. “Aside from the Hoogas, no, she had none. The Hoobins are Balptists. Ever heard of that?”

“Balptists? Nope. I assume it’s a faith?”

“It is. The New People brought it with them. Balptists marry Balptists, or not at all. Martha was opting for ‘not at all’.”

I lifted an eyebrow, kept my mouth shut.

“It wasn’t men Martha had a problem with,” said Darla. “Just husbands. I think a lifetime of picking up after her brothers left the thought of doing the same for a husband less than appealing.”

“I gather Martha pretty much ran the Hoobin household.”

“She cooked, she cleaned, she handled the money,” replied Darla. “And I suspect she handled it well. Have you ever been inside the Hoobin house?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll be surprised. They’ve done well. The Regent may have done them a favor, flooding their farms.”

“That’s the kind of favor the Regent is best at.”

“You’re a cynic,” she replied. “I like that.” She picked up her pencil and twirled it around. “Tell you what. I’ve already asked around, but no one knew anything about Martha. But I’ll ask again. And I’ll see if I can round up any of her things that might still be in the sewing room.”

“That would be helpful. I’ll come back around in a day or so.”

“Don’t bother. The Hoogas will be told not to let you back in.” She lifted a hand before I could speak. “I don’t run the place, finder. The management won’t admit pesky finders who set Wendy to crying and leave without spending a fortune. You’re a waste of good conjure, you are. Don’t know rare beauty when you see it.” She smiled when she said it, leaned forward and batted those big brown eyes. The lingering charm gave me one last good flush, and a fresh layer of sweat. Darla leaned back in her chair and laughed again.

“Surely I can wait outside until you head home some night?” I asked, with as much dignity as I could muster. “Or will the Hoogas have orders to smite me on the street?”

“That depends on your manners and your deportment,” she replied. “Keep that in mind. Anyway, I might just come and see you. You have an office, I assume?”

“I do.” I made a note to carry a clean handkerchief, when next I called on Darla. I sweated more in the Velvet than I had on all-day marches. “Down on Cambrit. It isn’t the best part of town. If you come, come early. You can wait at Mama Hog’s if I’m out.”

“Cambrit’s not so bad,” she said. “And I’ve heard of Mistress Hog.” She gave me a sly sideways look. “She your lady love?”

Blame it on the mojo, but a mercifully fleeting image of Mama Hog wrapped in a gauzy nightgown ran hobnailed through my mind.

I stood. “Miss Darla,” I said. Mama Hog waved gauzy veils at me from the dimmest corners of my mind. “They don’t make a charm that strong.”

She stood too. “I’m sorry,” she said, offering her hand, to shake. “About the mojo. I just couldn’t resist.”

I took her hand. It was warm and dry and her fingers slipped easily through mine, like we’d held hands a thousand times before.

She spoke a nonsense word, and I felt the last of the mojo slip off my shoulders and well and truly fall away.

“Now you’ve got nothing to blame but the innate depravity of your soul. Still think I’m pretty?”

I gobbled something complimentary and let go her hand. We stepped out into the hall, hadn’t gone three steps before Wendy popped out of a door and pretended she didn’t know we were there.

Wendy had an extensive wardrobe, though it didn’t appear to take up much room. She turned, spoke, batted her eyes and was about to join us when Darla grabbed my hand again and gave her a glare. “Ease off, sister,” she said. “This one is mine. Aren’t you, honey-chunks?”

Wendy giggled. I left, and the Hoogas even dipped their gazes in farewell.

And—God help me—that was Darla.

Chapter Three

I left the Velvet a scant hour before Curfew. In my neighborhood, Curfew doesn’t mean much. Mama Hog’s customers still come and go. The streets are still thick with layabouts, wobbling drunks and assorted ne’er-do-wells. Even the street minstrels don’t pack up before the Watch starts bellowing and waving truncheons in their faces.

Here, though, blocks from Cambrit, people were already closing up shop and heading home. The street was choked with rattling carriages and cursing drivers. I had to plow through passers-by with a shoulder and a glare.

I’d gotten one last thing from Darla, on my way out. She’d been with Martha, that last time she had set out for home. Darla said they’d walked together as far as Waylon Street and there, Darla had taken a cab north towards home, while Martha continued on foot south and west.

I’d lifted an eyebrow at that. Darla had explained that the New People neighborhood really began at Darton. Once Martha reached that, she was perfectly safe.

I’d reserved comment on the thought of any part of Rannit being perfectly safe. But it did make a sort of sense—four blocks through a moderately good part of Rannit, then another seven home, surrounded by smiling Balptist faces who doubtlessly were all paragons of simple country virtue, or terrified of the brothers Hoobin, or both. It didn’t sound dangerous put like that.

So I walked that way too. I set a brisk pace, fast enough so I wasn’t mowed down, slow enough to take in the sights.

Four blocks. Four blocks of haberdashers and jewelers and shoemakers and sweetshops. I counted four Watchmen in the first two blocks alone. Their tall, blunt blue hats and ambling gait made them easy to find, even in a milling crowd.

I nodded to a smiling banker and pondered Martha’s fate. She wasn’t yanked kicking and screaming into an alley—too many people, of exactly the sort who wouldn’t just turn away and pretend they’d seen nothing. No, someone would shout, and another, and soon there’d be Watch whistles and running feet and swinging Watch-sticks and that would be the end of any would-be alley-grabber.

So I walked. Had a rough time crossing the street at Mayben, had to wait with a mob for a white-gloved traffic-master and his whistle.

Had Martha, perhaps, done this every day?

I turned, met the eyes of the six or seven people nearest me. “I’m looking for a woman,” I said, loud enough that they could hear. A few people guffawed, or exchanged “Oh, no, another nut” looks, but I ignored them. “She used to walk home this way, every day. Short lady, blonde hair, thirty years, spoke with a New People accent. Anybody know her?”

Shrugs and nods, all meaning no.

The traffic-master blew his whistle, halted traffic and waved the mob of pedestrians forward.

I stayed behind, repeated my question again, three more times.

No one had anything but shrugs and suspicious glares. I’d even tugged at the traffic-master’s sleeve. Put my question to him. “Hell no,” he said, in a voice nearly as loud as his whistle, “and shove off.”

I shoved. I found a wall and leaned against it. The sun was getting low. Curfew was coming, and I was a long way from home.

So I gritted my teeth, set my jaw and decided it was time for drastic action.

I found the nearest blunt Watchman’s hat, dove into the crowd and steered toward it.

I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, Martha’s strange rapport with repellant, hostile creatures ran the range from ogres all the way down to the Watch.

Turns out, it had.

The second Watchman I spoke to remembered Martha. They’d rarely spoken, he said, but she’d always smiled at him as she passed.

He was a young man, my second Watchman. A vet, only two years on the Watch, which may explain why he was still human. And though neither the Hoobins nor Darla had stressed the point, I surmised Martha was unlikely to go unnoticed by any young human male.

“Pretty, is she?”

I swear the man blushed. “Yessir. Nice too. Didn’t ever seem like she was in a hurry either.”

I’d nodded, hoping he’d go on, hoping he’d idly mention seeing Martha forced at sword point into a nearby shop or carried bodily into a carriage emblazoned with the name and address of the owner.

He didn’t. Yes, he’d seen her pass, most days. No, he couldn’t recall the exact day he’d last seen her. No, she’d never been in the company of anyone else, neither had she ever seemed nervous nor upset or even mildly perturbed.

He’d then surprised me by offering to ask his fellows the same questions. His name was Rupert, and I could find him again at the same street corner tomorrow.

After that, I hoofed it west. The tall red brick buildings swept the cobblestone street with shadow, and the sky took on that brief blaze of crimson that heralds sunset. By the time I reached the plain, well-scrubbed buildings of the New People night had fallen and the Curfew bell had rung.

And that last lingering bell toll cleared the streets, at least in this part of town.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, walked on and whistled. My shoes made loud
clop-cloppings
on the pavement. A chilly wind sprang up and walked with me, sending paper scraps rustling behind me, setting neatly trimmed boxleaf shrubs tossing and making dry whispers in the dark.

All in all, I was wishing I’d taken a cab. Not that I was afraid a passing halfdead might take a fancy to my upturned coat collar and decide I might do as a snack. But I wasn’t getting much out of this jaunt through the Hoobins’ neighborhood, my feet were tired and now I’d missed supper at Eddie’s.

There were lights in most windows, and the scents of a thousand hearty suppers mingled with the shy wind. I’d expected the New People neighborhoods to be poor but well scrubbed. Instead, I had to look hard to see any signs of poverty. The doors were all square and plumb and light didn’t show at the edges. The windows sported new glass and frilly curtains and outside each one hung wood shutters painted to match all the rest. The stoops were all swept, and though I did see a child’s carved horse left out on one I never saw a drunk or a weed-head or even a smashed wine bottle.

But the street was empty. That bothered me. If it was deserted or nearly so that evening Martha walked it, she could have been snatched. It would have to have been done quickly, it would have to have been done quietly, but there were ways to do both, and men who would do them.

Why? I looked about me, at the warm homey glows from all those ranks of windows. Why Martha Hoobin?

Curtains jerked as they were hastily drawn back. So. The street might be quiet, but that didn’t mean no one was watching.

I squinted into the shadows, found a house number, tried to figure where I was in relation to the Hoobin place.

It wasn’t far. My feet sent up a fresh pair of aches to let me know what they thought about that judgment, but I waved at my audience and moved on.

Maybe, thought a small petty corner of my mind, maybe they’ll have supper done by now.

I found the Hoobin place, banged on the door, waited while windows flared with sudden lights, dogs began to bark and I heard the sound of tramping feet behind the door.

A panel opened in the door, and a pair of suspicious blue eyes regarded me from a cautious distance.

The eyes went wide.

“The finder!” shouted a Hoobin. Young Borod, I decided. “Ethel, it’s the finder!”

Latches clicked, and bolts clacked, and I counted the release of four different locks before young Borod flung the massive door open and hauled me indoors with a frantic beefy handshake.

His face was aglow, but that didn’t last long.

“You did not find our Martha, no?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

Ethel came clambering down the stairs to the right of the door. He was wiping his mouth with a napkin. The other brothers were fast behind him.

“Finder,” said Borod. “It is after Curfew. What is the matter?”

I blinked in the light. My shoes scraped on clean white tiles.

“Nothing,” I replied, trying not ogle. Tiles on the floor, walls of smooth new plaster, doors framed out in oak and cherry. “I’ve been out asking around, came up with a few more questions for you and your brothers.”

“After Curfew?”

I shrugged. Let them think I was Markhat the fearless finder, heedless of the halfdead. That was better than telling them I lost track of time and, by the way, I could use a bite of supper.

“Finders can’t keep banker’s hours. Forgive me for interrupting your meal.”

“You will join us of course,” said Ethel. “We talk and eat, no?”

I nodded, and there was maybe just a ghost of a grin on his wide burn-marked face.

“Yes,” I said, and Ethel turned and led the way.

“Martha did all the cooking,” said Ethel. I suppose he was apologizing for the rudeness of the fare. He need not have, and I told him so.

Roast beef, hot and plentiful, and steaming butter-filled sweet potatoes too. The Hoobins ate with the gusto one normally doesn’t see outside barnyards at feeding time. I noted that “leftovers” were a concept unknown to our brave New People as every morsel of every dish quickly vanished.

Borod pushed back his empty plate and belched, and Disel caught him an open-handed slap on the back of his head. Ethel returned the blow to Lowrel with about double the force, and then everyone laughed, punched each other in the shoulder and stood.

“We talk in great room,” said Ethel. He nodded at Borod, who sighed and set about clearing the table.

And to the great room we went.

We went down a hall filled with doors, two on each side, and then down the stairs, and then through a set of tall double-doors that creaked and screeched as they opened. Disel and Lowrel darted about lighting lamps, and Ethel motioned me toward a chair.

“Nice room.” I meant it. They’d apparently gutted the bottom two floors of the building, just to make this one room. The walls were stone and plaster, rough-hewn beams spanned the far-off ceiling, and a monstrous soapstone fireplace and hearth covered most of one wall.

I sat. The Hoobins took their places. Three chairs were empty—one for hapless Borod, who had garnered kitchen duty, a dainty one that must have been Mama Hoobin’s before she’d had her stroke and a well-upholstered cherry-framed Regency style recliner that I knew instantly was Martha’s.

Ethel’s chair wasn’t central to the fireplace. Martha’s was. And beside her chair sat a small Regency claptrap table, its polished round top covered with a neat assortment of sewing goods, a pair of expensive gold-rimmed reading glasses and a thick leather-bound black book with gilt-edged pages.

Ethel saw me look and nodded.

“Martha’s,” he said. The other Hoobins nodded. “Now tell us, finder. What have you come to say?”

“I’ve been to the Velvet. I spoke to a woman named Darla.”

“We know this woman Darla,” said Ethel. His tone was neutral, merely matter-of-fact, but it hid a hint of disdain. I gathered Ethel didn’t approve of Darla’s un-Balptist sense of humor.

“I’ve also talked to some Watchmen,” I said. Disel snorted, went quiet at a glance from Ethel. “The Watchman remembers seeing Martha, now and again. He doesn’t recall anything unusual, on that last day.”

Ethel nodded.

“I’ve got a feeling that’s all we’re going to get out of the Watch or the Velvet or the people on the street,” I said, gently. “That’s all we’ll get, because that’s all they know.”

Ethel looked confused, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I need to look in other directions,” I said. “And I need to start by looking here. In Martha’s room. At her things.”

Lowrel and Disel, in perfect unison, sat bolt upright and half-rose from the enormous chairs. Ethel stilled them both with a slight lifting on his right hand.

“Missus Hog told us you could see through shadows that left others blind,” he said, staring at me. “She said we were to do as you ask, even if it goes against our ways.”

Lowrel and Disel sat, turned their glares on the toes of their boots.

“What you ask—to touch her things, to see what only a husband must see—is it necessary, finder? Do you must?”

“I must. There might be something there—or something missing—that could tell us what happened.” I spread my hands, imploring. “Martha’s been gone seven days. You don’t know where she’ll be, this night. I don’t know either. But if we all agree that she isn’t where she is by choice, we must also agree that she is probably in danger.” I rose. I’d saved my best for last. “Didn’t Mrs. Hog tell you I could be trusted?”

Ethel was still a moment. Then he nodded, once, his gaze never leaving mine.

“Up the stair. Third floor. Last door on left.”

“Is it locked?”

“This be home,” said Ethel. “What manner of people lock their doors at home?”

I didn’t answer. I just got up, found the stairs and ascended before one or all of the brothers changed their minds.

But the stairs remained empty behind me. I found the third floor, counted doors and put my hand on the polished brass knob that led to Martha’s room.