The bitch poisoned me! I grabbed for her arm, but my fingers sailed right through her as though she were nothing but shadow. What in the Halls of Arach?
She blurred out of focus, all of her in motion yet standing still. Her smile, though, was clear, and bright, and knowing.
I staggered—forward, backward, anywhere—and reached for the wall, but instead I fell to my knees in my own vomit. After that, I didn’t care where or who she was. I didn’t care about the cup or the meeting I was due to attend to collect my rubies. I just cared about the raging pain turning me inside out and if—as I closed my eyes and collapsed—I would wake again.
Chapter Two
My head throbbed so hard I feared my skull would break apart. The pounding on the door didn’t help. I dragged open my eyelids and winced against the lurid daylight pouring in through the window of my small, two-room loft home. The sounds of traders announcing their wares drifted up from the streets, and with the noise came a breeze tainted by the briny smell of the docks. What time was it? I rolled onto my back and peered up at the ceiling. Evidently, I’d managed to crawl as far as my front room floor and that’s where I’d stayed all night. I had no memory of leaving the tavern or how I’d gotten home.
The door rattled as the pounding started up again.
“Go away,” I grumbled, tongue leathery and mouth gritty. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of dockside gutters wafting off my clothes.
“Master Vance?”
Closing my eyes, I willed Daryn to leave me be. There had to be someone else he could hound for household tasks and errands.
“Master Vance, there’s a man here to see you. Says you have business.”
The only business I had was a date with a bath and maybe some breakfast. My stomach heaved. No breakfast then. I dragged a hand down my face, raking over a few days’ worth of stubble.
“Tell him I ain’t here,” I growled.
“He says you missed your meeting. Sounds like it might be worth your while to let him in.”
The client was here? I pushed up on my elbows and spotted my bag by the door. Its lumpy outline confirmed the cup was still inside. “Send him up in a few minutes.”
I dragged my sorry ass off the floor, bones and muscles aching like I’d spent the night in the Brean fighting pits. What had I done? I stumbled to my bedroom, stripped off the soiled clothes, and shrugged on garb more worthy of a successful thief: a leather waistcoat, tied with hook and eye fastenings, would hide the tatty cotton shirt. The ink-black pants were new, and saved for special occasions. The type of occasions involving a party I’d invite myself to by way of a neglected back door followed by some lightfingered pilfering. My reflection in the mirror over the basin snarled back at me, eyes too heavy and hair caked in red dust and crusted bits of filth I didn’t want to think about. A quick once-over with a damp rag and wet hands dislodged much of the dirt. It would have to suffice.
Boots clomped up the stairs outside my loft door.
Hand over the cup, get paid, get drunk, get laid. One thousand rubies. That’d buy me a whole new set of picks, new daggers too, and custom garb worthy of a professional thief.
“He cannot have the cup.”
I jolted and gripped the basin to stop from falling over my own feet. A woman stood in the shadows crowding the back corner of my bedroom. At the sight of her bejeweled daggers, my memories poured back in. The alley, the cup, the poison!
“You!” I stepped toward her, but her quick hands shot to her daggers, halting my approach. “You—you really shouldn’t lurk in corners. It’s not becoming of a lady.”
Three sharp knocks sounded on the door.
“I am no lady.”
My lips twitched, but I kept the smile contained. She’d lost some of her ghostly allure in the daylight and looked as solid and real as the rest of the room. Maybe I’d imagined her vanishing trick. I must have imagined the small emerald just below her eye too, because it wasn’t there now. Although I hadn’t imagined her. She’d acquired a cloak to hide her body-hugging assassin outfit, but she couldn’t hide her lithe dancer stance. A creature of stamina, not strength, she’d probably never swung a sword in her life. If I could dodge her daggers, I could overpower her easily enough. I lifted my hands and walked toward the door. Her glower heated my every step.
“Perhaps we can talk about what happened last night?” After I’ve gotten my rubies.
The knocks came again. I lunged for the washroom door, plucked the key from the lock, and slipped out the door just as the kiss of her dagger touched my cheek. I slammed the door behind me, locked it, and staggered back, expecting her to kick it open. But she didn’t make a sound or utter a single word. Not even a curse. Maybe she’d climb out the window and leave? I could hope. Unsettling didn’t even begin to describe her. A shiver trickled down my back. She’d watched me strip. At the thought, sensuous pleasure unfurled low and my lips tilted sideways into my cheek. She hadn’t stopped me; maybe she liked what she’d seen. I shook off that idea with a flick of my fingers.
“Vance?”
I whirled and set eyes on the man who’d hired me. At least twice my twenty-two years, with a map of experience etched across his face, he dressed like a Brean gentleman, smart but with a few splashes of color, and carried an elaborately carved cane. It’s a shame his expression wasn’t as joyful as his clothing. Quite the opposite. He regarded my loft with a disgusted lift of his top lip but steeled himself quickly enough. He didn’t want to be here any more than I wanted him to be.
“How’d you find me?”
“You frequent many local taverns.” His smile was there and gone again in a blink. “There are few young thieves in Brea, and even fewer with your reputation. I trust you procured the artifact?”
I couldn’t decide whether he had just insulted or complimented me and found I didn’t care either way. I kept my gaze on his to avoid looking at the bag on the floor behind him. His line about asking at the taverns was a lie. A thief I was, and I’d survived this long by covering my tracks. No client in Brea knew where I lived. And yet this client had found me. For the second time in the space of a few minutes, nerves fluttered in my gut. I’d deal with the consequences of his discovery once I had my rubies.
“Where’s my payment?”
His chin lifted with indignation. How dare I imply he’d double-cross me. I smiled. That was the great thing about poor folk—we said what we meant and didn’t dance around insults like them’s prim and preened well-to-doers. I sidestepped enough shit day after day not to step in theirs too.
He pulled off one of his gloves, unbuttoned his frock coat, and slipped his hand inside, leaning on his cane to steady himself. His gaze flitted about my modest home, darting from the slouching bed to the cold fireplace, and then settled on the closed bedroom door. He had good reason to be concerned. A thousand rubies was a handsome prize—about a year’s worth of wages to the people of Brea’s Outer Circle. Although to him it was a pittance; he probably lost that amount at cards each night. As far as he was concerned, I was a common thief and he was in my territory. He probably assumed I’d mug him and keep the cup for myself. He may have been right.
He withdrew a fat, little gem-pouch and shook it. Rubies clinked inside. “Where is the artifact, Vance?”
My gaze flicked to the bag behind him. He glanced back once, quickly, afraid to take his eyes off me, and then adjusted his stance so he could keep me in his sights. Clever man. If I’d had my dagger, I may well have put it in his back. He crouched, knees cracking, flicked his long coattails out, and tugged open the bag. The cup tumbled out and rolled in a lazy arc around his feet. His lips parted, and his breath hitched. He looked at that piece of junk the way I’d seen men eye the most expensive whores: with lust.
“Did you touch it?” he whispered.
I frowned. “I wore gloves, as we agreed.” When I agreed to a job, I didn’t shirk the details. It was probably best not to mention the events in the alley—at least until I had the rubies in my possession. “I left
no trace. My work is faultless. My payment?”
“Ah, yes.” He looked up from his crouch. His fleeting smile dug into his cheeks, his grin too wide for his narrow face. “Would you like to see them?”
He jangled the bag between his knees and slid his hand inside the pouch. My gut tightened and the fine hairs on my arms lifted. A crackle of tension was all the warning we had. The assassin came out of my room like a midnight storm breaching the sea walls. My gentleman client didn’t get a chance to reveal the rubies. A dagger thrummed in his chest, sending him sprawling.
She crossed the floor in two strides, dropped to a knee over his prone body, tugged the dagger free from his chest, and cut his throat in one brutal slash. Blood splattered across my face, jolting me into action. I bolted for the sideboard and yanked open the top drawer. Empty. How?
“I moved your weapons, thief. Not that your pistol and short knives would have done you any good.”
I turned and pushed back against the sideboard. If she’d wanted me dead, she could have killed me while I was out cold on the floor. So this was just about the cup then? She stood beside the convulsing body, blood soaking into the edges of her cloak, and looked down at the cup. A breeze fluttered a few strands of her braided obsidian hair, but otherwise, she stood perfectly still. She’d killed a man without hesitation. I’d seen murders before, seen tavern brawls get out of hand, and even the most brutish man flinched when he killed. But not her. She’d killed before, perhaps many times. Was I next? If I could make it to the window, I could clamber across the rooftops. Although if I slipped, the fall would kill me as surely as her daggers.
“What kind of fool are you?” she asked.
I pulled my gaze back into the room and found her turned toward me. Blood dripped from the blade in her hand and tapped against the floorboards. This was too much. Pain continued its hammering inside my head and I teetered in place, still partially drunk and in no condition to deal with this whirlwind of a woman.
“What am I supposed to do with the body?” I asked.
She cocked her head in the same birdlike gesture from the alleyway. “You should be more concerned with your life than his death. He was about to kill you.”
“No, he was about to pay me.” I shoved off the sideboard and strode forward like her daggers were of no concern. I could fake bravery; I’d been faking it for years. She couldn’t hear my racing heartbeat.
I scooped the bag of gems out of my client’s upturned hand and stepped away from the body and the creeping pool of blood. “Well, he lied about the payment.”
The bag weighed at least half what it should have, and now I’d have to slip a few gems to the city guards for them to look the other way while I dumped his body in the river.
I turned my head and found the assassin’s dark eyes drinking me in. “Who in the Halls of Arach are you?”
“Those rubies, thief, were not for payment, but for power. This man was a mage, and more will come.”
“A what?”
Finally, her perfect face broke into an expression. So she could feel. From the sharp angles of her scowl, I assumed annoyance. “How do you not understand my words?”
Crazy as a barrel of rats. I poured a few gems into my palm. Light flicked off the blood-red rubies. They were cool and smooth and nothing more. I certainly didn’t get any sense of whatever power she spoke of. “Just rubies, princess. I don’t know what you’ve been drinking, but I wish I had some of it so I could escape this nightmare you’ve dumped me in.”
She stepped on the dead man’s wrist and rolled his hand back. “Look again at your client.”
I followed her gaze and saw a four-cornered symmetrical symbol of interwoven knots branded into his palm. I must have missed it when I picked up the gem pouch. “What is that?”
“Protection.”
“Against what?”
“Against you. This seal hides his true appearance. The truth of him is far worse than the lies you see.”
Enough crazy talk. I had a body to dispose of, a hangover to nurse, and rubies to spend.
“You need to leave.” I scooped the cup off the floor and held it out. “Take your wretched cup and go, and maybe I won’t tell the guards you were here. This is all”—I gestured at the dead man—“an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“In that, you are more correct than you realize.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the cup toward her. “Just take it. I’ve been paid. The job’s done. And I hope we never meet again.”
She blinked, and while it couldn’t have been the first time I’d seen her blink, it seemed as though it was, because her elegantly marked eyes sparkled like the gems in my hand. “That is impossible,” she said.
I had the all-consuming urge to shove her out my door, or maybe out the window. Everything she said alluded to things I was sure I didn’t need to know and that would probably land me in a whole world of trouble. She was trouble. It was in her eyes, in the blood on her blade, and in the way she stood stone still. Everything about her had my instincts clawing to get away.
“You consumed fluid from the cup,” she said tartly, as though I should know why this was so significant.
“This cup?” I lifted it between us, fixed my gaze on hers, and threw the wretched thing out the window without looking. “Not my problem.”
A few seconds beat by, and then the humid breeze brought in the metallic clang of the cup clattering in the street.
I smiled. She didn’t. But she did swallow, and the pale skin of her neck fluttered where her pulse beat fast. Her expression might not betray her, but her body did.
“Best retrieve it before a trader finds it and sells it,” I said.
“That was a foolish thi—”
“As you so rightly pointed out, I am a fool. Goodbye, princess. I’d like to say it was nice meeting you, but it really wasn’t, and in a few hours, I’ll try my hardest to drink the memory of you from my mind. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
I expected her to head for the stairs, but in a flurry of blood-soaked cloak, she was out the window, leaving me staring after her while the man she’d killed cooled on my floor. At least she was gone. Just one more problem to deal with and everything would be back to normal. I had taverns to visit, clients to find, and women to seduce. Not necessarily in that order. First, though, the body and the blood. My stomach rolled and the pain in my head returned, this time thumping behind my eyes.
My client’s dead eyes gazed somewhere in the middle distance, where life couldn’t reach him. I rummaged through his pockets for anything of worth. I would strip him of his clothes too. They had to be worth a handsome sum. I’d have to find a buyer outside Brea for the decorative walking stick. It was too distinctive to offload in the city.
I needed help. Blood was likely soaking through the floorboards, dripping onto the floor below. People would start asking questions soon.
“Daryn…?” I left my loft and clicked the door firmly closed behind me. “Daryn?”
The uneven floorboards of the old coach house creaked and groaned as I stomped down the hall. Brea had swelled and grown around the old buildings, bringing them inside the Outer Circle’s city walls, embracing them like a mother pulling her wayward children close to her bosom and then walling them in for protection or imprisonment. Nobody knew or cared which. The coach house had ceased acting as a waypoint long ago, and now housed thieves, whores, and pickpockets. Daryn usually flitted between all of us, fulfilling odd jobs for a few gems. He often pestered me for advice on thievery, citing his knack for pickpocketing as an innate talent. He was probably good too, but I didn’t want the competition or for him to lose his hands should the city guard catch him. He’d find his way, same as I’d had to.
“Daryn?” I jogged down the staircase. He certainly had a talent for disappearing.
My foot slipped on the step. I shot a hand out and gripped the bannister, immediately feeling a cool wetness under my palm. Then the smell hit me—hot, wet metal and
the smell of meat-trader stalls in the sunbaked streets. Blood, so much blood. The bottom step glistened with it, and as my feet carried me down the last few steps, I knew what awaited me, but I had to see, to know for certain, even if every instinct urged me to run. Just turn and run. Run like I had from the workhouse, from the nightmares that stalked my thoughts. Run like the coward I was.
Daryn lay sprawled in the narrow corridor, his hand reaching for the open doorway. His innards spilled from his torso, still wet and reeking. His death had been quick, but not quick enough. My gaze skittered over the kid’s body to the hunched, cloaked figure by the door. A man, at first glance, but as my gaze lingered, I realized it was not a man at all. It lifted its head and fixed a red-eyed glare on me. Once a person, it was now twisted and warped, like a desiccated body left to shrivel into dust.
I scrambled up the stairs into my home. I slammed the door shut and pushed back against it, breaths racing.
Not human. That thing, it wasn’t real. My head told me it couldn’t be real—a hallucination—but my heart, my gut, my instincts knew it was real and it was coming.
An impact jolted the door, throwing me forward.
Oh gods. Teeth gritted, I pushed back hard against the door. The wood groaned and splintered. The vile thing was carving its way inside. I frantically tried to think of a solution. No weapons. The bitch princess had taken them. The window—if I could get to the window before it broke through … But as soon as I stepped away from the door, it would burst inside. I was fast and agile, my trade had ensured that, but would it be enough?
The thing slammed into the door, jarring me to the bone. Why does it want me?
A shadow blocked the window. The assassin crouched on the sill, face half hidden in the darkness inside her hood. “Come.”
Easy for her to say.
“Come, thief, now.” She held out her hand and beckoned me with a quick curl of her fingers.
I pushed off the door and bolted. Within two strides, the door exploded open, peppering splinters against my back. I focused on the assassin’s hand, clapped mine into hers, and let her pull me out onto the sloping roof. My feet slipped out from under me, and I went down hard on my knees, dislodging half a dozen slate roof tiles and sending them raining onto the street below. And then I was up and running behind the cloaked woman, the both of us scrabbling and stumbling toward the ridge.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 45