Kzine Issue 18

by Graeme Hurry

  The man untied the string and delicately removed the wadded, old newspapers used for packing. His eyebrows jumped. “Queen Ilja’s set?”

  He wouldn’t mean it literally. There were twenty tea sets that looked like this, all hand-crafted by the same potter, made famous by history’s favorite queen. Except this one actually was Ilja’s personal set. Cedric’s grandmother had stolen it during the Embargo Riots, nearly eighty years ago. Not that it would do anything for Cedric’s bargaining power; stolen royal artifacts had a habit of being repossessed.

  “Yes,” Cedric said. “My grandmother’s.”

  “Good God.” The man unpacked the tea pot and five sets of cups and saucers. “I haven’t seen one in years. It’s in incredibly good shape.”

  “I was quoted two thousand for it at the auction house.”

  Lies, but he’d spent enough time around Mercedes to understand the worth of sentimental relics.

  The shop owner’s brow furrowed. “Well yes, maybe at an auction house. Certainly not here, I need to make a profit. Take it to auction if that’s how much you want.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got bills to pay.”

  “I’ll give you nine hundred.”

  Cedric flatly countered. “Nineteen-fifty.”

  “One thousand.”

  “Nineteen-twenty-five.”

  “Eleven-hundred.”

  “Nineteen-hundred.”

  The man’s expression soured. “Look, lad, you don’t seem like an idiot. I want it, but not enough to pay more than fifteen-hundred.”

  Cedric glanced at the door. He wanted to take his tea set and leave. Give it to Mercedes, tell her what it really was and let her fence it for the twenty-thousand it was worth. But he didn’t have time.

  “Fine,” he said. “Take it.”

  Cedric crossed his arms and watched the passing crowds through the window, while the man opened the cash box. He laid fifteen bills out onto the countertop, recounted them, and slid them closer to Cedric.

  “Sign here,” he said. “Confirms you’re selling, not pawning.”

  Cedric dipped a pen chained to the counter, signed, and stuffed the money into his inner breast pocket.

  “Pleasant day to you.” The man picked up the contract and blew on the signature.

  Cedric exited the shop and merged with the colorful crowds of Old Money, his coat a single spot of gray among the white and blue peerage. He made his way south, toward Slaughter Ward. As he walked the foot traffic lessened. No one went to Slaughter Ward unless they worked there. Or, God forbid, lived there.

  The streets turned from paving stones to mud, mostly to hide how much of it was shit, and Cedric began to see signs of his demise. Men fell in behind him, tailed him menacingly, and silhouetted figures on rooftops watched him. He was trespassing rival territory now, yet it still felt more comfortable than Old Money.

  By the time he reached the small side entrance of a building marked SLAUGHTERHOUSE – SWINE, he had accumulated an entourage of six. He pounded on the door and waited. A moment later a peek slot slid open, and Garrett’s familiar eyes appeared, bi-colored and cock-eyed. A vague shudder of discomfort ran up Cedric’s spine as one muddy brown eye stared down at him, its blue partner rolling off to the side.

  The slot shut and the door swung open. Garrett stood in the doorway. He was what ladies called classically handsome, or he would be, if it weren’t for the eyes.

  “Cedric,” he said. “Looks like my boys didn’t have to run you down after all. Come on.”

  He led Cedric into the building. The cavernous room was filled with broken-down machinery — a hanging conveyor line, blood gutters, and two enormous ice-room doors locked tight, everything completely rusted over. The only working piece in the whole building was the vertical band saw at the far end of the room, and these days it wasn’t used on pigs.

  He followed the lanky gangster around the room’s perimeter and up a stairway to the second floor. They walked right past the manager’s office and climbed onto a catwalk, used for gaslight maintenance.

  Cedric’s stomach dropped as he picked his way along the catwalk behind Garrett, who strode like a man with firm earth beneath his feet. In the far corner, where the catwalk abutted the wall, Garrett rapped against the brickwork. A section of the wall slid away in a shower of red dust, and Garrett ushered Cedric into the bolt hole.

  The room was empty, save for a blackjack table. Milk Eyes sat there alone, dealing himself one hand after another. He stared at each card for a moment with a cloudy, blind gaze before dealing the next. He hit twenty-one every time.

  “Cedric,” Milk Eyes said, eyes still on the table. “I think this might be the first time someone’s paid me what I quoted for a job, no interest accrued. Consider yourself the newest wonder of the world.”

  He nodded to Garrett, who relieved Cedric of the fifteen-hundred in his breast pocket. Despite the cock-eye, Garrett could still spot a bill bulge like the career pocket-charmer he was. He counted the bills casually, and then froze. His good eye flicked over to Cedric, and he recounted. He smiled and tossed the wad on the table.

  “He’s five hundred short.”

  “Five hundred.” Milk Eyes riffled his cards, triple cut, and set them down in a neat stack. He folded his hands on the green felt top. “That’s a lot, Cedric.”

  Cedric wished he were back out on the catwalk. Robbing the pawn shop. Stowed away on a barge to anywhere. But you didn’t run from Milk Eyes.

  Cedric injected false bravado into his voice. “You botched the job, so I gave myself a discount.”

  “I botched the job,” Milk Eyes repeated. He narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, gazing at the ceiling. Anyone in the business knew Milk Eyes wasn’t blind. The real question was where his sight came from, because it wasn’t flesh and blood in those eye-sockets.

  “You paid for one death and a twelve-foot grave. You got one death and a twelve-foot grave. As for discounts, I already gave you one, thanks to mutual interest and the valuable part you played. Where’s your problem?”

  “You were a week late, and you know what Renoir did with that extra time. He came back on Saturday and beat my sister into the floorboards. That is exactly what I hired you to prevent.”

  “You didn’t hire me to prevent anything. You hired me to kill a man, a man I also wanted dead. It’s not my fault your sister jumped the wrong bone.”

  “It’s your fault you couldn’t stick to contract. You’re soft, you’ve got no control—the other Families say you’re getting weak. I wish I had known they were right. I would have gone to The Duke.”

  Never mind the fact that The Duke worked out of Old Money and didn’t look at people like Cedric, much less do business. After a moment Milk Eyes sat forward and dealt himself another twenty-one.

  “You know why they call me weak? Not because I’m old. It’s because I wait, I don’t move, and they can’t figure out why. It’s always been this way. There were other Families who called me weak. Eventually I buried them deep, made way for new patriarchs, made way for The Duke and your cunning Abbess of Blame. Where did she even get that name, anyway? Tawdry bitch.”

  He rose and walked around the table. Milk Eyes was a mountain of muscle and bone, and in his heart Cedric knew the man wasn’t weak. He wore age like a cape to conceal his secrets. He gazed down at Cedric with those blank, unsettling eyes. Like stones embedded in his skull. “It’s a cycle,” he said, “and the wheel is about to turn again.”

  “A cycle?” Cedric breathed. He should be dead by now. This wasn’t going how he expected.

  “Yes. You’re right, The Duke and Abbess think I’m weak, so they need to go. For the last decade they couldn’t understand why they feared me, only knew they should. A few years ago they started to get more confident, and I allowed it. Confident competition is good. Now they’re overconfident, and it’s time they went. Do you remember what I said when you came to me a few months ago?”

  Cedric blinked. “You said we were in a uniqu
e position to help each other.”

  But they hadn’t helped each other. Cedric had helped Milk Eyes, and Grace wound up dead.

  “Good memory,” Milk Eyes said. “And I’ll say it again. Normally I would skin you alive for what you said to me today. Maybe that’s what you wanted, to stick it to me for what happened to your sister, but I’m not done with you. You’re going to help me put the other patriarchs in the ground.”

  Fuck you. The words caught on Cedric’s lip, hung there like a last drop of lifeblood. He sucked that drop back in, holding Milk Eyes’ predatory gaze.

  “How?”

  Milk Eyes smiled. “Cedric. Who did I murder for you?”

  For Cedric? Milk Eyes had murdered for himself. “My sister’s husband.”

  “Wrong. I murdered Abbess of Blame’s lieutenant. Who’s next in line for that position?”

  Oh. “Me.”

  “Yes, you. I’ve called a conclave of the Families two days from now. The Duke and Abbess both accepted. We’re each to bring our two lieutenants and no one else. You help me put them down and I’ll forgive what you said here tonight. You can work to pay off the five hundred you shorted me.”

  Cedric looked to Garrett, whose face had gone stony and flat. They’d grown up together, back before alliances, back when people actually survived street fights with little more than bruises–or a cock-eye. Garrett knew Cedric uncomfortably well, and Cedric knew Garrett could hold a grudge like no other. There was a reason they’d been drafted into separate Families. Garrett would not be happy about this.

  “Two days from now?” Cedric said. The bud of an idea had begun to blossom, but two days was nothing.

  “Two days.”

  “How am I supposed to get a gun in?”

  “Bringing a gun is expected, Cedric,” Milk Eyes said. “But in a three-way standoff, the first to shoot is the second to die. That’s tension even I’m not willing to break. Not without a little tweaking.”

  “I see.” After a moment another completely unrelated thought came to Cedric. “There’s no way I came here unseen this time. Not with Garrett’s troop following me like a pack of half-wits. Abbess will squeeze me as soon as I’m back.”

  Milk Eyes used his forefinger to slowly flick the top five cards off the deck. Ace, two, two, two, four. “I’ve had this all planned from the start, Cedric.”

  Cedric bit his cheek. “All this.” He managed to keep a level tone.

  Milk Eyes looked up. “Oh. Not Grace, no. That was an accident.”

  Cedric couldn’t say which was worse–the thought that Milk Eyes was lying, or that he couldn’t be bothered to account for the one detail that mattered to Cedric. Not that it mattered now. None of it mattered now.

  “As I was saying,” Milk Eyes continued, “I planned for all this. No one saw you today who I didn’t intend to. Go home by the same route you came, and get ready for the conclave.”

  He nodded to Garrett, who took Cedric by the elbow and guided him back through the hidden door. As they walked along the catwalk Garrett’s frustration hung palpably in the silence.

  “How much are you worth to Milk Eyes?” Cedric asked. He knew what Garrett was thinking. “You don’t want me at that conclave, don’t want me worming out of the grave, want to finish me off? Think he might not kill you for it?”

  Cedric stopped at the end of the catwalk and spun, standing nose-to-chin with the taller gangster. “Don’t cross me. I’ll finish what I started and put a wobble in your other eye, too.”

  Garrett said nothing, and Cedric took a backward step down from the catwalk. Garret stalked into the slaughter floor manager’s office and slammed the door with a rusty screech. Cedric saw himself out.

  Outside the slaughterhouse he paused, listening to the rain and watching the overcast sky. After a moment he spit a small, glass poison capsule into his hand and slipped it in his pocket. He hadn’t expected to see the far side of noon, just as he hadn’t seen this opportunity coming. Two days wasn’t much time. Although decisions were so much easier to make now that he had nothing to lose.

  * * *

  That night Cedric stood watch outside the Abbey. He’d spent the day making subtle queries throughout the city, and now he was bone tired. A lit cigarette hung from his fingertips, forgotten, slowly burning down to the stub.

  It was close to midnight, the shift almost up. Mercedes stood beside him on watch, and that alone indicated something afoot. She was Abbess’ other lieutenant and usually wouldn’t pull regular watch duty for less than a barrel of bitter. She hadn’t said a word all night. Perhaps she could sense he was still in a mood, but as the end of the watch approached she stirred.

  “Hey,” Mercedes said.

  She had a nice voice, low without being mannish. He’d always liked that about her. Among other things.

  “Everything work out all right?”

  Cedric inhaled deeply, like surfacing from a dream. He took a drag from his cigarette and flicked it into a nearby sewage drain

  “Fine. This morning I thought I might kill myself, but now I think I’ll just get drunk instead.”

  Mercedes didn’t bat an eye. “Yeah. That’s a good second option.”

  Fog rolled around them, and street lights guttered in the wind. Standing watch during the rainy season was always the worst. Dampness clung to him like spider silk.

  After a moment Mercedes said, “I wouldn’t go home right away. Abbess wants to talk to you.”

  Cedric’s stomach flipped. He steadied the tremor in his voice. “She still thinks I killed Renoir.”

  “No. She knows you didn’t, although no one would blame you for it. This is about something else.”

  Too tired to fake curiosity, Cedric lapsed back into silence. Mercedes would chalk it up to depression. A few minutes later the heavy, iron-clad door behind them unlocked and swung inward. One of the new recruits stood in the doorway, although new was a relative term. None of the old Families worked with anyone who didn’t already have a lifetime of experience—a true curriculum vitae.

  “Hey,” he said, “Abbess wants you. Both of you.”

  They followed the rookie inside, past their watch replacements, and through the vats of brewing beer. Unlike Milk Eyes, Abbess of Blame still used her facilities. At the back of the room they climbed up the side of an empty vat, down the inside, and dropped through a hole into a small brick antechamber. Their escort knocked on a door and took a position standing guard outside.

  A shutter slid open and shut, then the entire door slid into the wall. Abbess motioned for them to enter. She took a seat at her desk, going over reams of files and invoices. She was a djinni with numbers, and she worked magic with an invoice or stock list, made money appear out of thin air. ‘Imaginary money’ she called it, and she preferred it to the real thing. According to her, it was the way of the future.

  Her dark hair hung in a thousand tiny braids over her shoulder like a sheaf of wheat. After a moment she set a paper aside and looked up. Tired but composed. Her usual state.

  “Sit, Cedric,” Abbess said. Cedric sat, and Mercedes stood behind him. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “I didn’t kill Renoir,” he said. Behind him Mercedes sighed, but Abbess would expect it. Cedric couldn’t deviate from expectations. “Although I wish I could have.”

  Abbess shook her head. “Be glad you didn’t. Whoever did is going to wind up sewn into a mainsail. Although you are here because Renoir died.”

  Cedric’s breath caught, pulse pounding in his ears.

  “I need a new lieutenant. You don’t have nearly as many connections as Renoir did, but you’ve got a sight more than anyone else. Present company excluded.”

  Mercedes knew every sour mercenary and dark-eyed assassin across the continent—from east to west, all the way down to the gates of Hell. Rumor had it she’d never done a job herself because so many people owed her favors, although if that was true, Cedric wondered why she didn’t just start her own Family.

  “I’ll
start working those connections,” Cedric said. There would be no pomp and circumstance over this promotion. Abbess would point and he would walk off a cliff if necessary. That’s how it worked.

  “Before that, there’s something else you need to know. There’s a Family conclave in two days. You and Mercedes will be coming.”

  Cedric narrowed his eyes. Cocked his head uncertainly. “A conclave?”

  “I suspect Milk Eyes wants to negotiate turf. We’ve been encroaching, especially The Duke, and he’s in no position to push back.”

  Cedric clamped down on his first instinct, the Family instinct bred into him over years on the street. The gut reaction to tell her everything. He wanted to. Milk Eyes had given him control of the situation. That was his out. He could tell Abbess everything, and she’d forgive him. Or at least, she wouldn’t stitch him into a mainsail. But he wouldn’t tell her, because Abbess had been lying to him—lying for a long time now.

  “Abbess,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Please.”

  “Did you know about Grace?”

  Abbess’ gaze dropped to the papers on her desk. “I knew about Renoir. He reflected the fight of his women, and Grace had a lot of fight, Cedric. In a way, she brought it on herself.”

  And Renoir had been too valuable to lose. That was the problem with Abbess; she saw everything in numbers. “I see. I know Renoir was a good friend.”

  Abbess tapped a finger on the paperwork. “Yes, and I’m still dealing with the fallout of losing him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Abbess of Blame favored him with a rare smile.

  “Thank you for being honest,” Cedric said, and rose from his chair. “I’ll be there for the conclave, Abbess.”

  And he’d be bringing a hell of a lot more fallout.

  * * *

  In the late hours of the night, Cedric wandered through the slums by the light of a sliver moon. The rotting hovels and slick streets made Slaughter Ward look like Old Money. Gangsters didn’t do business in the slums, immigrants didn’t rough out a few hard years there, and the slums didn’t exist on the city tax maps. People went to there to die, and that was it.