Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  “Plenty of empty rooms in the city.” Gabriel’s eyes flick sideways—he must know they’re being watched—but he doesn’t move to get up. “We’ll find something. Don’t worry.”

  They wind up sitting in the tavern long past the first hints that they’ve outstayed their welcome, until the barkeeper sends the girl out somewhere and she comes back with a hulking brute of a man in her shadow. It’s almost funny, after this morning—they could handle one, no question—but Gabriel gets up and stretches anyway. His shirt rides up, and Drake tries not to let himself stare at that sliver of bared skin.

  “You want to go now?” he asks instead.

  “Nothing to gain by staying,” Gabriel says. “All we get if we win is more of them coming in to help out.”

  “Fair enough.” They do have better fights to get into. He pushes back his chair, nods to the barmaid as they get up to leave. He’d like to think the bruiser looks glad—not a fighting man, maybe, just a local who has the muscle to make people listen.

  The sun’s going down outside, as nearly as Drake can tell; the thin light coming through the clouds is getting weaker. This doesn’t promise to be a good night. Gabriel wanders away from the tavern without looking back, wearing his distracted hunting-for-things face. Drake follows, trying to have faith. Just a few hours ago he was sure that this would be enough, wasn’t he? He should try harder to trust Gabriel now.

  At one corner they hang back, watching the proprietor of a smoking den place torches in the sconces by the door. Gabriel investigates those when the woman has gone back inside, tugs one free of its wrought-iron clasp, and hands it off to Drake. He nods once in silent satisfaction and heads into the worst of the south-city blight.

  It’s full dark by the time they find anything Gabriel deems promising, and by then the cold is settling in seriously and their torch, smoky and sputtering, feels absurdly conspicuous. Drake realizes to his own dismay that he misses their room on Cypress, which may have been squalid and awful but was at least always there. Lady’s foresight, it’s called, realizing things could get worse only when they actually do.

  “Let’s try this one,” Gabriel says. The house he walks up to is barely worthy of the name; it seems to have taken damage in a fire and then never gotten fixed. About half the roof is just gone, a black hole with ragged edges. The door’s been boarded over, but there are windows on the ground floor that haven’t been treated as carefully, and Gabriel pries the shutters off one with only a minute of tugging. The wood makes a thin screeching noise as it comes free of the old nails. Gabriel tosses the shutters inside, and boosts himself up on the sill.

  Drake brings over the torch and holds it up. “Look all right?”

  “Think so,” Gabriel answers. “I’ll hold the light for you once I’ve gotten inside.” He jumps down into the dark, and there’s a squelching noise.

  “Are you all right?” Drake asks.

  “Fine. It’s just muddy.”

  “Muddy? Inside?” That can’t be good. Drake peers in the window. There aren’t any floorboards. Instead there’s just bare ground, most of it a thick layer of wet ash that Gabriel’s boots have disturbed. The house probably wouldn’t be standing at all if the outside wasn’t brick.

  “Hand me the torch,” Gabriel says.

  “Here.” Drake passes it in to him, and the light throws flickering shadows through the room. Something skitters away into the dark in a far corner, and Drake tries not to think too hard on it. The tenement in Cypress probably had rats too, and they got by.

  He climbs through the window—was it just this morning that he was fleeing another house like this? Trouble only ever seems to catch them in plenty. The mud underfoot is thick and sucking, the ground soaked right through from all the winter’s rain.

  “I’ll get you a fancy house,” Gabriel says softly, watching him. “A fine house and a hoard of treasure to fill it up.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Drake says. He stops studying the room and looks at Gabriel instead. I’ll settle for someplace dry, he could say, or If we could build a fire that would be enough, but neither of those things is really what he means. “You don’t need anything like that to make me stay.”

  He almost can’t face Gabriel’s smile after that. It’s too much. He’s in so far over his head. “Thank you, Drake,” Gabriel says. He turns away a minute later—he doesn’t know what to say either, thank the Fates—and starts to look around the house.

  There are some jagged remnants of interior walls still standing, and bits of stone on the ground that probably supported the floor that used to be here. They make their way to the back of the house, where the old kitchen hearth still stands: a brick fireplace, and a spreading half-moon of brick paving in front of it, slightly cracked and blackened but still there and mostly dry.

  “This’ll do, won’t it?” Drake asks. “If we look around, maybe we can find something to use to build up a fire there.”

  Gabriel actually seems to think about it before he answers, like he doesn’t already have a plan in mind. It’s both unsettling and comforting, somehow, to know that he doesn’t just know all the answers, that he’s bluffing his way through as much as Drake is.

  “Yes,” he says at last, and he probably means it to sound certain, but it’s been a long day and Drake’s had enough time to get used to him, and the worry shows through just a bit. “Good idea.”

  They wind up having to pry up some splintered floorboards from the less damaged side of the house, and then sort through for the least damp ones to get a guttering, reddish fire going—but it feels like a victory to have even that much hissing and popping in the hearth, enough to warm their hands by. Drake stacks the rest of the scavenged wood next to the fire so it might dry out enough to burn, and stretches in front of the hearth.

  “It will get better,” Gabriel promises as he lies down too. They really have lost ground, if even Gabriel thinks this is too poor a life.

  “It will,” Drake agrees. “Tomorrow.” He drapes an arm across Gabriel’s shoulders.

  He’s already closed his eyes, trying to convince himself to sleep, when Gabriel says, “Drake.”

  “Mmm?” It sounds like Gabriel just wants his attention, not like anything is actually wrong. Like the tone Anna would use to ask for a story when they were little.

  “Do you believe in things?”

  Drake blinks the sleep away. “Things?” If he’s understood the question correctly, this is important. “What sort of things?”

  Gabriel shrugs against him. “Luck. The Lady.” There’s a pause. “Dragons.”

  The fire hisses, crackles as the wood shifts and settles. Drake licks his lips, thinks carefully about his answer. “It isn’t enough for you to believe in them yourself anymore?” he asks. “You need someone else to agree?”

  Gabriel’s fingers curl in the fabric of his jacket, holding on loosely. “It’s horrible if they’re not real. But sometimes—this morning . . .” He trails off, shakes his head.

  “Because those bastards followed us to the Lady’s house?” Drake asks. Gabriel nods. “You saw what happened when they didn’t believe, though, didn’t you?” This is easier when it’s about the Fates. They’re supposed to be a mystery. “They didn’t think the Lady could hurt them, and she did. And we got away. Remember? It’s all right.” He thinks of the stories Gabriel has told him, Troll Bridge and the Lady’s kiss, and how much uglier they’d have been without something to believe in. “The Lady was watching over us this morning, Gabriel. You’re her favorite. Everyone knows that.”

  “You always know what to say,” Gabriel says softly. It doesn’t really sound like a complaint.

  “Dragons are supposed to be clever at word games, aren’t they?” Drake asks. “Stories. Riddles.”

  “Is that why you stay with me?”

  “Because you’re a riddle? I suppose it is, in part.” Drake wonders if Gabriel has forgotten calling him the riddle, or if he’s just all right with trading places now and then.
<
br />   “You should tell me the dragon story.”

  “The one about the mountain?” Drake tries to remember how it went the first time.

  Gabriel shakes his head. “The one about you.”

  “Someday,” Drake says. “When I’m sure I can tell it right. Will you wait for that? For me to be sure I have all the important parts of it by heart?”

  “Promise,” Gabriel says. “Promise you’ll tell it then.”

  “I promise.” It’s not so bad, being Gabriel’s dragon. And he still doesn’t have to tell the story any time soon.

  Gabriel relaxes against him. “I’ll wait, then.”

  By the morning, their store of firewood is almost completely gone, and there’s a dead rat on the hearth next to the smoldering embers. “It came up to see if we were dead,” Gabriel explains. “Its bad luck, though. We weren’t.”

  “I imagine that’ll be plenty of people’s bad luck today,” Drake says.

  Gabriel laughs. “It will.”

  They have just enough left of their fire to cook the rat. It tastes terrible. Drake wishes there were more than one of them.

  By the light of day, he can get his bearings a little better, and it turns out they’re not so far from Cypress after all—a little further inland, but near enough. They keep to the side streets as they circle back toward their room, watching for anyone who might be watching for them. How are they going to spot their quarry? They don’t have much to go on.

  It turns out it’s easy. There’s a little cluster of them lounging on the stoop outside the building, and they’re obvious as a canker. Plenty of people spend their time on the streets around here, with no honest work to do, but none of them look like that—broad shouldered, heavyset, like they’ve never gone hungry for lack of skulls to bash in. Drake glances at Gabriel. How are they going to do this?

  Down, Gabriel motions. He crouches there, in the alley across the street from their opponents, and studies their surroundings. After a moment he touches Drake’s sleeve, points to the door of the building on their side, then up at the second story. Drake nods.

  The door is locked, but the wood’s old and soft, and when Drake leans on it a little, they get inside with no trouble. The hallway is a lot like their own, filthy and dark, and the stairs stretch upward beside them. “What’s our plan?” Drake asks.

  “We’re going to keep watch. They must switch off sometimes. Going for food, things like that. Then we can take one alone.” Gabriel starts up the stairs. “And talk this over with him.”

  “Sounds good to me. I don’t much care for running and hiding.”

  Gabriel laughs. “You sound angry. That’s good.” He opens the first street-side door upstairs without knocking.

  There’s yelling almost immediately. Drake reaches the door just in time to catch a boy, maybe eight or nine years old, trying to bolt. He drags the boy back into the room, where Gabriel is facing off against a woman with a kitchen knife and another child hiding behind her.

  “Get out,” she says to both of them. “You’ve no business here.”

  “We need to borrow your window,” Gabriel says. He steps over the rags on the floor—blankets, maybe, or spare clothes. “We don’t have to do anything worse than that.” He has one of his knives out all the same, held at his side as he turns just far enough to glance out without really turning his back on the woman.

  Drake hauls the boy further into the room. “Can you see from there?”

  “Well enough.”

  “You’re the ones those men are looking for,” the woman says. She glances from Gabriel to Drake, and then to the door.

  “Don’t run,” Drake says. “I’ll break your boy’s neck, Lady’s truth.”

  The woman glares, but the boy whimpers, pulling weakly at Drake’s arm, and that makes her relent. Drake’s glad. He doesn’t know if he could have actually brought himself to do it if she’d called his bluff.

  “What are they offering?” Gabriel asks.

  “Five guineas,” the woman says.

  Drake stares. That’s an outrageous sum down here.

  “Like to choke them to death with their five guineas,” Gabriel mutters.

  “Oh, come on,” Drake says. “I’d turn me in for that kind of money.” The boy squirms, trying to pull away again, and Drake shakes him. It makes him feel like a brute, but he’s already set himself up for the role and now he needs to be convincing. “Stop that.”

  “When we take care of them, we’ll take the money and buy you all the fancy things you want.”

  “All of them?” Drake asks. They’re going to pull this off, no question. He can tell just looking at Gabriel’s stance. “We’d better hope they’re carrying plenty of coin.”

  The woman makes a little disbelieving noise. “What do you think you’re going to do? There’s at least six of them.”

  “Only six?” Drake says. “See, they lost more after we left them in the Lady’s house.”

  Gabriel looks grimly pleased. “I suppose it’s our turn, then. We can’t expect her to take care of all our problems.”

  “You’re both mad,” the woman says.

  “As moon dogs,” Drake agrees. “Sit tight. With luck, we’ll be on our way soon.”

  He loses track of how long they wait. They’ve had jobs like this, where they spend most of their time just watching for a good opportunity to get their man alone. It’s not his favorite kind of work, especially hungry. But this isn’t a job they can turn down.

  They’re there long enough for the woman to lower her knife, to settle in to waiting with her little girl beside her. The boy squirms a bit, but Drake doesn’t have to pay too much attention to him.

  “There,” Gabriel says eventually, coming alert, his posture growing tense and ready all at once. “They’re changing up. Some of them stay on guard to wait for the pigeons to come home, and the others go out searching.”

  “How many?”

  Gabriel shakes his head. “Haven’t learned. There are only two going each way.”

  The boy tenses against him, so Drake leans down to look him in the eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says. “We’re going to leave, and you’re not hurt. If you—if any of you—try to go warn those bastards, you’ll earn no coin, only some very dangerous enemies.”

  The boy flinches back from him, bristling like he’d desperately love to fight but doesn’t dare.

  “Time to go, Drake,” Gabriel says.

  They leave the room at a stroll, like they’re going nowhere in particular, and then take the stairs in leaps and bounds, back out to the alley. Gabriel doesn’t even slow down, turning and heading northward through the twisted side streets that cling to Cypress like the Lady’s moss. The men they’re following are walking up Cypress itself, casual enough that Drake thinks they might be taking a break, not actually hunting right now. They carry themselves like they’re hoping trouble will try them, and people get out of their way. Stupid bastards.

  When they turn off Cypress it’s toward Dock Street, about as far south as that comes. There’s nothing respectable this far down it, that’s for sure—nothing but half-empty warehouses, crooked gaming houses, and smoking dens. Gabriel jogs across Cypress in pursuit, and Drake follows his lead. Between Cypress and Dock is their best bet, in the cramped old streets that used to serve the harbor when ships moored on the south shore.

  They’re about halfway to the first bend in this little alley when their targets stop. Drake’s reaching into his pocket for his brass knuckles, and Gabriel already has a knife drawn.

  The first one turns—not entirely blind to his circumstances after all, more’s the pity. “Come out of hiding at last?” He draws a knife of his own.

  “Can’t let the Lady have all the fun with you,” Gabriel says with a smile.

  The men both have knives, and they lunge for Gabriel first. But Gabriel’s fast, jumping back and slashing in return—knife in each hand now—and the bastards are in each other’s way when they attack the same target in
such close quarters. Drake steps into his first punch, catches one of them right in the ribs with a solid crack of bone. The thug swipes at him as he falls back, cursing, and Drake’s not as fast as he should be; a blade bites across his arm. Son of a whore.

  Gabriel catches the other thug in the face, and both Drake and the first thug jump at the screaming. There’s blood everywhere—always so much blood from head wounds—and the guy’s retaliating strikes are wild enough that Gabriel has no trouble dodging.

  Drake sees his chance and takes it: while his thug is reacting to the spectacle, he swings, slams his bare fist into the back of the guy’s neck. The thug drops, and Drake kneels beside him to make sure he’s out but still alive; they’re going to want some answers after this. Gabriel takes another nasty swipe at the other one—he’s as bad as a hunting cat—and the prick tries to run.

  Nobody outruns Gabriel when he’s this angry. It takes two steps before Gabriel catches the collar of the man’s shirt with his right hand and stabs with his left, driving the knife home below the ribcage. There’s more screaming for a few seconds as the man collapses, and then the screams turn to gurgling when Gabriel cuts clean across his throat.

  “Such trouble.” Gabriel crouches beside the body, wipes his knife on the dead man’s pant leg, and starts going through his pockets. “Won’t tell us anything now. Yours?”

  “Still breathing,” Drake says. “Might not wake for a bit, though.”

  “All the better.” Gabriel pockets the dead man’s knife and coin purse. “Let’s get him off the street before the guard comes by.”

  They manage to get their new companion more or less upright between them, one arm over each of their shoulders. He’s damn heavy, but they make do, staggering away from the mess they’ve left behind and turning at the first opportunity. With any luck, they’ll look like they’re helping out a friend who’s spent too long in the smoking dens—nothing makes people look away faster, Drake’s found, than someone who might ask for help.