Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

Just a little way off Dock Street, someone has left a warehouse door ajar—or maybe, from the look of the splintered wood around the lock, someone didn’t bother to hire anyone to guard their wares at harbor. Inside, the building smells of mildew and earth and rotting fruit. Some old barrels sit shattered, half strung together by old shipping cargo nets.

  Drake and Gabriel dump their captive in the middle of the room, next to one of the beams that support the rafters overhead. Stripped off the barrels, the netting makes decent enough rope for Gabriel to tie the man’s hands behind his back around the beam, while Drake uses the man’s torn sleeve to bind up his arm.

  Gabriel crouches in front of their captive and pries up one eyelid experimentally. “No,” he says, “don’t think he’ll come around for a while.” He lets go, then helps himself to the man’s coin purse before he stands. “Stay and watch him?”

  “Of course,” Drake says. “Where are you going?”

  “Further up.” Gabriel picks at the knot on the stolen coin purse, tugs it open, and shakes the contents into his hand. “I’m going to go get food.”

  There’s silver in that handful of coin, a good deal of it, enough to make Drake feel weak with relief. They can live on that for days, even if they have to keep finding other places to stay. “Sounds good. Hurry back.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of missing the fun.” Gabriel turns for the door, then stops as if he’s just remembered something and turns back.

  “What—” Drake starts to ask, and doesn’t get any further before Gabriel kisses him. It’s not a lingering kiss, just enough to be solid and certain. Drake catches Gabriel around the waist and kisses back—for all the times Gabriel has changed moods since, he still wants to do this again, and that’s luck if Drake ever heard of it. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “I won’t be long,” Gabriel says, and this time he actually does make it out the door.

  It’s chilly in the warehouse, and the light from the ventilation windows high under the eaves isn’t terribly bright, but Drake can think of worse places to be. Though possibly not for their guest, whose day is likely to go sharply downhill from here. Drake tucks his hands into his armpits to keep them warm and paces, five steps from one end of the clear space to the other, turn and another five steps back. He wonders if Gabriel will want to ask the questions. He wonders if people are likely to hear them if the man starts to scream. He wonders what’s become of Colin, who would have shied away from business like this; he feels all dragon right now, ready to extract vengeance from everyone who’s dared to cross him.

  He’s not sure how long it’s been when the man stirs, tries to sit up straighter, starts to pull on the ropes that bind him.

  “Hold still,” Drake says, coming closer.

  “Fuck you,” the thug says. “Where’s your pimp?”

  Drake kicks him a few times. “If your boss told you Gabriel was the only one who could hurt you, I think you’re going to be disappointed.”

  It takes a second and some wheezing before the thug can answer, and when he does, it’s not that impressive. “Whatever you’re looking for, fancy boy, you’re not going to get it out of me.”

  “Sure I am.” This is theater, as much as anything that happens in a playhouse, only with more riding on a convincing performance. Drake gets down on his knees in front of the guy and punches him in the mouth, does it a second time when it looks like he’s recovering enough to answer. Blood trickles down from a split in the man’s lip. “I’m getting it right now.”

  “You said you’d wait for me,” Gabriel says, and Drake catches the moment of terror that crosses the thug’s face. Good. That’ll help.

  “Sorry,” Drake says as he stands up. “He’s got a smart mouth.” He dusts off his hands. “What’d you get? It smells great.”

  Gabriel holds out two half-moon–shaped pastries. “Meat buns. Ate mine already. These are for you.”

  “You’re a prince.” He takes the meat buns—still warm, even, and the pastry flaking in his fingers—and steps back. “If you want to kick him around a little while I eat, or anything, feel free.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Gabriel’s watching their captive avidly. “This is personal. Your business. Like Morgan was for me.”

  Their man flinches just slightly at the mention of Morgan. “I was new then,” Drake says around a mouthful of his meat bun. “I wouldn’t have known what to do with Morgan if you’d asked me.” He takes another bite. “This is delicious.” The crust is stuffed with tangy, shredded meat, slow cooked and laced with sweet simmered onions. Drake’s pretty sure he would have appreciated it anytime, but no time more than now, when he’s so badly starved.

  Gabriel crouches on the floor in front of their man. “Should I cut him up a little, then?”

  Drake wonders if he could keep eating while he watched something like that. He thinks maybe he could, and wonders when he got so cold. “If you start cutting now, he won’t last long, will he?” He smiles when their captive glares at him. Right now this is a bluffing game, Gabriel’s favorite one: how badly are we going to hurt you? “I mean, it’s not like we have anything to stop the bleeding with, if you nick a big vein too soon.”

  “I’m more careful than that,” Gabriel says, pouting. “I don’t hit the big veins until I mean to.”

  “Told you once already,” the man says. “I got nothing to give you. Don’t bother with the show.”

  “Too bad for you,” Gabriel says sympathetically. “All we can hope for is that you last for a while.” He throws a punch, a quick jab that snaps the man’s head back and makes his eye start to blacken almost immediately.

  “Son of a whore,” the man says.

  Gabriel cocks his head to one side. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  “His ribs are cracked on the right side,” Drake offers as he stuffs the last of his food into his mouth. He’s not looking too closely, but whatever Gabriel does with that information makes the man hiss and kick weakly to try to push Gabriel away. Bad move.

  Gabriel pulls his heavy knife, flips it around in his hand, and brings the pommel down hard on the man’s leg right below the knee. There’s another cracking sound and what’s definitely meant to be a curse, for all that it barely has any breath behind it.

  “All right,” Drake says. “I’m done. I could take over again for a bit.” There’s sweat standing out on the man’s brow, despite the chill in here, and if Gabriel makes him go into pain shock too soon, it’s not likely he’ll even be able to barter his way out by volunteering information.

  “Of course.” Gabriel gets up. “He’s all yours, Drake.”

  For a while after that, Drake tries not to pay too much attention to what he’s doing. He aims his kicks so they’ll hurt, but not do too much lasting damage. It’s a means to an end, not something he does for its own sake, and personal or no, he would probably still leave most of it to Gabriel if it weren’t for what a good threat Gabriel makes.

  When they reach the point where Drake can throw a punch and pull it, and have the man still flinch, he figures they’re about ready. “You want to take a turn? I’m getting bored with him.”

  “Now can I take some pieces off?” Gabriel asks. He’s rolling one of his knives over the back of his hand, catching it, and setting it in motion again.

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “What do you bastards want?” the man slurs. He sounds hopeless. Just about right.

  “Nothing too unusual,” Drake says. “Bloody rotten vengeance on the men who wrong me, that’s all.”

  The man huffs a little angry sound that’s probably supposed to be defiant laughter. “You’re as bad as they say, aren’t you?”

  “Flattery won’t get you out of this,” Gabriel says. “Come on, Drake. He’s not good for anything else. Get out of the way so I can cut him.”

  “Wait,” the man says. He’s trying to focus on Drake, but his eyes are going glassy and the left one’s swelling shut. “There’s got to be something you
want to know.” Drake looks at Gabriel like he’s considering the idea, and the guy adds, “Please.”

  “Were you really going to pay up the five guineas if someone handed me over to you?” Drake asks. Easy questions first, just making conversation.

  “Course not,” the man says thickly. “Way too much of the take to give away.”

  “Makes sense,” Drake says. “How much is the take? What am I worth?”

  The man’s mouth curves in a bitter smirk, but he stops when that makes his split lip start oozing blood again. “Twenty-five.”

  Drake whistles. “Make all of you rich, wouldn’t it? Even more now that there’s fewer ways to split it. What was your man going to do with me, if he would pay that much? That’s no hangman’s bounty.”

  The man hesitates, and Gabriel says, “This is boring. He doesn’t have any good stories.” He shifts, knife raised, takes the man by the hair.

  “I don’t know,” the man protests. “Sell you, probably. That’s what Tom figured.” He keeps looking from Drake to Gabriel’s knife and back again. “To your family if they’d pay up, or else on a ship going south.”

  “Not bad.” Drake gets down on the floor so he can look their captive in the eyes. “You know you need to get out of town yourself now, right? If you go back to your friends after this, there’s no way they’ll believe you didn’t talk to us.” He makes his tone as gentle and reasonable as he can. “So you’ve got nothing to lose but your life here.”

  Gabriel’s knife traces a slow, careful line up the right side of the man’s face, stops beside his right eye. He presses just hard enough to make an indent in the flesh. “I wouldn’t say nothing, exactly.”

  “I’m talking already,” the man says. His voice breaks. “What do I got to say?”

  “Who’s the man with the money?” Drake asks softly. “Who gave you bastards the job?”

  The man swallows hard. “He’s called Barron.”

  So Barron’s still that angry, months later—trying to pick up where he left off, as if he hasn’t already turned Colin’s life upside down.

  “Thank you.” Drake steps back so the mess won’t get on him, and Gabriel slits the man’s throat, quick and easy, from one ear to the other. Blood pours from the wound, drenching the front of the man’s clothes, steaming in the chill air.

  “We’ve tangled with Barron before,” Gabriel says.

  Drake nods. “He might not know that. I don’t think any of that first group got away. Westfall’s men picked them up.” He watches Gabriel step back, take off his jacket, roll up his sleeves. “What are you doing?”

  “Letting Barron and his boys know that we’re unhappy. Could you see if there’s anything in here I can wipe my hands on afterward?” He picks up the knife again.

  “Of course.” Drake wonders as he turns away if Gabriel’s trying to spare him from watching whatever he’s going to do to the corpse. It’s hard to tell whether it would be more like him to worry about Drake’s sensibilities or to simply not realize the sight could be upsetting.

  The stores left in the warehouse look like exports, mostly—the empty barrels held peaches or peach brandy, from the smell, and there’s a broken crate whose timbers still smell faintly of tobacco under the top layer of mold and rot. How long has it been since he last had a good smoke? He almost can’t remember what it tasted like. The dizziness of a good pipeful belongs to a different life, a different story from the one he’s in now.

  There is at least one bolt of spun cotton in the back, mildewing around the edges and its dye faded unevenly, but serviceable enough for this. Despite himself, Drake looks for the weaver’s mark on the end of the bolt, but it’s not one he recognizes. Nobody who dealt with his family’s plantation, then. He pulls, and the cloth tears off the bolt raggedly, too damaged by the damp to hold together.

  When he brings it back to the body, Gabriel is just standing up. His hands are streaked red, and the body is—

  “Arhon’s shroud,” Drake says, looking away from the blank hollows where the eyes were. “His own mother wouldn’t know him.”

  Gabriel nods. “Everyone will know who did it, though.” He takes the cloth and wipes his hands. It stinks of blood in here, sharp like wet copper, and the smell makes Drake uncomfortable despite his best efforts to stay calm. “Help me with him?” Gabriel bends down to cut the ropes binding the dead man to the pillar.

  “Not enough chance he’ll be found if we leave him here?” Drake guesses. At least the position means there isn’t too much blood on the arms, so they should be able to carry him out all right.

  “Not nearly enough. The rats would get him first for sure, and they don’t tell stories.” He stops. “Not in taverns, anyway. Maybe they tell each other things.”

  “About old Graywhiskers, who went to see if the humans were dead or only sleeping?” Drake steps over a small pile of wet red things and doesn’t look too closely at what they are. “The next day all anyone could find of him was his tail and a few burned pieces of bone.”

  Gabriel reaches under the body on the other side to help lift it. “If you go back there on a moonless night, though, you can hear the skitter of his claws on the stone.”

  They prop the body up outside, against a wall, as close to Dock Street as they dare. Gabriel digs out one bright, polished shilling. He leaves it in the corpse’s open mouth, and his hand comes away bloody again. Drake wonders if it’s a gesture with a history in Casmile’s underworld, or if the language is Gabriel’s own. The message is clear enough either way—here’s payment for their informant, for the last job he did.

  Gabriel wipes his hand on the wall, leaving a trail of bloody smears across the brick. “Ready to go?”

  Drake nods. He’s more than ready, really. They don’t want to be here when the first unlucky bastard comes stumbling out of a tavern up the street and sees this.

  They’ve made it a good four or five blocks away when Gabriel says, “Do you want to go after Barron tonight?”

  “Is it up to me?” Drake asks. That seems odd; usually Gabriel is the one who makes the plans, unless there’s something they absolutely need, like more coal or the rent. Of course, as far as Gabriel’s concerned, it’s entirely possible that vengeance is the same kind of emergency.

  “He’s your trouble,” Gabriel says. That feels like a challenge as much as an offer—he’s your trouble, so what are you going to do about him? “If you want to take him down right away . . .”

  “I can let it wait for a night.” It’s been a long day already, and the idea of starting another hunt now, when he’s fairly sure the afternoon is more than half gone, doesn’t sound too tempting. “We’re rich now, aren’t we? Let’s get a room for the night and have a few drinks, celebrate a bit.”

  “Anything for you, Drake. I did promise.” Gabriel strokes Drake’s cheek, and Drake kisses his palm.

  “Come on, then,” Drake says. “Let’s find ourselves some luxuries.”

  The inns by the harbor come in two basic varieties: the ones for the sailors, and the ones for the merchants. Extravagant as it is, Drake leads them into the Leaping Dolphin, a merchants’ inn, and even though it’ll cost them more for a night than their old room cost for two weeks, he can’t bring himself to regret it. When the proprietor suggests, almost without wrinkling her nose, that they could have a bath and their clothes washed for an extra shilling, he doesn’t even try to barter that down. How long has it been since he really felt clean?

  Gabriel seems rather suspicious of the whole endeavor. “The water’s hot,” he says, watching steam rise from the wooden tubs.

  “I should hope so, for what it’s costing us.” Drake strips, piling his clothes on the floor beside the tub—the serving boy doesn’t seem to want to come close enough to fetch them while they could still get at him easily, and Drake supposes that’s reasonable—and climbs into the water. “Ah, Fates, it’s been too long.” He has to keep his left arm clear of the bath so the bandages won’t get wet, but he lowers himself down u
ntil most of the rest of him is soaking, and that feels wonderful.

  When he cracks one eye open, Gabriel is following his example, warily, setting knives and coin purses beside the second tub where they’ll still be in reach and dropping his clothes in the pile. The suspicion slides off his face as soon as he gets into the water. “Oh,” he says, and lowers himself carefully, holding on to the sides of the tub. The serving boy gathers up their clothes and flees, no doubt glad to be gone.

  “Good, isn’t it?” Drake reaches for the coarse washcloth and the cake of soap between the tubs.

  “You’ll get me spoiled, Drake,” Gabriel says, but he sounds pleased. “Did you do this often?”

  “Fairly, I suppose. Less in the summer when the heat’s everywhere anyway.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought the heat would bother you.” Gabriel watches Drake wash, and it isn’t even a particularly lascivious expression, just interested, but Drake finds himself starting to get hard anyway. He’s warm and comfortable and he knows where his next meal’s coming from, and Gabriel’s admiring him, and that feels like more than enough.

  “Here,” he says, passing the soap and cloth across the space between them. “Your turn.”

  Gabriel laughs when the soap slides from his fingers, like he wasn’t expecting it to do that, and reaches down into the water to retrieve it. He doesn’t remark on it when he starts to wash himself clean, but it looks as though he’s mimicking motions he hasn’t really practiced. Drake thinks he’s probably being rude by staring, but he can’t help himself.

  They trade the soap and washcloth back and forth, and neither of them does a terribly good job of not watching the other, so Drake supposes it must be all right. The serving boy comes back just before the water’s really grown cold, when Drake is rinsing the second round of soap out of his hair. “Robes for you, sirs,” he says, still fidgeting a bit. “Your clothes are by the fire in your room, number six, and here’s the key.” He shifts from one foot to the other.

  Drake’s about to thank him, tell him that’s all they need, but Gabriel gets up first, rising out of the water with an easy, almost predatory motion. The boy flinches, tensed and ready to bolt when Gabriel reaches down for his pile of things, but it’s only the purse he’s going for. He walks across the room dripping, not even trying to cover himself, to take the key from the boy and give him a handful of copper in trade. “Thank you,” he says.