“I’m going to tell Nimat that Fred’s deliberately defying her orders. Maybe she’ll start to see that I wasn’t lying about him trying to steal from her.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Pull up the gangplank after me, and tell your brother to make some gods-damned security for this place! I’m tired of always waking up to some murderous lunatic.”
Wesley tipped his pipe. “I’ll get right on that.”
Kiera growled her frustration and jogged down the wooden ramp. If someone murdered him in his sleep, it was on his head. Lazy git. She hustled across Blindside, wary of becoming another “random” victim like Wesley.
She chose the nearest entrance, that she knew of, to Undercity but found several men lurking about the building in which it was located. Erring on the side of caution, Kiera decided to try another Blindside entrance, but it too was guarded. She made her way into Midtown and found those Undercity portals secured as well.
After hours of crisscrossing the city, Kiera steeled her resolve and approached one of the guarded entrances located in Highborn City. She figured Rafferty held enough power here to keep Fred’s people away, and as far as she knew, she was not on Rafferty’s bad side. The men and women stationed around the entrance stiffened and laid hands near weapons at Kiera’s approach.
“I need to speak to Nimat,” Kiera said to the woman who appeared to be in charge of the group.
Given her and her cohorts’ pale skin and gaunt visage, Kiera marked them as Undercity dwellers. The fact that they did not attack her out of hand was another indication that they did not work for Fred.
“Undercity is closed unless you have a pass,” the woman said.
“It’s important I speak to Nimat.”
“Do you have a pass?”
“No.”
“Then you aren’t getting in.”
“I think she’ll make an exception for me.”
“Nimat doesn’t make exceptions, especially for nightbirds who are always late and lacking with their tributes.”
Kiera suppressed her urge to stamp her foot in a juvenile display of frustration. “I’m square with her!”
The woman grinned. “That’s not what I hear.”
“I paid what I owed.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re square. You got a message, I’ll see it delivered. Otherwise, you need to get gone.”
Kiera wanted to argue, to press her urgency, but she knew the lieutenant was right. Being paid up did not mean she was square. There were a lot of happenings of late that she was certain put her in the underlord’s bad graces.
Without the ability to plead her case in person, Kiera was sure a note complaining about Fred’s behavior, especially given circumstantial evidence, would be insufficient to move the underlord. Besides, it was obvious that Nimat had more important matters weighing on her than an independent nightbird unable to play nice with others.
That left her one other choice, to deal with Fred herself. Fred lived in one of the better sections of Midtown, but it was on the other side of the city. She had gone out of her way to avoid his territory, but it seemed these days that his people were everywhere.
Kiera had money thanks to her strange meeting with the former chief inquisitor, so she hired a cab to speed her across town. Not only did it save time, effort, and shoe wear, it helped her keep a low profile and hopefully out of sight of hostile eyes. It was brave, and probably more than a little foolish, to confront Fred, especially in his own territory, but she, and her extended family, could not live in fear of being attacked at any moment. She needed to settle this dispute with the crime boss.
She had the cab deposit her in front of Fred’s home. It was a nice manor for such a disgusting human being. After driving down property values with orchestrated criminal activity, Fred had purchased all of the homes adjacent to his own to house most of his minions and ringed the compound with tall, wrought-iron fences.
Kiera was not sure Fred was even here, but she thought the odds were good if he wanted to give the illusion that he had nothing to hide and it was business as usual. The fence looked like a line of pikes, ten feet tall with the top three feet angled outward to make it more difficult to climb over.
Several people, almost all men, milled about or stood guard inside the compound. Those behind the gates set their eyes on Kiera as soon as she got out of the cab. She watched the small carriage roll away, obviously eager to leave the area.
“What do you want, girl?” a man at the gate asked.
“I need to speak to Fred.”
“Fred ain’t taking visitors—unless you’re a whore, and you look too skinny and filthy to be to his liking.”
“I’m not a whore, I’m a thief, and I need to talk to him. Can someone please ask him to come to the gate?”
The man grinned and looked over his shoulder at one of his cohorts. “She says please and expects Fred to come to her.” He shared a laugh with his companions before returning his attention to her. “Fred ain’t seeing no one, and he sure as heck ain’t coming out to talk to a street rat.”
Kiera opened her mouth to argue, but someone near the manor’s front door called across the small courtyard. “Fred says to let her through.”
The man opened the gate and stood aside. “Look at that, Fred says to let you come in.”
Kiera’s eyes shifted from the man, to the gate, and the tall fence. “I’d rather talk out here.”
“Fred says come in, you bring your skinny arse in. Ain’t no discussion.”
Kiera was ready to bolt and give up on the attempt to get Fred to back off, but more men appeared from the street and converged upon the gate. She looked from the reinforcements closing in on her from behind to the gate guard. Steeling her courage, she swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and stepped inside.
Fred’s miniature palace was the opposite of Conner’s. The brothel owner’s home had looked almost deserted, at least the part Kiera had seen. People roamed and lurked everywhere inside Fred’s. Conner’s furnishings and decorations were sparse and tasteful whereas Fred’s manor looked like a Vulcrad street bazaar with all manner of gaudy, shiny baubles crammed into every corner.
Kiera’s escort led her up a curving staircase not dissimilar to Conner’s, with the exception of vases, marble statues, and knickknacks placed upon plinths adorning every step. She was surprised to find that Fred’s office actually looked like an office. Gone were the gaudy ornamentations and tacky displays of wealth.
He sat behind a large desk of exquisite but unostentatious design set adjacent to a large, half-circular window to its left. The few pieces of artwork hanging from the walls were tasteful, the artists’ skill apparent even to someone as uneducated in such things as Kiera was. Top Hat stood next to Fred’s desk, his presence causing a chill to run down her spine.
Fred leaned back in his plush chair, steepled his fingers, and smiled, his gold tooth shining from the mage glass lamps set in the walls. “Well, it isn’t often that the chicken wanders into the jackal’s den.”
Kiera suppressed the anger that flared within her. She really wished that people would stop calling her a chicken. “Your people attacked Wesley last night and robbed him.”
“Did they now? This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“Cut the crap, Fred! You took his money, his product, and left him unable to work for at least the next few weeks. This settles our debt.”
“I don’t see how it does.”
“You have your drugs, the money for what he used, and you owe him for taking away his ability to work. We’re even,” Kiera insisted.
Fred looked to Top Hat. “Mr. Ridley, do you know anything about me getting my product and money back?”
Top Hat shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Fred turned his predator’s gaze back on Kiera. “Let me tally this up for you, so that even your uneducated little mind can comprehend the score. Your friend lost or used all of the pro
duct I gave him to sell and can no longer pay me back. You not only stole from my man and tried to rob me, you failed to complete the task I gave you as recompense for your transgressions. Then, against my explicit commands, you slandered my good name in an effort to have Nimat execute me just to get out of paying what you owe me.”
The crime boss leaned forward and pressed his palms against the polished desk, his smile sliding off his face. “We are about as far from even as is humanly possible. I told you what would happen if you crossed me, and no matter how low an opinion you might hold of my character, I am a man of my word.”
Kiera swallowed and felt cold, nervous sweat trickle down her back. She cast her eyes around the room, searching for a way out. Her options were few and her odds of escape even less.
“Nimat said all debt collections are on hold until this mess with her stone and the new threat is dealt with,” she said in a last-ditch effort to stave off her execution. It was a desperate but futile attempt.
“What have I done recently that makes you think I would balk at crossing Nimat? She has sealed herself up in her hole and has more important things to worry about than the fate of some meddling little nightbird. Besides, I’m perfectly within my rights to kill an intruder who came to rob me again or make good on her previous failure to kill me.” He flicked his eyes to Top Hat and the other two men standing near the door. “Kill her, then go kill her worthless friends.”
All three men unsheathed weapons and advanced. Kiera drew one of her batons and the grappling gun. Her best chance at survival was taking the men by surprise and escaping the room. She instinctively ducked as she drew her weapons and spun to face the two men rushing at her back. The move saved her life.
The first man’s sword whisked over her head, and the other’s thrust skimmed past her right side. Kiera lashed out with her baton, struck the first man in the side of the knee, and followed it up with a reverse blow to the back of his head.
While her swift and vicious assault bettered her odds, they still were not very good. Even if Fred stayed out of the fight, it was two against one, and one of those was Top Hat. The lanky killer wielded twin blades that looked like meat cleavers that ended in sharp points, and his reputation with putting them to good use was well known on the streets.
Kiera blocked the second sword-wielder’s next strike with her baton and brought the grappling gun up between his legs. Anticipating the move, the man brought his knees together and turned, taking only a glancing blow. The pain was slight, but his psychosomatic reflexes caused him to retreat into a defensive stance.
Top Hat waded in, his cleavers dancing before him. Kiera ducked and retreated across the room, barely able to dodge or deflect the lethal swings. Within seconds, she was bleeding from several shallow wounds, but none thus far were debilitating. That would not last for long.
She rolled beneath another swipe aimed for her throat and took several backward steps to put some space between her and the killer. Top Hat obliged her retreat, stood with his feet parted and blades held before his face, wearing a manic smile. Kiera returned his grin, pointed the grapnel gun between his eyes, and fired. Top Hat lost his haughty expression in an instant and ducked.
The grapnel missed its mark but did knock his ridiculous hat from his head before attaching to the far wall. Top Hat stood up straight, his smirk returning as he thought himself out of immediate danger.
Kiera triggered the retraction and leapt toward him. The grapnel sped her flight to the speed of a trotting horse. Her feet struck Top Hat in the chest with a force equal to a powerful kick from the same animal. He went flying backward, his arms splayed, until he collided with the unyielding wall behind him.
Before she met a similar fate, Kiera detached the grapnel from the wall and rolled to slow her momentum. Top Hat, now dazed and seated against the wall, provided an adequate shock absorber when she struck an instant later. She stood, mule kicked Top Hat in the face for good measure, and squared off with the last man in the room.
Kiera raised her grapnel gun once more, stopping the man in his tracks. He held his blade across his chest, prepared to block her shot. She raised her gun and fired at the vaulted ceiling behind his head and launched herself into the air once more. The thug reeled back, waiting to deliver a lethal blow at the girl’s impending arrival. Kiera hurled her baton at his face while in mid-swing.
He batted the projectile aside, leaving himself vulnerable. Kiera caught him square in the face with both feet. She released and retracted the grapnel, scooped up her baton, and turned toward Fred only to find a pair of pistols trained on her. She threw herself to the side and felt the passing shot tug at her short cape.
Pounding feet from the stairwell heralded the imminent arrival of reinforcements. She saw Top Hat push himself up the wall, blood streaming from his nose and painting his lips crimson, only a few shades lighter red than the fury burning in his eyes.
Kiera sprinted toward the window that looked like the sun cresting halfway over the horizon. She hurled her baton through one of the triangular panes. Aiming at the cornice of a building across the street, Kiera sent her grapnel streaking through the window after her baton.
Fred’s second shot shattered another pane of glass behind her and clipped her side in mid-flight. She triggered the cord retraction and launched herself toward the building. Kiera lacked Russel’s academic grasp of physics, but even she knew that she would reach the street before the building on the other side. Even if she could gain enough momentum, the impact at the speed needed to do it would leave her stunned, certainly broken, and probably dead.
The angled top of Fred’s fence, while helping keep people out, gave Kiera a small chance of pulling off her desperately insane stunt. She timed her semi-controlled fall to deposit her atop the fence. While unable to slow her forward momentum, she was able to kick off of the bars, slow her descent, and redirect herself upward once more.
The impact with the bars sent a jolt of pain up her leg and into her hip. It also put her into a bit of a spin, and her back and side impacted the stone wall halfway up. Kiera lost her breath but she kept her wits, triggering the grapnel gun’s cord release in a controlled manner to deposit her onto the sidewalk.
Kiera began to run even before she could draw breath as men stormed out of the house and onto the street. She rounded the first corner she came to. Musket shots struck the wall behind her, peppering the back of her neck with flecks of stone. She did not turn her head to look behind her. She knew what was after her and what they would do if she failed to escape.
Several pairs of feet slapped the cobblestones in pursuit and were gaining on her. Another musket fired, and the ball parted the hair covering her left ear. Kiera cursed, launched her grapnel at the top of a nearby building’s wall, and flew upward. Her ribs protested a second round of abuse, but she ignored the pain, climbed onto the roof, and kept running.
Kiera leapt from rooftop to rooftop until a street cut between the buildings. By aiming at the roof of the building across the street from as far back as she could, Kiera found that she could cross the chasm. She hit the far roof at a speed equal to a dead sprint and tumbled the instant her feet touched down. Assuming she escaped, Kiera doubted there would be more than a square inch of unbruised flesh anywhere on her body.
Her flight across the street had at least shaken her pursuers if not lost them completely, but she refused to slow down. Kiera altered her direction often, leaping to adjacent buildings in hopes of confusing the chasers. She needed to get back to the airship, but it soon became apparent that was what Fred’s people expected her to do. Every time she moved in that direction, she ran into a group of men, watching and waiting for her to fly into their web.
It was then she realized they were no longer chasing her with the same level of persistence. Instead, they smartly chose to surround several blocks in hopes of containing her and forcing her to come to them. It was a good tactic. Kiera decided that she needed to find a place to hide until night fell. She just
prayed that Fred was so intent on killing her that he forgot about Wesley and Russel.
CHAPTER 10
Bertram stared at a slate board with several names written upon it in a sort of collage with the Underlord in the center. There was a riddle here, and he was determined to solve it. The key was to figure out how each of the names were related to one another.
He knew why each of the parties were in the warehouse that evening—to acquire the arcanstone. But what were the motivations each held for attaining it? He could not help but think that the stone possessed more value than its mere worth in coin, which was probably the linchpin tying this conundrum together.
A knock on his open door disturbed his contemplations. He turned to find Sergeant Randolph filling the vast majority of the doorway.
“Sah Bertram, there’s a situation in Midtown I think might interest you.”
“What is it, Sergeant?”
“A bunch of Fred Switzer’s men are chasing someone through the district. We think it’s that nightbird from before.”
Bertram found this to be of significant interest. The girl’s constant reappearance at every scene was possibly the biggest mystery of all, and therefore she might be the key to unlocking it.
“Follow me, Sergeant. Do we know where she is now?” Bertram asked as he buckled on his sword and pistol and fastened his short cape around his neck.
“One of my gendarmes thinks he saw her duck into an old brewery. As far as I know, she’s still there.”
Bertram and the sergeant took a gendarme wagon to the brewery. It was a large structure, and the inquisitor thought it likely that she had already made her escape. A low-ranking gendarme appeared in the main doorway and waved the two men over.
“Chief Inquisitor, she went down into the basement. Best I can tell, there’s no other exit. I’ve been watching the stairs, and she hasn’t come out.”
“What about Switzer’s people?” Bertram asked. “What are they up to?”
“They seem to be crawling back to their holes now that the sun has set. I asked one of ’em what was going on, and he said that the girl tried to kill Fred again. They started to disperse once the sergeant and I began making inquiries.”
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