Hope and Red (26 page)

“If I could just…” Red squinted, trying to look beyond the darkened windows. His vision gave a funny lurch. Then he saw that every window in the building across the street had a gun barrel in it.

“GET DOWN, EVERYONE!” he screamed.

The alley behind the Three Cups was so narrow that Hope, Nettles, and Palla had to walk single file.

“No wonder they weren't worried about a serious attack from the rear,” said Nettles.

“They did board up these windows, though,” said Palla.

“But not the top-floor windows.” Hope squinted as she gauged the distance between the back wall of the Three Cups and the building behind it. It was even better than she'd hoped.

“Because nobody's going to get up there,” said Nettles. “Even if you had a grapple, there's not enough room down here to get a decent throw.”

“We don't need a grapple.” Hope jumped against the building behind, then to the back wall of the Three Cups, vaulting back and forth as she worked her way up to the top window. She broke the window with the pommel of her sword and climbed into the dark room.

She was surprised to find the room empty. It was a long space filled mostly with cots. This must be where Drem's men slept. It really
was
like a standing army. But where were they? All crammed up in the front of the building?

The cots gave her an idea. She quickly pulled off the thick blankets and tied them into a long line. She hadn't been sure how she would get Nettles and Palla up there. She'd thought there was a good chance she would have to leave them behind, which would have been very insulting. So she was glad this solution had presented itself. She tied one end to an iron cot as an anchor, then dropped the other end through the window. She wasn't sure the weight of the cot would be enough, so she braced her legs against the wall below the window and her back against the cot. The blanket rope went taut, and a few moments later, Nettles appeared in the window.

“Yeah, okay, I'm impressed, angel slice,” she muttered quietly as she climbed into the room.

The two of them braced the bed as Palla made his climb.

“From here we work our way to the other side of the building,” said Hope. “The goal is to take out as many shooters as possible. But we need to do it silently. We make too much noise, and the whole building will be on top of us.”

“What if we run into Drem or the biomancer?” asked Nettles.

Hope smiled grimly. “Then fortune has favored us.”

A roar of gunfire came from the front of the building. “That sounds like a
lot
of guns,” said Palla.

“Let's go take care of that, then,” said Hope.

Red's face was pressed against the cobbles, Filler's massive body pressing down on him as gunfire thundered all around. When the first shots rang out, Filler had knocked down Red and rolled them both under a nearby horse carriage.

“You okay?” Red wheezed.

“Yeah.”

“Great, then please stop crushing the life out of me.”

Filler rolled over, which allowed Red to get a breath. He took in a couple of gasps, then looked out from under their shelter. Gunfire was coming from both the Three Cups and the building behind them. Drem had set them up in a meat grinder, and people were dropping all around them.

The gunfire paused as Drem's boots paused to reload.

Red climbed out from under the carriage and stared at the dead and dying all around him. “Traitors!” he shouted to one building, then the other. “Firing on your own people while their backs are turned!”

“Get down!” said Filler. “They'll start again in a few seconds!”

Red wouldn't. He
couldn't
. He'd had enough of this.

“You broke the Circle, Drem! Sold out your own people for power and land.” He spit on the ground and held out his arms. “Come out and fight me, man-to-man, you pissing coward!”

“Please, Red!”

Filler grabbed at his leg, but he kicked it away. He saw the rifle barrels return to the windows. Saw them all pointed in his direction. In that moment, he truly didn't care. Too many people had died. Too many. If he was to join them, so be it. If people like Drem got to rule it, this world wasn't worth a piss anyway.

“Red!” pleaded Filler.

Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed like he could hear fifty gun hammers pull back with a
click
.

“Piss on you, traitors!” shouted a small boy who had been standing on the sidelines. He threw a glass jar at one of the windows.

A rifle from one of the windows fired, perhaps by accident, and the boy dropped to the ground.

There was a moment of total silence.

Then the entire neighborhood erupted in a fit of rage. Hundreds of people—old, young, man, woman—boiling over with an anger that had been simmering below the surface for so long that they'd all forgotten it was there until now. They rushed both buildings, wielding anything they could get their hands on.

There was some gunfire returning, though not as much as Red had expected. Perhaps some of them had grown a conscience. Or perhaps some of them had a yard of Vinchen steel in their backs by now.

Red drew throwing blades from his longcoat. “Come on, Filler. Let's go find Drem before Hope gets to him first.”

Hope moved swiftly through the dim halls, her sword drawn and held in both hands. Nettles and Palla followed behind. They weren't as silent as Hope, but with all the gunfire, it didn't matter.

Up ahead, she spotted one of Drem's men hurrying past, his arms loaded down with ammunition. She glided up behind and slid her sword through the base of his skull so that the point appeared between his eyes. He shuddered, but made no sound as Hope withdrew the blade and watched him drop to the ground.

“I would have thought we'd encounter more people by now,” said Palla quietly. He had a thin spear with a flat iron point held loosely in one hand.

“Maybe Drem doesn't have as many people as we thought,” said Nettles.

“Or maybe the rest are somewhere else,” said Hope. “Hurry, we're nearly there.”

They reached the front of the building. Three gunners at three windows died at the same time from sword, spear, and chainblade.

“We'll clear out each room on this floor,” said Hope. “Then work our way down.”

As devastating as the two-sided attack had been, Red's last-minute warning had allowed many to find cover. Now with the unexpected reinforcements from the sidelines, they went back to their attack with a will, hacking at the door and boarded-up windows again. When one of them was shot, more took their place with even greater ferocity.

While Red pushed his way toward the door, he noticed no one was firing down from the windows on the top floor. He was sure that Hope, Nettles, and Palla were responsible for that.

“Remember when we tried to rob this place?” Filler shouted over the noise as he lagged behind. “And we got banned for life?”

“I thought we'd agreed never to speak of it,” Red shouted back.

“Just saying. I bet you never thought we'd return with an army.”

Red stopped. “Return…” He grabbed Filler by the shoulders and shook him. “That's exactly what we're going to do, old pot. Return to the scene of the crime!”

Filler looked confused.

“We botched that job because we hadn't expected that safe to be big enough to have a guard
inside
it.”

“Sure, took us by surprise.” Filler's face was starkly pale, but Red was too caught up in his idea to notice.

“I'd bet every last tooth in Sadie's head that's where Drem is holed up right now. And if we kill Drem—”

“It's over and no one else has to die,” said Filler.

“Exactly!” shouted Red as he slapped Filler on the back.

Filler groaned. His leg buckled beneath him, and he fell to the ground. That's when Red saw the trail of blood behind his best wag.

Hope, Palla, and Nettles had cleared out the small rooms on the top floor easily enough. The second floor was more of a challenge. The rooms were larger, with more windows. Hope guessed they were used as gambling rooms. And there was anywhere from eight to ten gunners in each one. The first three went down easy, but then it was fighting in close quarters with the remainder.

Hope originally had doubts about Palla's weapon. Vinchen did not train extensively in spear fighting, believing it to be a less elegant weapon that was more suited to the common foot soldier. But they had never seen a spear in Palla's hands. Somehow, even in such tight quarters, he maneuvered his spear with a grace that was matched only by its sheer destructive force. The wood was soft and flexible, and he snapped it around almost like a whip, but with far more power. This was a technique that Hope wanted to learn. With it, even a common staff could be a formidable weapon.

The fighting was heated but over quickly.

“Anyone hurt?” asked Hope as she cleaned off her blade.

“Nobody worth worrying about,” said Nettles. “Let's hit the next room. If we hurry, we can have this all cleaned up before they even break the door down.”

Blood had soaked through the thick wool of Filler's right pant leg at the knee.

“What happened!” said Red as he struggled to drag Filler out of the line of fire.

“Got shot. When I covered you.”

“You said you were okay!”

“I lied.”

“Piss'ell,” said Red. “Okay. Tourniquet.” He cut a long sliver from the bottom of his leather coat.

“Hey, you're…messing your…nice coat.”

“Shut up, you.” Red tied the strip around Filler's thigh, just above the gunshot wound. “I read about this. It'll stop the bleeding. But we'll have to loosen it now and then, or you might lose the leg. Don't you worry, my best wag. We'll have you shipshape in no time.”

Filler shook his head. “You have to get Drem.”

“Fill—”

“
You
shut up now. I need you…to kill him. Stop…more of our…people…from dying. Promise me. Swear it. On your mother's art.”

“Filler, please—”

“Swear!”

Red glared down at his best friend in the world. “I swear on the art that killed my mother that I will kill Deadface Drem for you. And you better still be pissing alive when I come back to tell you it's done. Do
you
keen?”

They cleared out the second floor and then headed down the stairs to the first. Hope wondered if this was almost over. And then they reached the bottom of the steps.

“Piss'ell,” muttered Nettles.

The bottom floor was a dance hall. It was one big room full of Drem's people, all staring at the front door, waiting for it to get smashed down.

“Behind us!” shouted a familiar wet and gravelly voice. Standing in the midst of the mob was the white-hooded biomancer that killed Thorn Billy. He pointed to Hope, Nettles, and Palla.

Palla's face was bleak as he readied his spear. “There goes our advantage.”

Drem's people surged toward them. Fortunately, they were only armed with knives, clubs, and bricks. Drem must have used up all his guns.

“Not our only advantage,” said Hope. “Back midway up the stairs. They'll have to come up only two at a time, and we have the higher ground.”

They defended the stairs as best they could, finding a flow of slash, stab, chain. Hope had never had such a union. A perfect rhythm where no one got in another's way, and everything was balanced. They rapidly whittled down the numbers, but there were still so many of them that even Hope wondered if they would survive.

Then the door crashed down. Big Sig was through first, laying about him with a massive sledgehammer, knocking over several people with each swing. And behind him came a mob of people who seemed enraged to the point of madness.

Red went with the flow of the mob through the door. As they rushed into the massive brawl on the dance floor, he peeled off to one side and headed for the hatch down to the basement. He felt a pang of guilt, leaving them all to fight. But he had promised Filler he would kill Drem and end this as cleanly as possible. And there may have been just the tiniest little part of him that was pleased to see Hope all the way on the other side of the dance hall. Even if she knew where Drem was holed up, there was no way she could get to him before Red did. This one was all his.

He pulled up the hatch and dropped into the basement, the dirt floor silencing his landing. He crept through the near darkness. Barrels of ale, wine, and liquor were stacked along the sides. It had been only two years since he was down here, that night he first met Nettles. But it seemed like a lifetime ago. At the back was the massive iron door of the safe. The lock wasn't quite as easy this time, since it was older and hadn't been kept up well. But ten minutes later, he had it open.

He moved with the door as it swung wide, keeping it between himself and the opening. Sure enough, three shots fired in rapid succession, reverberating loudly in the closed space.

Red peeked through the crack between the top and bottom hinges and saw Drem inside, his eyes wide as he looked around. Red had always been able to see in the dark better than other people. Like his red eyes were better attuned to it. Judging by Drem's expression, he had fired blindly. To test it, Red pulled a wooden barrel down on its side and rolled it across the entrance. Drem fired two more shots. One missed. One struck the barrel.

“One shot left, Drem,” said Red.

“Red?” Drem squinted into the dark. “Is that you, boy?”

“It's me. Promised a couple of friends you'd die tonight. Thought I'd try keeping my word for a change.”

“You clever old pot, you.” Drem's tone was light and waggish. “It's a shame you got mixed up with that Southie slice. I was just thinking it was time to bring you on the crew.”