Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (21 page)

“Spare him?” Domnal asked. “Spare him for what?”

Heden sat in Dom’s office, across the desk from the watch captain. He kicked some of the sawdust from the floor off his boots.

“Just keep an eye on the girls at my inn while I’m gone.”

“So hire someone from the docks,” Dom said, leaning back in his chair, his fingers laced together over his fat belly. “What d’you need Teagan for?”

“I trust him,” Heden said.

“’Course you trust him, he’s a watchman. But we can’t be lending out coppers to work the inns and taverns. They got jobs already.”

“I’m not suggesting you make a habit of it,” Heden said, impatient. “It’s just me, just for a fortnight or so. Just Teagan. I trust him because he used to be a ratcatcher.”

“That ain’t no reason to trust someone,” Dom observed, and pulled himself up out of his chair.

“Where are you going?” Heden asked.

“See what the man himself thinks.” He pulled open the door that led to the rest of the jail and bellowed Teagan’s name, then came back and sat down.

Teagan walked in. A little over six feet, and thin. His short, sandy brown hair emphasized his youthful look, though Heden suspected he was in his early 30s.

“Well, close the door,” Dom said.

Teagan did as instructed.

“You remember Heden,” Dom said.

The lanky watchmen nodded at Heden. The faint smile Heden remembered, like he was enjoying a private joke, never left his face.

“We had some fun together at the Rose,” Heden said.

“We killed three yellow scarves,” Teagan said. “You have a queer idea of fun,” but his smile broadened.

“He wants to sort of, hire you on, keep an eye on his place for him while he runs around the city pissing people off,” Dom said.

Heden frowned at his friend’s description.

“So hire some muscle. Why do you need me?” Teagan asked.

“Same as the Rose,” Heden explained. “Problem with the count.”

Now Teagan frowned.

“Count never did anything to me,” he said. Heden raised an eyebrow at this.

“I just need someone to look after the girls,” Heden said. “No one’s going to come after them, but someone might come looking for me.”

Teagan looked at Dom. “What do you say, boss?”

Dom shrugged. “I say what you do on your own time is your business, long as you’re here when the cock crows. I know Heden. If he’s asking, means he needs more than hired muscle. You’re good with a sword,” Dom said. “Good without one.”

Teagan nodded. “There’s something I’m better at,” he said, and rubbed his chin. “Minding my own business.”

This response surprised Dom. “Never knew you to show fear,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Teagan. “You afraid of the count?”

Heden could tell Dom was trying to help in his own way. Press the watchman, make sure he was making the right decision for the right reasons. It’s what made him a good captain, a good leader.

Teagan shrugged. “’Course I am, man’s got an army of trained assassins. You think we hang out inside this stone building out of confidence?”

Heden smiled at the man’s logic. “He’s right.” He stood up and looked Teagan up and down. “The count isn’t his enemy and helping me might change that. It was wrong for me to ask.” He looked at Dom. “Thanks for trying to help, though.”

“Now how come when he says it,” Dom thrust his chin at Teagan, “you all of a sudden listen and when I say it you come over all deaf?”

Heden looked from Dom to Teagan. “He’s younger,” Heden said. “More handsome. Makes him more persuasive.”

“That’s true,” Teagan nodded.

“Sorry I bothered you,” Heden held out his hand. Teagan took it.

“No bother,” he said. “I’ll stop by your place after work days. On the way home. Stick my head in, make sure everything’s ok. No reason not to.”

“Thanks,” Heden said. “That’ll probably be enough.” Heden walked to the door.

“Where you off to?” Dom asked.

Heden pulled the door open. “Gotta go talk to a wizard,” he said. “Hope I’m more persuasive with her than I was with the watchmen.”

The wizard came down to see him. No one was allowed beyond the receiving room without undergoing certain checks that Heden was in no mood for.

Watching her quickly descend the spiral staircase, he was reminded of her impressive figure. Something most men she met never forgot. But to Heden, she was always a face in his memory. A perfectly sculpted face with dancing eyes that saw everything Heden tried to conceal.

She was among the most distracting people he had ever met.

“Hey gorgeous,” Hapax said once she was in earshot. “Long time no see.”

She danced up to him and grabbed his elbow, steering him around and locking arms with him.

“Where are you taking me,” she asked, “to celebrate our reunion?”

Heden allowed himself to be steered.

“It’s on me,” Heden said. “Your choice.”

“Of course it is! How about we go to the Ship?” she suggested, and made a motion like she was snuggling up to him. It was a degree of familiarity Heden wouldn’t normally put up with, but he knew Hapax. It was just her way. She was like this with all her friends. Heden wasn’t special.

“Sure, I like the Ship,” he said.

“Me too. And I love the idea of being seen there with you of all people.”

It was a turn’s walk from the tower of the Lens to the expensive end of the docks, where the Sinking Ship tavern was. It was the kind of place you could only eat at if you were making a lot of money off the trade coming in and out. Heden considered it a waste of money, but liked the food. He found it hard to reconcile his father’s frugality with his own taste for good food, expertly prepared.

They talked about nothing as they made their way down the cobbled streets, found a table at the Ship, easy at this time of day, and ordered drinks.

“Why must our love go unconsummated?” Hapax asked, typically theatrically.

“You’re not my type,” Heden said.

She lowered her head and gave him a very knowing look. “Really.”

“I don’t go in for women with, ah…,” Heden said.

Hapax looked down at her impressive landscape.

“…husbands,” Heden finished.

Hapax rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “Everyone knows what that’s about.”

“Everyone,” Heden said.

“I wasn’t always married,” Hapax said, no longer flirty or theatrical. “But you were always a shit.”

Heden liked her better this way.

She let her eyes wander over his face.

“I can’t imagine what you’d be like now if she hadn’t sunk her claws into you.”

“We’re not doing this,” Heden said. Why did she have to ruin it? “I need some information.”

Hapax pursed her dark red lips. “I got all kinds of information, what are we talking about?”

Heden took a deep breath, reached into a vest pocket, and pulled out the black marbles the polder thief gave him.

“What is this?” Heden asked, holding it between his fingers.

Hapax looked at it, and smiled.

“It’s night dust,” she said. Heden looked from her to the marble in his hand. “Keep it, I’ve already got some.”

“You’re fast,” Heden said.

“Not always,” she said, smiling sweetly.

Their drinks arrived.

“How much do you know?” Heden asked.

“Not much,” Hapax said, taking a drink. “A little. What’s it worth to you?”

“Depends,” Heden said, sitting back in his chair and relaxing. He was happy to have someone like Hapax Legomenon dealing with this. “I guess I was hoping it falls inside your normal brief.”

“It does,” she said. “Have you heard what the count’s up to?”

“Sort of,” Heden said. “I’ve been out of the loop for a few years.”

“You were never in the loop,” Hapax said, taking a drink. “It was part of your charm.”

“If you’re already working the night dust,” Heden said. “I guess I can relax. Let you take care of it.”

“Take care of it?” Hapax asked.

Heden shrugged. “Does that not qualify as a reliquary?”

Hapax held the black marble up. Peered at the smoke swirling inside it, like a living thing trying to escape. “We’re working on that,” she said. “We’re not sure where it comes from. We have some ideas, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to charge off to war against the count.”

“That’s between you and your charter,” Heden said. “I’m happy to stay out of it.”

She put the marble down, used the tip of her finger to stop it from rolling.

“You’re thinking about a censure,” she said. He could see her mind working. This gave him assurance. Having someone smart dealing with it. Why were all the smartest people he knew women?

“Depends on how many of those the count has. If it’s a dozen? No. If it’s a hundred? An army of deathless? You tell me.”

She looked exasperated, but not at him. “Heden we have to get approval from the castellan to field a Censure in the city, you know that.”

“Shouldn’t be hard. You’d be doing it to protect the city.”

Hapax nursed her drink. “You’d be surprised how different the castellan’s idea of protecting the city is from ours.”

“You stopped that whatever-it-was that was turning people into those snake things last summer.”

“Yeah and like 200 people died," the wizard snapped. "It took 12 of us throwing everything we had at it. We had to get help from the Sundial. You know they had to
slow down time
in order to stop the outbreak?”

“Ah,” Heden said, a little taken aback. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Well these are the kinds of things we deal with,” she said, getting angry. “The kinds of things you idiots keep digging up.” She nodded at the black marble.

“I’m not a campaigner anymore,” Heden pointed out, defensively.

“And yet here you are with more dug up crap.”

“You have no idea where it comes from!” Heden got the sense he’d stepped over some line, was eager to step back.

“You know there’s something like 60,000 years of dead civilizations buried around here,” she gesticulated, indicating the whole world. “Not including whatever bizarre mindbending shit the elves got up to before the dwarves came along. Lives are at stake whenever someone digs some of this shit up, and no one but us to stop it. So you come to me with this and say ‘censure,’ and I tend to get upset. I start to think you want me doing your dirty work.”

Heden pursed his lips and was properly contrite. He let Hapax cool down.

The food came. Neither of them started on it.

“You said you knew a little,” Heden said.

Hapax grabbed a fork and skewered her meat, taking her anger out on the dead duck.

“It’s alchemical,” she said.

Tam, again. He knew about the alchemy connection but chose to say nothing lest it upset her further. He grabbed some bread and buttered it.

“Covers a lot,” he said. She nodded.

“But there’s something else,” she said. “It’s alive.”

This was new.

“Alive?” Heden asked. “What does that…how is that possible?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said. “We’re doing research. There’s a fungus on the big island of Ix, can have a similar effect. We don’t think this is a fungus, but it’s a lead.”

“You’ll let me know more when you find out?”

Hapax waggled her head back and forth, weighing the idea. “Probably,” she said. “I’m a sucker for feeling needed.”

Heden let her eat in silence.

“I’m shouldn’t have tried to dump this on you,” he said. “Take advantage of our friendship. I’m sorry.”

Hapax said nothing for a moment, slicing off another piece of duck. Then without moving her head she threw Heden a glance. “How sorry?” she asked, smiling a little.

Heden smiled. “Not that sorry,” he said.

Hapax shook her head. “Probably for the best,” she said. “After all these years the act could never live up to the anticipation.”

“Oh yes it could,” Heden said, his voice low.

Hapax put her fork down and stared at Heden, suddenly speechless.

Heden snickered. Turnabout was fair play.

Martlyn pulled the door open. She knew there was something wrong immediately, although it took a moment to recognize it. Apart from the girls running down the brightly lit, red carpeted hall in a panic, there was something else. A smell.

Smoke. The building she was in, the Rose Petal, was burning.

“What’s going on?” her clotpole asked from the bed behind her.

“Get dressed,” she barked, no longer an innocent girl.

“But we haven’t…”

She spun, grabbed her robe and shawl.

“The building’s on fire idiot,” she said.

Throwing her clothes around her, she abandoned her customer to his own devices and went out into the hall.

Girls were running back and forth, milling around, some customers were trying to get out. She saw Bann descend from the third floor, called his name.

“Martlyn” Bann said, his voice tense but not afraid. He pushed his way toward her, annoyed at the mad activity around them. Even though she was taller than most of the girls, Ban loomed over her. “Good. Take this,” he said, and pressed a long coil of rope into her uncomprehending hands.

“What’s happening?”

“The building’s on fire,” Bann said. “The entrances are blocked. The count’s men are killing anyone who tries to get out.”

“Black gods,” Martlyn was panicking, her legs felt like jelly.

“But you’re going to get everyone out,” Bann said, pointing at the rope in her hands.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Martlyn asked, her bowels freezing in fear, far more worried about where to go and what to do than the fire. This was home, she’d been safe here. Would no safety last?

Bann grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stupid,” he commented to himself. He spun her around, faced her toward the second story window.

“Where do you think?” he growled, his voice carrying above the screams. Girls were running past them in every direction. He pointed at the window. “The Hammer & Tongs. Find the priest,” he said. They both knew who he meant.

She turned back around, the rope hanging limp in her hands.

“I can’t!” she said, afraid.

“Yes you can,” he rumbled, turning her around again. “Chest of drawers,” he pointed to the heavy oak chest at the end of the hall perpendicular to the window.

“Tie this to the leg,” he said, taking the rope from her, only to push it back into her chest, make her hold it

“Tie it tight, like I taught you. Pretend it’s a clotpole’s ankle or wrist,” he said, trying to smile. “Then out you go. The other girls will follow, let them. Lead them to the inn. To the priest’s inn.”

Martlyn stared at the window, blackness outside. Bann squeezed her shoulders.

“You got it?”

She nodded.

Bann drew the huge two-hander from his back. Turned to go back downstairs.

“Where are you going?” Martlyn asking, panicking. Bann couldn’t leave her.

“I’m giving you a chance to get out,” Bann said. “The fire is a diversion.”

Martlyn watched as Bann pushed his way to the stairs down, disappearing into the smoke.

She turned back to the window at the far end of the hallway. She clasped the rope to her chest.

The stairs down were now impassable, whether because of Bann or fire or both she didn’t know. The girls were now desperately looking for her to do something.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” she said, angry and crying at the same time, cursing her fate.

She pushed her way to the end of the hall, the other girls following her blindly.