She plants her palms on the table, preparing to stand and leave. Glint calmly leans forward and grabs her wrist, holding her in place. “I paired you with Mink because it’s the only way she’ll accept you. She has to see you in action.”
“Another test.”
“Do you want the job or not?”
And abruptly, she realizes she wants it more than anything. She nods.
“For the record, I haven’t killed anyone either. Not on purpose anyway.”
“What? You?”
“Which is precisely why I need people like Mink. Back on the stairs, you asked about my motive. Our access to Maire’s Quarter is important, but alone, that’s not a reason to depose a whole syndicate. Porcelain Hand will go down tonight because my organization needs to work an operation with you. They need you to be part of our biggest score yet.”
“Taking down Porcelain Hand is a score?”
“More or less. Regardless of what I’ve claimed, there are benefits to owning criminal rights to a city district. It just wasn’t part of the plan until tonight.”
He’s still got her wrist in an iron grip. When she glances down at it, he slowly releases her.
“So I tag along with Mink and hope to impress her?”
“Is that the kind of person you are? Someone who tags along and hopes to impress.”
“No.”
“Then that was a rhetorical question. Take charge where you can, but please don’t forget what got the woman this far. There’s a chance you might learn something.”
She stands and pushes her chair into the table. “I better go get ready.”
He nods, sipping his whiskey. When she’s nearly at the door, he speaks.
“Planning to cut that dress off?”
Myrrh lays a hand on the door latch but doesn’t open it. “Would you kindly unbutton me?”
Glint chuckles as he crosses the room. Quick fingers work down the row of little buttons. As soon as he’s finished, Myrrh yanks the door open and stalks out without looking back.
***
“Wait,” Myrrh whispers, laying a hand on Mink’s arm. Mink halts, crouching near the edge of the rooftop and peering down at the fog-cloaked street far below.
The older woman is a different person than the would-be high-society matron that sat at Glint’s dinner table. She’s clad in tight-fitting clothing, not leather, but some sort of light weave that stretches and moves with her form. Her only armor is a hardened-leather bracer on her left arm. Her hair pulls severely away from her face, not a strand escaping the braid that runs down her back.
At least a dozen knives are strapped to her boots, thighs, and hips. Myrrh suspects there are many more hidden on her body.
“Yes?” Mink says. There’s no annoyance in her tone. Tonight is all about business. And whether or not she respects Myrrh’s skills, she’s wise enough not to give emotion any space to work. Myrrh makes a mental note to remember that.
“We should use the glimmer.”
“Premature,” Mink says. “We have ten blocks before we need to drop down.”
The woman starts to leave, utterly silent as she stalks along the rooftop’s edge. Though Myrrh envies the woman her stealth, she’s glad for the faintly creaking leather protecting her body. Glint’s talk of assassins and killing has put her on edge. Most of Myrrh’s gigs have been far different than this. Finding hidden access to dockside warehouses. Creeping onto barges when the guards are looking the other way. Making off with a cask of brandy here, a string of pearls there.
Tonight, they aren’t after petty cash from a merchant’s saddlebags. They’re a shadow army ready to drop through roof hatches, rise from cellars, dive through windows at precisely the same time. Glint’s order is to avoid violence wherever possible. But scuffles are inevitable. Their targets won’t be hired guards lazily swiping at thieves making off with small prizes. They’ll be hardened criminals fighting for their homes.
Myrrh shakes her head, jumps forward, and catches hold of Mink’s wrist. This time, the woman’s temper shows in the narrowing of her eyes and the way she jerks her arm away.
“It’s a gut feeling,” she says. “Cutpurse’s intuition. There’s trouble on the next roof.”
Regardless of whether the woman will heed her warning, Myrrh isn’t going to advance without the resin. Glint mentioned Mink’s arrogance. That alone is reason for Myrrh to be cautious. She tucks a hand into her collarbone pocket and pulls out the packet of wax paper. As she slips the resin into her cheek, Mink stares as if shocked a mere girl would defy her advice. Lip curled, she turns to continue her advance.
A hiss slices the air just right of the women. Mink dives flat to the rooftop and kicks out Myrrh’s knees. Myrrh hits. Hard.
“Sixes,” Mink hisses. “Crossbow. Next roof.”
A breath later, the woman has somehow rolled to her feet. She’s a liquid shadow sliding over the rooftop. Like breeze-blown smoke, she approaches the gap between buildings. With a flick of her wrist, a knife flies across to the next rooftop, blade winking in the dull light of the cloud-hazed moon.
On the other roof, someone sucks in a rattling breath. Glimmer floods Myrrh’s body in time for her to see a man where moments ago there was only a shadow hunkering in the shelter of a rooftop water tank. He clutches his neck, pulls out Mink’s knife, releases a gush of blood.
A heartbeat later, he falls in a heap.
Myrrh blinks. Is he dead? Just like that? She waits for the sudden rush of guilt, but unlike with the young man on the barge, this kill was in self-defense. She feels only relief that Mink acted so quickly.
The woman motions her forward as she reaches into a pocket. The crinkle of paper tells Myrrh she’s unwrapping her dose of resin.
“Good instincts,” the older woman says. There’s no apology in her voice, but no shame about being wrong either. Myrrh notices crow’s feet in the corners of the woman’s eyes. What is it like, coming into her middle years with a trail of bodies behind her? Does she plan to work as an assassin into old age? It’s not something Myrrh has thought about, but seeing the woman work, she wonders whether Mink’s life will be hers someday.
“Good throw,” Myrrh responds. One at a time, they dart over the plank bridge that has been laid between the buildings.
Mink pauses briefly over the body. “I don’t like that he shot at us. No reason for Porcelain Hand to know we’re coming. No reason for him to mark us as enemies from that distance.”
“You think they got news of our operation?”
“I don’t know. We should be careful.”
“Seems too late to call things off.”
“Agreed.” Mink peers over the rooftops, eyes searching for more threats. “Glint is pulling no punches tonight. The whole organization is in motion.”
“Seems like an awfully big operation to put together in a matter of hours.”
The older woman smirks. “That’s one thing you’ll learn about Glint. He might make quick decisions, but he’s never as spontaneous as he seems. He may not have planned to take down Porcelain Hand before the altercation over the access to Maire’s Quarter. But you can be certain he’d figured out how to do it just in case. Contingencies, you might say.”
“But he didn’t mention a contingency for turning back if the operation looks sketchy.”
Mink shakes her head. “No half measures when Glint’s calling the shots. It’s something of a philosophy with him. Give someone the option of retreating and they sometimes lack the…urgency for success.”
“So this guy…” Myrrh nudges the body with her toe. “Maybe he just had a twitchy trigger finger.”
“Maybe so.” The older woman sighs. “Stay sharp anyway.”
Myrrh nods.
“And I meant what I said before. Good instincts. Even better that you listened to them.”
After another few blocks, the thieves’ path descends a fire escape to wind through a network of narrow alleys near the
border between Lower Fringe and the Crafter’s District. The smell of leather tanneries and cloth dyers infiltrates the streets, woven with the more distant stench of Smeltertown. Rats, absent in the more upscale region of Lower Fringe, scrabble over stone as they flee the women’s advance.
Light leaks from the edges of shutters, but none reaches down to the streets. Still, with the glimmer, it’s bright as day even in the trash-heaped corners of the alleys.
Myrrh knows they’re close when Mink slows her pace. Glimmer-enhanced, the woman’s motions are razor sharp. Deadly. When she creeps forward, it’s almost unnatural looking.
“Here,” Mink whispers, pointing to a shuttered window that looks no different than any of the past dozen they’ve walked beneath. That was another good reason for Glint to pair her with the older woman, Myrrh realizes. She’s too new to the area to move about without some sort of map.
“Now we wait?”
The assassin nods.
Backs to the wall, they take positions on either side of the window. After a while, Mink rises up on tiptoes and slips a blade along the edge of the shutter. Making sure she can flip the latch open from the outside.
The night’s chill begins to sink through Myrrh’s clothing. She suppresses a shiver, thinking of Mink’s thin garb and the woman’s apparent indifference to the cold.
Both women stiffen when a clatter erupts from a heap of rubbish around fifty paces away. There’s a squeak and a yelp, and then a stray dog trots by, casting them a disgusted glance as if it’s their fault the hunter missed its prey.
Time crawls on, and Myrrh thinks of the rest of the organization. As best she understands, there are close to fifty talented thieves and killers poised outside gambling dens and Porcelain Hand safe houses across the district. All waiting for the signal.
Finally, it comes. A whistle from four or five blocks away. Mink makes a ring with the tips of her middle finger and thumb, presses them into her mouth, and blows hard, a piercing note that will carry the order to the next location. A heartbeat later, she stabs her blade through the crack at the edge of the shutter, throws open the latch, yanks open the shutter.
The glimmer makes Myrrh’s movements perfect as she snatches the windowsill, pulls herself up in one smooth motion, and dives into the room. Mink follows, smooth as an eel.
It’s a kitchen. Back of a tavern where Porcelain Hand runs the portion of their enterprise that extorts “protection” payments from nearby tradespeople.
The room is empty. Kitchen’s closed for the night because everyone’s eaten by this hour, and all they really care about now is getting drunk. As Myrrh and Mink agreed earlier, they split up and approach the door to the barroom along opposite walls.
Myrrh stiffens when a barmaid backs through the door, a tray of dirty tankards in her hands. The girl laughs, the giggle obviously fake and intended to avoid angering the drunk who just catcalled her.
Mink draws herself upright when the door swings shut. She slips a small blade from a sheath on her thigh. Myrrh closes her eyes.
Fortunately, the girl doesn’t notice either of them. With an exhausted sigh, she slings the tray onto the kitchen counter, tankards clinking.
There’s a washtub full of dirty water against the back wall. The girl gives it a disgusted glance. Curls her lip. Reluctantly, she picks up the first tankard and shuffles forward to start washing it.
Myrrh nods at the door to the barroom and starts creeping forward. With a considering glance at the distracted barmaid, Mink shrugs, then nods. They approach the door together. The assassin switches blades, opting for something with more exposed steel, then counts to three on her fingers.
The women burst into the room, the sudden noise of drunken patrons causing the girl to yelp. Water splashes, no doubt the sound of the tankard taking a swim in the washtub. Myrrh shuts out her awareness of the barmaid. The threats are in the front room.
Just two people react with anything but bleary stares. A man with a livid scar on his neck jumps up, grabbing for a knife at his hip while the bartender, a strong woman with keen eyes, reaches beneath the bar. For a crossbow, Myrrh assumes.
Everyone else tries to hide behind their drinks. A few raise hands in surrender. Whatever’s going on here, they just want to finish their beers and go home.
Myrrh springs for the scarred man, the glimmer cold in her veins. She lands a precise kick to his elbow before he gets a grip on his knife. At the same time, a throwing knife somehow appears in Mink’s hand. A heartbeat later, it’s embedded an inch deep in the wood beam just above the bartender’s head.
“I don’t think I need to tell you that I missed on purpose,” Mink says.
The woman’s hands emerge from beneath the bar. Empty. Fingers splayed.
“How about you?” Myrrh asks, laying her dagger against the man’s throat.
“I got no quarrel,” he says, raising his hands.
She pulls the knife from his belt and tosses it under another table.
“Name?” she asks.
“Tom. Look, I’m just here for a drink. Got startled is all.”
Myrrh looks at Mink, shakes her head.
“Sit,” she says to the man. “You can leave once our business here is concluded.”
“How about you?” Mink asks the bartender. “What’s your name?”
“Depends on who you ask,” the bartender says, eyes spitting with anger.
Everyone on the operation has memorized a list of names: the roster of Porcelain Hand members worth recruiting. The others, the deadweight that has hobbled the syndicate for years, will be allowed to surrender their weapons and walk out of the district. Even if they were to organize—which Glint is sure they lack the initiative to do—they represent no threat.
Many of the worthy recruits will accept the generous signing bonus Glint has tucked away. Those who refuse won’t see the sunrise. Myrrh has a sinking feeling the bartender may be one of those.
“I go by V to most. Tuck to my friends.”
Myrrh remembers the name, clear as if she’d just read the list. Glint’s notes list V as something of a mastermind in the protection scheme.
“Do you know why we’re here, Tuck?” she asks.
“You ain’t my friend,” the woman says.
“Perhaps we can change that.” Myrrh stalks toward the big woman. A glance at Mink tells her the assassin has an eye on Tom as well. “I get the feeling you recognize the value of talented—and wealthy—allies.”
The bartender shows her palms, then sets her hands flat on the bar. “I’m listening.”
Chapter Twenty
MYRRH CAN’T SHAKE the feeling that something’s wrong. She and Mink escort their captive back, sticking to alleys for discretion but avoiding the thieves’ paths that wind over rooftops and up and down ladders. The bartender, V, agreed to be blindfolded. Not that she had much choice. Myrrh keeps a hand on the woman’s sturdy arm, careful not to jerk too hard on her bound wrists.
Fog pools in the alleyways and muffles the low din of the city. As they turn another corner, feet scuffing on rain-slick cobblestones, Mink steps closer.
“It was too easy,” the assassin says.
Myrrh was thinking the same. The tavern was supposed to be headquarters for a major arm of Porcelain Hand’s operations. They scarcely met resistance. She nods, eyes alert. Where lamplight gleams off wet stone, the glimmer-sight makes the street appear to smolder.
“Any comment?” Mink asks, prodding their captive’s shoulder with the butt of one of her knives. “Is it usual that you were the only competent person working the tavern?”
The bartender shrugs. “I have many things to say. But not until I hear your offer.”
Mink turns her knife, presses the blade against the woman’s neck. “You might not live that long.”
The bartender laughs. “I said I’d make it worth your while to bring me on. Killing me now would squander a resource. And you still wouldn’t get answers.”
Mink pulls the blade away. “I hope for your sake that you’re right about your value. Our invitation can always be rescinded.”
As they near the river, the fog thickens. Streetlamps struggle to penetrate the haze, turning the world into shadows that would be impenetrable without the glimmer. As they wind through alleys, Myrrh glimpses figures paralleling their course. More of Glint’s associates, returning from their designated raids. They’re converging with the captives, but not to Glint’s new residence. There’s another safe house, less conspicuous than the building he’s setting up for his front as a merchant. Myrrh’s last task tonight is to fetch Glint once the operation is complete.
Sounds from the river drift through the night, the shouts of bargemen and the occasional clang of a bell. Myrrh can smell the Ost now. They’re close.
“You know the way to the rendezvous?” Mink asks.
“I’ll be with Glint.”
Mink’s lips thin. “Always best to have a contingency. The location is three blocks upriver from where we met tonight. Look for an alley with a lantern hanging from the wall halfway down.”
Myrrh nods. They’ve reached the street corner where she needs to split off. The assassin takes hold of the captive’s arm, her grip not as gentle as Myrrh’s was. Mink jerks the bartender away, and Myrrh sets off for Glint’s residence at a trot.
When she turns a corner onto the street that fronts the building, she freezes in her tracks. The front door hangs ajar. The windows are dark, not a hint of light leaking through the curtains. Myrrh forces herself to keep walking, passing by the door without staring. No sound comes from inside.
Sixes.
She turns the next corner, following the outer wall of the building where Glint’s high window has a vantage on a slice of the waterfront. That, too, is dark.
A narrow alley cuts across the back of the building. Myrrh slips down it. Around twenty paces from the street, a ground floor window is cracked. On tiptoes, she peeks in.
A single lantern burns in the kitchen, adding to the smoldering glow from the oven.
Mistress of Thieves (Chronicles of a Cutpurse Book 1) Page 13