by Kester Grant
I sigh. These boys will no more abandon their cause than I will mine, no matter the odds against them.
“Send some of your men to the remaining cells,” I say. “See if you can still sound a warning.”
St. Juste turns to the students. Five of them nod at him, wordlessly taking up their weapons and turning to go.
“Be careful,” he calls as he watches them go, then turns back to me.
“I owe you an apology…,” he says.
“I don’t need apologies,” I say, looking hard at him. “I need you to help me destroy another monster.”
He listens. They all listen. They hang on my every word as if their lives depend on it.
* * *
On my way out of the house I find Javert gagged and tied to the banister.
Gavroche is sitting on a step, watching her with satisfaction. Le Maire hovers uneasily nearby.
I give Javert my widest smile.
“Inspector,” I say. “Good news.”
She growls at me through the gag, which is good. I need her to be angry.
“I found Valjean.” I point at le Maire.
She throws him a look of such venom that it makes me pause, and leaning over to him, I whisper, “What exactly happened between the two of you?”
He averts his gaze, a flush rising on his neck.
I shrug and turn my attention back to Javert. Pasting a smirk on my face, I continue. “I’m sure the dauphin will soon be here with his great army, ready to cut down all who stand in their way.” I wave my hands dramatically. “But we’re moving on. If you want to find us, I leave our change of address here in this note.” I pin a piece of paper to her shirt. “We’ll all be there, won’t we, Valjean?”
I nudge him in the ribs and he looks thunderously at me.
I take one last look at Javert, trussed like a roasting chicken, and blow her a kiss.
“Do send my best regards to His Majesty.”
The Tiger’s lair is a derelict dockmaster’s warehouse. Its windows are mostly broken or boarded up. To unsuspecting passersby, it looks empty.
We watch from across the road, hidden behind a crumbling wall, as a tall, nondescript figure walks straight up to the front door and knocks sharply. There’s no answer. He waits patiently. After some time, he knocks again. This time the door groans, opening with an ominous creak of warped wood. From our shelter we see that the tall man at the door is facing down the barrel of a gun.
He doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t raise his hands. A voice comes rasping from inside the warehouse, demanding to know what he wants.
The tall man’s voice is low but clear. It brooks no question and accepts no challenge.
“Guild of Letters,” he says. “I’m here to do an audit.”
* * *
The river is a haze of thick fog. A few grubbers still flit about the docks, searching for nails or other bits of metal to sell.
Two boats are tied up on the riverside by the Guild House. In the dimness, I can just see Loup and his Ghosts slip from a sewer grate. Loup begins to cut through one of the heavy ropes that keep the first vessel moored. Gavroche boards the boat and pours something onto the deck, then sets it aflame. He leaps off, and the Ghosts rush back into their hole.
The flames grow as the boat lazily floats away from its mooring. Eventually, the few Fleshers posted by the docks see it and begin yelling and running toward it as it drifts along in all its blazing glory. They’re so occupied with catching it that they don’t see me slip from the shadows behind them and clamber up the side of the other boat. There I set down a bottle filled with a liquid that the Fisherman has carefully decanted for me.
She warned me sternly not to drop it, so I’m sweating as I let the bottle go, pushing it gently so it rolls down the deck. I take one look behind me. More Fleshers are running from the house now, toward the burning boat. My way clear, I leap from the deck and speed across the moorings and into the catacombs. I follow the dark passage till I come to a grate overhead.
A shadow emerges out of the wall. It has knives.
“You don’t have to come with me,” I say.
“I thought we were friends,” Montparnasse replies. “It would be rude of me not to attend a friend’s funeral.”
I can’t help but smile as we climb up an ancient ladder carved into the tunnel wall. When we reach the grate above, Montparnasse silently lifts it, and I scramble up, practically into his arms, to peer out. The street is empty. Anyone around is down by the river, watching the Fleshers recapture a burning boat.
We emerge just as an explosion thunders through the night and a dark cloud of heavy smoke mushrooms up from the river. It’ll be seen and heard from miles around.
Just in case they didn’t get my note.
“What did the Fisherman put in that bottle?” Montparnasse asks.
“I don’t think I want to know,” I reply as we jog down the street toward the Guild of Flesh.
* * *
New guards have been posted at the back of the building to cover those who are hunting down the burning ship, or those who got blown half to bits by the explosion. I grin to myself.
Montparnasse eyes the guards. “I can take them.”
“Wait.”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Yes, wait before you murder everything.”
I pull out a pocket watch that I stole from Feuilly and look at the time. St. Juste, where are you? We agreed on a time, and you’re late.
Yells and cheers break out from the front of the building.
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité!”
We can hear the slogan of the Société being chanted by numerous voices carrying on the wind.
Montparnasse looks slightly taken aback.
“You brought the revolutionaries here?” His tone is half impressed, half horrified.
“The traitor compromised their plans. So I persuaded them to join a fight they stand a chance of winning,” I say, winking at him.
* * *
The guards standing at the back of the building are pacing, unsure if they should leave their posts to investigate the explosion or the chanting. Someone sticks their head out a door and shouts at them to get to the front immediately. They all go running.
We scale the wall in seconds and drop into the garden. We make our way to the house and crouch in front of a broken window that’s been unevenly boarded up. We peer through the gaps into a room with an open door; it’s empty. I tie my scarf around my mouth and nose, and Montparnasse does the same with his. I reach into my bag and pull out two skin pouches. Montparnasse holds a match to the leather, and we toss both through the window. They land with a thunk and roll to the middle of the floor, small flames eating through them, and then they go out.
The burning pouches let off a thick, dark smoke that I can smell, even at this distance. It’s heavy and sweet: the smell of the poppy. Two pouches of pure opium, provided by the Guild of Dreamers, thanks to Lord Yelles. They’ll burn for hours and get stronger as they do, dulling the senses of everyone inside.
Montparnasse peers up at the building.
“The whole top floor,” he says.
I follow his eyeline.
The Tiger’s chambers. That’s where we need to go. We could climb, but we would be exposed to anyone outside, and I don’t know how long my distractions will last.
“We break into the cellar and enter from within,” I say decidedly. “Then you can murder everyone.”
We split up and do a quick reconnaissance of two sides of the building. He finds the large wooden delivery hatch on the west side. It has an ancient lock, which I pick in under a minute, and he lifts the heavy door. We drop into the darkness of a cellar, closing the door above us so as not to mark our entry point.
A feeling prickles at the back of my neck when somethin
g moves, probably a rat. Montparnasse’s knife is out in a second. Then the smell hits us. Sweat, blood, rot, and human excrement. I breathe through my mouth as I advance. It’s too quiet.
Montparnasse hesitates in front of me. He lights a match, and its tiny flame hisses to life, illuminating us. And then we see them: rows upon rows of women and children crammed against the walls, leaning on one another.
I look at them. They stare back at me, motionless. One of them blinks.
They’re alive.
They’re not tied up, but they don’t have to be; the Tiger will have already fed them the poppy, so he has complete control over them.
The match goes out, and my mind whirls as I reach for another.
If these women were intended for the city’s Flesh Houses, they’d already be there. There’s only one reason to pack them like cargo in a warehouse. They’re going to be shipped out.
It is known that the Tiger made his fortune as a slaver before taking over the Flesh Guild. And though there have been rumors that he was feeding Sisters from his Guild to brothels abroad, no one has ever known for sure.
Slavery is forbidden by the Law of the Miracle Court, and is illegal by the law of Those Who Walk by Day. That is why I have set bait for Inspector Javert to come. Because whether I live or die tonight, perhaps she will be able to find evidence enough to stop the Tiger’s trade.
Montparnasse tiptoes to the door of this dungeon and puts his ear to it.
He holds up ten fingers and my shoulders drop. Ten guards: more than we thought we’d find.
We don’t have time to stay and help the women, and we both know it. Yet Montparnasse is trying to help them to their feet.
“You’ve invited the army to this door,” Montparnasse whispers. He looks at me, his eyes unreadable. “Do you know what the Fleshers will do to them when the soldiers arrive? They’ll throw these women in the river so they don’t get caught.” His voice is shaking. “They’ll drown them, and there’ll be no proof they were here.”
He’s right, of course, and I’ll be to blame because I brought the army. Instead of offering them a way out, I’ve signed their death warrant.
“You get them out,” I say. “I must go get Ettie.”
He grabs my hand as I turn to leave.
“He’s waiting for me, not you,” I tell him. “It’s not your fight.”
Montparnasse’s face is shadowed in the flickering match light, uncertainty crossing his features.
“Ettie and I are only two,” I insist, motioning to the women. “And they are so many. You must help them.”
There are as many as five guards out front, and more will return to the garden soon. I can’t get past them all. I’m a fighter, not a killer. Montparnasse is a killer. He knows it. He knows he’s the only one who can get these women out and defend them if it all goes wrong.
His grip on my hand is tight.
“I’m Master of the Assassins Guild,” he says. “I’ve never been able to fight your battles. I’ve not been able to lift my hand to protect you. I cannot risk dragging my Guild into war.” His eyes are burning with emotion. “But if he kills you, I’ll take his head from his body and I’ll set it on a pike in the middle of the Lords’ table in the Miracle Court, and none will ever take it down. There it will rot, the worms will eat it to bone, and all who see it will remember you.” His voice breaks. “Even if Corday asks my life of me in return, I’ll do it. I swear.”
In the dirt and the darkness, and with the high probability I will never see him again, I bury myself in Montparnasse’s arms, resting my head against his hammering chest. He’s muscle, bone, and steel. If he ever had a heart, I know it’s mine. I want to tell him things, but I find that I can’t put them into words. So I push away from him and, my eyes full of unshed tears, say:
“He won’t kill me. I promise.”
The sound of horse hooves on cobblestone echoes down the street as I clamber out of the cellar into the garden. The army is arriving, just as planned. Soon they’ll have surrounded the building, searching for the revolutionaries. I look up at the façade. The Tiger’s rooms are on the top floor. I can’t go in through the cellars as we had planned because Montparnasse will be busy getting the women out that way. Although I’ll be exposed, I’ve no choice but to climb. I wrap strips of cloth around my hands, tightening my claw picks in place, and I shinny up the building as fast as I can go.
I pass a window, an empty room, and pause only momentarily to listen; I hear raised voices from inside the house. The Fleshers must have rounded up the students; St. Juste’s voice carries. He’s trying to convince them to join the glorious revolution. I smile grimly and keep moving.
I’m almost at the top when a voice calls out, clear as a bell.
“Hello!”
I just have time to look up to find a greasy powdered head staring down at me through an open window.
Thénardier.
He cheerfully aims his pistol at me with his good hand and fires.
I throw all my weight onto one arm and let my body swing just as the bullet whistles past my ear.
Thénardier’s head disappears and I curse, scrambling down to the lower-level window. I swing myself, sending my legs out and back again, and smash my way through the glass. It shatters around me as I crash into the room.
I lie on the rough wooden floor. My skin is ripped and bleeding; there’s glass under my fingertips. But at least the room is empty. The Tiger’s men are dealing with the revolutionaries and the soldiers downstairs. Through my scarf I can smell the sweet smoke of the poppy. That’s good; it’ll make them all slower and less inclined to beat anyone to death. We can only hope. I push myself up and wince; I’ve twisted my ankle.
Ysengrim be damned.
There’s a heavy tread of boots on wood.
My dagger is in my hand as I pull myself to the door, trying not to put weight on my ankle.
Is this how it will end? A Cat felled by a sprained ankle in the Tiger’s Guild? What kind of fool was I to think I could take him on in his own lair?
The door creaks open. My throat constricts and I prepare myself to attack. If someone is going to kill me, I’d like to get a few blows in first. I’d like to go down fighting.
It takes me a full second to recognize the man looming in the doorway, and when I do, relief floods through me.
“Le Maire!” I sway, and in three steps he has me on my feet, throwing my arm over his shoulder before I can protest.
“That boy of yours is giving them trouble,” he says.
“He’s not my boy,” I protest, smiling as I imagine St. Juste taking on the Tiger’s Guild.
Le Maire half carries me down an empty corridor and toward a flight of stairs. The Tiger’s rooms are above, and le Maire is by my side.
“The weapons?” I ask.
Le Maire grins widely at me. “I did a full audit—guns, knives, everything. Removed all the ammunition. Emptied all the gunpowder down a privy.”
“They just handed them over?”
“No one questions the People of the Pen.”
He’s right. The Guild of Letters is respected and feared by all.
Perhaps we can do this.
“But we’ve little time. They’ll have discovered the treachery by now.”
And if we fail today, his actions will be considered an act of war between the Guild of Letters and the Tiger’s Guild. We both know it.
What have I started?
The sounds of a brawl begin below us: men in a rage.
Then there are thundering footsteps on the stairs from the lower floors. A glance down the stairwell shows three burly Fleshers racing toward us. Le Maire looks at me.
“You can’t take them,” he says.
He’s right. They’re huge and murderous, and even without my weak ankle, I’m a Thief, not a
Hyène.
But le Maire is a veritable bull of a man, with the strength of four men. He can take them.
“Go,” he says forcefully, and pushes me.
I half fall, gripping the banister as the Fleshers reach the landing.
They hesitate when they see le Maire, because he is, after all, a member of the Guild of Letters.
I don’t look back.
Not when they swear at him. Not when he answers them. Not when I hear the crunch of club against bone. I climb, dragging my bad leg behind me as I race to the top floor.
There’s only one door on this floor, and I know he’s waiting for me behind it.
I am the Black Cat; this is my hunting.
I am the Black Cat; this is my hunting.
The handle of the door is a roaring brass tiger. It’s cold beneath my touch. I turn it and push.
The door creaks open before me.
Every hair on my head stands on end. The scars that lace my back sing.
They always hurt when he is near.
The Tiger’s room looks like a bordello, richly decorated with silk pillows, exotic rugs, and low-hanging lamps. I count eight figures in corners of the room: Sisters with painted faces, their eyes blank with the drugs the Tiger has fed them. They lounge in a deep stupor or drunkenness, draped over chairs or curled up on floor cushions. Two appear to be naked; the others are half dressed. One is injecting herself with a wicked-looking needle.
At the far end of the room, the Tiger himself is sitting on a low bed of cushions. Beside him, shrinking stiffly back as far from him as she can, is Ettie.
And standing at his right are Thénardier and Tomasis.
My heart leaps, and I force myself to let out the breath I’ve been holding. Tomasis is here. I knew he had an understanding with the Tiger, but I didn’t expect him to be here in the Flesh Guild’s house.
“I told you she’d show up eventually,” Thénardier says, waving the stump of his ruined arm at me. “She doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone.”