The Justice in Revenge

by Ryan Van Loan

  “Given the atmosphere, I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “So you do remember?”

  “Of course,” I lied. Fuck it. Digging into one of my inside pockets, I pulled out a gold lira, buffed it quickly against my sleeve until it shone, and held it up high, so that it caught the afternoon’s waning light. “Piece of gold to the first of you lot that can tell me aught of the beggars known as the Mosquitoes!” I shouted.

  “Blood of the Gods, Buc!” Eld reached inside his jacket where I knew he kept a rotating-barreled pistole. Half the street had turned at my words and several of the more ragged types had come to a complete stop, gazes fixed on the coin in my hand. It represented a month’s wages to some, perhaps more. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

  “Full lira to the lucky one what tells me what I want to know!” I glanced at Eld. “I’m done playing games.”

  “Are you?” he hissed. “Because this seems like a game to me. A damned stupid one.”

  “You wound me, Eld.” Still, my arm had been up for more than a moment now and I was worried I might have been a bit too hasty.

  “You don’t say,” Sin snorted.

  A woman strode past, her legs shown off to great effect by tight, bloodred trousers tucked into dark, calf-high leather boots, and the rest of her figure obscured by a long, green jacket that flared at the waist. She plucked the coin from my hand, tanned fingers flashing in the sun, long, unbraided locks swirling in the wind so her face was obscured. “Done and done,” she said throatily. “The Mosquitoes were overrun by an upstart guild a fortnight ago. Those that didn’t end up in the Crescent”—she jerked her long brimmed hat in the direction of the bay—“fell in with them.”

  “So, a gang war,” Eld said.

  “A guild war,” I corrected him. “Not uncommon for the Tip. Who is them?” I asked her.

  “The Gnats.”

  “The Gnats overwhelmed the Mosquitoes?” Eld asked.

  “Your friend seems a simple type,” the woman said.

  “He is,” I agreed. “You have my coin,” I reminded her. “Where can we find the Gnats?”

  “Three or four streets over there’s an old factory that serves as a gambling den these days. Can’t miss it. Head back up toward the base of the Tip and it’s the fourth alley on your right. Savvy?”

  “Aye.” She dipped her hat, her hair still hiding her features, and kept walking, a slight limp to her step. A strange, spice-like aroma seemed to follow her. Or maybe I’d just burped up some of that fish from lunch.

  “Should have done that an hour ago,” I told Eld.

  “I’m not going to remind you that I suggested a similar plan,” he told me, shaking his head. Luckily he took my impertinence as part and parcel of who I was and not another missing memory. “Although I’d something more circumspect in mind.”

  “You can’t be circumcised when it comes to the Foreskin,” I said.

  “I—I—”

  “Uh-huh,” I told him, brushing past and pulling him along by the arm. “Am speechless when confronted by my brilliance, I know.” Eld said something that made one of the prostitutes we were passing blush and I laughed so hard he had to hold me up as we walked. “Come on,” I said when I finally found my breath. “Let’s go squash a gnat.”

  12

  “I’d have thought they’d have the factories working double time after that storm,” Eld said.

  “It is a bit quiet,” I agreed.

  We stood beneath a lamppost that had no lamp—it had probably been stolen, who knew how many seasons past—looking down the street at several factories, including the one that the stranger had pointed out as being a gambling den. Most factories were in the Mercarto Quarto, but there were others sprinkled throughout Servenza, though any this deep in the Tip were likely to be sweatshops. They should have been bright with activity, but the windows were boarded over and the chimneys cold. The street was emptier than the ones we’d left, despite several carts set up to cater to workers with bread and soup. The aroma was enough to make me simultaneously glad I’d already eaten and horrified that I might have eaten something as rotten as whatever they were selling.

  “Likely something to do with the gangs,” I said after a moment.

  Eld grunted agreement, detaching himself from the post. Three children in clean but faded threadbare clothing ran past, the lead one whooping that the last to catch them would turn into a gull—which seemed a good thing to turn into if you wanted to escape. The rest were hard on his heels, but the girl in the middle pulled up with a squeak that made him stop and turn. She and the deep-tanned boy beside her stared at me. She whispered something and the boy nodded. The taller one sketched a bow.

  “Pardon, signorina, sirrah, she didn’t mean no harm. C’mon, Zul,” he growled. “Don’t be staring, no matter the finery.”

  “No, it’s her,” the girl said. “She’s the one.”

  “The one what?”

  “The one from the burned factory.”

  Eld half stepped between us, but I stilled him with a touch on his arm when I saw the boy’s eyes widen, the whites bright against his dark skin. He recognizes me. How? This time he took the time for a proper bow.

  “Signorina, ye shouldn’t be here.” He coughed hard, phlegm rattling in his throat, and added, “It’s dangerous.”

  “Because of the gangs, aye?” I shrugged and let the thin stiletto I’d palmed dance across the backs of my fingers in a flash of steel. “I appreciate the tip, lad, but we can take care of ourselves.”

  “The gangs and more besides,” the boy said.

  The girl said, “They’s in the—”

  “Zul!” he hissed, spinning on her. “Enough—less you want the streets to hear?” The thin boy, mute, grasped at her arm, but she shrugged it off, opening her mouth defiantly. “No,” the first boy warned. He turned back to me. “We know what you done, signorina, but this street’s gone bad today, savvy?”

  “I do,” I told him. What I savvied was that somehow I’d gathered a reputation amongst the street urchins as one who paid out coin. I wondered which of my informants had loose lips. Quenta? She was the newest and her new clothes spoke volumes even if her lips didn’t. Apparently none of them told them the other side of that coin: you could end up in alley with your throat cut wide like Habert. “And thank you for the warning, lad, but I only give coin out when I’m the one doing the asking. Savvy?”

  “What’s she talking about, B—?”

  “Zul, leave it,” the boy said. He shook the frizzy, black hair out of his eyes and shrugged. “Didn’t ask for handouts, signorina, just paying debts is all. Gods watch you … whichever you serve,” he said, the last added hastily as if it were still new to his lips.

  “And you,” Eld said, and then they ran off down the street, Zul already making the harsh cawing sounds of a gull by the time they turned the corner. “What was that about?” Eld asked.

  “I think I’m going to have to have a word with Quenta about discretion,” I muttered. I explained my reasoning and Eld nodded slowly. Sin made a noise in my mind but I ignored him. Sin didn’t trust anyone, which was something I could get behind, but these kids were no more a threat than Quenta had been.

  “I don’t think that’s what this was,” Sin said.

  “Then what?”

  He was silent.

  “Uh-huh. Let’s find these beggars and be quick about it,” I told him.

  * * *

  “I don’t know,” Eld said as we passed the dark doors of the gambling hall, “maybe those children were right.” He tried to pull his coat down farther, but it rode right back up and he threw his hands into the air. “This better have not been a waste of time, Buc, you know I hate disguises.”

  “Shh, I’m counting,” I told him. Not that I needed to concentrate, but there’s nothing worse than a man’s whinging. Eld wasn’t usually given to that particular fault, unless he was sick—show me a man who doesn’t turn into a mewling baby at the first sign of a sniffle—
but the coat was getting to him, apparently.

  “We’re fine; if folks are frightened off the streets, that just means we’re less likely to get our pockets picked. This alley’s the one,” I added, pointing at the black, yawning mouth in front of us.

  “I don’t know how it managed to find so many shadows,” Eld muttered.

  I tried not to roll my eyes but he had a point; it was dark between the buildings even though the afternoon’s sun was just beginning to slip from the sky. “More to the point,” I said, “there should be some lookouts, even if the streets are quiet. Especially then.”

  “Maybe the Gnats got what the Mosquitoes did,” Eld said. “What’s the next level down from a Gnat?”

  “Bite-me.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Bite-mes,” I told him. “Smaller than a gnat, but I think you’d have to go pretty far south, as far as the Cordoban Confederacy, to find any.” Number 286. Semsin’s Flying Insects and Their Proclivities. The twisted alleyway bent out of sight, likely running between the buildings of this street and the next, which made it a sensible meeting place for beggars. I took a step and my foot came down in another puddle that splashed all over my trousers.

  “Gods, that smell.” Eld retched. “Was that—?”

  “Day-old piss?” I growled. “Aye, well, there’s a pair of boots ruined.”

  “Now I’m thankful for this damned short coat,” Eld muttered.

  “If you keep moaning about that jacket, Eld, I’ll begin to think you’re—”

  Something slid against metal with a grinding sound and my ears burned as Sin flared his abilities, heightening my senses so that I heard the sound a pistole’s firing mechanism made when the wheels spun.

  “Down!”

  I pushed him so hard he tripped backward, caught himself against the edge of the building, and swung out of sight. With Sin’s abilities trained elsewhere, my momentum and the day-old piss made me slip and I fell flat on my arse.

  The pistole erupted in the darkness, an explosion of fire and thunder, the roar replaced by a high-pitched ringing that took my Sin-enhanced hearing with it. Something angry tore the air over my head, right where I’d been standing. The plume of smoke obscured faces, but I could still see half a dozen pairs of legs rushing toward me. I put a hand down for leverage—right into the piss puddle—and growled. You motherfuckers.

  “Sin!”

  “On it,” he spat.

  Slingshot into the pack to break them, twin stilettos when they do, and then we dance.

  “And I will call the tune,” I muttered.

  My muscles burned with magic and I went from arse-on-the-ground to standing in a single motion, hands a blur as I found my slingshot by feel. My other hand plucked at the pouch hanging from my belt and a lead ball fell into it. I couldn’t see the attackers now but Sin showed me where they should be in my mind’s eye, based on the glance I’d had of their legs.

  I let lead fly.

  A man shouted and I felt him fall in the smoky darkness, the impact of his body against the street reverberating through my piss-soaked boots, relayed to me by Sin. I let fly again. And again. One last shot and then I felt the vibrations change as they broke. I dropped my slingshot into a pocket and reached for my blades. Left, away from the entrance, use the wall as leverage, and come back across. I flipped the stiletto in my left hand so that I held it with an overhand grip. Ice-picking all the way.

  Someone fired another pistole, a bright flash and bang, this one smaller than the first, but they were still firing at where I’d been standing when this all started. I laughed and one of them turned toward me, but it was too late. My eyes burned, Sin pushing my pupils wider than humanly possible, taking my ringing hearing with it. I saw a lad a few years younger than myself rushing toward me, swinging a glass-studded club. He didn’t see me until it was too late and I let him run onto the end of my blade. He tried to scream but I’d already buried the knife in his throat so all that came out was a throaty gurgle and a spray of hot blood that coated my face.

  I slammed my head into the bridge of his nose, knocking him back to free my blades, and spun. Wall. I kicked off and flew back across the alley, using my shoulder to send a shorter figure stumbling to the ground, then leapt onto the back of a tall man in a tattered cloak. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I ice-picked him half a dozen times through the top of the shoulder, severing the artery that lay there while my other blade found a home in his groin. Screaming, the man tumbled to the ground. I rolled free just as Eld appeared in the alleyway, a pistole in each hand.

  “’Bout time you showed up!”

  “Aye, better late than never,” he said with a grin that didn’t touch his eyes. A pistole bucked in his fist, belching flame, and I heard another body hit the cobblestones behind me. Something flew through the air, whistling past my shoulder, and broke, with the sound of shattering glass, in the puddle I’d stepped in moments earlier. “Missed!” he shouted. Then a wall of flame erupted from the puddle and Eld’s shout was drowned in a fiery roar.

  Fuck.

  “Nooo!” The scream tore at my throat as I leapt from the dead or dying man and onto the figure that had tossed the grenado. The girl went down beneath my weight with a scream, her hands struggling to push me back, but fighting was not new to me even before Sin. I caught her arm, smaller than my own, at the elbow, and pulled it into my armpit, twisting until I felt the bone break. The girl screamed again, her gilded shirt tearing and fountaining blood from where Sin and I had nearly torn her arm completely off. You tried to murder Eld. She screamed and I howled.

  We rolled over on the cobblestones, the girl shrieking and clawing at my face with her good hand, me red with rage and filled with Sin’s magic. When we came to a stop, with me atop her, I’d already buried the blade in my right hand in her guts. I felt her body jerk beneath my own, the whites of her eyes and her gilded shirt the only colors I could make out in the blackness of the alley. I stabbed her again. Eld. And again. And again. I didn’t stop.

  Eld’s roar brought me to. He flew through the guttering wall of flames, tripped over the man I’d killed, and sent the last one—a thickset man in a dirty bowler—spinning against the wall with a grunt. “I. Hate. This. Effing—!” Eld twisted around, shedding his jacket, which was now on fire in several places. “Coat!”

  He wrapped the last attacker in the smoldering fabric, took a step back, leveled his pistole, and pulled the trigger. My vision went with the muzzle flash, but I didn’t need to see to feel the thump as the man fell.

  “You know,” I panted, pushing myself up to one knee, “you might be onto something with these disguises.”

  Eld slumped to the ground beside me, pistoles resting on his knees. “N-now you listen?” he gasped.

  “Better late than never?” He chuckled and I joined him, adrenaline setting our limbs to shaking.

  13

  The flames from the grenado died, leaving behind an acrid scent of gunpowder and something … spicy? in its wake. I glanced around, taking in the scene now that everything had calmed down. Sin gave me a little bit of magic, so I could see clear as on a bright morning despite the shadows. Blood ran in pools from the lad with the glass-studded club. More blood, growing cold, reached my right hand where I leaned back on the cobblestone; it was from the man I’d butchered. Farther back, I saw the mostly headless torso of the one Eld had shot, and beyond that, the marks left by the first I’d downed with my slingshot. He’d run off in the mayhem, but I wasn’t in the mood to go chasing. Let him tell the story—maybe that’ll make them think twice next time.

  I was avoiding looking at the body beside me. I could still feel the ferocity of that violence in my limbs, the phantom sensation of ramming a blade through another. I’d killed before. Gods, this summer I’d killed enough to make a small army … but most of those had already been dead, I’d just been helping them stay dead. This was another matter. A bunch of children led by some foolhardy adults who’d targeted the wrong pair and pa
id the price. But it was more than that. I had a Goddess’s magic now and that granted me power I’d never known before. The power to tear a girl limb from limb.

  “Only after she nearly killed Eld,” Sin reminded me.

  “True, and I don’t regret killing her,” I whispered mentally. “Just the way I did it was…”

  “Awesome? In the true sense of the word,” he added quickly.

  I felt a shiver run down my back. “I was going to say frightening.”

  I took a deep breath and caught a note of that strange spice, a scent similar to cinnamon, but sharper. I recognized it immediately: the same smell the woman assassin gave off when she burned alive trying to kill the Doga.

  “Not a mistake, then,” I said aloud.

  “What’s that?” Eld’s gaze was on me, his mouth twisted in concern.

  “This,” I said, gesturing around, “was no accident.” I explained about the flames and Eld nodded thoughtfully. “Lucky I shoved you out of the way, Eld, or you’d have more than singed eyebrows.”

  “Are they?” He put a hand to his eyes. “Are they singed?”

  “Blacker than my own,” I confirmed. I snorted. “You’re fine, you vain bastard.”

  “Not vain,” he muttered, still feeling his eyebrows cautiously. “Just mindful.”

  I grinned and he smiled and then we both laughed. All right, let’s find out what these corpses can tell us. I levered myself up, preparing for what I knew I’d see, and looked at the girl I’d killed.

  The laughter died on my lips.

  “Quenta.”

  “Damn it,” Eld muttered, cursing softly, bitterly. He squeezed my shoulder. “This isn’t your fault, Buc.”

  “Why would I ever think it was?” I asked him. “I didn’t set her on this path, she chose where to set her boots.” I glanced at the garish pair she’d bought with my lira and sighed. “The real question, Eld, is: Was she bought before I ran into her in that storm, or after?”