NIghtbird (Empire of Masks Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  The man’s eyes settled on Cleary’s mask, the only reason he did not immediately shout to his driver for aid. “What is the meaning of this, sah? Do I know you?”

  “You do not, and you will do well to stifle your protestations.”

  The man began to form an argument, but the sound of a pistol’s hammer being cocked beneath Cleary’s coat silenced him. Cleary grabbed the man’s fanciful hat and plunked it onto his own head.

  “Hold the coach!” a voice demanded as the conveyance began to roll forward. One of the gendarmes stood upon the carriage’s running boards as several others surrounded it. “Pardon the intrusion, sahs, but did you happen to see a man running past just a moment ago?”

  The rich man stuttered when the intruder jabbed him in the side with the barrel of his pistol. “I-I believe I saw a fellow running that way, gentlemen,” he replied, pointing down a side street.

  “Yes, dressed in black, or perhaps grey, from what I could tell,” Cleary added.

  The gendarme leaned his head through the window. “Sah, I believe you have a bit of soot on your mask.”

  Cleary reached up with his free hand, stroked his mask, and rubbed the black residue between his fingers. “I must have sat too close to one of the lanterns. We do not have this problem in Liberty's fine establishments where they use mage glass for illumination, like civilized people.” He turned his eyes toward the man seated next to him. “Why do you insist upon bringing me to these lowborn drinking houses?”

  The carriage owner looked between his abductor and the gendarme. “Cheap women, of course.”

  “Of course! How could I forget?”

  “My guess would be the alcohol and aether weed.”

  The gendarme grinned and bobbed his head. “Thank you, sahs. Be wary on the way home. There is a dangerous fellow about.”

  The highborn waved. “Not to worry. I believe my friend is armed and capable of handling any hooligans who might accost us.”

  “Yes, sah. Have a good evening.”

  “We already have. Good hunting, gentlemen.”

  The gendarmes hastened down the street in the direction they thought their fugitive had taken.

  “I suppose you are going to rob me now,” the carriage owner said.

  Cleary set the hat back on the man’s head and began climbing out of the coach. “That is not my line of work. Not anymore anyway.”

  “You aren’t going to kill me, are you? I thought my performance quite convincing under the circumstances.”

  “And deny this city of one of its great actors? Perish the thought.”

  The man smiled behind his mask. “Well then, thank you for such a rousing evening. Would it be all right if I recount my harrowing experience to some of my friends, perhaps even with a bit of embellishment?”

  “Do you mean the tale of how a murderous lunatic, fleeing from the gendarme, held you at gunpoint, and demanded that he take you to your home so he could steal your valuables and ravish your wife? Who, when the coach struck a pothole and unseated the miscreant, you kicked him out of the speeding carriage and into the street with a cry of Back into the gutter with you! Is that what you are referring to?”

  The wealthy man’s head bobbed up and down vigorously. “Yes, that would be splendid! It would certainly put an end to Rupert’s pedantic retelling of the time he claims to have single-handedly prevented the airship he was on from crashing. Honestly, a windlass brake had come free and the man merely tripped the lever to re-engage it. I was there. The only reason he was so fortunately positioned was because he got drunk and was pissing over the side in an attempt to strike some Thuumian nomads driving rammox below us. Of course he leaves that bit out of the retelling.”

  “Your story should indeed trump his. Good evening to you, sah.”

  “And to you, sah.” The man tapped on the front wall of the carriage with his walking stick and leaned out of the window to shout at his driver. “Did you hear all of that, Michael?”

  “Yes, sah.”

  “You know what to do?”

  “Yes, sah.”

  “Very well. Take me home, and don’t spare the horses. I wish to appear properly disheveled upon my arrival.”

  “Yes, sah.”

  Cleary paused a moment to watch the coach race away before ducking down an alley in the opposite direction from which the gendarmes had run off. A few blocks from the brief confrontation, he hailed a cab and returned home. He used a servants’ entrance, stashed his work clothes and mask, and donned his guise as house steward. He hesitated near the door when he heard voices coming from the living room. Taking a deep breath, he pushed through, locking his face in an emotionless mask of its own at the sight of Chief Inquisitor Bertram sitting across from Conner.

  Conner turned in his chair at his entrance. “Mr. Cleary, you have returned. Were you able to catch the man who ran out without paying his bill?”

  Cleary tucked his chin to his chest. “No, sah. I regret to inform you that I failed to apprehend him. If this is going to become a common occurrence, I recommend you hire someone younger and fleeter of foot.”

  “Don’t let it upset you, Mr. Cleary. At least you got to engage in an activity that relieved the tediousness of waiting on me hand and foot all day. I’m sure you needed the exercise.”

  “As you say, sah.”

  Bertram smiled, his mask resting on his knee. “Good to see you again, Mr. Cleary.”

  “And you, sah.”

  “It sounds like you have had as exciting an evening as I have.”

  “I cannot say, sah, but I doubt chasing a ne’er-do-well down the street can compete with the actions of the city’s chief inquisitor.”

  “You might be surprised at the things even the most seemingly civilized folks get up to when they think no one is looking.”

  “Do you mean other than coming here?”

  Bertram chuckled. “Yes, some seek out far darker indulgences than what Sah Conner provides—unless you have a special menu I don’t know about.”

  Conner smiled. “I assure you, Inquisitor, the services my people provide are all readily advertised.”

  “Really? Even Mr. Cleary’s?”

  Conner’s laughter echoed off the walls. “Trust me, Mr. Cleary’s talents are not for hire and do not extend outside of the house proper. I do have a diverse clientele, but I cannot imagine any of their desires would include him.” He stood and extended a hand. “I apologize for being a poor host, but, as you can see, I have some business matters to attend to.”

  Bertram stood and shook his hand. “Of course. The next time I stop by, I will be sure to bring Jareen’s journals. I hope you will do the same with Quinlan’s.”

  “I will set them aside this very evening for you.”

  “Wonderful.” The inquisitor crossed the room and shook Cleary’s hand as well. “Mr. Cleary, the side of your head seems to have gotten singed a bit.”

  Cleary’s free hand reached up to touch the shriveled stubs of hair. “Yes, I made the mistake of adding lamp oil to a burn barrel while disposing of some of Sah Conner’s old correspondence and lighting them with a short match. It is a mistake I won’t make again.”

  Bertram’s eyes bored into the servant’s. “Yes, well, it seems there are injuries aplenty this evening. Just a short while ago, some rapscallion shot one of my gendarmes.”

  “How dreadful, sah. I hope he fares well.”

  “It appears that the shot missed both bone and artery, so he will recover.”

  “A lucky fellow then, all things considered.”

  “Yes, lucky indeed…” Bertram released Cleary’s hand and nodded to Conner. “Good evening, Sah Conner.”

  “And to you, Sah Bertram.”

  Cleary escorted the inquisitor to the door and locked it behind him. He returned to the living room and took the seat the inquisitor had vacated. “Honestly, Conner, are you trying to get us both hanged, or are you simply that desperate for friends?”

  Conner returned to his chair and pou
red them both a drink. “His arrival was, once again, completely unexpected. Were you able to find anything of note at the counting house?”

  “You mean other than being held at the end of the inquisitor’s pistol?”

  “It went that bad, did it?”

  “There was not much room for it to go worse. At least no one fell from the sky.”

  “Does he suspect you?”

  “What do you think? The man called me by name and then shows up here before I return.”

  Conner winced. “But he must not be certain, otherwise we’d both be in jail.”

  Cleary scoffed. “You might. I won’t let them take me back to the gallows. It’s a bit much to expect a second reprieve.” He pulled out the encoded letter. “Still, it was productive despite the trouble.”

  Conner’s eyes slid over the scribblings. “Can you read it?”

  Cleary grinned. “As if I’d written it myself…drunk and with my left hand. It’s an Undercity cypher mixed with a proprietary code, as I told the inquisitor, but I can make out much of it. Fred isn’t the most creative fellow in the world, so most of it’s just plagiarized from various other sources.”

  “Does it tell of something significant?”

  “Seems to. Those chests he had were full of coin. He was using it to hire a lot of outside muscle. Half of it anyway. The other half is meant for whoever provided him with this information.”

  “Do you think he’s making a power play against one of the other gangs?”

  Cleary nodded as he scratched at the raw skin on the side of his head. “Looks like it, but not in a direct way. It mentions a package coming in, something of extreme importance to someone, and he wants to steal it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It doesn’t say specifically. Some object of power, as far as I can tell. Only that it should be here in a few days, assuming the people tasked with retrieving it keep to the schedule.”

  Conner tapped a finger against his chin. “What could be easily transportable yet valuable enough for Fred to go to so much trouble to acquire it? It can’t be guns or powder. A man like Fred can get those with far less difficulty. Assuming it is coming in on an airship, I have some people at the port I trust. Perhaps we can liberate it from the ship before the exchange takes place?”

  Cleary shook his head. “Nope. Whatever it is it’s in a blast box. No one can get it before the owner opens that box or gets the key.”

  “A blast box? Now I want it more than ever, whatever it is. If it is important to a man like Fred and must be secured in a blast box, I don’t want it on the street. Even if it’s not dangerous, something that valuable could get me the answers I have been looking for all these years.”

  “That was my thinking as well.”

  “Do you think you can do it? Can you pilfer the item during the transaction? I know it is asking a lot.”

  Cleary took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This is not an operation of subtlety. Fred is hiring an army, and the only reason to do that is if he expects to battle another army. I might be able to get to the box in the confusion. The hard part is going to be getting the key so we can open it.”

  Conner nodded. “Focus on the box. Even if we cannot open it, I should be able to use it as a bargaining chip. Whoever wants what is in that box is clearly high up in the criminal underworld. My bet is that if anyone can help me find out who murdered my family, they can, and perhaps they will trade that information for the box and its contents. Otherwise, I’ll threaten to destroy it.”

  “I hope it works. These last few weeks have served to remind me that it’s about time for me to retire.”

  Conner grunted. “When the job is done, Mr. Cleary. When the job is done.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Kiera lay on her narrow bunk staring at the ceiling. She had not left her room in over a day except when forced to yield to her body’s biological demands. Her simple theft had turned into a disaster. She had hoped that the man had managed to kill Fred, but Wesley said that the gendarme had taken him and his men in. She knew it was unlikely they would send him to the mines, or better yet, hang him.

  Wesley shook her from her reverie. “Kiera, uh, could you come up here?”

  Her gut screamed out a warning at the nervous hesitation in Wesley’s voice. This was it. Fred was out, or at least he had sent Top Hat, and probably a few others, to deal with her. Well, she was not going to go down without a fight.

  Kiera cinched her belt around her waist and checked her batons and lanyard, which was a couple of feet shorter thanks to the inquisitor having cut it. Russel had skitter holes throughout the collapsed structure beneath the airship, but she did not have access to any of them. On the off chance she and Wesley survived this night, they were going to have a long talk about that. She crept up the stairs leading from the yacht’s cabin level to the deck. Her eyes had just cleared the hatch opening when Fred spoke.

  “Let’s not do anything stupid, girl,” he said. “You’ve done more than enough of that lately.”

  Kiera climbed three more steps and found Fred and a small group of men standing a short way from the opening. Top Hat had an arm around Wesley’s chest and a knife held to his throat.

  She swallowed her fear and tried to sound confident. “What do you want, Fred?”

  “I know it was you last night.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Fred’s gold teeth flashed in the moonlight and he took several steps toward her. Kiera fought the urge to run back down the stairs and hide, knowing that it was useless, not to mention potentially lethal for Wesley. Maybe she could rouse Russel, for whatever good that might do. If she were lucky, he would let her into his kingdom without going on in a flailing diatribe about what day of the week it was.

  She noted his wide eyes and the way he cradled one arm. Someone had wounded him last night, but it did not look as if he was feeling much pain thanks to whatever drugs he had taken.

  “Don’t even think about running, girl,” Fred warned, reading her intent. “Even if you got away, your friend would die. Be smart, and maybe you’ll live through this. Might even do well for yourself.”

  “What do you want from me?” Kiera asked again through clenched teeth.

  “You cost me a lot of men last night.”

  “I saved your stupid life!”

  Fred’s smile grew wider. “Good, now we can be done with the pretense of your innocence.”

  “Crap!”

  “Crap indeed, and you’re neck deep in it. Lucky for you, I’m beginning to see why Rafferty and Nimat have an interest in you. You have talent. Not many people could cause me so much trouble all by themselves. You’re no killer, so I assume you were going to rob me. You probably would have been successful, might have gone completely undetected, if someone hadn’t tried to kill me.”

  “Is this how you’re going to punish me, by boring me to death with stories all night?”

  “Uh, Kiera,” Wesley said, “given our situation, maybe being a bitch isn’t the right play just now.”

  Fred glanced over his shoulder. “You should listen to your boyfriend. He sounds like he’s the brains of this operation.”

  “Hardly,” Kiera sputtered, “and he isn’t my boyfriend! You want to get to the point?”

  Fred giggled, a truly disturbing sound to her ears. “Mr. Ridley has a point, right at Wesley’s throat. Would you like him to get to it?”

  Kiera’s eyes flicked to the deck. “No.”

  “Then shut your mouth and listen for once in your life. As I said, you cost me some men.” Fred held up a hand to forestall her protest. “I will need to enlist others, and on such short notice, that creates some uncertainty in the plans I have painstakingly made. You are going to be my insurance.”

  Kiera wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about? How can I be insurance for anything?”

  “You have a knack for taking things that don’t belong to you. You are going to help
me take something from someone.”

  “What am I stealing, and from who?”

  “Neither of those things are your concern. All that matters is that I get what I want. An airship carrying a special cargo is arriving in the next few days. An exchange is going to take place in a warehouse not far from the mooring yard. In the ensuing chaos, your task is to recover the item I want from inside a blast box.”

  “A blast box? How am I supposed to get into a blast box?”

  “You will have to wait until the owner opens the box to inspect the item or get the key and the box from them.”

  “Who holds the key?”

  “You will know at the time of the exchange. Until then, it could be anyone. There is no room for mistakes, so we have to wait until the person tasked with opening the box reveals themselves.”

  Kiera took a deep breath. “So, I’m just doing a snatch and grab?”

  Fred spread his hands before him. “That’s it. You get the item, and all your debts to me are wiped clean. I’ll even make you square with Nimat. Deal?”

  Fred left her no room for negotiation. Apparently, the only consideration he was giving her for saving his life, regardless of it being an accident, was not killing her and Wesley on the spot.

  “Fine, but then we never cross paths again.”

  “You get me what I want, and I will forget you and your friends ever existed.” He took another step closer and his smile vanished. “But if you think to run, tell anyone of anything spoken this night, or of the operation afterward, and I will kill you, Wesley, and your little feeble-minded friend in the slowest, most painful way I can devise. Am I clear?”

  Kiera met his gaze with far more bravery than she felt. “Yeah, crystal.”

  At a gesture from Fred, Top Hat released Wesley and gave him a small shove before they all turned and left down the ramp. Kiera ran across the deck as soon as she lost sight of them and heaved on the rope and pulley system to retract the ramp onto the deck. It was mostly a symbolic gesture more than providing any actual defense should someone truly want to get on board, but sometimes symbols were all one had.