Pratt’s stolen letter wasn’t as much help as I’d hoped.
There was the usual cavalcade of threats, accompanied by graphic descriptions of what Carris would suffer unless their demands were met. The ear was mentioned, and it was noted that the next delivery would be a foot. Then a hand.
What didn’t appear was a demand for money. Instead, there were two pages of questions, festooned with mining jargon. How many raw tonnes of coal is your North End refinery consuming per week, for the last ten weeks? What was last month’s intake of sulfur, in standard wagons, among all ironworks inside Rannit? How many tonnes of raw iron ore did you ship via the Brown in the past six weeks?
There were also queries about carbon and sand. The whole mess was more industrial small talk than ransom demand. I couldn’t see where withholding it was worth watching your kid dismembered.
Industrial espionage by a competitor? Maybe, I decided. But why not take the time-honored route of dropping a few crowns in front of clerks or shipping managers?
Why not just watch wagons come and go and count them yourself?
I lapsed into a snooze well before we reached the Barracks. That was getting to be a bad habit.
The smell of smoke awakened me, though, blocks from the site.
I felt the carriage slow. Whistles blew. The smoke began to billow up, the single column becoming two columns and then three before merging into a single monstrous shaft of smoke that rose up to blot out the sun.
A pair of fire-wagons charged past, horses frothing and straining, water sloshing over the sides. Another pair of fire-wagons rushed past.
Ashes began to rain down. The day was still and calm. People looked toward their roofs, fearful that a spark would set their shakes alight. Blankets began to appear, and buckets of water, and men hauling ladders and shouting.
My driver pulled to the curb to let another pair of fire-wagons race past.
It was only then that I began to recognize the ashes that fell for what they were-scraps of old paper, yellowed to a familiar shade.
I stuck my head out the window. “You. Kid. What’s on fire?”
The youngster looked up at me. “The old Barracks. Every building afire, what I hear. Likely lose the whole block.”
The kid charged off.
“I’ll see how far we can get,” said my driver. The ponies were already snuffling nervously and stamping. The smoke was getting thicker by the moment. “But if we’re going to try, it needs to be now.”
“Get as far as you can. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
He nodded. “Not going to be much left,” he said.
I pulled my head back inside. The ponies reluctantly trotted forward, daring the stream of traffic rushing away from the inferno.
We made it another two blocks before the smoke and the hot rushing air left the ponies unwilling to take another step. I wrapped a handkerchief around my mouth and bade the driver to get out of the smoke. Then I made my way to the Barracks, coughing and stumbling, knowing too well what I would find.
And find it I did. The Barracks were lost. The flames towered and the mere heat of the blaze touched off fires a block in every direction. Some of them burned for three days. Of the Barracks, nothing would be left. Even the massive cornerstones cracked from the heat.
I got there just as they dragged Master Sergeant Burris out into the street. I only recognized him because his brass sergeant’s stripes and campaign ribbons were still intact. He’d collapsed just outside the Building Two, according to the Watch, and the heat that kept them back burned Sergeant Burris to a crisp.
Beneath him, still clutched in his charred hands, was a thick leather binder stuffed with papers. A Watchman rifled through them, shrugged, and dropped the binder on the ground.
I noticed something the Watch didn’t-the sergeant’s sword wasn’t in his scabbard, and he was missing two fingers on his right hand.
Maybe the Sergeant had dropped his sword on his way out. Maybe he’d been polishing it when he first smelled smoke. Maybe he lost the fingers when a burning beam fell on his hand.
And maybe, I thought, he hadn’t.
I left the Sergeant there, lying uncovered on the ground, as firemen and Watchmen stepped over his corpse.
When the Watch bellowed for me to leave, the Sergeant’s leather binder was under my arm. If anyone saw me take it they didn’t give a damn.
I thanked the Sergeant briefly, between fits of coughing, and then I put the heat to my back and stumbled away from the flames.
The smoke got so thick it nearly choked me, and it did manage to blind me. I would never have found my carriage had the driver not come looking for me, and I’d never have made it inside had he not shoved my ass in.
I told him to head for Darla’s. Her house, not the shop. It couldn’t be good for business to have soot-stained finders coughing and hacking all over the fabric. I was hoping she’d pop home for lunch as I knew she often did, and by that time I ought to have coughed my lungs clear again.
I sent the carriage home, and I sat on her tiny porch and watched a pair of bluebirds build a nest in the little house she’d hung out for them. When my eyes quit burning I opened the binder and leafed through the papers, but all I saw were rows of cryptic abbreviations and columns of numbers that might have been crowns or counts of Troll toenails, for all I could tell.
I hoped Darla would see more. Because if she didn’t, Master Sergeant Burris had died for nothing.
Traffic on Darla’s quiet street picked up. Snatches of conversation drifted my way. War, and rumors of war. The columns of smoke from the Barracks were easily visible, even from that distance, and I saw more than one person point and heard more than one person wonder if the smoke was the first sign of the coming invasion.
Even the ogres that passed through had their hackles up. By the time I spied Darla walking briskly down the sidewalk toward home, I’d witnessed half a dozen people trying to decide whether to flee their homes or start boarding up the cellars.
The peace, I reflected, was well and truly dead.
Darla saw me and waved. I forced a smile and waved back and lifted my butt off her steps, but I didn’t fool her, even for an instant. Her smiled died on her lips and she broke into a run and within moments she caught me up in a fierce hug and then pulled back, eyeing me for fresh holes or broken bones, I suppose.
“You’ve been to the fire.”
“I have. Got there too late. You heard it was the Barracks?”
She pulled herself close again.
“I heard. I hoped it wasn’t true. Sergeant Burris?”
I shook my head. She didn’t see, but she felt it, and she began to cry.
“Because we were there?”
“I don’t know.” I knew in my heart that wasn’t true. But some lies are worth the telling. “The Sergeant. He got out. Almost. He was holding a binder. I have it. On your porch.”
It took her a moment to speak. “Have you looked at it?”
“I have. Numbers, letters. Didn’t make any sense.”
“He died holding it?”
“He did. Maybe it was just in his hand when the fire broke out. But, hon, if it wasn’t-do you think you’ll be able to tell me what it was?”
“I’ll try.” She gripped me fierce and tight. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Someone afraid of their past. Or maybe a candle fell over. We can’t know which, just yet.”
“Liar.” She wiped her eyes on my sleeve and looked up at me. “He was such a nice man.”
“He was. But the place was a fire, waiting for a spark. I promise you, Darla, if someone did murder him, I’ll see that they pay.”
She nodded, swallowed, pulled away and wiped away her tears. People rushed by on the street. I caught the word war spoken several times, and I know she did too. Her gaze fell on the binder.
“Let’s have a look, then,” she said. “I’ll make us some tea.”
I kissed her then, for no damned reason at all.
Watching Darla work is one of my favorite pastimes.
She chews on pencils. She musses her hair. She paces and glares. She tacks papers up on the wall and writes on them, moves them around, rips them down and tosses them away when they fail to amuse.
I helped by drinking beer and keeping my mouth shut. I tried to follow what she was doing, but she kept to her accountant’s shorthand and I know it like I know Mama’s squiggly hex signs.
Three beers. That’s what it took for her to run out of ledger entries. She rearranged her wall of papers, crossed out things, drew lines between others. Then she stood back, sagged a bit and dropped her pencil.
“There it is.”
I nodded agreeably. “It’s a beauty, all right.”
She rubbed her eyes. “There were three of them, darling of mine. The Colonel. The cook. And a Lieutenant with the initials S.J.”
“Three of them.” I was not smiling. “That complicates matters.”
Especially since Fields had never mentioned a third party.
“Tamar’s father probably didn’t even know about S.J.,” said Darla, reading my mind. Again. “Looks like he came in late. Probably demanded that the Colonel deal him in.”
“You’re beginning to sound like Evis.”
She laughed. “I’m certainly associating with a rough element these days.” She slipped into my arms. “Fortunately, I have you to protect my virtue.”
I was searching for a comeback when there came a knocking at Darla’s door. She frowned. “I’m not expecting anyone.”
“Mr. Markhat? Is there a Markhat here? Hello?”
I let go of her.
“Never heard of him. Who are you?”
“Evis Prestley sent me. My name is Barlow. I have a message. And a carriage too.”
I crossed Darla’s living room and peeked through her lace-curtained windows.
A black Avalante carriage was parked at the curb. A smiling young man in Avalante black stood at her door. He didn’t see me, but he did push his Avalante lapel pin forward just in case I was peeking through the curtains.
His hands were empty. He didn’t have half a dozen bowmen at his back.
“I just remembered. I’m Markhat. Be right out.”
“I’ll wait by the curb.”
Darla sighed. “My virtue is safe once again. Hurrah.”
“Not for long.” I eyed her wall of papers. “Better take that down, hon. In fact-maybe I’d better take it with me.”
“Oh, no. I’m keeping it. Now scoot. Evis wouldn’t have sent a man here if it wasn’t important.”
“At least take it down? Lock your door. Keep it locked.”
“I’m staying with Mary tonight. She’s upset with all the War talk. You could give me a ride.”
“I could indeed. Packed yet?”
“I keep a bag ready.” She darted into her bedroom, popped out an instant later, bag in hand. She snatched her papers off her wall and shoved them down beside her unmentionables.
We left, locking her door behind us before dashing into the wild-eyed crowd lining the street.
I dropped Darla off at Mary’s and saw her to the door. Mary lives in a tiny walk-up in a New People neighborhood not far from my old friends the Hoobins. Mary’s four brothers live next door. They aren’t quite as large as the Hoobins, but unless a trio of ogres showed up looking for Darla I was sure Mary’s siblings could fight off just about anyone who offered their sister or her houseguests harm.
Darla couldn’t have picked a safer place to spend the night. Unless of course it was on a boat headed out of Rannit.
As my carriage wove its way toward Avalante, I watched and listened. What had been conversation and concern yesterday was rapidly building into the panic the Regency sought to avoid by suppressing news of the coming troubles. I saw cabs and carriages packed high with chests and trunks and kids and grannies. People were heading out, fearing Rannit’s fall under siege even if the old walls held.
I couldn’t really blame the people who decided to run. It took the Trolls eight weeks to breach Right Lamb’s defenses. We’d run out of food in five weeks. If it hadn’t rained the last two we’d have died of thirst. I slept with Petey tucked under my arm for fear he might be eaten despite the Army’s ban on anyone but me touching my tunnel dog.
A few minutes of memories from Right Lamb, and I was nearly ready to head for the hills myself.
Instead, I remembered Evis’s note, so I pulled it out and read it and cussed so loud the driver pulled to the curb.
“What’s that, sir?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Dammit.”
“Huh?”
I crumpled the note and threw it out the window. “Forget Avalante. Take me home. To Cambrit.”
“Cambrit, yes, sir.”
And with that, we were off.
I fumed and scowled. Damn you, Evis.
The Regency was underway, headed north to blow the bluffs. Evis was aboard, despite his earlier pronouncement that he would do no such thing. Accompanying him was Gertriss and Buttercup. And of course enough unstable gunpowder to blow a pair of cliffs to gravel.
Evis had written that the Regency was ready sooner than expected, and he saw no need to delay. He’d invited Gertriss along rather than leave her alone in the House, and of course that meant Buttercup was aboard the warship as well. His tone seemed to indicate they’d popped out for biscuits and tea.
All that laughing and giggling. Hell, Evis had probably cooked the whole thing up last night, and Gertriss was only too happy to go along.
I was to expect routine dispatches, starting tonight, which I could pick up at Avalante at my convenience. Important ones would be sent via courier to my office. I assumed that Avalante would be using some sorcerous device to communicate with the Regency, although Granny Knot’s trained pigeons seemed to work about as well.
One day soon, I decided, I was going to need to teach everyone around me a lasting lesson in manners.
Here and there I passed shops with boarded windows and hastily lettered CLOSED signs hung carelessly on the doors. Every corner sported a kid hawking handbills and the attendant tight-lipped crowds. I saw the Watch swoop down on a couple of barkers, but they simply dumped their handbills and vanished.
I stopped and grabbed a handbill myself. RANNIT TO FALL TO INVADERS, it announced, emphasizing its point with a crude rendition of the High House and the Big Bell consumed by leaping flames. OLD KINGDOM KING SEEKS TO REGAIN THRONE.
I crumpled it up and tossed it out the window. As if the man calling himself King was any more the cause behind this than myself, or old Mr. Bull.
We rounded the corner on Cambrit. I sat up and peeked out my window, hoping to find my poor door intact and unmolested.
It was intact, but it wasn’t alone. A big man leaned against it, and two of his big-boned friends helped him idle by squatting on either side of him. Their clothes were ragged and filthy, right out of Pot Lockney.
I cussed, sighed and bade the driver to keep going. If I was forced to fight my way to my icebox and its heavenly stash of beer, I needed reinforcements, and I knew a man who owed me a favor.
We walked all the way back to my place. I wasn’t in favor of it, but Grist insisted, claiming exercise left him sharp and invigorated.
I’d shrugged, half-hoping the trio of bumpkins might have given up and gone by the time we arrived at my office.
They hadn’t. Maybe it was the hex that brought them to their feet when Grist and I drew near. Maybe they’d sneaked around enough to see me from a distance and recognize me. Maybe they knew trouble was coming.
Too bad they didn’t know what kind of trouble.
Three big strong country boys. It took Grist exactly five blows to lay the trio out cold in the street. He took a single blow to his chin, which had all the apparent effect of a tap from a feather pillow.
“You are as good as they say.”
He grinned and nudged the biggest of the three with the toe of his boot. “What you want done with these?”
A small crowd was gathering. Flowers was among them. I flipped him a copper and bade him fetch the Watch.
“Leave ’em. The Watch can haul them off when they come around. If they get up and try to make tracks before that, put them back to sleep.”
“You’re the boss.”
I nodded. Hell, he’d not even drawn a deep breath. I made a mental note to never cross Mills. My stunt with the bricks wouldn’t work a second time.
I unlocked my door, peeped inside and saw the band of flour across my threshold was undisturbed. The stink of the hex was strong, but I decided it was all from the trio snoozing in the street, so I opened the door and stepped inside.
No one leaped atop me. No ballista threw from the shadows behind my desk. I went into the back and checked my tiny closet and peeked beneath my lonely bed. Aside from an ancient hairball hacked up by Three-leg in the prehistoric mists of time, I was alone.
So I did what all good officers do on the eve of war.
I put my feet on my desk and closed my eyes, and I slept, good and hard.
The Watch came and collected my new friends and left without bothering to wake me. Mills signed the complaint and that was that.
That bought me an extra couple of hours of sleep. I needed it, even though getting it made me miss the chance to head down to the Old Ruth and pester the new batch of hillbillies with questions they probably couldn’t answer anyway.
Judging from the dark and the quiet outside, I figured I had maybe three hours before Curfew. My first thought was to head up to Avalante to see Evis and Gertriss, and my second was to cuss when I remembered they were miles out of Rannit by now, steaming against the Brown with a few tons of temperamental gunpowder in tow.
My appointment with Lethway wasn’t until tomorrow night. Darla was safely tucked away with Mary. Tamar was still in hiding.
That left nobody to pester but Tamar’s parents.
I rummaged around in the back for a clean shirt and some socks that didn’t smell like Three-leg. In a fit of nap-fueled verve, I threw my shaving kit and a comb and some of that fancy hair tonic Darla favors into my bathing kit as well.
I gathered it all up and called Mills inside and laid out the night. He nodded and asked a question or two and was generally the very model of the highly paid employee.
He waited outside the bathhouse while I bathed. He sat across from me in the cab when we left. His eyes never closed, never stopped moving. He reminded me of me-a few years and a dozen centuries ago.
Had I really gotten that soft?
I didn’t bother with the bakery. I knew the law-abiding Fields would have shuttered the windows and locked the doors about the time I left the bathhouse. I had the cabbie take a circuitous route downtown, and make a few extra blocks before heading toward the Fields home. If anyone was following us, they were good enough to avoid being spotted either by myself or my sharp hired eyes.
I had the cabbie drive us past the Fields house a couple of times, confident we’d be lost in the steady flow of traffic. I saw lights in the windows and people moving behind curtains, but not a hint of mayhem.
I wondered just where they’d stashed Tamar after the kidnap attempt. My money was on the very house I was watching. Whether the kidnappers would bother to try and find out was anybody’s guess.
“We going in?” asked Mills.
“Nope. We’re just going to watch, for a while.” I pointed to a stand of shrubs that needed trimming just across the street. “It’s dark enough, I think.”
He nodded once. I called the cab to a halt half a block away and we hoofed it back to the bushes I’d chosen and picked out a couple of patches of deep shadow.
“So this is what finders do for fun,” whispered Mills.
“Most nights I have brandy with the Regent. This is a rare exception.”
Mills pointed with his chin. “I count seven people so far.”
“Should be ten at least. Maybe more, if Fields has any sense.”
“Does he?”
“Not sure.”
“So we’re waiting here just in case someone takes a stab at him?”
“That. Or anything, really. I’m just flipping over rocks, hoping something crawls out.”
“Ah.”
We didn’t speak again for an hour. The man was quiet. He shifted his weight from leg to leg and breathed through his nose and I believe if I’d asked him later how many bats swooped around the gas lamp at the corner he could give me a figure and not be making it up.
The Big Bell rang out Curfew. Cab traffic ground to a near halt. Pedestrian traffic was at home slipping sleeping caps on their weary little heads.
I was fighting off a doze when Mills tensed and lifted his hand to point.
He didn’t speak, but I saw it. A sliver of light grew abruptly to a slab and a man-shaped figure darted through it and then it was gone.
Mills gave me a What the Hell? look.
We’d just watched a door open in a wall that had no doors.
I squinted past the saw-edged leaves of the bush that concealed us. There, in the yard, a man darted toward the street. He was clad in a loose black cloak and his head was covered by a black hood, and he had the sense to keep his hands inside those long sleeves, but he couldn’t hide his girth or the fact that his short fat legs hadn’t been asked to run anywhere since the War.
“That’s Fields,” I whispered.
Mills nodded, watching.
A carriage came rolling down the street. Fields hustled right toward it, all but waving it to a halt. The carriage driver saw him, and slowed, and damned if they didn’t meet right under the street-lamp.
I never saw Fields clearly. I didn’t need too. Someone had removed the brass insignia from the carriage before leaving to pick up Fields-but they hadn’t bothered to wash down the door, which meant the shape of the Lethway Mining crest was plain even at a distance, and even in the dark.
“Amateurs,” whispered Mills.
I nodded. We waited. The carriage rolled past, Fields aboard.
I didn’t race out to stop it. If Lethway had lured Fields out with the intention of slitting his throat, he’d have sent a half dozen unsqueamish men to handle the job. I had a single assistant at my side, who might be willing to bruise a few heads for me, but would wisely draw the line at outright massacre.
“You didn’t expect that,” he said as the carriage vanished in the night.
“No. That’s the problem with kicking over rocks. Never know what’s under them.”
“What now?”
“No way to follow. So we wait. If he comes back breathing, I’ll ask him where he’s been.”
Another nod.
“I could make it over there, if you want. See how he did that door trick.”
I shook my head no. “We know he can do it. That’s enough for now.”
No argument. If only Gertriss were here to take note.
I had no idea where Fields was heading, or how long it would be before he returned, if he ever did. Part of me was sure the little baker had baked his last pie-if Lethway was getting nervous enough to burn down the Barracks, he wouldn’t blink at the prospect of decapitating a former partner in crime.
I had Fields dead if not buried when a quarter of an hour later the same black carriage rolled back around and halted briefly in front of the Fields’s house. When the carriage rolled away, Fields was halfway to his door, legs pumping, robes flapping.
“I’ll be damned.”
He didn’t bother with his hidden door, but walked right up to the front door, opened it with a key, and darted inside. He didn’t light a lamp.
I doubted Mrs. Fields or anyone else realized he’d been gone.
I’d have to keep a closer eye on my sneaky baker man.
“What was that all about?”
I shrugged. My back popped. Half the windows in the home were still lit.
“Why don’t we go ask?” I checked the street for halfdead, not really expecting any, but not wanting Mills to think me a man devoid of due caution. “We might even snare a leftover donut.”
“Both of us?”
An hour earlier I’d have insisted on going alone. Secret doors and midnight meetings left me less willing to take the risk.
“I’ll introduce you as Mr. Smith, if you prefer. Claim you’re new in town, from Horn or Latter or anywhere you please.”
He chuckled. “No need.”
We stepped out of our concealing shadow and made for the door.
A pair of butlers armed with crossbows greeted us. I could see another pair of worthies lurking behind various corners, ready to join the welcome should festivities be declared.
It took a bit of talking, but Mills and I were eventually frisked and allowed inside and gruffly seated at one end of a formal sitting room while half a dozen male staffers glared at us from the other. It was Mrs. Mills who made the first appearance, all smiles and welcomes, but even that didn’t reduce the number of men watching us or soften a single one of their expressions.
We did manage a pair of donuts. I’ve never been observed with such suspicion while consuming a glazed pastry.
Mr. Fields made us wait half an hour before he deigned to join us in a library. He surprised me by dismissing his staff and closing the door firmly behind them.
He left the door, crossed the room and settled back into a well-worn leather chair. That put a desk between us. Knowing the kinds of things I keep in, under and around my desk didn’t help my digestion.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, Mr. Markhat.” He did not smile. “Who is your friend?”
“Mills,” replied Mills. “I’m just here to keep things civil. Don’t mind me.”
“I won’t.” Fields turned his gaze to me. “Well?”
“So, how is Pratt tonight?” I was guessing, but he flinched, just a bit, and I knew I’d landed the first blow.
“I don’t know any Pratt. I haven’t had any visitors, either.”
I smiled. “No need to receive visitors when you have a handy secret door you can slip out of whenever you like. You must have a paid a small fortune for that one. One way, isn’t it? Invisible from the outside, probably hidden in the back of a coat closet on the inside-”
He glared. I shut up. I’d made my point.
Better to leave them wondering just how much you know than to keep talking and stumble.
“I’ve made the acquaintance of Mr. Pratt myself, Mr. Fields. Funny, he never mentioned that you and he were friends.”
“We are not friends. I only met the man recently. And it was he who insisted we meet, Mr. Markhat. He said he had information about the men who tried to take Tamar.”
It was my turn to suppress a flinch. But I’m better at it than Fields, so I just turned it into a knowing sort of nod.
“Did he now.”
Fields cussed. “I didn’t need Pratt to tell me it was Lethway who arranged for those animals to invade my home and lay hands on my daughter, Markhat. I knew it from the start. All his man Pratt did was provide me with the proof.” He rummaged in his desk and pulled out a parcel wrapped in plain brown paper and thrust it on the desk.
“Here. As if you don’t already know.”
Mills saved me the trouble of formulating a reply by unwrapping the parcel himself.
Inside was the bloodied head of the walking stick that Tamar had used to kill her attacker. The Lethway Mining crest was engraved on it and covered in blood.
I nodded, as if I’d wrapped the thing myself.
“So now you know.”
“No thanks to you.”
“I wasn’t asking for any thanks. I’m going to pull Lethway’s teeth for you. You can thank me for that, when I’m done.”
Something in Fields’s eyes went cold.
“How much would you charge to just kill the bastard?”
I stood. Mills followed suit.
“Not my line, Mr. Fields. Believe me when I tell you this. You can’t afford the kind of muscle that would take.”
“I’m not a poor man.”
“And I’m not a stupid one. Good night, Mr. Fields. I suggest you get some sleep, and forget all about hiring a killing. All you’ll be buying is trouble.”
He had no reply. We showed ourselves out.
The street was quiet. A few carriages rattled past in the distance, barely audible above the crickets. I patted my Avalante pin and set a brisk pace, Mills at my side. If he was concerned about breaking Curfew he didn’t show it.
I thought about the bloody walking stick. I’d pinned that on the same people who had grabbed Carris. Now Pratt had seemingly laid that at Lethway’s door.
Why, though?
Maybe Lethway was worried that Fields might be tempted to turn on him, and wanted Tamar as leverage. Maybe Fields had never really written himself out of the Lethway payroll, and was bucking for a raise, and Tamar was Lethway’s way of saying ‘no.’
“My line of work is a lot simpler.” Mills must have guessed the nature of my thoughts. “Very little ambiguity.”
“Ambiguity pays my bills. Speaking of which. I need to head up to Avalante. I won’t dock you any pay if you decide you’d rather call it a night.”
Mills shrugged. “I’m not worried if you’re not. That pin ever actually turned any halfdead away?”
I thought back to the pair that had killed the little pig herder down on the docks.
“It has. They bow and doff their hats, and then it’s heels and toes and flapping capes.”
He laughed. “I’d like to see that, I think. I’ll come along.”
“We’ll be hoofing it.” A ghost of an idea presented itself. “Or not. Keep a sharp eye out for Army wagons. We might catch a ride after all.”
He lifted an eyebrow, but if he thought I was crazy he kept it to himself.
We set our sights on the tops of the crematorium smokestacks and headed for the Brown.
Evis was right.
I’d flagged down an army tallboy at the corner of Wesson and Grade. It was driven by a sergeant and conveying a pair of sleepy lieutenants.
I only had to say my name once, and Mills and I were welcomed aboard while the pair of lieutenants took to the street with barely a muttered curse and murderous glare.
The sergeant snapped his reins and we were off, headed for Avalante, courtesy of the Army of the Regency.
Mills ogled.
“How in the Hell?”
I shrugged. “Friends in high places. You really don’t want to know more than that.”
He closed his mouth. I turned away before my grin got any wider.
Bridge clowns avoid the black carriages of the halfdead, but they have no such respect for the weathered vehicles of the army. I was glad only a few clowns were present, since they took to throwing broken bricks and chunks of mortar. The driver raced across at breakneck speed, and I was doubly glad we weren’t meeting any traffic.
The driver, it turned out, had never been across the Brown, so he took several wrong turns before we found Avalante. I bade him pull to the curb and wait, and spent a few minutes reassuring him he was safer here in the heart of the halfdead district than he’d ever been in neighborhoods like mine-as long as he remained in uniform and atop an army troop wagon.
Mills and I left him there and made for Avalante’s tall, dark doors. They opened well before we arrived, and we were immediately surrounded by half a dozen pale, fluid figures dressed in Avalante black.
“Good evening, fellows,” I said, smiling. “You know me. This is my associate, Mr. Mills. We’ve come to hear the news from the fishermen.”
They nodded. None spoke. All formed lines flanking the doors, and a single pale hand bade us enter.
I glanced over at Mills. His jaw was set and his fists were clenched. But he managed a grin, and his step never faltered.
Jerle, the day man, was either in his bed or heading that way. A halfdead I’d never met appeared as we stepped over the threshold and guided us silently to a sitting room, then closed the door behind us.
Mills looked about. He chose a seat facing the door. A light sheen of sweat formed on his temple.
“Relax,” I said. “I’m practically House myself. You’re safer here than you are at home.”
He nodded and swallowed.
We didn’t wait long. Our pale friend was back, waving me forward, and asking Mills quietly if he would like refreshments while he waited.
Mills declined. I followed my new friend out, and was glad he closed the door behind me, but didn’t lock it.
“I trust you take no offense,” said the halfdead, when we were out of earshot of the waiting room. “You are known to us. He is not.”
“None at all. I prefer to do this alone, anyway.”
“Good.” We walked through halls as quiet as any tomb. I knew there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of halfdead around me, but they collectively made all the racket of a dropped silk hanky. “We have been in constant contact with the Regency, by the way. The news is promising.”
“So they haven’t blown themselves up yet.”
“Indeed not.” We came to a door flanked by a pair of live guards. My friend rattled off a string of nonsense words, and they stepped aside.
“Come,” said the halfdead. He looked hard at the door, and it swung silently inwards. “Evis is waiting.”
I didn’t have time to show him my famous lifted eyebrow trick, so I just hurried inside.
The room was dark, as halfdead rooms tend to be. So maybe it tricked my eyes into thinking it was larger than it really was. I’ll probably never know the answer to that one.
Ten paces away from us was a massive iron contraption so tall they’d been forced to dig away at the ceiling to accommodate the top of the thing. Ten men could have ringed it around at the bottom, if they were willing to stand right against the thing and really stretch their arms. I wouldn’t do it, though, because it leaked steam in hissing sprays and spat showers of sparks seemingly at random from between whirling sets of gears and cogs.
Furious, tiny lightning-storms played about a series of metal spikes set like a crown atop the thing. The smell was the same fresh clean smell you get after bad storms. The thunder was miniature, but constant.
A small crew of mixed day folk and halfdead rushed around the device, putting out fires with blackened, damp blankets or shoving odd-looking metal tools into gaps in the mechanism. They communicated in curses and brief exchanges of jargon that were no more intelligible than ogre or Troll.
“Are we ready?” said my guide, over the noise.
A harried human with burn marks over his thick canvas shirt turned to face us.
“We’re having trouble with the coolant, sir. Keeping it short would be advisable.”
My guide nodded. “Understood.” He pointed me toward a desk-like affair, upon which a shiny copper funnel rested, the wide end facing the chair. “Sit there. Speak slowly and clearly. You may expect a minute, perhaps less, before we lose the Regency.”
I sat. Mama Markhat didn’t raise her kids to pester vampires with stupid questions.
The funnel crackled, hissed and then it spoke.
“Hiya, Markhat,” came a voice. Evis’s voice.
“Hello, boss.” That was Gertriss. “Everything is fine here.”
I cleared my throat. The whole room was watching me, and the day folk were trying to hide their grins.
“Evis. Miss. And Buttercup-are you there too, honey?”
A high-pitched giggle sounded from the funnel.
“So. Another miracle of arcane science. Beats carrier pigeons, I suppose.”
“Not really. Fails all the time. Surprised it’s working now. But I wanted to talk to you more or less in person, Markhat. We’re making much better speed than I thought. We’re going to make the bluffs in plenty of time. Ahead of schedule, even.”
“As long as the barges don’t hit a log.”
“Always the ray of sunshine, Markhat. Listen. Your partner is worried-had any more visitors from her old hometown?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” I briefed her on Mama’s last letter. I didn’t mention Mills. The last thing I needed was a lifetime of chiding from Evis about hiring bodyguards every time he left town.
Evis spoke again as I wrapped up Mama’s exploits in Pot Lockney.
“By the way. If you see our mutual friends, please tell them thanks for me.”
“Thanks for what?”
“They’ll know. Oh. Are you keeping your sword handy?”
“Got it right here,” I lied.
“Don’t be an ass. Arm yourself.” The funnel issued a loud screech, and a fresh shower of blue sparks erupted from the top of the clanking ironwork in the center of the room.
Men and halfdead rushed about shouting. Buckets of a white powder were thrown wherever flames began to dance. My halfdead guide took my elbow and gently hustled me out of the room.
“Pigeons seldom burst into flames,” I noted as he shut the door firmly behind us.
He nodded. “I shall pass your observation on to the House. Is there anything else we can do for you tonight, Mr. Markhat?”
“Not a thing,” I said.
He raised the ghost of an eyebrow. “Surely you do not intend to walk back to your office?”
“The night air is invigorating.”
“I shall arrange for a carriage to meet you on the street. You may of course keep it for the night, if you wish.”
“I don’t want to abuse your generosity.”
He nearly smiled.
“We are allies. Evis has left instructions that you be assisted in any way possible. I shall make the arrangements.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded, and another halfdead appeared at my side, and soon I was back at the sitting room with Mills.
“All done?” he asked.
“For now. We’ve got a ride. I’ll drop you back at your place.”
He nodded. “You have the most interesting friends.”
“That I do.” I thought back to Evis’s admonition that I keep Toadsticker handy. “That I do.”