I was dreaming. A tall, green-eyed blonde was stroking my hand and whispering my name. She had perfect elfin features and a mischievous wind threatened to remove her last few gauzy veils. I leaned a little closer, heard a noise, woke up-and was face-to-face with Mama Hog. I think I may have screamed.
Mama Hog was holding my left hand. And mumbling something under her breath. And she wasn’t a bit like the tall, elfin blonde in my dream.
I sat up. She hung on tight to my wrist and spat out a string of nonsense words.
“What the-”
“Shut up, boy,” she hissed. “You mess with the half-dead, you need this.”
I was wearing a bracelet or a wristlet or whatever you call a finger-width ring of tarnished brass chain a sham-artist soothsayer wraps around your wrist.
I snarled something and grabbed the thing with my right hand. “I’m a tolerant man, Mama, but I don’t appreciate people sneaking around and messing with me in my sleep,” I said. “I’m taking this thing off, and you can take it with you when you leave, which better be soon.”
But I wasn’t taking it off. It didn’t have a clasp or a joint or any way I could see to open it or loosen it.
“Mama-” But she was gone. I got up and stepped on a chunk of my broken desk and cussed some more and was still cussing when Mister Smith poked his head through my door.
“A child brings a message,” he said. A grime-streaked street urchin darted past the Troll and marched right up to me, a roll of paper gripped tight in his grimy little fist.
No fear in that kid’s eyes, not even for Trolls. I guess the street takes that early, these days.
“You Markhat?”
“I am.”
He handed me the paper. “They said you’d feed me.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Not today. But go next door-the door with the cards on it. Ask for Mama Hog. Tell her Markhat sent you. She’ll feed you till you bust.”
He went. I snickered and unrolled the paper. There was a map of the streets down by the river. An arrow pointed to the rear of a warehouse, the fifth one south of the big barge-docks. A hand-drawn clock lay at the arrow’s tail; the hands were both straight up. One stick figure stood at the door; three other, much larger stick figures stayed back in the street.
“What does it say?” asked Mister Smith.
“We meet them behind a certain warehouse, down by the river,” I said. “At midnight. Vampire lunchtime. I go in alone.”
Trolls grumbled.
“Mister Chin feels we should go now,” said Mister Smith. “Mister Jones is undecided.”
I yanked a clean shirt out of the pile in the floor. “They won’t have your cousin’s remains at the warehouse, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said. “Going early would just hack them off. They’ll be watching. You can bet on that.”
“They are without honor,” said Mister Smith.
“They are indeed,” I said. “And they’ll expect us to be the same.”
“So we wait, and we go, and we trust they will keep their bargain?”
“We do,” I said. “It’s that, or just declare war. And they’ll never hand it over if we start shoving. Trust me on this, Walking Stone. The rich don’t get richer by giving things up easy.”
Mister Smith’s big owl eyes bored into mine. “Haverlock would fight to keep a bauble, a thing of no worth?”
“Yep.” I hunted down socks as an excuse to look away.
“But gold-” he dangled the three chunks of gold he wore around his neck “-this yellow metal-it is worth fighting for? Worth dying for?”
“It isn’t the metal,” I said. “It’s what it will buy.”
“Will gold buy you life, my brother?”
I found a shoe. “It’ll buy roofs that don’t leak and food that doesn’t kill you. And a lot else. Around here, that’ll pass for life. Any day.” I stood. Mama Hog’s bracelet was still on my wrist, and I was tempted to ask Mister Smith if he wouldn’t mind tearing it off.
A second glance at a meaty Troll-paw and I pulled my shirtsleeve down instead. “I need a bath and a meal,” I said. “What about you gentlemen?”
“We will bathe in mountain streams ‘ere long,” said Mister Smith. “But a meal-have you sellers of fish, hereabouts?”
“We do,” I said. “Tell you what-you boys watch my back while I visit the bath house up the street, and I’ll treat you to a wagonload of Brown River catfish. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Mister Smith. His claws popped out an inch, and his big wet Troll eyes got wider. “Are these, perhaps, large catfish?”
“Big as my arms,” I said. “Let’s go. Big night ahead.” Last night ahead, said a snarky little voice in the back of my mind.
We went. The bracelet chafed and pulled hairs.
As I passed by Mama Hog’s, I smelled something cooking and hoped the kid ate like a Troll.
A wagonload of day-old catfish costs a crown and three jerks. I could have made twice that back by charging admission to the small crowd that watched my Trolls eat by tossing whole, raw catfish straight up and then leaping to gobble them out of the air as they fell.
“I always wanted to join the circus,” I told the Misters when the catfish and the crowds were gone. We were all stretched out on the grass under an old water-oak in Rannit’s one and only park. Kids were flying devil-faced kites on a green hill across from us. A woman and a manicured poodle-dog got caught in a Troll-belch of catfish fumes and ran off, yipping and shrieking.
“You should join this circus, then,” said Mister Smith.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “After tonight, maybe I will. If there is an after.”
“The spirits tell me all will be well,” replied Mister Smith. “They say our goals will all be met.”
“Spirits ever wrong?” I asked.
Mister Smith chuckled. “All the time,” he said. “But they mean well.”
I shut up and watched the grinning devil kites until the sun got fat and sank.
A chill hit the air. My Troll warriors belched catfish and scratched and sat up, all business.
“It was fun, gentlemen,” I said. “All of it. But we’ve got work to do.”
“We have shared a meal, shared a day,” said Mister Chin.
“We thank you,” said Mister Jones.
I stood and brushed grass off my butt. “You’re welcome, Walking Stones, the honor was mine,” I said, hoping that would suffice. Their words had the sound of some Walking Stone ritual, but it wasn’t one I knew.
Mister Smith yawned again and grumbled something, and after I pointed them toward the River we headed out.
The walk would take us until well after dark.
We’d be at the waterfront by Curfew.
And then, we’d see if Mister Smith’s well-meaning spirits had improved their foresight any since the War.
Night fell. Curfew fell. Drizzle fell. We were so close to the Brown River I could smell the cattle-barges through the stench of slaughter houses and paper mills.
Trolls can shut their nostrils, and hold them shut. I hadn’t known that. They were doing it now, except for Mister Smith, who kept his nose open to sniff for half-dead.
About half past the tenth bell, the drizzle became a downpour. That kept the Watch off us-they might wander around with the half-dead, but you won’t catch them getting wet-and left the night so dark and loud I could have paraded twenty Trolls with flags down the street and no one would have noticed.
So we found a burned-out building with two walls and a rubble heap standing and tried to spot half-dead through the storm. I’d wrapped a string around my nightstick and put it around my neck: as long as the stick touched my skin, night was day in shades of sickly green. The Haverlock warehouse was just ahead, all shadow and gloom.
Across town, down at the Square, the big old bells rang out eleven times. Nothing moved on our street. A barge drifted by our backs, a few lamps guttering, stinking of the mound of garbage that it bore. Mister Smith slammed his nostrils shut until the wind shifted.
Time passed. Then the bells on the Square boomed once, marking the half-hour.
My back ached and rain was running down it and no hat in the world can keep a driving rain out of your eyes.
“I’ve had it, boys,” I said. “Early or not, it’s time to go and knock on a door. Shall we?”
They rose. I watched them tower up and up and took what comfort I could from their bulk.
“We go forth as one,” boomed Mister Smith.
“Our cause is just,” said Mister Chin.
“Our hearts are brave,” said Mister Jones.
“My ass is wet,” I said.
We walked out in the rain. The street was empty. The warehouse was dark.
Mama Hog’s bracelet got hot. Not hot enough to burn me, but hot enough get my attention. I swatted it and yanked on it, but I swear it pulled itself tighter.
Mister Smith saw. His claws came out, and he barked something to the other Misters.
Dark, windowless warehouses loomed around us like canyon walls. The rain sleeted down sideways, soaking man and Trolls alike. Up close, I noticed that water slid off the Misters without wetting their fur.
Hut two three four. We’d fallen into step, gods know why-too much Army time, on both sides, I guess.
A light flared in the double-doors ahead. The window wasn’t glass, just a slitted square of close-set iron slats, but I could see a silhouette beyond it. It might have been Liam, or it might have been the Regent; no way to tell but one.
I stopped. The Misters stopped with me. “You boys keep an eye out,” I said. “And beat it back to the mountains if I’m not back by the twelfth bell.”
“We will not abandon you, Finder,” said Mister Smith. “We came for what is ours. We leave with the bones of our kin, and we leave with you. Tell them.”
The light in the door flickered and guttered like a single candle. Mama Hog’s bracelet felt like it was trying to crawl around widdershins on my wrist.
I pulled down my hat and marched to that door.
It opened before I reached it. Somebody had oiled the hinges, because it opened without a sound.
I stepped inside. The candle sported a pale hand and part of an arm; it beckoned me forward and drifted down a dark hall.
I followed. I’d gone maybe ten feet when my candle-bearer reached a waist-high basket and put the candle on the lid. Then he vanished, quiet as the ghost he probably was.
I walked to the basket. My own footsteps crunched and squeaked, loud in the tomblike silence. I picked up the candle and lifted the lid.
There, wrapped in red velvet, was a head.
Liam’s head.
His pale, dry eyes rolled, seeking mine, meeting them. His mouth made empty words I could not read.
I was just about to say something-what, I’m not sure-when the candle flame puffed out, the door behind me slammed shut and a bag with a cord sewn into its mouth fell over my head.
The cord went tight. I kicked back behind me and flailed with my fists and none of that stopped the darkness from dragging me under.