Kieran interjected the occasional dry comment in an amused rumble, and every word he spoke reached out and wrapped Ash in a sense of belonging.
The older ones remembered Kieran, and had to talk about how ridiculously tall he'd become, criticize his tattoos, and cluck over his scars. The younger ones seemed at first apprehensive of him, but were reassured by the others' acceptance. Ash got his fair share of attention too; praise for his pretty hair, laughter for his knobby knees.
Everyone wanted to know how long they were going to stay. Only Ami asked as if hoping to hurry them away. Ash supposed these women didn't see a lot of men who weren't interested in their physical charms, which probably made Kieran and Ash the ideal guests. All talk of the duration of their stay was met by the statement that it was up to Shou-Shou. They were all waiting for her.
When at last she arrived, she was wearing a walking dress of modest construction, carrying a pair of canvas shopping bags. These she thumped down on the table, saying, "Nothing's going to really fit you, Carrots. You wouldn't wake up when I wanted to ask your size. As for you, my boy, we're going to make you so handsome --" She paused, noticing what Kieran was wearing.
"Tell me you didn't go outside like that."
"Why would I? It's not a political statement, Shou-Shou. It's just a bedsheet."
"Am I missing something?" Ash said tentatively.
Kieran explained, "Traditional dress. Forbidden, like the braids. Have to wear pants." To Shou-Shou, "Tell me you found something long enough."
"Not nearly, but the boots will cover it." She upended one of the bags. Its contents occasioned oohs and aahs from the women. Most prominent were a pair of tall black boots, used but not used hard, with steel toes and half a dozen square steel buckles running up the calf of each. There was a pair of black leather trousers, a bit worn at the knees and seat but otherwise in good shape, also fastened with buckles. There was a black shirt of what looked like raw silk; not all its buttons matched. There was a long coat of gray leather that had probably once been black, and a large black kerchief embroidered with small red squares along the hem.
"I remember you always wore black whenever you could," said Shou-Shou. "Theatrical little monster that you are. Go on, see if it fits." When Kieran hesitated, she laughed and added,
"Child, what do you think you have that we ain't seen a million times?"
Kieran smiled back. "It's for your sakes, dears. The little ones would swoon." He collected the clothing and took it out of the room.
Ash reached for the other bag. "Is this for me?"
"Like I said, it might not fit." Shou-Shou scattered out a bunch of brown and blue. "It's your own fault for sleeping so hard."
"I don't remember you trying to wake me."
"Exactly."
What she'd brought for Ash didn't get much of a reaction from the women. He didn't blame them.
Tan canvas trousers, a white shirt, a medium-blue sweater unraveling at the hem, brown workman's boots, and a coat of brown sheepskin lined with its own fleece. It all looked functional, durable, and drab.
"Perfect," said Ash. "I just wish you'd got me a hat. My hair's kind of obvious."
"There's lots of Yelorreans around here," one of the women said.
"And you boys won't be wandering around town," Shou-Shou added. "That would be idiotic."
"That's a point."
Ash reached to gather the whole pile, at which Shou-Shou sighed exaggerated annoyance. "All this modesty. Just put the clothes on."
Ash opened his mouth to protest, then hit on a solution: he put the pants on underneath his robe.
There were groans, then laughter.
He had to borrow a belt to cinch in the trousers, which were too big in the waist, though the length was good. The shirt, similarly, billowed around his chest but was the right length in the arms. Putting socks on was luxurious after weeks of bare feet; the women laughed at the way he wriggled his toes and sighed. The boots were a bit too big, but they stayed on. "Marvelous," he said with a big smile.
"Put on the sweater," Shou-Shou ordered. "I got it to match your eyes."
"It's too hot." He held it up to his neck instead, batting his eyes to make them laugh.
Then Kieran came in, and turned his knees to water.
It didn't matter that the clothes were secondhand; Kieran looked like a bandit king. All that black made his skin look more gold than brown, made his eyes glow like a cat's. Made his teeth flash startlingly when he smiled. "You're a miracle, Shou-Shou. I owe you."
"Good," she said briskly. "Because I have a job for you. And some for you too, Red. Put away what you're not going to wear and get Jindallie to show you the holes in the fence."
This made the women laugh more, but Ash was content to be put to work. He let himself be handed a hammer and some nails and pointed at the front yard.
It was only fair, after all. Even secondhand, those clothes would not have been free; more to the point, by being here, he and Kieran had endangered the house. The local police might overlook the brothel's existence, especially if they got free service now and then, but they couldn't ignore the harboring of fugitives. Ash wondered what work Shou-Shou had found for Kieran.
Something in the house; cleaning, maybe. The thought of Kieran in an apron with a dust mop made him laugh.
Chapter Fifteen
"A couple things have changed around here since you've been gone."
"Well, yeah."
"I mean, in relation to your arrest, your supposed death."
"Tell me."
They were speaking Iavaian now, sitting in Shou-Shou's private office. She'd told him only a couple of the girls had any Iavaian, and that just pidgin, but she'd still closed the door. Kieran guessed that the job she had planned for him was a bit less wholesome than fixing fences.
Shou-Shou located a bottle of smuggled single-malt and two glasses before speaking again. She threw her whiskey back in one practiced motion. Kieran sipped his; he'd never liked being drunk.
"When you left the White Rose boys for the Dyers, it weakened them. You were so public about it. Everybody knew they didn't have their big threat anymore. And if they could let you go, maybe others could break loose. So there was chaos. A lot of splinter gangs. The Rose couldn't punish them all."
"I know that, Shou-Shou. I was there."
"I'm just explaining. You were down in it. This is what it looked like from outside."
"Okay. Go on."
"You know that the Rose was after you and the Dyer brothers. What maybe you don't know is that Kinter was obsessed with you. He let a lot of smaller fish get away."
Kieran nodded. He'd noticed that the old halfblood who ran the Rose had seemed especially stubborn about trying to have the Dyer gang destroyed. There'd been a period of several months when Kieran hadn't had to buy ammunition, getting all he needed off the corpses of the Rose boys sent against him. He hadn't known that Kinter was neglecting his other business.
"Sounds like him," he said.
"When the Watch got you, and the papers said they'd shot you, the Rose started gathering in its strays. They didn't like the way you turned into a martyr, but -- did you know someone wrote a song about you?"
"What?" Kieran laughed.
"It was pretty lame. Made you look like a hero, though, so of course the guy who wrote it got arrested. Anyway, after you 'died,' there was a bloody time, bodies turning up everywhere, the cops were afraid to go out. Now I'll come to the point: I guess Kinter wanted to make sure he had the whole town under his thumb, because he started expanding his interests. Now you can't find a bar, gambling house, or brothel that isn't paying protection to him. Including this one."
Kieran blinked, seeing the implications. "Oh."
"We're paying off the Rose and the police. It's cutting into our operating expenses. I want you to take care of it."
"Shou-Shou..." He shook his head slowly. "I can't stay. I have to disappear. You don't seem to understand, having me and Ash here could bri
ng the whole Watch down on you. They won't just shut you down, they'll put you all in work camps. Do you know what those women's work camps are really for?"
"Hell, we're just about doing that already. Cops and Rose boys scare our paying customers away
-- we're like their little private harem, only we have to pay our own rent and water bill. I'll take the risk."
"Well, I won't. What are you asking? You want me to stand at the door and pitch them out?"
"No." Her eyes glittered. "I want you to kill them all."
Kieran opened his mouth for another protest, and forgot to shut it as understanding hit him. He laughed in admiration. "Shou-Shou. You are an amazing woman. You don't just want this house, do you? You want the whole poppy trade."
She smiled. "It's about time I took a hand in this town. You know I'd do a better job. Kinter's old.
And he's a man -- they get too emotional. Present company excepted, of course."
"You can't afford me," Kieran said, though he felt like he was backpedalling. "All I really owe you is a meal and clothes and one night's lodging. What, twenty, thirty signets? I used to charge fifteen hundred thrones for a job."
"How often did you see it, though?"
He couldn't reply to that.
"Kinter held your fees. He just kept you smoked up. You only got cash when you worked for some out-of-town colleague of his."
"How do you know that?"
"Ami."
"What's she know?"
"Don't you recognize her? She used to be one of Kinter's little pets, until she started looking like a grown woman. Then he fobbed her off on me. This was while you were still a Rose boy. But I guess you didn't see those girls much, did you?"
Kieran was suddenly tired. He wanted to take Ash and go; get away from all this sordidness into the clean emptiness outside. "Shou-Shou, I'm grateful to you. I owe you. But I don't owe you that much."
She poured another brace of whiskeys and waited for him to drink. Then she said, "You've got no choice. Ami will have gone to them already. They'll be here as soon as they can load their guns and tie their shoes."
He stood, overturning his chair. "You bitch!"
"You should thank me. I'm handing you your revenge."
"You think I need that from you?"
"Kinter was the one who told the cops where you and Shan were hiding. He sacrificed that Burdock creature, that Pyrokinetic of his, to make sure they believed it and knew to call in the Watch." She watched calmly as he clenched his jaw. "Still want to leave your hometown in Kinter's hands?"
Through his teeth, Kieran said, "I don't give half a rat shit what Kinter does. And I'm not going to risk my ass just so you can turn into him."
"I saved something for you." She reached beneath the desk and brought out a bundle wrapped in a towel. It made a heavy thump when she set it on the desk.
Kieran brushed the towel aside; his hand eagerly grasped the thing this revealed before his eyes had quite seen it. His own gun. The one he'd had custom-made when he joined the Dyers. Hart & Sons' brand-new design, an auto-loading pistol that carried a magazine of nine bullets, his little advantage over his adversaries' five- and six-shot revolvers. He ran his thumb across its lapis-inlaid ebony grip, and the familiar weight and texture weakened his knees. He felt whole again.
He hadn't realized how weak and cornered he'd been without it.
Closing his eyes, he deliberately slowed his breathing until it was normal again. Then he took the time to examine the gun carefully. Shou-Shou had kept it in good shape. All four of its magazines were nestled in a further curl of the towel, and they were all loaded. Shou-Shou dug in her purse and produced two yellow pasteboard boxes, more familiar to him than the label of the whiskey bottle or the names of trains -- how many times had he said those words at various tack-and-saddle shops all over Iavaiah? Hart's Standard .40-Gauge Rimfire, Fifty Rounds. He snatched them into his pockets, scowling.
"You're overestimating me, you know. A lot. I'm not sure how many men I can handle at once. I hope you put Ash somewhere safe, this isn't his fight."
"Isn't it? Looks to me like he'd walk through hell for you."
"I don't want him to. I'm telling you, Shou-Shou, this is not going to work. You're just going to get a lot of your people killed."
She sniffed. Stood, put away the bottle, rolled her shoulders. "Probably about time to get ready.
Now, don't get stupid just to prove me wrong. You know you can do this, Kai."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, and slammed out of the room.
As he stormed to the front door, he heard Shou-Shou in the kitchen telling the girls to go upstairs. Kieran grabbed Ash's bundled coat and sweater off the hooks by the front door. He hated to walk out on a debt like this, but Shou-Shou was asking too much. What she wanted was impossible.
Maybe she'd fed him a few times over the years. It might even have kept him alive once or twice when he wouldn't have made it otherwise. But she hadn't kept his mother from getting killed.
She'd waited just a little too long before taking over. Now she wanted to be Kinter. Let her. But not with Kieran's help. He threw open the front door.
They were standing in the yard. Three of them, and Ash, looking wild-eyed with a pistol pressed to his throat.
Kieran's options flashed before his eyes, and every single one of them was unacceptable. The fear on Ash's face was unacceptable. The sudden flame of fury rising in him was unacceptable.
He couldn't act, couldn't not act; his mind was reduced to a single glyph of refusal. Half a second later, he was a passenger, and something else had the reins.
He ducked back inside and slammed the door. In the same motion he dropped to the floor and rolled aside. A rifle bullet splintered a hole in the door. Missed him by a mile. He heard a startled sound from the direction of the stairs, someone frightened by the gunshot, but that wasn't his problem. Drawing as he dashed across the room, he put his other hand in his pocket and came out with all his spare clips arrayed between his fingers.
He darted for the back door, dropping to one knee as it began to open. He had put himself in the shadow of the stove, where his dark shape would blend with the black iron and confuse the eye.
He didn't wait to see the man's face. As soon as the door was out of his way, he opened fire.
Luck was with him; his first adversary had pushed at the door, rather than holding it, and when he fell backwards he didn't close it. There were a few scattered thumps and clangs as the Rose boys beyond the dead man tried to find a target, drowned by the thunder of the Hart. Kieran felt their deaths, one after another, like hot breaths on his skin, and then there was no one alive out there. He dropped his clip and slammed another home as he dove back into the front room, making for the shadow of the stairs.
He wasn't quite there when two of the three from the front yard burst in, firing at random. They were using a tactic common in gang warfare -- the usual human urge when bullets are flying is to freeze or run, self-preservation conquering any urge to fight. Those who could return fire would do so wildly, accelerated heartbeat shaking their aim. But all Kieran saw was a pair of targets; everything else was simply gone, the hammer of gunfire just so much background noise. He put holes in the two Rose boys until they stopped being people. There was still a round left in the clip, but he dropped it anyway, not certain what he'd find outside. Not a conscious thought, just the way it was done; conscious thought was gone now.
Kieran knew that the man outside would most likely shoot anything that came out, but there was a good chance his trigger finger would be a little slow, anticipation messing up his sense of time.
He took the door at a run, leaping over the crumpled bodies that held the bullet-pocked wood open, not even listening for gunfire -- he'd be hit or he wouldn't. Without pausing to look for his target, he vaulted the porch railing, hit the ground and rolled to his feet.
The last man's gun was following his path; in the heartbeat before that man could correct his aim, Ki
eran whipped his remaining clip at the guy left-handed. The man's eyes followed the blocky black object flipping toward him, and then red blossoms thumped across his chest and up his face, and he fell.
Kieran looked around for more targets, but there were none. He heard nothing but his own ragged breathing, his own heartbeat, slowing. The rattlesnake mind that had moved him suddenly dropped him back into control, and terror for Ash overwhelmed all else. The last man Kieran had killed was the one who'd held the gun to Ash's throat; had he relinquished his hostage, or killed him?
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