‘Didn’t leave me with a thing,’ Jack replied. ‘We were left with what we were carrying; the rest got impounded at the station.’
‘Pity.’ Donovan clicked his tongue before inhaling a breath with a hiss. ‘Every little thing you say?’
‘What’s your point to all this?’
‘Oh I have a point. It seems like the Bluecoats highlighted something of a … how can I put this? There was a discrepancy in what they picked up. Of course, they wouldn’t have been aware of said discrepancy. Why would they? They just picked up what they found. But to me it was as plain as the midday sun.’
‘Huh?’
Donovan cracked his knuckles with the push of a hand, first his left, then his right. The hollow clicks were horribly foreboding.
‘I managed to get hold of the contraband report for the region to see just how much was being intercepted and guess what I saw alongside your name, right beside the words Red Root?’
Oh fucking hell.
Donovan leant in, wild-eyed.
‘Too much. Too many bales found in your possession, too much root for reasons I simply couldn’t fathom. Eight bales over the count to be exact. Reflecting on this logically, I came to a simple conclusion. You were either in cahoots with those aboard the Morning Star or you were simply stealing from Wilheim Fort. Clarify to me, Jack, settle my curiosity why don’t you – which was it?’
Before Jack had a chance to blurt out a response, he was silenced with an inappropriate laugh.
‘I don’t actually care of course. This was all done under Wilheim’s rule and his rule is not mine. Your theft to him is not theft to me.’ Donovan wagged his finger between them before sending his tone plummeting. ‘But you do, by extension, work for me now and I dislike the untrustworthy. Like you were told before, Jack, you are being given a message, but I’m afraid in light of your actions, it is required to be punctuated.’
Donovan began a vicious assault upon Jackdaw, driving a series of punches into his stomach with furious speed. As Jack gagged aloud, a series of hooks sapped his head to the side, this way and that. Jackdaw had expected this and retreated in his mind to a better place as his body jerked of its own accord.
When the punches stopped, Jack finally opened his eyes. The world rocked from side to side in a liquid blur but he made out enough of the details when the motions slowed to a halt. Donovan wiped his knuckles on a rag of cloth that had been handed to him, then dabbed at his brow.
Jackdaw sucked in as much air as he could and spat out a mass of blood in defiance. Donovan noticed and signalled to Mex to let go of his arms, letting the prisoner flop onto the steps, quite undignified.
‘Give him more,’ Donovan demanded.
Mex’s fists came down like iron rain.
Soon the world went dark and the striking of bone faded to numbness. Sparks erupted time and time again, from limb to limb, a terrible dance that substituted pain for gestating burning.
It went on for ever. Or it seemed to at least.
Everything faded to nothing as Jack retreated further in his mind to a more peaceful place. He was aware of his body moving but it was as if his limbs were operated by strings, as if he were a puppet succumbing to its owner’s terrible actions.
All he could do was imagine a place far from this one. Substitute the blood in his mouth for liquor. The ringing in his ears for conversation. The pressing on his flesh by her hands …
When Jackdaw opened his eyes, or eased them open the best he could due to their swelling, he spied nothing but pairs of blurry colours, the formless shapes of the assailants. Cold stone indented his cheek. Tart iron filled his nostrils, wetness seeping from his nose to his lips. Dots of crimson sprayed with every laboured breath. Donovan wiped his knuckles again, this time with a well-folded cotton handkerchief, unable to resist getting a couple more hits in himself. The thrilling sting had been absent for the months spent organizing the empire’s reconstruction. Too often had he delegated others to soil themselves with violence. This was a fine reminder of the old ways.
‘Your debt is carried since I have claimed all that is Wilheim’s. Therefore, you’ll be paying me what I’m owed with an extra ten per cent on top. I aim to collect punctually too, so don’t think you have time on your side.’
Ash nudged Jackdaw’s weapon with the flat of his foot.
‘Hey, boss. What do you want done with this?’ he called out.
Donovan spied the firearm on the ground, dirtied and accompanying its owner. After a moment he gave his thoughts. ‘What need would I have for such trash?’
Ash chuckled deeply, squatting between them.
‘This is your one and only warning, Jacky-boy. If we come collecting and you offer less, well … We’ll be having a very different conversation than we are now. Donovan didn’t want you too busted up as you need to sort business out, but between you and me?’ He yanked a fistful of hair, elevating Jack’s head from the stone. He spoke with a horrid hiss. ‘I’ve never liked you. Not your cocksure grin. Not that bullshit way you try and steamroll people with just your name. The great Jackdaw … You’re a fucking joke. Call this one for old time’s sake.’
A kick caused an explosion between Jackdaw’s legs and he vomited in a splutter.
‘Off you fly, birdie,’ Ash hissed, leaving Jackdaw bloodied in the gutter.
Time passed. Jack knew not how much, only that it took an age to crawl along the flagstones through tear-stained eyes and flares of pain that danced around him. His fingers, the ones that worked at least, pulled him to his goal, the shimmering light that flickered from the metal surface of the object before him.
Finally, with a cry of relief, Jackdaw took the handle of the Pendulum, the weapon inherited from the closest thing he’d had to a real father, and held it to his chest in prayer. Tears rolled away from his eyes as he hissed every breath.
It took an unbearable amount of time and strength to reach his feet. Individuals passed him, but they clearly thought it more sensible to ignore his pleas for help than to get involved in whatever misfortune had befallen the man. Their footsteps quickened. Husbands pulled their wives aside to give him a wider berth. Children were told not to stare.
Navigating the tight streets proved to be difficult. Jack had adopted an obvious limp and embraced his ribs, which burned on every inhalation. Blood from his mouth was dabbed upon the collar of his one fine blue tunic, now patchy with evidence of his beating. He moved as if in a dream, willing every step taken by leaded legs, requiring the sporadic assistance of a wall to momentarily rest.
Those he passed in the alleyways and open streets gazed at the savagery inflicted. Some whispered among themselves. Playing children boisterously called after the stranger, asking how it happened, repeating themselves when ignored. Any one of them could be an informant for Donovan. Any one of them could be a Bluecoat spy. A spy for another gang maybe, one determined to pounce when an opportunity like this arose.
This town was full of his enemies.
* * *
Jackdaw was sprawled, quite motionless, on the bed.
His shirt had been cut away, for it was not even any use as rags with the amount of staining it had sustained. Bounty had bandaged up the most obvious bleeds on his person, protecting her bed with numerous towels in the process. The floor beside it resembled that of an infirmary and, for a while, Bounty considered calling a street doctor; but assuming that this was a matter Jackdaw didn’t want shared, she thought better of it. He had slept for some hours now. Waking the man wouldn’t be the best idea given that rest was clearly needed, so instead Bounty found things to occupy the time.
As she slouched in the chair opposite, the deafening ticking of a carriage clock filled the void of silence, as did the brushing of her pencils on paper. Her possessions had been brought to her room by a kindly Rose, and with it she had withdrawn the journal first and sketched various parts of the man before her. Particular focus was made on the shading of the muscles, crosshatching the pencil lead to ensure def
inition. For a moment she paused and watched Jackdaw sleep. The crude patching up did little to alleviate her worry, as she was no street doctor. She lacked the nerve to stich up some of the wounds, though suspected that such attention was needed.
His chest rose and subsided with his rest. At least, it did, for during this moment of her observing, her patient’s eyes cracked apart.
‘What are you doing there?’ Jack croaked.
‘You dragged yourself into the foyer yelling my name on a wave of commotion, bleeding like a butchered rabbit while at it. Ruined the floor may I add, which is going to get me into a good deal of trouble, if I don’t have to pay for it outright. I had to practically beg the doorman to get his hands off you. Fool as you are, you threatened him with every repercussion and bloodied his attire in the process. I’ll no doubt have to pay for that too, that is, if they don’t toss me out on your account.’
‘No.’ Jack coughed deeply to dislodge something. ‘That there. Are you … are you drawing me?’
Bounty sheepishly closed her notebook and placed it beneath a table lamp, the accompanying pencil carefully put on top.
‘I didn’t know how long you would be sleeping for.’ She justified herself via boredom, taking a glass from beside her bed and offering it to a shaking hand. ‘I wasn’t just going to sit here doing nothing. I don’t wait about for people, Jack – you know that more than anyone. It’s my turn to ask the questions now. What in the name of all things happened?’
‘Debt collectors.’ Jack groaned, taking small sips from of water. It clearly hurt him to speak. Hurt to do anything really.
‘And you didn’t pay?’ Bounty blurted out in disbelief.
‘They didn’t even ask for the money – they were just letting me know that I owed.’
She assisted in placing the glass down.
‘Anything broken?’ She prodded and pressed upon his chest, feeling lower to his stomach. His flesh had begun to purple, a spatter of bruising littering taut skin. Almost all caused a wince, some sharper than others.
‘I don’t think so … They’re too good for that. Cracked, most definitely. Anyway, if I get laid up, the money isn’t forthcoming. Said so themselves.’
Finally, Jack noticed the various bandages and sutures on his person, a number already requiring replacing.
‘Whose handiwork is this?’ he asked, twisting an arm under the limb’s duress.
‘I couldn’t leave you bleeding everywhere, could I? The last thing I need is my bed ruined. You best visit a professional to patch you up as soon as you can. I’m no expert in this.’
‘Fair point.’
Jack dropped the weight of his head on the pillow. Bounty rested her hands on her hips and sighed, taking in the full length of the man sprawled upon pink satin sheets.
‘You look shocking.’
‘I’ve had worse.’ Jackdaw’s eyes flickered in reminiscence. ‘Much worse.’
‘Look at the state of you. You’re useless to me for the next few hours, you know that?’
‘No, no. I’ll just lie here. You can just do what you do and …’ He paused, waving his spare hand limply. ‘I could have finished that if I could feel my cheek. Been real funny, like.’
She examined small troughs of red that had seeped down the glass’s grooves and been deposited in at the bottom. Bounty said nothing.
‘I didn’t know our relationship was purely sexual.’ He paused, considering the situation. ‘And monetary of course.’
Bounty had her back turned but slowly nodded in agreement, ignoring the lacklustre comment.
‘What are you going to do now, Jack? It seems that you’re in quite the predicament.’
‘I need something big to settle up with bad people. Very big. I don’t have a lot of time to do so.’ He hissed turning onto one side.
‘Level with me. How much could you possibly owe to warrant this?’
Jack’s demeanour broke, just for a handful of seconds. His eyes shimmered in fear, knowing full well the astronomical amount that was due and verbalizing it was an impossibility, almost as if the mention of the number would coax further ill fortune. Rather than bring attention to it, Bounty placed her hand flat against his bruised cheek in comfort.
‘Take the most impossible number you can think of,’ Jack grunted. ‘Multiple it by ten. Then you’ll be getting close.’
‘Do you at least have a plan?’
‘I was thinking of holding you up and taking yours.’
‘You can try it but I doubt you would get far.’
Jack weakly drew the weapon from his holster and aimed it frontward. Its noticeable tremor was witnessed with a sympathetic frown. Bounty climbed onto the bed and crawled towards him on all fours. He watched as she slinked forward. The cold, cruel steel kissed her skin before being nudged away with no resistance. The weapon was released from his fingers, clattering suddenly on the floorboards.
‘See? Worthless.’ She placed a gentle kiss on Jack’s broken lips. He wheezed through a slit in their union.
An hour was all either could spare. Bounty was concerned that Jack’s commotion would draw the gaze of the Bluecoats. They treated parlours such as this with disdain and would think nothing of turning it upside down for just looking at them queer. Jack, on the other hand, was wary of someone he had once wronged, barging in and turning this all-too-comfortable bed into a casket. Worst of all, in that scenario, it would be likely that Bounty would join him.
Jack squatted at the end of the bed, flexing his fingers into a fist and releasing them again. At her dresser, Bounty had been pacing back and forth, checking through the lace curtain at the window from time to time to see if it was her imagination that someone lingered on the street corner opposite. Maybe they were taking a break and enjoying a smoke, watching the locals drift past and the horses pull their wagons of cargo to market.
Then again, maybe they weren’t.
‘I shouldn’t do this. I really shouldn’t …’ Bounty mumbled, letting the net curtain ease back into place. She wrestled with her conscience, attempting to suppress the more inappropriate feelings for Jack that she harboured. He wasn’t just another patron of hers. He wasn’t like the moneyed gentlemen who promised to whisk her away for the deceptively fulfilling life of a concubine. Other Roses would have leapt at such chances but not her. Bounty was a professional, but there were times when even the most skilled at their work takes stock of the situation and finds their plans quite awry. Bounty took another look at Jackdaw.
To see him broken like this was difficult to accept.
‘Damn me for a fool,’ she whispered.
Bounty took a pen, dipped the nib in ink and wrote, quite perfectly, upon a clean page of her parchment, tore it free, folded it to an envelope and presented it to Jack.
‘Give this to Cole. From what you’ve told me about him … it’ll make sense. Show it to no one else.’ It was snatched back suddenly before being offered once more just to punctuate the point. ‘I mean it.’
As Jackdaw took it, he found their fingertips lingering upon each other’s.
Chapter Seventeen
The impossible thing
Ralust took a swig from his canteen, and wiped away the dribbles with the back of one hand. He passed it over to Jack who took a mouthful himself, though he still struggled from his beating a couple of weeks back. The purple blotches that dotted his skin were a dark reminder of just how serious matters were; the ones by his mouth making drinking more difficult. The canteen was offered next to Cole, who dismissed it with a shake of the head, keeping his attention forward.
The horses had been tied up to a shrivelled tree out in the scrubland, foraging for scraps of green in the dirt to chew. It had been a couple of hours’ ride out into the Sand Sea, ascending Old Man’s Hook, a plateau looking across a pair of natural canyons, the closest being the colourful one named Dead Canyon. The apex of one of these was Esquelle, serving as a natural route for the sand ships that moved their cargo, allowing them to avoid some of
the more treacherous weather the region had to offer. In it, smaller paddle ships puffed along nonchalantly, modest in their size and speed, their progress a crawl from this height.
Cole held up a pair of binoculars to his face and muttered to himself as he scanned the canyon, its curves and the traffic emerging from the town.
Ralust filled the silence. ‘Beautiful sight, ain’t it?’
‘What are we looking for? The pair of you didn’t drag me out here for the view,’ Jack said, quite unable to determine the reason why the pair had decided to spend the afternoon out here. Even squinting did nothing to identify what his companion had seen, at least to start with. It hurt considerably less now to see, given that a couple of weeks of healing had turned agony to grumbling pain.
And then Jackdaw saw it.
Crawling around the ridge, a colossal sand ship trudged along the well-worn route. It was high, incredibly so, dwarfing the rest of the traffic that it passed. Most attempted to give a wide berth to the clouds of orange that congregated at its caterpillar tracks. A pair of colossal smoke stacks belched plumes into the sky.
‘That right there.’ Cole handed over the binoculars, allowing Jack to align them with his eyes. ‘That would be your Messiah.’
The sand ship was even more impressive through the warped glass lenses. It was still too far away to count the number of decks or to identify its markings, but still it was quite a sight.
Proudly, Ralust patted Jackdaw upon the back.
‘You found him?’ Jack asked.
‘We did indeed,’ the old man boasted. ‘The Messiah isn’t a who, it’s a what.’
‘The clue was that Rose of yours who insisted that I read the note despite the contents just being that one word,’ Cole explained. ‘It appears you’ve been talking about me. The Messiah is an Arcadia Class Sand Ship. Holds around a hundred and fifty when transporting. Takes about twenty to run it on a skeleton crew, travels the Dead Corridor from top to bottom. Back when I was working for the mining company, our ships would have to make allowances for its travel – seeing that it was so big, it could obstruct others on the route.’
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