“Buc!” Eld’s voice was pitched for my ears alone, low and urgent.
“Damn the man,” Sin growled. He hated when Eld figured something out before him. “We’re being followed.”
“We’re being followed,” Eld said.
“Next time I’m going to say it as soon as I suspect,” Sin muttered.
“How long?” I asked, continuing to look straight at the end of the street, a good distance on. The dark waters of the canal were just visible and we could make a run for it if we had to … but I’d no intention of running.
“Not sure,” Eld said. “I think we picked them up a few blocks back, when we had to go wide ’round that carriage that overturned. Now that I think on it,” he added, “that might have been precisely the point.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s give them the same reception we gave the last ones who tried to ambush us.”
Eld chuckled and leaned closer, for all the world laughing at something I said, but his voice was grim. “That next alley on the right, or should we cross and take the left farther down, by that tall building with the dark stucco?”
“The one right here,” I said. “I’m sick of being followed—and, Eld?” He glanced down at me, features hidden by the shadow of his tricorne. “We need information, so maybe not quite the same reception as that last time.”
“No pistole ball to the face,” he said under his breath. “Right.”
“Good lad.” He grunted and I laughed for real this time. “All right, let’s go,” I said, breaking into a jog, then leaping around the corner and into the alleyway.
And right into the path of something that whipped past my ear like a furious, whistling bee.
“Sin!”
“On—”
Time slowed to a standstill, taking sound and some of my vision with it. My mind burned and I could feel that my weight was completely on my front boot; I was leaning forward. That lean had saved me from whatever it was that had just passed my ear. Farther down the alley I saw a figure wearing an overlarge jacket, some dark contraption leveled in their arms.
“—it,” Sin finished. “There’s another coming.”
“What is it?” Time moved again, nearly infinitesimally, but I could feel my momentum begin to slowly carry me forward. My vision sharpened, eyes burning with magic, and a woman a few years older than Eld leapt into focus. She wore a torn, patched dress that might have been green once and there was a red feather in the cap that hid most of her brown curls. It was the crossbow cradled in her arms that drew my attention. Between us I saw a flash of steel that had to be the bolt, its path the same as the first that had missed me. I searched beyond her for the second shooter.
“It’s just her,” Sin hissed. “Look at the cylinder attached to the bottom of that thing—looks like some sort of gearwork repeater.”
“Mmm,” I mused. “That’s a problem.”
“Aye, if you can let your momentum carry you into a slide, we can—”
“Cobblestones are too new here,” I said. “Must have been repaved this past summer. I slide and I’ll go a pace before I’m brought up short and yon shooter turns us into a pincushion.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
No armor. Long jacket, limited mobility. Need to close. Without becoming a pincushion. “How fast are you?”
“Not fast enough to sprint there before she adjusts aim,” Sin said. “Another ten paces closer, and mayhap.”
“I don’t want to sprint there,” I said.
“You don’t?” Sin asked. Then he read my thoughts. “Oh … umm, let’s find out?”
“That’s the spirit,” I growled. “Ready?”
“Killing motherfuckers in two, one, aye!” he roared.
Time snapped back and with it came the tearing sound of a honed, steel bolt whipping past my ear. I dropped my hands in a flash, grasped the hilts of my twin stilettos, and pulled them free like chained lightning, bringing them up even as the woman dropped her aim to account for my being bent over. My boots leapt off the cobblestone, rasping loud in my ears, and then my limbs burned and sound and sight dimmed again as Sin’s magic suffused me just in time.
Bolts came pouring at me. One-two-three.
My stilettos were blinding glints of blackened steel, scything the air in front of me, and I felt my wrists reverberate as each bolt hit a blade and glanced off with an angry whine, furious at missing my throat as they caromed off walls and stones. Four-five-six, and I was running low, a wordless snarl caught in my throat as I closed the distance. Seven-eight. My wrists began to hurt from the force of the impacts. Nine-click-click-click. The woman cursed and the round cylinder fell from the crossbow, bouncing off the cobblestones as she reached for another on her belt. Too late, she realized I was moving inhumanly fast. She paused, face as dark as her brown hair, whites of her eyes wide, torn between fight or flight. And then I was there and her indecision killed her.
I slammed into her, driving her backward with enough force that she landed on her back before spilling arse over end, skirts and dirty petticoats flying as she came right side back up and bounced. Only, I’d not hit her with my body, but my blades. She coughed a bloody froth that turned into a spray when she tried to scream. Her skin looked pockmarked by crimson specks and her wild eyes stared at me. Her mouth moved soundlessly before she fell back, a stiletto buried below each breast.
I let my snarl go and with it, Sin’s magic. Hearing, vision, and time returned, accompanied by a rolling wave of nausea that coupled with the sudden adrenaline spike to bend me double. I’d have fallen if I hadn’t caught myself against the side of the building. I coughed, choked, and hurled all at the same time, blinking back tears to find strands of bile hanging from my lips all the way down to the pile of vomit I’d added to the refuse in the alley. “What the actual fuck, Sin?”
“I—I’m sorry,” he said. “That hasn’t happened before. I think, maybe, this is what comes of not taking Possession. I don’t know,” he added quickly, sensing my rage. “I truly don’t; no one’s ever held out as long as you and—”
“Later,” I cut him off as Eld came running up.
“Buc! What happened? Are you okay?” He put his arm around me to help hold me up and leaned over so his face was close to mine.
“A bunch of steel just came flying from the alley but it had stopped by the time I rounded the corner. Say! Is that a body?”
I pulled myself up, using Eld’s jacket, and for a moment my vision doubled and my stomach twisted hard enough that I nearly decorated his powder-blue coat with whatever was left in my guts. I fought the urge and half leaned, more fell against him. He moved to pull me closer, but I pulled one of his pistoles free from its holster, pulling the hammer back as I drew it level and stepped clear of Eld. The woman who’d just turned the corner froze, the whites of her eyes bright against her umber-brown skin.
“Courtesan?” I wiped the vomit from my mouth with the back of my free hand and spat. “Do I need to kill you, too?”
The woman backed up so fast she almost fell on her arse. Catching herself against the wall, she held her hands up, level with her chest. I recognized her—she’d been in the last bordello Eld and I had visited. Now her jacket was buttoned, hiding the breasts that had made Eld walk into a wall before, but it looked like she hadn’t bothered to don a shirt, which meant Eld was still going to be useless. There was bile in the back of my throat and my knees wanted to tremble. Damn men. Damn women, too. She shook her locks slowly, gaze darting past me to the body of the woman I’d killed, then back to me.
Swallowing hard, then licking her lips, she choked out, “I can explain.”
“Then do it,” I said, adjusting my grip on the pistole. “And be quick about it.”
“I—I’d nothing to do with … that,” she said, nodding toward the corpse. “I was trying to catch you both up in a place with less eyes and ears.”
“Sounds like what this woman wanted,” Eld said over my shoulder. “You see where following u
s got her.”
“I wanted to help,” she said, tears bright in her eyes. “Rafiro told my maestra what he told you. He’s a worm that would sell his own mother for a coin and won’t part with information for much less than that. Maestra is scared and didn’t tell you everything. Not about Bianca. She was my friend, signorina. Please?”
I sighed and lowered the pistole, but kept the hammer drawn back. “Say on.”
“My name’s Fulsia. I—I know you have another case that takes precedent, but if you find who’s trying to off the Doga, then you’ll be free to find Bianca’s killer, aye?”
I heard Eld draw back the hammer of his second pistole. “I don’t recall saying we were trying to find the Doga’s assassins,” I growled, bringing the pistole back up.
“Word came down from the maestra a couple days ago,” Fulsia squeaked. “That the Doga had a team asking questions, a team that always found answers. I don’t know where from,” she added quickly. “All I know is that we heard of the attempt on the Doga’s life at the cathedral, all of Servenza did, and then the troubles in the streets really took off and somehow Bianca was in the wrong place at the wrong time and wound up m-murdered.”
Fulsia stopped holding back her tears; though she was crying, she stared at me with enough emotion that I lowered the pistole again and motioned for Eld to do the same.
“I don’t have enough coin to beg the Dead Gods’ help even if I give that tall one a free lay on the house and the Sin Eaters are only offering healing in the Quarto. I just want justice, signorina. Is that so wrong?”
“Not wrong,” I said. “I’d pay a pretty coin to know how word of our investigation made it to a bunch of courtesans, though.” And the Gods knew who else.
“Who else knows?” Eld asked.
“Thanks, Eld,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. He grunted. “So, what did you come to tell us, Fulsia?”
“There’s one that may have word on who is trying to murder the Doga,” Fulsia said. “The Mosquitoes’ maestro, if you can speak to him.”
“The Mosquitoes are gone, aye?” I asked. “The Gnats saw to that and I’d assume that means they saw to the old maestro, too.”
“No, they didn’t—’cause their maestro was picked up not three days prior to the Gnats’ takeover, for ordering a shakedown of the wrong constable, and he’s been in locked in the Castello, in the middle of the Crescent, ever since. Were I a betting woman”—she sniffed—“I’d say the Gnats paid off enough of the blues to see him out of the way before they moved in.”
“All right,” I said, letting the hammer down carefully on the pistole and handing it back to Eld without looking. I felt his hand on mine; he hesitated, and then took it.
“All right,” I repeated. “I’ll see about the Mosquitoes’ maestro. Thank you for the tip. Anything else you want to tell us?”
Fulsia took in a shuddering breath and shook her head, making her makeup run worse than before.
“You didn’t see any of this.” Eld gestured over his shoulder. “Right?”
“Wasn’t even here,” she agreed.
“Good woman. Here, for your troubles,” Eld said, flicking a gold coin through the air. “And your silence,” he added.
Fulsia plucked it out of the air with a skill known only to those of the street and made it disappear inside her jacket. “You’ll always have my silence, sirrah,” she said, bowing her head. When she raised it, somehow her jacket had gotten half-undone and I could practically feel the heat emanating from Eld’s cheeks. “It’s yours … whenever you want it.” She grinned that crooked grin she had and disappeared back around the corner.
“Have to give it to the woman,” I said.
“What’s that?” Eld asked in a tight voice.
“Standing in an alley with a corpse, with a pistole trained on her, and she still propositioned her mark.” I turned back around, confirming what I’d figured, that Eld had kept his pistole out. He was learning. “A woman after my own heart.”
“I’m led to believe she’ll do all manner of things for a lira,” he said, and we both burst out laughing.
* * *
We didn’t laugh for long. Even here, a body was going to pull the wrong kind of attention eventually and, given the sudden lack of foot traffic past the mouth of the alley, it was a certitude that the locals knew some shit had gone down. Eld gathered up as many bolts as he could find amidst the debris—mainly broken glass and cracked masonry—that littered the alley while I inspected the woman. I found no identifying marks; her clothes were of the ordinary sort, and her pockets were empty. The crossbow, on the other hand, was definitely not of an ordinary sort. It was smaller than most, what was known on the streets as an alley piece because it wouldn’t carry much beyond that range. They were still used by window climbers and assassins and some of the poorer gangs, but most preferred pistoles due to their added power. This one was smaller than usual, barely the length of my forearm, although the bowstring itself was as wide. There was a dark, metal cylinder wrapped around the nut where the bolt would usually be locked into place.
“Tell me what I’m looking at, Sin,” I said.
“Some damned fine gearwork,” Sin said. My vision burned for a moment and suddenly it was as if I held a magnifying glass, enabling me to clearly see the inner workings, which were revealed by the lack of a loaded bolt. “I’d say, based on what we saw and what I can see here, that it somehow uses the force of the shot to pull the string back to the nut, lock it in place, and that canister must attach somehow to pull another bolt into place.”
I bent down and tugged one of the dark, metal drums free from the dead woman’s belt. It slid into a groove beneath the stock with a click. The trigger was as light as a dueling pistole’s and I worked it a couple of times, dry firing it. Sharp puffs of air shot from the drum.
“I think I see,” I said after a moment’s study. “You have to load the first bolt and then the gears do the rest, firing as fast as you can work the trigger.”
“Until the drum is empty, anyway,” Sin agreed.
“There’s an air canister doing something? Magic?”
“Not magic,” Sin whispered. “But knowledge your kind shouldn’t have. A form of air bottled within the drum is released in powerful bursts—that’s what’s loading each bolt. The string is handling the actual firing like any other crossbow.”
“Between the gears and this air, you’d need only change out the cylinder and another dozen bolts are ready,” I said.
“Aye, or near enough” he said. “There’s no mage mark either. The Goddess doles out permissions to use her knowledge of gears and machinery very carefully, Buc, and I don’t recall her ever permitting this.”
“Isn’t that a bitch?” I whispered mentally.
“Find anything?” Eld asked.
“Just this,” I said, holding up the crossbow. “You ever see its like?”
“Can’t say that I have,” he said after a moment. He leaned closer. “It’s blackened steel, same as your blades. No maker’s mark.” He whistled. “Sin Eaters would kill whoever made this without their permission.”
“Aye, and the bolts are barely the length of the palm of my hand,” I said, rising from my crouch. “We’re looking at a weapon designed for only one purpose: assassination.”
“Lucky for us she was a bad shot,” Eld said, forcing a smile.
“Lucky,” I said, passing him the crossbow.
I bent over and my arms burned for a moment as Sin gave me the strength required to pull my stilettos from the dead woman’s chest. The body jerked once and the blades came free with a sucking squelch, fresh blood running their lengths, dripping in places from blood and viscera. I wiped them on her patched green dress as best I could and then held them out so Eld could see the bits of black that were now bright steel. “From her bad aim,” I said.
“Gods be damned,” Eld whispered, turning a whiter form of pale. His eyes found mine and he shook his head slowly. “How?”
“Magi—
”
“How did you know that Fulsia was coming from behind?” Eld asked, rushing to get his question out, to keep me from laying bare the secret we both knew but refused to acknowledge.
“Yeah, how did you know?” Sin asked. “I didn’t hear her coming. Her name,” he whispered, “I didn’t see any of this coming.”
“When you grow up a lass on the streets…,” I said slowly, staring at the blades in my hands and thinking of Eld and how his hand had been in mine moments before. The gulf between us had never yawned wider than it felt right now. “… you learn to always be on your guard. To never trust your senses, not fully, because senses can be dulled or fooled—and that’s when they strike.”
I looked up from my blades. “Maybe it’s lasses everywhere that know that feeling, not just on the streets.”
“I—I’m sorry, Buc,” Eld said. “Sorry you’ve had to live your life that way.”
“Don’t be.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was my senses or maybe I was the only one that remembered this all started with us being followed?” Eld snorted and I felt Sin do the same in my mind. “Either way, senses or memory, it’s kept us both alive more than once, Eld.”
I pointed at the crossbow. “We’re taking that with us. Might come in useful in the days to come. Though I’ll still take a good blade in my hand,” I added, sliding my stilettos back into the sheaths hidden by my crimson jacket.
Blade.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, pausing with the knives only halfway home.
“What?”
“I just remembered where I’d heard that word before, why it’s been bothering me ever since Rafiro let it slip,” I said. I drew the stiletto in my right hand back out. “It’s a word of the Cordoban Confederacy. It means ‘blade.’” I drew the second one free. “Or ‘blades’—the Confederacy’s tongue has a way of meaning more than it says.” I cursed softly, bitterly. “You remember that drawing we found in Quenta’s pocket?”
“A blade?” Eld looked even more confused.
“Aye.”
The Justice in Revenge Page 16