Moira J. Moore - Heroes at Risk

by Moira J. Moore

  “It’s barbaric,” I insisted. “And it says something about us, all of us, that we’ll inflict that kind of pain on her before killing her. And that there are those of us who’ll enjoy watching it.”

  “Not you, of course,” Risa sniffed. “You’re above that sort of thing.”

  Well, yes. Did that make me arrogant? “It is not to my taste.” And I didn’t understand how it could be to anyone else’s. “So you are here to tell Ben about his daughter?”

  “No, that’s not my place.”

  It wasn’t her place to tell me, either. “Who will tell him?”

  “Some member of the family, I guess.”

  Wonderful. I knew something that was none of my business, and no one was going to tell Ben? That wasn’t right. “I’m out of tea,” I said, carefully rising to my feet. “Please excuse me while I get some more.” I walked from the room before she could utter more than a couple of words in objection. But Ben wasn’t in the kitchen, or in the hall, and I didn’t want to alert Risa to the fact that I was looking for him by calling out for him.

  And perhaps it wasn’t kind to spring Ben on Risa and force her to tell him what she’d told me. Who was I to tell her what to do? Damn it. I filled my cup from the pot of tea brewing on the stove, wrinkling my nose at the strong smell and returning to the parlor.

  “What was that about?” Risa demanded.

  “I just felt a little unwell,” I lied. “The tea really helps.”

  “Ah,” said the Runner, swirling her ale in her mug. “You don’t need to be delicate about such things around me.”

  I did when I was lying. “Wait a moment,” I said as a few things clicked together in a mind that had apparently gone to sleep at some time. “You think she killed him to get his ashes?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And the ashes need to come from someone lucky.”

  “Apparently.”

  Damn it to hell. Why was it that every time there were weird killers about, the characteristics of the potential victims matched Taro? It was getting ridiculous.

  And Taro didn’t know. He was out with friends, doing who knew what. One woman had killed a man for his ashes, and had gotten caught, but if one person would try something like that, someone else was sure to try it, too. People were stupid like that.

  My stomach clenched with dread and sharp panic. I had to find him and tell him. I didn’t know where he was, damn it.

  “What’s wrong now?” Risa asked.

  Damn it, why was my face so easy to read now? “Nothing,” I said. “Just worried about Taro.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why?”

  “It’s what I do.” I didn’t want to tell her why. She would tell me I was overreacting, which would be annoying, or she would agree I had something to worry about, which I really didn’t need to hear.

  I wasn’t much of a hostess after that. I became increasingly worried about Taro. Because what if the mayor had been murdered because he was lucky and they wanted his ashes, but Ben’s daughter wasn’t the actual murderer? There might be some homicidal idiot wandering about, cocky because he or she had gotten away with murder.

  And the people Taro banged around with, crowds of people. He probably didn’t know them all well. He probably wouldn’t notice or care if someone new joined the throng. Someone who could lure him away to somewhere more remote. He wouldn’t know enough to beware of strangers.

  Risa finally, finally left. I was tired and nauseous, but my growing panic gave me the fortitude necessary to leave the residence. I had to find Taro.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My first step out of the residence was an unpleasant education for me. The sunlight speared into my eyes and the odor churned a stomach already too delicate. And the noise, it set my ears to ringing.

  I hadn’t been out since the day before, for the watch at the Stall. And I hadn’t expected to need to be out that day until our late-evening watch, something I had looked forward to, getting some solid, uninterrupted sleep. I would be able to get a handle on this illness and start getting better if I could just be still and quiet for a while. That was why I had picked at Taro until he had stormed away in a huff, else he would have hung around the residence asking me if I needed anything every half hour or so.

  But then Risa had arrived, refusing to be put off. So that was the end of my peaceful day.

  This was also the first time I’d been out of the residence without Taro in a good long while. I’d had no idea I’d come to rely so completely on his supporting arm. After only a few steps I was unusually tired. But there was nothing to be done about it. Taro had to know someone had killed someone they’d deemed lucky, just so they could have his ashes after he’d been cremated. He needed to know he had to be on guard.

  Realizing I wouldn’t get far by foot, I tried to flag down a carriage. The first three carriages that approached me, all without passengers, refused to stop, the nasty buggars. My hand went to my left shoulder, and yes, the braid was still there.

  The fourth carriage stopped when I raised my hand, but the driver narrowed his eyes at me. “Here, now, you’ve not got some plague, have you?”

  “No, just a headache.” Was that why the others had refused to stop? Did I really look that bad? I knew I was a little pale, and my difficulty sleeping had darkened the shadows under my eyes, and I hadn’t bothered with cosmetics that morning, but I didn’t think my fatigue was beaming out to strangers seeing me from a distance.

  The driver studied me for a bit, chewing on something hidden in his mouth with slow, long slides of the jaw. He grunted. “Right, then. Where to?”

  “The Lyre Loft,” I said, naming Taro’s current favorite watering hole.

  I was gasping for breath after the ordeal of climbing into the carriage, and sweating unpleasantly. The shocks and swaying of the carriage were causing my nausea to bubble up, almost enough to make me disgrace myself right then. But I had to find Taro. He had no idea he was wandering around out there with someone looking to kill him.

  It wasn’t a long ride, and though I could have used some more time sitting down, I was relieved to exit. I almost tripped getting out, and the driver whistled and whipped the carriage off barely after I had my two feet on the street. Prat.

  The Lyre Loft was one of the nicer drinking and gambling establishments in High Scape, though it avoided ascending into exclusivity. Anyone could go there, but anyone who appeared too obnoxious was encouraged, usually successfully, to leave. It was a little larger than the usual tavern, and cleaner, with furnishings of light red wood and small alcoves along the walls that allowed enough privacy for intimate conversation but not so much privacy that people were tempted to try activities less appropriate.

  There weren’t that many people there, it being early in the afternoon. Perhaps that was why the two fiddle players in the corner were so nerve-piercingly bad. They were practicing. No one else seemed to notice the flat notes or that the two players kept falling out of tempo with each other. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for only two players to fall out of unison so regularly, as though each thought he was playing alone.

  Taro was not among the patrons. Damn it.

  Jek, one of the regular workers at the tavern, came in from the back room carrying a box of bottles. I headed toward him, and when he noticed me, he immediately called out, “Tasa! Vinori! Cut the music!”

  The music wasn’t having any kind of impact on my Shield sensibilities. Because it was so bad? Was that a possibility? It didn’t make sense that only well-played music could influence my behavior, did it?

  The grating wails halted, and when the fiddlers looked up and saw me, they lowered their instruments and started talking to each other. It wasn’t necessary for them to stop, but the silence was blissful, so I didn’t correct their misapprehension. “Thank you, Jek.”

  He nodded. “Are you all right, Dunleavy?”

  I didn’t know if he was referring to the music or the fact that I apparently looked awful. It
didn’t matter. “Yes, quite. Has Taro been in today?”

  “Afraid not.”

  I sighed. Damn it. This was his favorite place. Aside from the racetrack. The chances of finding him at the track, even if he was there, were slim. And the thought of going there, with the noise and the crowds and, oh my gods, the smell, made me queasy, pressure building around my eyes as the bar in front of me seemed to slide back a few feet.

  “Are you all right?” Jek asked again.

  I nodded by means of lowering my head, slightly and just once, and swallowed so I could say in a low voice, “Thank you for your help.” Though I wasn’t sure whether he’d really done anything helpful. “If you see Taro, please let him know I’m looking for him. Please tell him it’s important.” And what was so important? Oh. Aye. Someone was trying to kill him.

  And suddenly, Jek was standing right in front of me. How had he managed to walk right through the bar like that? It was made of wood, wasn’t it? I tapped it with my knuckles just to make sure.

  “You’re looking really bad,” Jek was saying, and then he went on to talk about carriage and home and I didn’t really listen.

  “Thank you,” I said, and I made my way carefully to the entrance, keeping myself tall and upright, walking with dignity.

  Jek said something else from behind me, but I wasn’t sure he was speaking to me, and it didn’t matter anyway. I needed to find Taro.

  Why wouldn’t the door stay still?

  Without quite knowing how I’d accomplished it, I was back outside. All right, that was good. Now I just needed to get to the racetrack. If Taro wasn’t at the Lyre Loft, then he must be at the racetrack.

  I called for a carriage, and a sound must have come out, because suddenly there was a carriage standing there in front of me. It took two tries to get my foot on the footplate and whoever was standing directly behind me was surely Zaire-sent, for I wasn’t sure I could have climbed into the carriage without his help.

  It was only once I was seated in the carriage—if one could call it seated, my head down at one end of the cushion and my rear end pressed against the opposite wall of the carriage—that I realized I couldn’t remember giving the driver directions. But I must have, because the carriage was moving.

  A lot, damn it. I pressed a hand to my stomach, trying to prevent anything in it from escaping. I was not going to throw up in a carriage.

  I wondered if there was any kind of spell to make me feel better. I’d have to look into it. Not that I actually believed in any of that stuff, but hey, it couldn’t hurt to try. As long as I didn’t have to eat or drink anything disgusting.

  Oh, I shouldn’t have thought about drinking disgusting concoctions. I groaned and curled more tightly around my stomach.

  The carriage came to such a jolting halt that I landed on my knees on the floor. I experienced no surprise at this, because that was just the sort of day I was having. I tried to crawl back onto the cushion. I hadn’t accomplished that by the time the door behind me had opened. Then there seemed to be hands all over me.

  “Hey,” I said in protest. And that was all I said. I couldn’t really think of anything else to say as I was pulled out of the carriage and set unsteadily on my feet.

  I stared up at the ugly gray building before me, stretching for the full length of a long block and with almost no windows. “This isn’t the racetrack,” I said stupidly.

  “No, ma’am. If you’d please lie down here.”

  “I need to go to the racetrack.” Why were people trying to keep me from finding Taro? I turned against the hands on my arms and shoulders to get back into the carriage. But the carriage was no longer there. “Hey!”

  “Please come in, Shield Mallorough. We’re going to take care of you.”

  “No!” I shook at the hands grabbing me, slapping at everything that connected. “I have to find Taro! They’re going to kill him!”

  “I’m sure Source Karish is quite all right. Just lie down here and we’ll get you comfortable.”

  “No!” I pushed and shoved and shimmied with all my strength. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much. “Let me go, gods damn it! Help!”

  “Hush,” a stern voice said. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.” And despite my best efforts, I felt myself being lifted off my feet and laid across some surface.

  And then straps were tightened over my chest, my feet and my waist, tying my arms, tying everything down.

  I just started screaming. What were these people doing? Who were they?

  There was the sharp incline of stairs, and then there was darkness. My screams seemed to echo. Something soft and sweet smelling covered my mouth and nose, and that really alarmed me. I tried to jerk my head to the side, but the softness just followed, and a palm on my forehead forced me to stillness.

  With the second breath, warmth spread from my face down my arms, torso and legs, forcing muscles to relax whether I wanted them to or not. With the third breath, the whirling thoughts in my brain slowed right down. Whether I took a fourth breath or not would always be a little unclear to me.

  The next thing I knew was silence, and it took me a few moments to determine whether I was asleep or not. Then my stomach gurgled into almost unmanageable nausea, and I knew I was awake. I put a hand over my eyes as I fought not to throw up.

  “You had me worried there,” I heard Taro say, and I uncovered my eyes. The ceiling above me was stone, as was the wall out of the right corners of my eyes. I looked to my left, realizing I was in the only bed of a stone cell, and that Taro was seated in a chair beside the bed, a racing circular on his knee. “I don’t think they meant for you to sleep this long.”

  They. Hospital. The taste in my mouth was foul beyond the telling of it. I looked at the hand I’d put on my face. At least they’d untied me.

  I was so tired.

  “Would you like some water?”

  There was a small table on the left side of the bed. On it rested the candle that was the only source of illumination in the room, a mug and a single flower—a blue lily—in a slim glass vase. Water sounded divine, so I shifted up on the bed to sit up. It was hard work.

  “No, I’ll get it,” Taro said quickly.

  I was sure he would, but I hated the idea of him propping up my head while I tried to drink lying down, so I continued to press myself upright. By the time my back was against the wall, I was shaking and sweating and dreading the effort it would take to lie back down again. Taro, having sighed loudly over my stubbornness, waited until I held out a hand for the mug.

  I didn’t object when he continued to hold on to the mug after I’d gripped the handle and brought it to my lips. My hand was shaking badly, and I might have dropped the mug without his assistance.

  The water tasted awful, though that may have been due to the taste already in my mouth. It did feel good going down, clearing out the sticky sensation in my throat. There were a few tense moments, however, where it was in danger of coming back up.

  “What happened?” Taro asked after I’d sipped down most of the mug. “You look terrible.”

  I would have stuck my tongue out at him if it wouldn’t have taken so much energy.

  What did happen? I had to think about that.

  “They said you were in hysterics,” Taro continued.

  I was not. Not until they started grabbing me and yanking me and tying me down, and wouldn’t that make anyone upset? “Where is this?” I demanded.

  “Just a private room at the hospital,” he said. “I had you moved from the public ward when I got here.”

  I wasn’t entirely reassured. “Why’s it made of stone?” Cells were made of stone, weren’t they?

  “It’s quieter. They also prefer these rooms if they feel someone needs to be quarantined. But they don’t seem to think you’re contagious.”

  Of course I wasn’t contagious. I was just . . . tired. Gods, I was so tired. But my mind was slowly clearing. “Someone’s trying to kill you,” I said, but the words seemed to come from n
owhere. I remembered believing that someone was trying to kill him, but I wasn’t quite sure why.

  His eyebrows rose. “Again?”

  All right. Try to remember. That morning, I woke up too early, an annoying habit I’d developed recently. Spent the morning not eating the breakfast I had put together. Ben freshened the poultice on my hand. Risa had shown up and told me about Ben’s daughter. Ah, there it was. “Ben’s daughter was arrested for killing the mayor,” I told him. And while the shock widened his eyes, I added, “Risa thinks she killed him for the ashes.”

  “That’s kind of extreme, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “That’s what she said. That the mayor was killed because he was thought to be lucky.”

  Taro whistled. “Poor Ben.”

  “So I was worried that you might be considered a good target for the same kind of attack. Because, you know . . .” I trailed off to allow him to come to the proper conclusion on his own.

  He frowned. “Because what? Because I’m lucky? You think I’m lucky?”

  From his tone, it appeared that he had taken some sort of offense. I hadn’t expected that. “You don’t?”

  He stiffened. “Do you know me at all?”

  I was an idiot. Having been with him for the past few years, I could understand why he wouldn’t think himself a particularly fortunate person. “Look at your life from the point of view of someone who is desperate enough to use a spell to fix whatever problems they have in their lives. To them, you lead a charmed life. The son and brother of a wealthy duke, and all that means to people who don’t know any better. You’re a Source. You’re terribly handsome.”

  “You always make beauty seem such a bad thing,” he murmured.

  “I didn’t mean ‘terribly’ in the negative sense of the word.”

  “There’s a positive sense?”

  There was no point in turning that into an argument. “Do you admit that people who don’t know you well might think you’re lucky?”