by Jackson Lear
He turned my way. “What the hell, Raike?”
“I need you to cover for me.”
“Can’t. We’re in Vanguard’s territory. If someone sees you here, there’s going to be blood.”
“There’ll be words, not blood.”
“Let’s not stay around to find out if either of us is right. I’m not the only one the Captain sent after you.”
My nerves started to betray me. “Who else?”
“Smoker – thanks to him telling you about this shit –, Third-Eye, and Greaser.”
All right, so he sent a rattler and two mages after me.
Fuck.
I mean … Greaser I could handle. The other two would require some finessing. I’ve already wasted a day of theirs when I should’ve known better. There’d be payback. Maybe I could buy them off with a woman for the night, but that’s a big ‘maybe’. Despite our reputation we’re not all a slave to what’s beneath a woman’s undergarments. Once you’ve paid for a few you start to find it isn’t exactly a challenge anymore and you have the same conversation over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun, but her liking your money more than you starts to wear a little thin.
Smoker and Third-Eye would be a problem. Neither of them had much love for me, which is probably why the Captain sent them along as there was little chance of me talking my way onto their good side. Smoothing things out with them would be long and costly.
“The watch are coming,” said Lieutenant. “Let them handle this. I put Greaser and Smoker on the rooftops, keeping an eye out for another company. The longer we’re here, the more likely we are to be seen. Let’s go.”
The kid in the doorway beyond the corridor stared back at me.
“I have one last person here to talk to,” I said.
“Nope. This has nothing to do with you, unless you actually know the girl.”
“I don’t.”
“She’s not your long lost sister is she? Or daughter?”
“Not in this part of town.”
“Then is this about the other missing one? Kiera?”
Hearing him say her name out loud was as strong as a slap in the face. And apparently I’m not a very good actor when I’m tired.
Lieutenant passed it off as no big deal. “Everyone has a story. Yours came out one night.”
I caught sight of the kid again. He moved closer to us to get a better listen. On his first day in the company we would probably have called him Seether.
I held the note out for Lieutenant to read. “Double check this for me, will you?”
Lieutenant growled at me like he was the Captain, but he was too young to pull off the right kind of menace, plus I’ve seen him try to swing a sword before. The only real hold he had over me was that he was there on the Captain’s orders and not because he could actually bundle me in a sack and drag me back across town. Not that he would try it. Pulling a weapon on anyone in the company, for any reason, got you the tank. Few high-borns would ever consider such a punishment but when you’re dealing with habitual lowlifes who have a long history of killing others, sometimes drastic measures are needed to keep us in check.
The tank in question is a repurposed water trough. We’d lie you flat on your back and chain you to the bottom, then one by one we pour a jug of water over you until you drown. We’re all in it together. That might sound unnecessary but we’re conditioned not to fear a knife fight or a sword coming our way. We practice for years to deal with that. But the absolute blind panic of drowning? No amount of training will help you when it comes time to take that killing breath.
If you’re really lucky, the Captain would spare your life with the last jug. You wouldn’t know this, of course. You’ve kicked and screamed and begged. The very tip of your lips would be the only thing poking out of the water. We’d throw in some stinging eels, force you to thrash about as they attacked you, and we might even make a game of it and add in a couple of rats, grease up the sides of the tank so they can’t escape and have a battle of eels against vermin. We’d cheer and lay bets on who was going to win. I’ll say that we’re usually somewhat relieved at this point because the Captain has spared your life, all you have to do is out-live the scrambling rats and stinging eels, then we’d let you out.
So, under no circumstance should you ever pull a knife on any of your brothers in the company. And: don’t disobey the Captain.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Lieutenant’s scowl over me eased back a notch as he stared at the note. “It says exactly what you think it says.”
“Tell me.”
“‘Her death will live on for decades.’”
“Why? Why leave a note? Why take someone who doesn’t matter and risk being caught by leaving this behind? If you’re going to leave a note for someone then take one of the high-borns. Use it as a threat against their family. But this girl? There’s no reason for it. She’s no one. So why do it?”
Lieutenant hesitated, trying to find a counter argument.
“We’re not going to spend all day here and we’ll be gone before anyone from Vanguard is even awake so just … give me a moment.”
Lieutenant glanced around the dingy room, taking in the stale air of body odor that had seeped into the floor, walls, and ceiling. “You better be real quick about it.”
I waved the kid over. Better to bring him to the site of his friend’s mattress and poke at those wounds inside him than do this in the corridor where the sestas could interfere. Beside me, Lieutenant was doing his best to look neutral. The Captain had recently told him that scowling would line his face.
I must admit, I had no idea how old the kid was. Young enough for his voice to still sound like a child’s, old enough to know that men don’t cry. Definitely old enough to understand anger.
“What happened to Día?” I asked.
The kid pulled his lips back, his whole jaw looking like he needed a breather between chews of lemon pulp as the sourness dripped under his tongue. “The Eyeless Ghost took her.”
Lieutenant rolled his eyes, turned, and muttered under his breath. “Well, we’re done here.”
“Wait,” I said to Lieutenant before turning back to the kid. “Why do you say that?”
The kid was battling his own demons inside – keep silent about everything his friends had been up to, or confess to a crime that would get him kicked out of the orphanage. “She saw it. A ghost came into the room and told her she was going to be taken.”
I started to fear that Lieutenant had a point in not trusting the kid. “Did anyone else see this ghost?”
“Yes.”
I thought as much. “The girls in here were trying to do magic, weren’t they?”
The kid gave me a nervous nod.
“They were trying to speak to the dead?”
His eyes widened at me like I was a soothsayer or mind reader. Of course they wanted to speak to the dead. That’s the first thing everyone tries to do, orphan or not.
“Was this Día’s first time using magic?”
The kid sunk his head into a nod.
“And it ended up being more powerful than she expected?”
He nodded right back at me. “Caen told her how to do it, that you stay up all night and focus on what you want.”
“When was this?”
“On the full moon, I think.”
“The one from last month?”
“Yes.”
Which put it about twenty days before she was taken. “Before trying to speak to a ghost, how long had she been awake?”
“All night.”
Lieutenant grunted at me from the window. I imagine he was doing his best not to roll his eyes. Now, I’m not one for crapping on anyone’s first time at trying magic but the severity of power in a girl’s dormitory on such an occasion is like the first time you get drunk with your friends: you assure them that you’re a master of the spirit, you’ve been drunk so many times you’ve lost count and you can out-drink anyone who dares to chal
lenge you. Then, one cup later, you’re puking your guts up, convinced that no one has ever been that drunk before and lived to tell the tale. In short, at that age what you convinced yourself was certain death is nothing more than the start of a good evening as an adult.
“Did Día know when she was going to be taken? Or where to?”
The kid shook his head.
“Did she know why she was going to be taken and not one of the others?”
Another shake of his head. Lieutenant sighed loudly from the window. The kid pressed on. “The girls all saw it happen. The ghost came in, leaned in towards Día like it could’ve kissed her and said: ‘You.’ All the girls screamed at the same time.”
“Then it disappeared?”
Finally, a nod.
“Ghosts don’t write notes,” said Lieutenant.
“But they exist, don’t they?” said the kid. “When you stay awake for too long, you see ghosts?”
“How do you know about that?” I asked.
The kid shrugged, the source of that tidbit lost somewhere in his terrified mind.
“What’s your name?”
“Kel.”
“I want you to remember something: ghosts can’t touch you. Whoever carried her away, it was a person. A real person. Even if ghosts are real, it takes a long time before you can see them. Even then, only you can see them, if they’re there. I won’t be able to see the ghosts you can see and my friend here won’t be able to see the ones I see. The girls weren’t tired enough to see a ghost. Something scared them, one screamed, the rest screamed, and it’s just a coincidence that this happened right before Día disappeared.”
I hoped he would’ve been at least relieved to hear that. Instead he balled up both fists, a geyser of anger becoming too much for him to deal with. It was probably the first time in his life he had ever felt something as powerful as that emotion coursing through him. This time yesterday he might have happily joined the army in a year or two. Now he would’ve joined any company that would take him with a single, resolute reason: find whoever took his friend.
I pressed on. “If she escaped, is there a safe place she would go to?”
That brought him back to reality.
“A home she used to live in? Neighbors she used to see?”
“She lived in Miller’s Den. The lady across the street used to throw rocks at her until Día’s dad killed her. That’s why she’s here.”
“Where’s her dad?”
“Dead. They cut his head off the next day.”
“When was this?”
“A while ago. Día’s been here for years.”
I guess there are only three types of people who become mercenaries: those fresh out of the army, those on the run from the law, and youngsters with a grudge. The first lot are treated with suspicion until they prove themselves a criminal. The second are as paranoid as hell when they join our ranks, always looking over their shoulders and volunteering to do night work to avoid being seen. The third kind … we tire quickly of practicing with wooden swords and expect to move onto the real thing by lunch time on our first day.
I wanted to tell him it would be okay but he was old enough to smell bullshit when it was dumped on him. I even considered pointing him towards our company instead of serving in the army, but I couldn’t. No one in this part of town was supposed to know who I was or where I came from. It’s one thing leaving the compound without the Captain’s permission, it’s another entirely to invite the city watch to our doorstep because some asshole promised a kid that we would find his missing friend no matter what it took.
Lieutenant turned from the window. “The watch are here. We have to go.”
“It talked to her,” said the kid, catching me as I checked the road below. “It said she would be remembered for decades.”
I turned, studying the kid as carefully as possible. “She said that, or did you hear one of the sestas say it last night?”
“Both. It happened before.”
“Yeah.” I pointed to the far end of the room. “A girl down there disappeared twenty years ago.”
The kid’s eyes should’ve widened in fear. Or, he should’ve agreed with a, ‘I know.’ Instead, he shook his head back at me. “Not just her. Two others from my old orphanage disappeared. The Eyeless Ghost is real. I’ve seen it twice.”
Chapter Four
“The city watch are downstairs and they’re coming into this room,” said Lieutenant. “Son? It’s been nice talking to you but we’re leaving. Our Captain needs to see us.”
“How many others have disappeared?” I asked.
“Three that I know of,” said the kid.
“Who?”
“One when Sesta Nevah said she was younger than me, and two boys from my old orphanage.”
“Where did you live before this?”
“Broker’s Wharf.”
He’s certainly moved up a rung on the ladder. There, the merchants sit on the long steps in front of a row of derelict buildings with baskets of their wares. They’ll spend their day chipping away at a wooden block with sharpened stone. You could stretch your arms out and reach both sides of the street. On it went, miles of twisting roads crammed full of fisherman, haulers, beggars, and barely tamed dogs.
“Why did you leave?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to be taken.”
“Where do you work now?”
A look of humiliation crossed his eyes. “The dye house.”
He was going to be slapped around for taking the day off, not just by the asshole who ran the place but from Sesta Silvia and her cane as well. At best Kel would get a talking to, but given the burn-everything-in-sight intensity in his eyes I’d say this wasn’t the first time he had ever skipped out on a job.
A clatter from the front of the orphanage rang through the halls. Someone had dropped a large, heavy bowl. It rattled against the uneven tiles and vibrated to a stop. One of the sestas was discreetly telling us to get out. Now.
Lieutenant might be wonderful with a story or two but you don’t ever want to be standing near him when he’s forced to draw his sword. The problem with being the face of the company is that you’re often given an absurdly long weapon, a symbol of your manhood and status within the company. It’s a fine sword as well; without question the most expensive weapon in our arsenal, but the only time he ever killed someone with it was through sheer luck.
“Let’s walk Kel to work,” I said.
Lieutenant glared back at me. “I’m supposed to walk you back to the compound.”
I turned to the kid. “If we go now we’ll make sure your boss treats you fairly for being late.”
More fear in his eyes. A quick look of escape.
“Or we’ll walk you close enough,” said Lieutenant. “No need to let your boss see us. That might get you into more trouble than you’re already in.”
“Okay,” murmured the kid.
“How do we get out of here?” asked Lieutenant.
“Through the window in that room,” I said, pointing, and surprising the kid with my psychic insight into the layout of the building.
There were two floors to the orphanage, though depending on where the road dipped outside it could easily be mistaken for three. I headed past my old bedroom and hurried Kel and Lieutenant into the room two doors down. It had the shortest drop to the ground from the window. This room was usually reserved for the older, well-behaved boys. If anyone climbed in from outside, the boys were expected to raise hell. My old room had a higher drop to the ground. The girls’ on the other side of the building was even higher off the ground than that while still being on the same level inside as the boys’. I would love to tell you that it was a wild time of debauchery with thirty girls just a stone’s throw from my mattress, but one of the sestas slept on a chair in the corridor between the boys’ and girls’ rooms. If anyone came out of their room she would strike them senseless and then scream into their bedroom, beating everyone in there as punishment for not being able to d
eter such deviant behavior. The punished occupants were then put to work, scrubbing the floors all night, cleaning the communal chamber pots, mending the cut-up sacks which were used as curtains, anything that the sestas could think of that would make us miserable.
I helped Kel out the window. And because I needed him to save my ass, I helped Lieutenant down as well. The drop was an unexpected surprise. Climbing out of any window and leaping to the ground was never worth a second thought when I was Kel’s age. Now, despite it being only a single story drop, all I could think was that this was going to hurt if I screwed the landing. And if I did, I’d be limping back to the compound instead of walking it off like Kel was capable of.
Thankfully it hadn’t rained during the night. The roads in Red Hill were pebbled, slick after every storm, and were responsible for more broken bones than a barroom brawl. We landed, pressed ourselves against the wall, and allowed Lieutenant to peer around the corner towards the doorway. Then, he quickly searched every other direction he could see.
“She’s an orphan,” I said. “No one else is coming.”
“They’re not the ones I’m worried about.”
Maybe it was as a result of being up all night, but I’m pretty sure Lieutenant should’ve known that if our company isn’t stationed right next to a grubby orphanage then no one else’s would be either.
The two watchmen who came to the orphanage were indeed kids themselves, certainly too young to have served their fourteen years in the army. That proved the abduction meant little to the city watch. I’m guessing they only came because one of the sestas berated a sergeant for not coming last night. The two kids were still getting used to the weight of their spears. The leather padding around their chests and shoulders fitted well. Definitely not new, though. Hand-me-downs. Their brown tunics were equally worn and distressed, frayed around the hems. Their early morning drawl sounded through the street as they spoke to Sesta Silvia. She mentioned the note. I still had it with me. The watchmen didn’t ask to see it, probably because they could read about as well as I could.