Among Thieves totk-1

by Douglas Hulick

  “It’s all about how Ten Ways works,” I said, trying to buy some time. My voice came out far steadier than I expected. I credited the ahrami. “The place is a hole. The cordon’s full of thugs and petty bosses. Almost every one of them is making a move at some time or another. It’s how a person establishes himself, and it’s how you get out. If you make enough things happen, or pull off a big enough dodge, you can use it to leverage your way into better things.

  “That’s what’s happening here,” I said. “Someone’s trying to look tough by seeing how far he can push you in the cordon. We’re not exactly big in Ten Ways, so we’re a prime target. Send in a couple of Cutters, have them hand out some bruises, maybe make a corpse or two, and the Kin down there will get the message.”

  “I already sent people,” snarled Nicco.

  “Good,” I said.

  “They didn’t come back.”

  “Oh.”

  Nicco walked over and sat down behind his desk. “Tell him,” he said to Rambles.

  “Three Cutters went in,” said Rambles. “None came out. That was two days ago. Last night we sent two Arms in with four more Cutters. One of the Arms staggered out this morning, cut up. He died an hour later.”

  I whistled softly. The Cutters I could almost see. They were decent enforcers, but you could find freelance toughs who were just as good if you looked. Arms, though, were another matter. They were the best the Kin had to offer, the select muscle in an organization. For a boss like Nicco to lose two Arms and twice as many Cutters in a pissant cordon like Ten Ways wasn’t just a bad sign-it was downright embarrassing.

  Now I understood why Nicco wasn’t happy. He needed to pay back whoever was responsible, fast, or risk losing face among the Kin. Lose enough, and he might find other Upright Men sniffing around his turf, deciding which portions they could carve off for themselves. Top dogs didn’t stay on top in this business if they let the smaller dogs get away with pissing on them.

  “I hadn’t heard any of this yet,” I said, “which is good.” Both men stared at me. “Not hearing anything means our people have been able to keep it quiet. That gives us some breathing room.”

  “I don’t give a crap about ‘breathing room,’ ” said Nicco. “If people are complaining on the street, then someone is talking.” He scowled at Rambles. “That’s not supposed to be happening.”

  Rambles shrugged, and suddenly I understood. Rambles had been put in charge of Ten Ways. I almost laughed out loud. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather see consigned to that gutter of a territory.

  Nicco looked over at me. “What the fuck are you grinning at?”

  “Uh… ” I said.

  “You walk in two days late, you argue, you give me information I needed to know yesterday, and then you sit there smiling?”

  “Well…”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I did.

  Nicco smeared a scrap of bread through the drippings on the plate and put it in his mouth. “I’ll keep this short,” he said, his mouth working around the bread. He pointed at Rambles. “I want the bastards behind this to pay-hard. No one fucks with me, no matter where they are. You remind those bastards in Ten Ways of that.”

  Rambles considered for a moment. “How far do you want me to go?”

  “As far as you need to. But,” Nicco said, pausing to swallow, “I don’t want the whole damn cordon coming down around my ears, got it?”

  Rambles seemed mildly disappointed, but he nodded, anyhow.

  I nodded as well. Nicco was being smart. Ten Ways may be a hellhole, but it was a proud hellhole. Outside bosses were barely tolerated, and then usually at the fringes. Hell, even the city guard garrisoned the men stationed there outside the cordon. If Rambles went in looking for serious trouble, he’d end up with most of the Kin in Ten Ways lining up against him in a matter of days.

  “Good,” said Nicco. He flicked his fingers at Rambles. “Now, get the hell out of here.”

  Rambles bowed slightly in Nicco’s direction, smirked at me, and left. Since the Arms were still looming behind me, I took the hint and stayed.

  Nicco took a sip of whatever was left in his cup, made a face, and set it aside. “You’re going, too.”

  I sat up straighter. “What?”

  “To Ten Ways. You’re going in.”

  Shit. That was what I’d been afraid of. I’d spent five years in that pit before finally clawing my way out. The climb hadn’t been easy or pretty, and I’d sworn I wouldn’t go back. Besides, if I was busy in there, I wouldn’t be able to track Ioclaudia or my relic out here.

  I wet my lips and thought fast.

  “I don’t know if I’m the best person for this job,” I said. “I have history down there.”

  “I figured that would help-you know the cordon.”

  “Knew it,” I said. “That was a long time ago. And if anyone does remember me, they’re as likely to stab me as talk to me. I didn’t leave a lot of friends in my wake when I left.”

  “So take some Cutters in with you.”

  “You know that’s not how I work,” I said. I ran a hand through my beard. “Dammit, Nicco, I-”

  Nicco snapped his fingers. Hands clamped down on my shoulders. The Arms behind me bore down so hard, I thought they were going to push me through the chair. I winced and tried to look unfazed. I doubted I fooled anyone.

  Nicco leaned back in his chair and examined his fingers. “Are we having another disagreement, Drothe?”

  “No,” I said. “I just-”

  “I said, are we having a disagreement?”

  The Arms put their full weight into it. I heard something creak dangerously. Probably the chair, but I could have sworn it was my spine.

  “No,” I gasped. “Absolutely not!”

  “Good.” Nicco gave a nod, and the pressure went away. “Leave.”

  The two Arms walked out of the room and closed the door behind them. Nicco waited for the sound of their shoes on the stairs to fade before he spoke.

  “You’re lucky I like you, Drothe.”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing at my shoulders. Everything still seemed to be where it belonged. “Lucky.”

  “Damn it, Drothe!” Nicco pointed past me to where the Arms had been. “I should have had them beat the living crap out of you. What the hell were you thinking? Arguing with me in front of them, in front of Rambles? Shit.” He sat back in his chair and glared at me. “Sometimes I think I give you too much freedom, even for a Nose. You forget your place.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “I never forget my place.”

  “Don’t give me lip, Drothe. Not right now.”

  I held up my hands. “I get it-no squabbles in front of the help.” Or at all, at the moment. Even my tired brain could read that one. Right now, I needed to play along. “So what do you want me to do in Ten Ways?”

  “I want you to find out what the hell’s going on.”

  I frowned. I had expected to be told to shadow Rambles’s efforts and report back. “Isn’t that Rambles’s job? He’s in charge down there now.”

  “Rambles can kick ass and take names with the best of them, but he’ll miss things. You won’t-that’s why I want you Nosing down there. And I don’t want you sharing what you find with anyone but me.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “Trust has nothing to do with it: I want to compare what you say to what he says.”

  Ah. He didn’t trust either of us. Wonderful.

  I scratched at my beard. It was still damp with blood. “Rambles won’t like my nosing around down there if he’s not in the loop.” Actually, he wouldn’t like my nosing around there even if he was in the loop, but that was beside the point.

  “Tough shit for him,” said Nicco. He got up and walked back over to the window. “He doesn’t need to know everything to do his part of the job.”

  I looked up at that. “He doesn’t know everything now, does he?” I said. “You have something else.”

  Nicco didn’
t look at me. Instead, he ran his finger along the window frame, holding it up to study the dust it had collected. “The Arm who made it out of Ten Ways lived long enough to give us two names. One of them was ‘Fedim.’ ”

  I shook my head. “Don’t know it.”

  “He’s the Dealer who’s been complaining about protection.” Nicco blew the dust off his fingertip. “Things are bad enough in Ten Ways without some cut-rate fence mouthing off. It makes me look bad. Talk to him, find out what he knows. Then dust him.”

  I grimaced but didn’t argue.

  “And the other name?” I said.

  Nicco stared at his finger so long, I thought he wasn’t going to tell me. Then he rubbed it with his thumb and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

  “Kells,” he said.

  If I hadn’t had a chair beneath me, I would have been on the floor. As it was, I nearly grabbed the sides for support, anyhow.

  “Kells?” I said. Well, shit.

  Chapter Five

  I stepped out onto the street in a daze. Kells? In Ten Ways?

  Hell. This was all I needed. Having Kells’s name turn up where Nicco was concerned was like trying to put out a fire with naphtha.

  I started walking.

  Back in the day, before the feud, before the countless border fights, before they had both become Upright Men, Nicco and Kells had been tight. They had run under the same boss, worked the same cordon, shared in the same dodges-right up to the point where they threw down their old boss, Rigga, and carved up her territory. Turns out that was the worst thing they could have done to each other.

  Each side had a story about how it went bad, of course. Nicco’s centered around respect and dishonesty: He claimed Kells had conned him out of the richest portions of Rigga’s turf, even though Nicco had ended up with the bigger share of territory. Worse, he said, Kells had used the money to lure his best people away after the split. Nicco being Nicco, he’d gone for the throat.

  As for Kells, the argument went that he hadn’t bought Nicco’s people-he’d just offered them a better deal. Instead of relying on fear and fists to keep his organization running, Kells used careful planning and cunning to make sure things ran smoothly. That was why his smaller territory had done better, and why people had left Nicco after Rigga’s organization broke up. When Nicco had gone after Kells, it looked like spite.

  Both arguments made sense for the men involved, and I expect each tale had a degree of truth to it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a Nose, it’s that every story changes with the person telling it, no matter how close the person thinks he’s holding to the truth. And even though I tended to lean toward the version of the story that favored Kells, the fact of the matter was that Nicco looked to be the wronged party this time around. If Kells was in Ten Ways, and he could be linked to what had happened to Nicco’s people…

  I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. Dusting six of Nicco’s people out of the blue, in Nicco’s own territory, wasn’t Kells’s style. If it had been the other way around, I could see it, but not like this. Kells was too subtle for this kind of a play. At least, he always had been up until now.

  But if there was a link, or even the hint of one, Nicco would be on it. He’d go after Kells hard. And that would put me in the middle of it, in Ten Ways, in the fighting.

  I groaned. Maybe it was best that Nicco was sending me in there to figure it out after all. Maybe I could even avert the looming disaster. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  I shambled the rest of the way home in the early-afternoon light and collapsed into a dreamless sleep. I awoke sometime after midnight, chewed a seed, and dragged myself out into the streets long enough to scare up a late meal. I returned and slept some more.

  Late-morning sunlight was pushing its way in past the edges of my room’s shutters when I woke again. Someone was knocking on my door.

  I lay in bed for a moment, hoping the caller would think I was out.

  He kept knocking.

  Hell, might as well get up. I had to piss, anyhow.

  “Bide a moment!” I yelled as I got out of bed and padded across the room.

  Downstairs, beneath the sound of the knocking, I could hear the squeals and shouts of two little girls at play-Renna and Sophia. I smiled at the noise as I slipped on yesterday’s shirt and picked up my sword belt, the rapier still in its scabbard.

  I put my eye to the peephole and looked into the hall. A clean-shaven face, framed by perfumed blond curls, sat atop a carefully embroidered jacket and half cloak. I recognized the livery badge on his chest and groaned.

  “My Lord Drothe?” asked the messenger to the peephole. He sounded unsure of the question, and I found myself wanting to lie. But there would only be another flunky like him at my door tomorrow if I did.

  I disarmed the spring trap, undid the double lock, and cracked the door open a finger’s width.

  “Yes to the Drothe part,” I said, “no to the ‘lord.’ I’m not noble, and I didn’t marry into the blood like your mistress.” He looked startled at that last part, no doubt surprised by my audacity. Well, let him be. His mistress might be the Baroness Christiana Sephada, Lady of Lythos, but she was also my sister. The fact that only a handful of people besides her and me knew about our relationship didn’t change how I dealt with “her ladyship.”

  I glanced past the messenger to the man who loomed behind him. His name was Ruggero, and he worked for me. He gave a brief nod, indicating he’d searched the messenger. I nodded back, and Ruggero retreated silently down the stairs. I looked back to the messenger.

  “You’re new, aren’t you?” I said. “She’s never sent you before.”

  “Yes, uh, no… I mean, I’ve never had the honor before, sir, no.”

  “It’s no honor, believe me,” I said. I opened the door and waved the young man in. “What’s your name?”

  “Tamas, my lord.” He remained in the hallway. I could tell by the look on his face he was unsure what to do next. I was probably violating every nicety of court protocol imaginable. While the poor kid had been trained to handle everything from sycophants to haughty nobles, it was clear no one had instructed him on the finer points of dealing with a thief who has just answered the door wearing nothing more than a shirt that barely reached his knees and a sword.

  “The family downstairs has children, Tamas,” I explained, tossing my sword belt and blade onto the bed to make him more at ease. “I don’t want their mother after me in case their eldest daughter happens by and catches a view up my shirt. Understand?”

  The messenger glanced over his shoulder at the stairwell as if I had prophetic powers, then stepped quickly into the room. I shut the door.

  “So, what does she want this time?” I asked as I pulled down a pair of paned slops from a wall peg and sniffed them. Definitely cleaner than the ones I had been wearing since taking after Athel. I put them on.

  “My lord?”

  “The baroness,” I said. “Christiana didn’t send you here to help me dress, did she?”

  “No!”

  I smiled as he caught himself.

  “Relax. Just answer the question.”

  Tamas’s smile faded. He nodded. His hand moved. He reached under his jacket.

  I dived.

  I went for the bed, where I had carelessly tossed my rapier moments ago. When I hit the mattress, the blade gave a small bounce and skipped off the other side. I heard it clatter on the floor. I was dead.

  Out of desperation, I continued after the sword. Maybe Tamas’s first thrust would be off center; maybe I could finish him and get to Eppyris downstairs before whatever poison the assassin used took effect; maybe an Angel would manifest itself right now and save my careless ass.

  Amazingly, I made it over the bed and got a hand on the sword. What the hell was this assassin doing, forging the weapon right here? No one took this long!

  Oh, hell. He was a Mouth. I was being spelled.

  Christiana must really be pissed if she was la
ying out that kind of money.

  Stupid, Drothe! Never let Christiana’s people in your place, no matter how well you’ve been getting along; no matter how many years it’s been since the last attempt.

  I didn’t bother to draw my rapier-either the blade would never clear the scabbard in time, or it was a moot point from the start. I simply rolled once along the floor and came up in a crouch, sheathed weapon held out in front of me like a staff, both hands grasping the scabbard.

  Tamas was where I had left him, eyes wide, mouth empty. In his hand was a folded piece of parchment. On the parchment were a seal and a ribbon.

  We stayed like that, staring at each other, for a good ten heartbeats. Tamas broke the standoff.

  “I-I’m-I’m to wait for a reply.”

  “No reply at present.”

  “Very good.” And he ran out the door and down the stairs. The parchment floated through the air to land where Tamas had stood.

  I don’t think I stopped laughing for five minutes.

  The first assassin ever to come after me was a tall fellow who smelled of fish and cheap wine. I was eighteen at the time and stabbed him more out of luck than skill as he tried to garrote me in an alley.

  The second Blade had a name: Gray Lark. She had mixed a measure of ground glass into one of my meals. Ironically, it was during a particularly low point in my life, when I was using the smoke. The drug had been more important than food that night, and I ended up giving my plate to another addict. I watched him scream and cough up blood for hours. The next day, I hunted down Gray Lark and force-fed her the same meal. It was the only good the smoke ever did me, and I haven’t touched it since.

  The third try was three years ago. His name was Hyrnos, and he tried to put a knife in my back in a dark alley-a traditionalist. The only thing that had saved me was my catching him out of the corner of my eye with my night vision. The running fight we carried out across the ice-slicked roofs of Ildrecca that winter’s eve nearly did us both in. In the end, I stayed on the roofs while he ended up on the street four stories down, but it had been a close thing.

  Three months after Hyrnos tried and failed, Alden came after me. It’s strange, having a knife fight in your bedroom with a woman you’ve known for years. I’d always known she was a professional, though, so I couldn’t really hold it against her, even if she was trying to dust me.