Mourningbird (Empire of Masks Book 3)

by Brock Deskins

  “Kiera!”

  The two froze at the herald.

  “Do you think it’s Fred?” Wesley whispered.

  “When has Fred, or any assassin, ever announced their arrival? It’s Langdon.”

  Wesley’s body sank in on itself as the tension left his muscles. “Oh, good. Play your cards right and you won’t have to die a virgin.”

  “Oh, gross! You are as predictable as you are disgusting.”

  “It doesn’t have to be disgusting, and when it is, you usually get paid pretty well for it. At least that’s been my experience.”

  Kiera heaved herself from her bunk. “He knows I was there last night. I assume he wants to talk about it.”

  Wesley followed Kiera onto the deck. She looked out over the rail and saw Langdon standing near the base of the rubble pile upon which the airship lay. She was surprised to see that he was alone, and even more so at the concern she felt for what that might mean.

  “Where’s Iggy and Micah?” she called down to him.

  “Back at the bunkhouse. They’re fine except for the usual dents and dings. I’ll tell them you were worried about them.”

  “You better not. I have a reputation to uphold.”

  “Kiera, we need to talk. You have to come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Langdon shuffled his feet and he stared at the ground a moment before looking back up. “Nimat wants to talk to you.”

  “Crap,” Kiera muttered.

  “What are you going to do?” Wesley asked.

  “I have to go with him. If I don’t, Nimat will send someone else, someone not inclined to be as polite.”

  “All right. I’ll try to talk to Russel while you’re gone.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “You too.”

  “Pull the ramp back up behind me,” Kiera said as she lowered it into place. “Fred might be licking his wounds, or he might just come after me immediately to keep me silent about his part in trying to rob Nimat.”

  “You think it will do any good? It’s not like I can fight if he decides to storm the ship.”

  “I don’t know. Just…do whatever you have to do to stay safe. Don’t risk your life, or Russel’s, on my account. This is all my doing. If you have to give me up then do it. I won’t come back and haunt you for it.”

  Wesley had no words and simply nodded as Kiera strode down the gangplank and pulled it up behind her.

  “How much does Nimat know?” she asked as she stepped next to Langdon.

  “Pretty much everything,” he replied. “I’m really sorry, Kiera. I had to tell her your plan of getting the stone back to give to her.”

  “Did you tell her about Fred?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if she believed me or not. I’m sure he’ll be getting a visit from her people real soon whether she did or not. She’s really angry, Kiera. More than I have ever seen. That arcanstone is incredibly important to her. If you have it—”

  “I don’t have it,” Kiera said.

  “What happened?”

  “You know that guy I said who tried to kill Fred? He was there. I thought he had the stone, but when I caught up to him, he didn’t.”

  “Do you think he stashed it or maybe handed it off to someone else?”

  “I don’t know. He was wounded pretty badly. Maybe someone got to him before I did, but I don’t know how or when. I was only a minute or two behind him, and he could still fight.” She looked over at Langdon as they walked through Blindside. “Is she going to kill me?”

  Langdon stared ahead in silence for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess it all depends on whether or not she believes you. You are telling me the truth, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I really was trying to get the stone for Nimat. If I had it, I would gladly hand it over.”

  “Then we don’t have much in the way of a bargaining chip.”

  “When did we become we?”

  “When I stupidly agreed to help you with your scheme.”

  Kiera grinned and bumped him with her shoulder. “Yeah, that was pretty stupid.”

  “Hey!” Langdon cut off his retort, and locked his eyes forward. “Don’t look back, but I think we’re being followed.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “They aren’t mine, and I don’t think I would have seen them if Nimat had sent them. Besides, they aren’t pasty enough to be from Undercity.”

  “Crap. They’re probably Fred’s.”

  Langdon nodded. “I’m sure he does not want you to talk to Nimat.”

  “No, he made that very clear when he forced me to work for him.”

  Langdon looked at the taller buildings around him. “Do you have your gun?”

  Kiera narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, because walking into Nimat’s lair carrying a piece of techno I have no business owning is sure to throw off any suspicions she might have of me.”

  “Good point. OK, we’ll pick up the pace and try to shake them. We aren’t far from Midtown. Maybe it’s just a few thugs from Blindside thinking we’re easy marks.”

  “We’d be a lot less easy if Iggy and Micah were here.”

  “Yeah, the one day they decide to stay in bed…” He took Kiera by the elbow and turned her toward an alley. “Let’s go this way. If they keep following then we know they’ve marked us.”

  “There’s an entrance to Undercity not far from here. They won’t follow us down there.”

  Langdon shook his head. “Nimat has the place sealed up tight. She has one entrance open in Midtown and one in Liberty. That’s it.”

  “Crap!”

  Langdon led her through a maze of narrow egresses until they found their way blocked by a newly erected wall.

  “Double crap!” Kiera snapped once again.

  Langdon spun her around by the arm and they made to run back the way they came, but four men with their faces covered and wielding blades blocked their path. Langdon pulled his shortsword from its sheath and tried to push Kiera behind him with his free hand, but Kiera slapped his arm away, gave him a shove, and drew her batons.

  “I don’t know what you louts want, but I’m one of Rafferty’s men, and you’ll answer to him if you trouble us,” Langdon said.

  One of the men jerked his chin over his shoulder. “Then leave. We only want the girl.”

  “She’s with me.”

  “Then you can die with her. Your choice.”

  Langdon spared a glance at Kiera, who shrugged in return, letting him decide what to do. “What if I could change your mind?” he asked as he took a couple of steps toward the group.

  “How you gonna do that?”

  The thief pulled up his sleeve and pointed the knife thrower Russel had made at the one who was speaking for the group. “By worsening your odds.”

  The daggerwing blade flew from his arm and struck the assassin in the throat. He was charging forward before the man’s body struck the ground, his sword leading, leaving Kiera behind him.

  “Damn it, Langdon!” Kiera shouted, and ran after him.

  Langdon’s hasty attack cost him. While he was able to drive two of the attackers back with sheer ferocity and surprise, the third sidestepped his charge and cut him across the back. Langdon cried out and retreated a few steps, but that only served to relieve the pressure he had put on the first two men.

  Kiera saw Langdon on the defensive and leapt into action. She jumped atop a barrel, sprang off the wall, and kicked the man in the face who had cut Langdon. The man staggered back with a curse, the cloth wrap concealing his face becoming soaked with blood from his nose.

  The nightbird controlled her forward momentum by tucking into a roll when she landed and lashed out at the stricken man’s legs with her baton. While dazed, he was not crippled and leapt over her strike. He slashed down at her with his sword, but Kiera intercepted it with her other baton.

  Pushing the blade aside, she spun on the ground, her leg swinging in a wide arc to catch the man behind his knee, and sent
him tumbling to the street. She was on him in an instant, her batons raining down in a series of strikes like a furious hortator driving a rowing crew.

  Seeing a second man down, one of the pair engaging Langdon broke off and lunged at Kiera. Kiera rolled off the man she was beating and crossed her batons over her head to block the heavy swing aimed at her head. Her arms shook from the blow but held. The man lashed out with a foot, aiming between her outstretched arms, and caught her a glancing blow to the chin. Kiera’s head rocked back and stars filled her vision for a moment. She swept her batons out before her blindly.

  The man raised his sword to deliver a fatal thrust over her flagging defense, but a blade from Langdon’s thrower caught him low in the back. His free hand slapped at the sudden pain even as he tried to complete his thrust. Kiera recovered enough of her vision and balance to bat the stabbing blade aside, and returned the stroke with a strike to his knee.

  The man fell with a cry and tried to regain his feet, but Langdon stepped to the inside of his sword arm, pinning him to the ground, and touched the tip of his sword to his exposed throat. Kiera looked past Langdon and saw the fourth assassin lying dead in an expanding pool of blood.

  “Who do you work for?” Langdon asked, his blade drawing blood, which trickled down the man’s neck.

  “Marina,” the man replied with a labored, pain-wrought breath.

  “Why would Marina want Kiera dead?”

  “She doesn’t. We were working freelance. Don’t even know who the girl is other than someone paid us good coin to kill her.”

  Kiera climbed to her feet and stood over the man. “Who paid you? Was it Fred?”

  “I don’t know. Never seen him before. Just gave us money and pointed us at you. That’s all I know, I swear. Wasn’t personal.”

  “Yeah, it seems like it never is when you’re the one doing the killing,” Kiera remarked with a sneer.

  Langdon prodded him with his sword. “What was the man’s name? What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. Average guy. As average as they come. Didn’t pay much attention to anything other than the weight of the purse he gave us.”

  “That’s all you can tell us?” Langdon asked.

  The man tried to nod. “Yeah, that’s it, I swear.”

  “Then you’re of no more use to us.”

  The young thief’s blade moved down and slid into his beating heart before he or Kiera could issue a protest. Langdon moved toward the man Kiera had bludgeoned with the same murderous intent.

  Kiera grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “What are you doing? He’s not a threat anymore!”

  Langdon looked into her eyes, not understanding her objection. “Maybe not at this moment, but what about when he wakes up? Do you think he’s just going to forget all about us and not try and make good on the job he was paid to do?” He reached down, patted at the man’s clothing, and tossed the heavy coin pouch to Kiera. “That’s probably only half of what your death is worth to each of these men, and far more for the man who hired them. And next time, he and whoever he gets to help him, won’t underestimate you. They’ll take you in the back or while you’re asleep.”

  “So you’ll do it to them before they get a chance to do it to you?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re defending the people who just tried to murder you. It comes with the territory, and you have been a part of this world long enough to know that.”

  “I’m a thief, pickpocket, and nightbird, not a cold-blooded killer!”

  Langdon’s jaw muscles flexed as he met Kiera’s defiant gaze. “When someone tries to kill you, there’s nothing cold about it.”

  Kiera pressed her lips together in frustration, knowing that Langdon was right but refusing to devalue another person’s life so easily. “Even if you kill him, Fred will just send more.”

  Langdon stared into Kiera’s eyes a moment before plunging his sword into the man’s body. “Well, he won’t be sending this one.” Langdon found a few more purses and handed them all to Kiera. “Here, if Nimat doesn’t kill us, at least you can pay your debt.”

  Kiera scowled at the clinking pouches weighing down her hands. “I’m a thief, not a vulture.”

  “You’re a starving nightbird who can’t afford to complain about where her next meal comes from.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh but could not form a reasonable argument. The entire reason she was in this mess was that she was desperate to get out of her debt. She tucked the purses away, wriggling and bouncing to get them to settle in her deep pockets. Langdon began recovering his daggerwing blades and sliding them back into the bracer.

  Kiera took three long strides toward him, grabbed his wrist, and directed her gaze at the device. “Where did you get this?”

  Langdon pulled his arm away. “Same place you got your gun I imagine.”

  Kiera was not sure if Langdon was deliberately being obtuse or if he was trying to bait her into revealing Russel’s secret. “Tell me where you got it.”

  “Russel made it for me.”

  “Why would Russel make you a piece of techno? When? He never leaves that stupid airship!”

  “Are you sure? Because I know he’s done it at least twice in the last two weeks.”

  “What? When?”

  “Me and the boys were watching your comings and goings, but you managed to slip out without us seeing a couple weeks ago. We saw Russel leave and stopped him. He hit Iggy with a shit stick—”

  Kiera held up a hand to interrupt him. “What is a shit stick?”

  “You don’t want to know. Anyway, I suspected that Russel had made it and that he was an unregistered techno-arcanist.”

  “No he’s not! He’s just a…tinkerer.”

  “Kiera, you know better than that.” He held the knife thrower up to her face. “This might not be sophisticated, but it’s well-made. The runes are exceptional as far as I can tell. Look at your grapnel gun. That thing has several moving parts that have to work perfectly. Maybe it isn’t as polished as something produced by the guild for the duke, but it works just as well, and with less than flawless arcanstones at that!”

  Kiera stared at the ground for a moment. “Gods, you’re right. So why didn’t you turn him in for the reward?”

  “Because I thought he would be more valuable as a resource. I’m not in debt like you are, and I don’t really need the money. Besides, I know he means a lot to you.”

  Kiera was too angry to say anything. Angry at Langdon, Russel, the man who seemed determined to spoil every plan she had, and if she was being honest, at herself for her bumbling failures that were almost certainly going to get her and her friends killed.

  Langdon hurried after her. “Kiera…”

  CHAPTER 3

  The pair walked into a tap house located in Midtown. Their entrance drew the eyes of everyone in the room—eyes set in pale faces that rarely saw the light of day. Kiera shrank under their gazes as Langdon led her to a door in the back of the room.

  They descended the rickety stairs on the other side of the door, wary of their footing in the dim light of a single lantern hanging from a beam in the expansive chamber below. Several more men and women gathered, the menace in their visages heightened by the pistols and knives they held at the ready.

  No one said a word, and Kiera was not about to break the silence. The increased security showed the level of Nimat’s concern over what had happened last night. The thought shook her. While the battle had occurred just a handful of hours ago, Kiera felt as if she had not slept in a week, which, as she thought about it, was not far from the truth.

  One of the pasty-faced men turned a large spigot set in one of the enormous barrels laid on its side. The entire front of the cask opened, revealing more stairs leading deeper beneath the surface.

  The passageway under the tap house basement was the opposite of what she had witnessed above. Although it appeared deserted, Kiera could feel dozens of sets of eyes tracking her and Langdon’s every move. Kiera un
consciously pressed her shoulder against Langdon’s side, and he was more than willing to provide even that meager reassurance.

  She did not see another living soul until they neared Nimat’s underground mansion. Dozens of armed men and women stood outside and along the streets surrounding the place, and Kiera knew many more lurked out of view.

  The halls inside the manor were like the outlying streets, visibly deserted but certainly watched. The pair strode into Nimat’s audience hall and stopped near the foot of the dais upon which Nimat reclined on her throne.

  Langdon opened his mouth to speak, but Nimat silenced him with a raised hand. Kiera stood stock still even as sweat trickled down her back. They waited for what felt like an eternity, no one speaking or moving under Nimat’s unblinking gaze. She thought she saw movement in the heavy curtains behind Nimat’s throne but might have imagined it.

  As if sensing his arrival, Kiera looked over her shoulder as Top Hat sauntered into the room, wearing his ridiculous outfit and a broad smile, and her blood ran cold. Kiera cursed herself when she looked away as he stepped beside her. She could not show weakness here. Nimat would devour her for certain if she did. She might anyway.

  “I ordered Fred to attend me, not his lackey,” Nimat said, the sudden broken silence making Kiera jump.

  Top Hat bowed deeply. “My apologies, Underlord. As I am sure you are aware, Mr. Switzer was grievously injured during an attempt upon his life. I am sorry to report that the wound has festered, leaving Fred incapable of travel at this time. He ordered to be borne here upon a litter, but I insisted he stay in bed. I take full responsibility for any insult this has caused.”

  A dark shape detached from the wall, slunk next to Nimat, and whispered in her ear. She nodded and motioned the man back to his position.

  “You all know what occurred last night,” Nimat said.

  “An unimaginable happenstance, Underlord. I assure you, Fred is using every resource at his disposal to determine the identity of the perpetrators so that you may deliver your righteous punishment upon them,” Top Hat said.

  Nimat’s eyes narrowed to slits and her lips pressed into a thin smile. “That is precisely why I have brought the two of you here.” She nodded toward Langdon. “Our young friend claims that Kiera knows who orchestrated the attack against me. Kiera, would you like to elaborate on what young Langdon told me earlier?”