The Imposters of Aventil

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  There was a crowd, all gawking at the spectacle. Colin couldn’t blame them. He could feel blood oozing down his head, and there was smoke pouring out the windows of the upper floor of the sew-up. These Uni kids were getting quite a show.

  Colin spotted Kiggy and Sella amongst the slack-jawed. “Hey, flat the street! We need that wagon!”

  “Clear it!” Sella shouted immediately, pushing folks out of her way. “All of you, get out of the blazing way!”

  Ockie threw Sotch over his shoulder. “I can run her.”

  “Do it, because—”

  Another crash came behind them. Cabie, battered and bloodied, lay on the remains of the cart. Colin couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.

  He looked up to the window, where the fake Thorn was framed in the fire and smoke, bow drawn. He released the arrow.

  It flew fast and true, sinking so deep into Sotch that it took Ockie down with her. They both tumbled to the ground.

  “Well, that’s the last of the Rabbits,” he said, drawing another arrow. “But there’s still Princes to play with.”

  Hands were on Veranix’s person. Something was being poured into his mouth. Tastes both repulsive and familiar. Scents as well.

  Someone was tending to him. The memory of being pummeled came back to him.

  “Kai?” he called out hoarsely. “Where am I?”

  “Kai?” The voice was definitely not Kaiana. “If I jealoused up, we’d have a problem.”

  “Jealoused up?” Veranix knew that voice. Emilia Quope. Blackbird. He grabbed the hand that was tending to his stomach and yanked it away, bolting up to his feet as he did.

  His legs were not happy with this plan. Nor his arms or stomach. Everything reacted with pain.

  Emilia Quope sat there in front of him, peeling his fingers off her hand and pushing him back down on the cot.

  “Let’s not do that, you’re in no condition for it,” she said.

  “So is the bounty worth more if I’m alive, Blackbird?” he asked.

  She sighed. “There is a bounty on your head, yes. Two thousand crowns, I understand. It doesn’t really care about the condition you’re in.”

  Veranix noticed she had resumed rubbing in some familiar-smelling oil on his stomach. He also noticed he had been completely stripped. “Then what are you . . . why . . . where?”

  “These are excellent questions.”

  “Damn it, Blackbird—”

  “Emilia.” She stared hard at him. “My name is Emilia.”

  “And you’re a killer and assassin who’s taken me and . . . is that khenas oil?”

  “It is.”

  Veranix had run out of khenas oil long ago, in his first year at the University. The stuff was almost magic, a Racquin circus remedy for bruises and injuries.

  “Why are you rubbing me with khenas oil?”

  “Because you took a beating like I’ve never seen, by Jox. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Let me rephrase,” Veranix said. “Why do you care? I mean, you tried to kill me yourself not that long ago.”

  “That was a job, Veranix,” she said, pointedly using his name. “I don’t kill people for the joy of it.”

  “But now the job is the bounty on my head, so—” He looked around the room they were in. A rather plain sleeping chamber. It could be a cell. “Does Fenmere want me on my feet when I’m brought to him?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t think I won’t—” He tried to sit up again, despite the screaming in his bones.

  “You won’t what, Veranix? You going to hie and hag with every bit of you shivvy?”

  “I’ve fought my way out shivvier,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have to hie and hag if you hadn’t have kecked me.”

  “Jox and Javer,” she said, “You reckon I kecked you?” She smacked him across the head. “Lie your shivvy ass on the bed so I can get this in your bones.”

  “Saints,” Veranix said. “I don’t reckon anything no jot.” He suddenly felt like he had relaxed a muscle he didn’t know he had been holding tense for years. Emilia, despite being an assassin who had tried to kill him, talked just like his mother and the rest of the circus Racquin.

  “Then sit down so I can rub this in.”

  “And after?”

  “And after we’ll get you more oxaym.”

  That was the familiar but unpleasant taste. His mother made him drink it whenever he hurt himself.

  “Wait, wait,” Veranix said, his brain still catching up to the world around him. “You really for truth pulled me from the pan?”

  “For real truth,” she said. She sighed again.

  “Why?” he asked. “So you can get the bounty for yourself?”

  “Sweet stones, no,” she said. “You don’t see it, do you?”

  “See what?”

  She rolled her eyes, grabbed the sides of his head and kissed him. Slow, long, deep. Veranix reeled for a moment, responding to the kiss out of instinct. For a moment, he forgot all about who Blackbird was or why he was upset with her. He even forgot the pain.

  “That’s what,” she whispered when she pulled back.

  “I’m even more confused.”

  “Damn it, Veranix,” she said. “You’re cute, charming, and stupid.”

  “That I know.”

  Pouring more oil in her hand, she started to rub on his chest. “Swear to the road, I didn’t know you were the Thorn until this morning.” He didn’t realize how badly bruised he was there. He didn’t think anything was broken, which was a miracle all on its own. The oil helped a lot.

  The rubbing from Emilia was rather nice as well.

  Then he remembered about Lieutenant Benvin.

  “Wait a damn minute,” he said. “Is this another ploy to keep me in place while your partner causes trouble?”

  “Who the stones is my partner?” she asked. “Are you talking about Bluejay?”

  “Is Bluejay killing sticks while pretending to be me?”

  “What?” Emilia looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Last night, while you and I were drinking and—”

  “Rolling.”

  “Someone dressed like the Thorn attacked a bunch of sticks. One dead, one still out cold.”

  “Oh.” She went over to a table and picked up a cup. “I didn’t know.”

  Veranix took the offered cup and smelled it. Oxaym, all right. Smelled like a skunk ate itself and threw itself back up again. “Seriously?”

  “Tell me it doesn’t work,” she said. “The average ottie would be on crutches for life with how my ankle was. But I’m already in prime.” She was right about that. He always felt better after his mother forced it down his throat, but drinking it was a challenge.

  “So straight stones on the road,” he said. “You, what, just saw me last night—”

  “I saw a cute quin who was passing as an ottie in the University, just like me. So I wanted to get to know you. And that guy from Pirrell really was creeping me out.”

  “You could have taken him, I think.”

  “My second option, if attaching myself to you didn’t scare him off.”

  “And this morning you realized who I was.”

  “Same time you figured me out, sweets,” she said. “Though I took it a lot better than you did.”

  “Then tell me how we ended up here.”

  “Kept my eye on you, saw you stalk after that one boy, then shake down the lady in the alley. Then you went into that den, and I stuck close. Soon as I realized you were in a trap, I went in for you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Not just like that, but they weren’t expecting anyone to yank your fat clear. You were in a bad way, so I brought you here to treat you.”

  “And where is here
?”

  “Apartment I have in southern Aventil, on Clover.”

  “Whose patch is this? Toothless Dogs?”

  “I don’t know. You pay close mind to that stuff?”

  “Shouldn’t you if you have this apartment here?”

  She looked sheepish. “To be straight, it ain’t strictly mine. It’s a safehouse for the Deadly Birds.”

  Veranix pulled himself up off the bed like a spring. “The blazes you bring me here for?”

  “Because I had my oils and such here, fool,” she said. “I had to treat you if you were going to be able to move again.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, though looking down at his body, he was a bruised and battered mess. “But I can’t stay here.”

  “The Birds don’t care about you. That contract was open and closed.”

  “I know there’s a price on my head, they said so in there. You telling me one of your sisters wouldn’t run for it?”

  “We don’t . . . Owl wouldn’t like it.”

  “Owl?”

  “She’s the boss.”

  “Of course she is,” Veranix said. “So you still work for them?”

  “I don’t not work with them,” she said. “I mean, I—that’s not the issue. I haven’t taken a job since you.”

  “Because you suddenly got morals, or your ankle?”

  “You’re going to lecture me on morals, are you? With what you do?”

  “What I do?” Veranix shot back at her. “I find people who sell sewage that kills people or worse, and I make them stop. I do what the sticks can’t, or won’t.”

  “And you’ve left bodies in your wake,” she said.

  “When I’ve had to.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that gang kid you hunted. The Rabbit?”

  “That—that wasn’t me!”

  “What, was that the imposter who attacked the sticks?”

  “Yes!”

  She laughed for a moment. “Sounds like you have a real problem, Thorn.”

  “Where are my things, Emilia?” he asked. “I . . . I’m sorry, it’s just . . . I appreciate your help. I probably would have gotten myself killed without you.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Probably? You could barely stand.”

  “That part hasn’t changed,” he said. He stumbled back over to the bed and sat down. “But if you give me my stuff, I can just get out of your hair.”

  “You haven’t figured out, Veranix Calbert?” she said as she straddled his lap. “I rather like you in my hair.”

  “Oh, this is all kinds of stupid,” he muttered as she came in closer to kiss him.

  “Isn’t that your theme for the evening?”

  Her lips met his, and in the moment his whole world shook. Followed by screams outside the window and thunderous booms that made the room rattle.

  Chapter 11

  VERANIX DASHED OVER to the window. They were at least five floors up, which told Veranix exactly which building he was in—the Tenement Tower at the corner of Clover and Magnolia, probably the tallest building in Aventil, and the worst. The place was falling apart, and the people living there were the poorest families in the neighborhood. The Toothless Dogs and Kemper Street Kickers kept fighting over the corner, so brawls about the building—as well as in the building—were common. No wonder Emilia could drag him up the stairs in his condition without any trouble—no one there would lift their head to notice it.

  He couldn’t make out too many details on the street below, but something was on fire. A carriage that had smashed into the tenement. The building was starting to burn, and the people gathering around it were not working to put it out.

  “What’s going on?” Emilia asked.

  “Clothes, gear,” Veranix said. “We need to move.”

  “That didn’t answer my question.”

  “A carriage crashed into this building, it’s on fire,” Veranix said.

  “That’s an answer,” she said, pulling out a crate from under the table, where most of Veranix’s gear was. She started putting on a pair of boots. The building shuddered again. “Do I want to know?”

  “The carriage must have damaged one of the supports,” Veranix offered. “We need to get out of here.” He suited up as quick as he could, despite the pain in every part of his body, shrouding his face as soon as he had the cloak on.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked.

  “Habit,” he said. “Plus I’d rather not be seen in this get-up with a clear face.”

  “If that’s the case,” she said, putting on her own Blackbird mask, “might as well match my company.”

  “Door or window?” Veranix asked. Almost in response, the building shook, the floor lurched beneath them.

  “Window,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Veranix pushed open the window and got out on the ledge. On the street below everything was in full chaos. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but a large brawl was going on, and he imagined it was Dogs against Kickers. The only thing to wonder was, did one of them crash the carriage to start a fight, or did the carriage crash trigger a fight?

  Someone was blowing a whistlebox, but no sticks or fire brigade were on their way.

  “If you do a Katik Throw, you can get me to that roof,” Emilia said, pointing across Magnolia to the shorter apartment building. “Best way down from this height.”

  “Either way, it’s down into that,” Veranix said. He looked up to the floor above them. “How many people in this building?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “We need to get out of here. You can’t be thinking—”

  “Most folks can’t get out the way we could.”

  “Saints, you’re going to be a bad influence on me.” She stepped away from the window. “Looks like it’s door for both of us.”

  She pressed her hand on the door for a moment, and then opened it up. Smoke poured in, and several voices could be heard shouting in fear and terror.

  Veranix joined her by the door. “Plan?”

  “Find people, get them out,” she said. “Especially the ones who can’t manage themselves.”

  “Like the family on the carriage?” he asked. He flashed her a grin as she gave him a withering look. “And you thought I was the bad influence on you.”

  “That was the right thing to do, but don’t make me regret it.”

  “Help!” someone shouted.

  “Sounds like our cue,” Veranix said.

  The screams were coming from one of the other apartments. Veranix’s first impulse was to kick the door open, but his whole body wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor. That was with khenas oil and oxaym. He didn’t want to think about how he would have felt without Emilia’s ministrations. He could magic it, but he knew he had to conserve his strength, even with the cloak feeding him numina.

  Emilia pounded on the door. “Are you all right?”

  “Help us!”

  The floor buckled, and more screams came from inside. Emilia knocked it open with a sharp kick.

  “You’re barely on your feet,” she said to him as they went in.

  “I’ll manage.”

  This apartment was in worse shape than Emilia’s. The room had cracked apart, with a section of floor hanging precariously into the open air. The wall had already collapsed to the street below. Two women—mother and daughter, likely—were stuck on the hanging section, clutching to whatever they could get a hold of.

  Emilia went right up to the cracked edge in the floor, stretching out to the closer one. “Get my hand!”

  “I can’t!” the woman cried. She looked too terrified to even loosen her grip on the plaster, let alone pull herself up to grab Emilia.

  “Two steps,” Emilia said. “You can do it.” She glanced over at Veranix. “Do something.”

  Veranix pull
ed out his rope. In his weakened state, it was hard to manipulate it, but he could still toss one end out to the woman. “Grab that.”

  The woman started to move her hand, but as soon as she did, she slipped, and desperately grabbed on to the floor again. “Get my daughter!”

  Veranix whipped the rope over to the other woman—closer to the edge—and willed it to wrap around her waist. A cold sweat broke out over his brow. This was already more effort than he was ready for.

  “You need a Hesker Saddle—”

  “Can’t really do that,” he said. “I’m going to pull you up,” he called out to the young woman.

  The young woman nodded, and he pulled the rope tight. She didn’t move much, but she was able to let go of the section of floor she was holding on to.

  Emilia took her own rope and tossed an end to the young woman, who grabbed on to it eagerly. With Emilia pulling as well, the girl slid up the tilted floor to the broken edge.

  “I’ve got her,” Veranix said through strained teeth. “Pull her up.”

  Emilia took the woman’s hand and hauled her up to safety. She scrambled to the door, clutching on to the frame like an anchor. “Mama! Come on!”

  “Same play,” Veranix said to Blackbird, getting ready to will the rope to the mother.

  Then with a horrible crack, the floor gave way, dropping to the street below with the mother still on it.

  Veranix dove after it, pushing himself down with a hint of magic. As he swooped in toward the mother, he flung one end of the rope back up, praying to the saints that he had enough strength to make this work.

  He grabbed the mother and looked back up—only a few moments before they would hit the cobblestone—to see that Emilia had flung one end of her rope down. He willed his rope to wrap itself around hers, making a fast and tight knot. She braced her strong legs as the two ropes snapped tight. Veranix, still clutching on to the mother, bounced away from the falling chunk of floor, and they soared back up for a moment, and dropped down again until they hung some fifteen feet above the ground. Shattered chunks of plaster covered the street below, and the crowds were in a full panic of screams and madness.

  “You got it?” Veranix called up to Emilia.

  “Not for long,” she called back. “Do something quick.”