Slippery Creatures

by KJ Charles

  “He doesn’t care for anyone,” he said aloud.

  Maisie glanced up. “Phoebe loves him.”

  “Phoebe,” Will began with exasperation, and turned it into, “Since when are you two on first-name terms?”

  “Oh, she’s marvellous,” Maisie said, eyes lighting with a warmth Will recognised, because Phoebe seemed able to evoke it from far less generous souls. “Isn’t she lovely? She came to the shop and bought four hats and took me to tea. We had such a good talk. I like her.”

  “I expect everyone does.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  Maisie hesitated. “I did wonder, when she came to see you in the shop, all ‘darling’ this and that—”

  “Nothing like that,” Will said, possibly too hastily. “She’s an Honourable, for goodness’ sake, and engaged. She’s just very friendly.”

  “Yes,” Maisie said thoughtfully. “Very. We’re here.”

  The pawnshop was a dingy sort of place, its shelves and cases cluttered with dusty relics of a thousand people’s better times. China ornaments, trinkets, fading clothes, once-valued objects that were now worth what their desperate owners could get for them. Will had a sudden sharp urge to get his own things out of pawn: his father’s watch, his mother’s locket, his medals.

  This shop was like all the others he’d used except in one respect: there was a woman behind the counter. She was dark-haired with deep-set dark eyes, and she smiled at Maisie with a lot more humanity than Will had ever been shown by a pawnbroker. “Hello, miss.”

  “Hello again. How have you been?”

  “Well enough, thank you.” The woman’s smile faded a little and she glanced at Will, a quick professional assessment.

  “Oh, he’s with me,” Maisie assured her. “No secrets. I’ve just come to check something. That vase I left with you the other week, has it been redeemed?”

  “Well, yes. A gentleman came in with the ticket and paid in full. That’s the law, ticket for goods.”

  “Of course,” Maisie said. “Could you remember what he looked like, do you think?”

  The woman’s brows drew down. “I hope there’s not a problem, miss?”

  “If there is, it’s not yours,” Maisie said firmly. “He had the ticket. Only it would be an awful help if you could tell me anything you remember about him, there’s a dear.”

  The woman paused, thinking. “Well—tallish. About your height, sir, but thinner. Willowy sort of fellow. Well dressed. Very dark eyes, almost like mine.” Hers were sloe-black, a point of beauty in a face worn by life and work. “And a purple handkerchief in his pocket. He came in, oh, two days ago, and paid with a ten-shilling note.”

  “I know the man,” Will said. “Thank you very much. I don’t suppose you took anything out of the vase while you had it? No, never mind.”

  “I’m sorry if there’s any trouble caused,” the woman said, sounding a little worried. “He had the ticket. If you like, I can make a note of it all now, for if it comes to the law.”

  “You’re a love,” Maisie said. “And it’s not your fault in the slightest. Thank you.”

  Will exhaled hard as he left the shop. “You struck gold there. The only kind-hearted pawnbroker in London.”

  “I’d looked at five shops before her, trying to find a woman. I don’t know how you go in those places. They’re so bleak.”

  “I don’t by choice,” Will said. “I don’t suppose Kim has set foot in one before. Nice experience for him, the swine.”

  “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I needed to tell you what I’d done with the ticket, but you’d made such a point of not letting anyone else know, and the shop was full of people—and I did have to go and visit my auntie, you know, she’s not well, and—”

  “It’s not your fault in the slightest. Putting it in the flower was a stroke of genius, and it was rotten luck how things played out. It’s no more your fault than hers in the pawn shop. The only person in all this who’s had meaningful choices is Kim. Well, and Zodiac,” Will added as an afterthought.

  “And you’re not half as annoyed with them.”

  “Oh yes I am. Just differently.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Maisie asked.

  “I’m going to pay Kim a visit. I’m going to get my property back if I can, and if I can’t... Well, I’ll have some words for him.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? He is a lord.”

  Will exhaled. “It’s all I’ve got.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  He went home first. That was trying in itself, since his front door was still nailed shut. He’d left the back unlocked, he remembered, when he’d come out to speak to Phoebe that very long week ago, and as he scaled the back wall for the umpteenth time, he braced himself to find the place ransacked.

  Surprisingly, it hadn’t been. He took a cursory glance round and could see nothing missing at all. That was a credit to the neighbourhood, or possibly an indictment of the local youths’ work ethic. He changed out of the borrowed clothes and shoes—he’d bring them with him to Kim to return to Nanny, he decided—dressed in the best he had, and washed the travel-stains off his face. Might as well go into this looking sharp. Shame he didn’t have a flower for his buttonhole.

  He hesitated over whether to go armed. If he inflicted damage on Kim it would be with his fists, but the Messer might be an aid to persuasion. If Kim believed he’d use it. He remembered the feel of the revolver against his face when he’d been close to murder: it had been a shock but he hadn’t honestly felt a threat. Maybe he should have.

  Better to have the Messer and not need it than vice versa. He attached the sheath to his braces and made sure his jacket covered it.

  It was nearly seven. He pocketed three rather wrinkly apples that had survived his absence and set out again to Kim’s flat, munching them as he went.

  He’d worried that the doorman at Kim’s building might be an obstacle, but the man greeted him with a courteous “Evening, sir,” and a nod of recognition.

  Will gave him a wave. “Is Lord Arthur in? He’s expecting me.”

  “Yes, sir, he’s at home.”

  Will went up the two flights and knocked at Kim’s door. There was no response. He waited a few moments, knocked again. Still nothing.

  This was just rude. He knew the bastard was in. If Kim was fucking someone else—sucking Ingoldsby off after handing him Will’s property, perhaps—he could bloody well stop and answer the door. He slammed his fist against the wood, loud, heavy thumps, and added a few kicks, the last of which didn’t connect as the door was jerked open.

  Kim stood there with words on his lips that died unspoken. He stared at Will, eyes wide.

  “You shit,” Will said, in lieu of greeting.

  “Go away,” Kim said, and tried to slam the door.

  Like he hadn’t seen that coming. Will put hand and foot to the door, forcing it right back open. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Please,” Kim said through his teeth. “Not now. Go away.”

  “Fuck you!” Will slapped his palm into Kim’s chest, sending him off balance for a second, and barged his way in, dumping his bag with Nanny’s clothes on the floor. Kim planted his feet and stood his ground so they were facing off in the little anteroom that constituted the flat’s entrance hall. The door to the sitting room was ajar and Will caught a flash of colour that might be clothing. Maybe Kim did have a man here. Well, he could find out what he was getting into, and if it was Phoebe she ought to know too.

  “You lying bastard,” he said. “You shit. Every time I think I know what a shit you are, you make it worse.” He’d thought in some detail about what he was going to say on the way over, a proper measured denunciation that clinically dissected Kim’s moral failings. Now he was here, he couldn’t remember any of it. He just felt an immense rage and, worse, hurt. “How could you do that? I was chained up in a prison, and all you could think about was stealing from me! How can anyone be that cold?” />
  “Keep your voice down,” Kim said low and savagely, staring at Will with an odd, hard look as he spoke. “It’s a game, and you lost. Stop whining and go.”

  The contempt in his voice burned. Will almost recoiled at it. He’d at least expected shame, not this unconcealed, uncaring malice. “The hell I will. I’m not leaving until you give me what you stole from me.”

  “It’s gone to the War Office already. You’re wasting both our time.”

  He’d passed on the information. After all the twists and turns and miseries, Will hadn’t managed to keep it out of anyone’s hands. The failure descended on him like a leaden shroud and it was all Kim’s fault. Or his own, for seeing something in Kim that wasn’t there.

  He couldn’t bear it. He could not.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said abruptly.

  “Why would I keep it? My job was to get it and hand it over, which I did. Now get out. I’ll call the doorman or the police if I have to.”

  “Bastard,” Will said, and shoved him with both hands.

  Kim went stumbling back. Will shoved him again, pushing the door open, thrust him backwards into the sitting room ignoring his shout of protest, strode in after him, and stopped dead as the muzzle of a gun connected hard and cold with his temple.

  Libra was holding the gun, his eyes boiling with malice. There was a nasty deep purple line of bruising round his throat. Will stood, frozen, and Libra whispered, “You.” His knuckles around the gun stood out white against his skin.

  “My neighbours will be complaining about Darling’s approach to doors as we speak,” Kim said. “The moment you pull the trigger, they’ll come running. Do you really want to kill him more than you want the information?”

  Libra didn’t react at all for the longest three seconds of Will’s life, then he stepped back, giving himself a bit more space, and jerked the gun at the settee.

  It was already occupied, by Captain Ingoldsby, his face drawn with tension and fury. He was glowering at the fourth man present: his lackey, the pink-faced man called Price, who stood against the bookshelves of the opposite wall holding a revolver. It was pointed at Ingoldsby. That made no sense, until it did.

  “Shit,” Will said.

  “Quite,” Kim agreed. “I did try to make you leave.”

  Libra smiled unpleasantly. “Loose ends. Sit.”

  His voice was a whispery rasp. Will’s handkerchief garotte had clearly done him serious damage. His hand was steady on the revolver though, so Will followed the direction of its jerk and took one of Kim’s armchairs.

  Kim sat next to Ingoldsby, expression decidedly sour. “Can I observe this will do nothing but add a third person to the newspaper list of Bodies Found In Holborn Flat? I am loath to indulge in such clichés as ‘you’ll never get away with it’, but you really won’t. And your masters won’t be grateful for this level of attention.”

  “Shut up,” Libra wheezed. “Information. Now.”

  “As we were discussing before we were so rudely interrupted,” Kim said. “I believe I asked you why I should hand it over when you’re going to kill us all anyway. You have so far failed to give me an answer. If I’m about to die, I’d rather do it in the knowledge that you will too, whether on the gallows or at the hands of your masters. And you will, because I assure you, if you shoot us, you won’t have enough time to search this place before the superintendent arrives. They take noise awfully seriously here.”

  Libra looked at him, then at Will. “Don’t—have to shoot.”

  The half-smile faded on Kim’s lips. Libra took a slow step forward, eyes on Kim, gun on Will. “Give it up. Or watch me—throttle him.”

  “Don’t give it up,” Ingoldsby growled.

  “You can come and try it,” Will said. His heartbeat sounded loud in his chest, and his hand was already curving to the shape of the Messer. One more enemy, one more kill, and he’d let himself enjoy this one. “Hand to hand, you and me. I’ll make you shoot me.”

  “In which eventuality, as I have already remarked, it’s all over,” Kim added.

  “It’s over anyway,” Price said. His voice was clipped and Will saw something rather wild in his eyes.

  “Not—yet,” Libra whispered.

  “Nasty throat you have there,” Will remarked. “Flu?”

  Libra gave him a look of loathing. Will put his hands round his own throat and stuck out his tongue in a caricature of strangulation. Libra’s lips drew back over his teeth like a dog’s.

  “I think it is over, you know,” Kim said. “You’ll notice we’ve found the leak, Darling. I say ‘found’, but he rather gave himself away when he pulled the gun. Terribly unfortunate—for the War Office, of course, but also for Price himself, and Zodiac. He had such a promising career at Ingoldsby’s right hand, trusted and unsuspected. A pity to waste such a well-placed traitor for this.” His eyes flicked to Libra. “But you are quite desperate now.”

  “Shut up,” Libra rasped.

  “Just making sure we all understand the situation. I regret to say Price had Ingoldsby utterly fooled. Once the War Office had the information, I dare say he’d have helped himself at his leisure and become Zodiac’s new hero. But Libra’s needs were urgent, so he’s sacrificed Price’s cover to get the information, and if he doesn’t bring his masters their bone this time, they’ll put him down like the dog he is. And doubtless Price with him, pour encourager les autres.” Kim’s smile at Price was a masterpiece of unpleasantness. “Bad luck, old man.”

  Libra swung his arm and levelled the gun at Kim’s head. “So—nothing to lose.”

  “Yes, that is the stalemate,” Kim agreed, seemingly unconcerned. “If you don’t get the information you’re dead, so you might as well kill us all. If you’re going to kill us all, we might as well not give you the information, in which case you’re dead. There’s a rather pleasing symmetry, isn’t there?”

  “Just a minute,” Will said. “Who the hell is ‘us’?”

  Every eye flicked to him. Kim said, “What?”

  “This is nothing to do with me. I’m not a spy or a War Office lackey. I never wanted the bloody information in the first place. And I had it safe till you stole the ticket. You’re the arsehole who decided it would be better to give it to the War Office, and see where that’s got everyone.”

  “If you’d listened to a word I’d said at any point in the last weeks, it would now be held securely,” Kim snapped. “It’s a pity you’re constitutionally incapable of that.”

  “Quiet,” Libra said. “Hand it over. Or watch me hurt...” The gun barrel moved between Will and Ingoldsby.

  “Oh, shut up,” Will said contemptuously. “Like he says, it’s not a threat if you’re going to kill us anyway. Christ, the lot of you are useless.” He leaned forward, jabbing a finger at Ingoldsby. “You with your smug superior talk, bullying and shouting, and all the time you were harbouring a traitor right next to you, like a wanker. You, Secretan, if you’d just once told the truth instead of lying whenever you had the chance, we might not all be in this mess. And as for you, standing around threatening people— Get that gun out of my face!” He waved his hand angrily at Libra. “As for you, you missed the information when it was sitting on a shelf in my shop, you missed it when I had it on me in your prison cell for six days—six days, you cretin—and you’re missing it again right here in this flat. Dear God, you’re thick.”

  “Darling,” Kim said, tensing visibly.

  “Shut up. I’m tired of this. I’ve had nothing but threats, lies, abuse, and treachery, and for what? I’m not going to be cannon fodder any more. The lot of you can rot.” He turned to Price. “I’ll give it to you.”

  “No!” Kim and Ingoldsby said at once.

  Will met Price’s wide eyes. “We’ve both been shafted by the officers. Am I right? Ingoldsby would have left me to rot; Secretan’s a son of a bitch; Libra’s blown your cover and he’ll take you down with him. Sod the lot of them. Let’s make a deal.”

  “Darling!” I
ngoldsby roared.

  Will ignored him. “I give you the information and walk out of here unharmed. You hand it over to your people and get the credit. You leave me alone afterwards, and I’ll forget everything I’ve seen this evening. And as for these three—well, do what you like. I’d lock ’em all in a room and see who comes out alive. My money’s on Secretan. He’s the nastiest of the lot.”

  “You don’t know where it is,” Price said, over Libra’s strangled noises and Ingoldsby’s angry shout. “You just got here.”

  “He and I spent days talking about where to hide things while he was playing secret agents. Of course I know where he’s put it,” Will said. “It’s in this room.”

  Ingoldsby sprang to his feet. Libra stepped forward, jabbing the gun to his chest, and he stopped, but the words hissed out savagely. “You damned filthy traitor!”

  “Takes one to know one,” Will said. “What do you say, Price?”

  “He’ll give it straight to Libra, you fool!” Ingoldsby shouted.

  “No, he won’t,” Kim said. “The old order changeth, yielding place to new. Price will take care of himself. You rather miscalculated this, didn’t you, Libra?”

  “You can bloody talk,” Will told him. “Shut up.”

  Price’s eyes darted back and forth. “I’ll take it back to the House and explain the full situation. They’ll make a judgement.” That was addressed to Libra, whose cheekbones were stained red. “Fetch it, Darling, and you can go.”

  “I’ll tell you where it is while I’m standing at the door,” Will said. “No offence, but I don’t trust you that much.”

  He could see Price making calculations. Libra with a gun; a roomful of desperate men. “You say it’s in here. I could shoot you now and search the room.”

  “Not before someone knocks on the door to ask what’s going on,” Will returned. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t let Libra get behind you while you’re searching.”