Twig

by wildbow

  “Darn it,” I said. I drummed fingers on the table. “Most people, when they get into a routine, they get sloppy. Weaknesses emerge, or they stop caring about covering their backs. This is an ugly combination of a spree killer and a ritual killer. You can’t predict who he’ll target, but when he does target someone, he does it with practiced ease. He covers his back and he’s backed by the entire infrastructure and setup he’s created here.”

  “Soldiers, police…” Mary echoed my thoughts.

  “And the Firstborn,” I said. “This is something more than a perverse joke. This is… I don’t know, it’s a trump card he’s been holding up his sleeve for a while. If we could just watch him at work, then we could find a weakness, see if he’s using these trump cards and how. But that means letting him have his victims, it means hoping we can be in position to spy on them somehow, without knowing for sure where they’ll be, and it means we’re hoping he makes two visits to town, so we could learn from the first and apply what we’ve learned to the second.”

  “You’re rambling a little,” Mary murmured.

  “Okay,” I said. I brought a finger to my mouth and bit it, so I wouldn’t keep talking.

  Fatigue was affecting me. Not the lack of sleep, though it was a factor, but the emotional fatigue. Talking and throwing myself into this task was keeping me from thinking about things I really didn’t want to think about. I’d just gone a step too far down that road.

  While I gathered my thoughts, thinking silently instead of thinking aloud, there was a rattle at the doorknob.

  I was out of the chair in the next heartbeat, sweeping up the two hatchets without a sound.

  “—there might be more trains coming. We’re expecting guests, and there’s nobody to ask if we’re supposed to keep the store open or if we should shut down,” a woman’s voice spoke.

  “How much of an interruption could it be?” another woman’s voice.

  Mary and I ducked into the kitchen, which wasn’t in direct view of the front door. I opened one of the cupboards I’d checked earlier and ushered Mary into it. She was able to slip in amid pots and cooking racks without making a sound. She couldn’t stand up, but with two hands and one leg out, she could poise herself over the things. I shut it, lifting the handle so there would be less weight on the hinges.

  I opened the cupboard where I’d seen the vegetables earlier, and climbed in, careful to move my feet so I wouldn’t kick them. I eased the door shut behind me, and peered out through the gap between the hinge and the cupboard door itself.

  “I keep hearing it’s going to be incessant. Good afternoon, Daryl.”

  “Good afternoon, Bethy,” Mcormick replied. “Nance, do you need help with your shoes?”

  “No, father,” was the reply. The little girl.

  A short pause, as the conversation between the women continued.

  “I know I promised you tea, but I just remembered—” Mcormick’s wife started. She stopped.

  “You remembered?” Bethy asked.

  “I’ve been putting off a job of clearing up the upstairs,” Mcormick’s wife said. “I found reasons not to do it three times already. If this next week is like what you’re talking about, if I don’t do it today, while things are quiet…”

  “I understand. Take care, deary.”

  “You too, Bethy.”

  Kissy-kiss sounds. Cheek-smooches, like the ladies did across the ocean in the central Crown kingdoms.

  I heard the door close.

  “You’re scaring me, Daryl. Tell me this isn’t in my head.”

  “Father?”

  “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Mcormick soothed.

  “Your hand is under the table. The look in your eyes?”

  “It’s alright. We have guests.”

  That was our cue to exit the cupboards. I opened the cupboard door and straightened, giving Mary a hand in getting to her feet. She had enough spatial awareness to avoid kicking any pots or pans as she got out of the enclosed space.

  “Nance!” Mcormick barked out the word. Then, more gently, he said, “No need.”

  Assuming she’d been by the door and thus out of sight at the time I’d climbed out of the cupboard, the little girl had covered a surprising distance while I’d been focused on Mary. She’d gone from the door to the corner of the room that was just past the family’s ‘firstborn’. Very thin books with colorful covers and small baskets all sharing a shelf suggested it was her corner, where her things were kept.

  Given the tension I saw, I had to assume that there were guns hidden there that required more than a cursory look to find.

  The lady Mcormick was younger than I’d expected. Where Mcormick was thirty-something and parts of him looked twice that, with the creases and lines in his face and hands etched in by the work he did here in the mill, the woman looked eighteen and had parts of her that looked thirty. A tiny scar at one lip added a surprising degree of character to her face, and her eyes—heavily lined, they looked more dangerous than Mcormick’s.

  “You told me,” she said. “You told me, right off the bat, the first time you pulled this, that I would always know. I would always be consulted.”

  “This isn’t that,” Mcormick said. “They aren’t—”

  “This is reckless, especially when things are this uncertain. They’re talking about trainloads of guests. There’s even a rumor that the Baron is going to move elsewhere, now that he’s married, and there’ll be another son of the Richmond line taking up residence in the house, if Warrick is even standing by the time the festivities are done.”

  “Lower your voice. Bethy doesn’t like not knowing things, and she might be dragging her heels as she leaves, in hopes of hearing something. These two aren’t mine. They let themselves in and held me at knifepoint. They did some talking, I did some listening. Now they’re just about ready to leave and stop disturbing us, I’m hoping.”

  “Just about,” I said.

  The wife was young, but she was one hundred percent momma bear. She was strong, healthy, and looked especially dangerous in the midst of her family. The kid, though, she had my attention. She was a stick, with arms I could almost encircle with middle finger and thumb, not because of a lack of food, but because she was starting to grow, with a mind to her father’s tall stature. Her dark hair was straight, her eyes large, wary, and angry. So many of the things common to children, even some of the younger mice and the more damaged children of Lamsbridge, they weren’t there. Warmth, innocence, dependency… She was the product of her environment, a reflection of her parents, of the Baron’s control and darkness seeping into this town, and of her father’s training, whatever it had been up to this point.

  Given a few more years, I expected he would teach her how to fight. Not pretty fighting with stances, but how to really hurt a person in a brawl, how to go for the weak points. She would learn to use knives and guns.

  So many of the mice learned some of these skills because they were bored, or because they were scared, and the oldest boy or girl at the time didn’t know how to make the fear go away, except by equipping them against the fear. Few went about learning or being categorically taught every dirty trick in the playbook. Most of the ones that tried lost heart or weren’t healthy enough to go about that much vigorous exercise. Gordon was one of the few who’d been healthy and determined enough. This girl, by virtue of who her parents were, could well be another one.

  I could see something Lamblike about her, and I felt a kind of pity mixed with relief at the thought. The former I understood, but the latter took me a few moments to figure out.

  Even in a dark place like this town, people are finding ways to fight back, to struggle, and make themselves strong.

  Mary moved, getting my attention, reminding me that we needed to do something here.

  “Three questions, then we’ll go,” I said.

  “Alright,” Mcormick said.

  “There are others? You don’t work alone.”

  “You can’t hon
estly expect me to answer that,” he said.

  You just did, through your body language. It wasn’t essential to our mission, but it helped me to know that there was something of a push back against the Baron’s influence on this town. “Can you point me to someone who was left behind as a survivor, after the Baron visited? Someone angry who could be convinced to talk?”

  He looked at his wife.

  “There are too many problems if we try to wait for him to attack someone. We could be in the perfect position with the perfect timing, and we might not be able to spy on him and spot a weakness. But if we ask a survivor…”

  “You might get a clue,” Mcormick said.

  “I still want answers, Dar,” his wife said.

  “You’ll get ’em. Let me get rid of these two peckerwarts first. At the foot of Cricker’s street, there’s a fountain. Three statues in that fountain that look in the four cardinal directions. Go to the house the fish pointing at. The old woman there, she lost her family, and she’s been emotional enough about it we’re all thinking she’s going to do something and get herself dragged off to Richmond house. Can’t even get involved to help without getting ourselves hurt. Be wary of the firstborn that family left behind for her. It’s irritable and dangerous.”

  “Noted,” I said. “Final question, then. The church?”

  “What about it?”

  “A church with no religion. It doesn’t have any apparent purpose, all the symbols are stripped away. It’s bothering me, not knowing.”

  “Seems to me that you answered your own question, boy,” Mcormick said, sneering a little in disdain as he said it.

  “Answered—?” I started to ask it, then cut myself short. “Of course. Right.”

  Mary gave me a curious look.

  “Church with no symbols. It’s a symbol unto itself, isn’t it? A slap in the face of people who are most in need of the church as a refuge. Hollow, empty, bastardized.”

  “Something like that,” Mcormick said. His daughter had walked over to him, where he still sat in the chair. He put his forearm across her narrow shoulders. “Some used to make a habit of dropping flowers in front of the door, as surreptitiously as they could. The Baron’s doctors invented a beast that could sniff people out by the oils their fingers left on the flowers or something. It’s not the first time that something has happened with one of the churches that are around town. They’re there to tempt us, to bait us. All of this, it’s a game to that noble, a farce.”

  “It’s something of a game to me too,” Mary said. She seemed to be focusing on the little girl more than Mcormick or his wife. “I’m competitive. I don’t like losing. My friends killed three nobles, and I didn’t even get to participate. I want this one, and now that I’m this close, I want it so badly I can’t keep my fingers still. If he thinks it’s a farce, then I want to see if I can make him laugh while I put the last few knives in him.”

  “Yeah?” Mcormick drawled out the word. He looked at her with what might have been renewed respect. “You let me know when you’re done, why don’tcha?”

  Mary gave him a single nod.

  We took our leave from the mill, checking out the windows that the coast was clear enough, then moving quickly.

  “You alright?” I asked Mary.

  “I’m good,” Mary said. I could see in her eyes that she was playing through the permutations in her head. Where I considered the plans, she was considering the fight. Full-on bloodthirst, now, stoked by what she’d heard from Mcormick. She had enough details that she could start to visualize how things might play out when we went for the Baron.

  “If you’re good, then it’s all good,” I said.

  “I like having a mission, a destination,” she said, simply.

  I nodded. Her focus was on watching our surroundings and on anticipating the fight. I could give her a minute, then bring her out of it, get her thinking about what we needed to do to prepare. I was distracted in my own way. If we didn’t need to talk, then that was fine. I could use the time to think. To consider the problem.

  The two of us became three of us. ‘Nance’ had been so similar to the girl I’d seen in the train car that I’d started thinking about the Lamb that never was. The features remained alien. Evette, with eyes too large, a doll in hand.

  Is that the only reason you brought me along, Sylvester? the question echoed in my mind.

  Evette, she’d been the problem solver. The plan had been for her to be the one who devised the solutions, serving in an additional role as a medic. Lillian had taken up the medic part. I’d become the problem solver in a very different way. Now she lurked, taunting me with the question. Why had I been thinking of Evette? What kernel of subconscious was now nagging at me, begging to be recognized.

  Pieces fell into place, like the tumblers of a lock I was picking. A half-dozen questions I’d been asking myself were answered in one fell stroke.

  Evette smiled at me, hugging her doll.

  Where were we going to stay when we weren’t working, when the streets were so hostile and the hiding places so few? Everyone moved in groups, practically. The citizens, the local law…

  Where could we get information?

  Was it possible to get a firstborn of our own, without the prices that usually needed to be paid? The ‘papers’ we needed to travel this city without drawing second glances and possible legal attention.

  “We’re not going straight to that street with the fountain,” I said.

  Mary gave me a surprised look. “You have an idea?”

  “We’re already committing the worst crime one can commit in the Crown States,” I said. “What’s another capital breach of the law? You can get some practice in for whatever it is you plan to do to the Baron, and I can see if I can’t indulge in some problem solving.”

  “Do tell, Sy,” Mary said. She had a light smile on her face. She knew I was toying with her at this point, trying to work her up.

  “I feel like it’s time I started learning some Academy Science. Let’s take over a lab and see if you can’t get the doctor in charge to teach me something or other.”

  Evette cackled, and I was the only one who heard her.

  Previous Next

  In Sheep’s Clothing—10.10

  Three doctors were walking down the street. Each of them were young, no older than twenty-five, two men and a woman. The men had thick sideburns, one with tinted spectacles and a mustache curling up into the sideburns, the other with no facial hair or glasses, but a sharp nose and arching eyebrows. The young woman wore her hair in a style more like a man’s, but with over-styled curls at the front and ears. Helen had worn her hair in a similar style, once. She looked younger than the men, her doctor’s coat large on her and probably intentionally so. There were creases in the sleeves from how she’d habitually rolled them up.

  Artists as much as they are doctors, I thought. They seemed to combine the most annoying traits of both groups. They walked while talking, and they expected others to get out of their way. The idea of moving out of the way for a citizen of Warrick didn’t seem to cross their minds. They gesticulated wildly, and though I couldn’t hear complete sentences, I could make out the cadence of those words, the emphasis and the inherent expectations that went with the language. I was put in mind of theater jockeys who saw a good play and then only spoke in lines from that play for weeks afterward, and of niche groups of Academy students who had specialized in a field and ceased to be aware that there was more to the world than that one field.

  Mary and I walked down the length of an alley, eyeing the trio up until they walked out of sight. Without an exchanged word or signal, we picked up the pace to get far enough ahead of them. Our suitcases and bags were stowed away under a porch a few blocks away, leaving little to nothing to weigh us down. We had only the essentials. Mary had her weapons, I had the most basic tools

  One of those three individuals was about to have a very bad day.

  It was strange to follow them like this, seeing t
hem so jovial with one another, so unaware that it was essentially a roll of the dice that determined their fates. My recent lack of sleep might have been coloring my observations with a surreal tint about the edges, but I felt like this might be how Death felt, tracking the ones whose fates had already been determined.

  We got far enough ahead and waited at a corner, watching up until a trio of law enforcement officers and their dog walked by the alley. Once we were fairly sure they had passed, we stuck our heads out again, watching and waiting for the trio of doctors to pass.

  They didn’t.

  I changed position, head tilted, my ear extended to the side. I listened, my brain working to pick through the sounds of hooves and feet on the road and the babble of conversation to listen for the conversation of the three doctors.

  Had they stopped in the middle of the street? If they had, what were they doing?

  Mary straightened, stepping back and away from the corner. I looked her way, and she gestured at the building we were crouching beside.

  Inside?

  I looked for the nearest window. Mary moved to the base of the window and held out her hands.

  Two striding steps, a hop, my feet meeting her hands, and then she straightened her hands as I straightened my legs. I caught the windowsill, still standing on Mary’s upstretched hands.

  I missed working with her. We had always walked in step, in a manner of speaking. When we were on a job and we could work together, it took so little communication for her to convey to me what she needed or wanted, and vice-versa. It was like dancing, intimate, close, two naturally gifted partners moving in sync, able to use the movement of an eye or a change in how tightly a hand was held to suggest something.

  The trust was there, when it came to the job. Saddening, that it wasn’t there otherwise. The betrayal loomed.

  Mary backed away from the wall, then approached at a run. I shifted to a one-handed hold on the windowsill, bracing the edges of my feet in the gaps between bricks, and extended a hand out and down.

  Mary was a flurry of fur-lined coat, lace, hair and ribbons as she climbed the wall with a running start, hands barely touching it before reaching up. Her hands seized my wrist, and my hand seized her wrist. My white-knuckle grip on the latch at the bottom of the window was just barely enough to keep her weight from pulling me down and away from the wall.