The Hand That Takes

by Taylor O'Connell

  “Nabu, how is it I can always find you in this shop, even on a day like this?”

  Chins quivering, Nabu Akkad flashed a benevolent smile. “I am the blood of Akandi and Panalu. Why should I go out and pay homage to this duke of yours?”

  Sal shrugged. “End seems less about homage and more an excuse to get drunk and dance in the streets one last time before the winter snows.”

  “Ah, this is the way of it, yes? Winter snows, bah! If I’d known such a fell thing as snow could fall from the very sky, I never would have left home. This is what comes of a wife, I tell you. Light a fire under my feet, she did. Yap, yap, until I agreed to cross the sea. Show you the burns, I could, and this ear, deaf I am from the yapping. And what to show for it? Winter snows!”

  “I know little of Shiikal, but are not the summer sandstorms the equal to our winter snows?”

  “No man ever froze to death waist deep in the sand,” Nabu said, his fleshy brow wrinkling. “Ah, but you are not my wife. She has not been so young and handsome in many years. And what of you, young Salvatori? You have found a new fence, yes? Why else would you have been avoiding my shop?”

  “Avoiding? No, Nabu, you have me all wrong.”

  “Dear Uncle Stefano, he has asked of you, as well. I wonder myself, why a man should needs ask after his own kin, in a place such as this, no less. Then it comes to me that I am not the only person young Salvatori has neglected. So, I ask this again. You have found a new fence, yes? ”

  “I told you, you have it all wrong. I’ve been busy. Luca had us scouting a full fortnight before the last job.”

  “Luca? This is not the Luca Vrana?”

  Sal gave only the slightest of nods.

  “No, surely you have more sense than this?”

  Sal shrugged. “He had work. Work that pays well enough to keep me off the rooftops for half a year at the least.”

  “Pays well? You were paid generously for this job of his, yes?”

  “Well, no,” Sal said. “But only—”

  “You would be better served to stick to the rooftops. At least then there is only a chance you will fall and break your neck, but Luca Vrana . . .” Nabu shook his head. “This man, I have heard him called a butcher, and yet what meat is he serving, do you think?”

  “Look, it wasn’t Luca’s fault no one got paid. The job was botched, plain and simple.”

  “A botched job? This was the High Keep?”

  Sal’s breath caught. “How?”

  Nabu let out a dry chuckle. “I have ears to hear, eyes to see, and enough sense in my head to put one and two together.”

  “Are people talking?”

  Nabu’s head bobbed side to side.

  “And what are they saying?” Sal said, his voice more frantic than he’d meant it to sound. “Has anyone mentioned my name?”

  “No names, only that there was a job, a big one. Five person job, they say.”

  “Seven,” Sal corrected.

  Nabu fixed him with a pointed look. “As I said, a big job, and it went sidewise, yes? Though not for the reasons one would expect. I heard tell of city’s watchmen in the High Keep. One might wonder at such a thing. Why steel caps and not the duke’s own guards? Unless my sources were misinformed? Still, not much of a heist, officially nothing was reported stolen. Though there is rumor of a letter. By whom the letter was written and to whom the letter was sent, I do not know. ”

  Sal shook his head. He was unsettled by the amount of information Nabu had about the job at the High Keep.

  “Now, don’t try and pretend you picked this up on the street,” Sal said, doing all he could to keep the panic from his voice.

  “I have made no such pretending, and do not say this to be so.”

  “This source of yours, they were on the job, I suspect? How else would you know so much?”

  “Ah, but there is more to this, no?” said Nabu, fixing Sal with a knowing look.

  Sal’s hand slid over his jerkin pocket. He reached inside, fingertips brushing against smooth gold. As he wrapped his fingers around the locket, icy veins of energy coursed through his entire body. It felt as though a hand had reached inside him and tugged at the frayed edges of his soul.

  “I see by the way you make silence that this is the truth of things,” Nabu said, his head bobbing.

  “I don’t put much stock in rumors,” Sal said.

  “And what of murders?” said Nabu.

  The question tore Sal’s thoughts away from the locket. “That would depend on your source,” Sal said, hesitantly.

  “Let us say the source is a most reliable person.”

  “Who was killed?”

  “A Talent,” Nabu said. “I believe you knew him. One of the ward-smiths.”

  Even before Nabu said the name, Sal knew by the sinking feeling in his gut just who it was that had been killed.

  “Pavalo,” Sal whispered.

  “Ah, so you have heard this already?”

  Sal shook his head. “Had a feeling, is all.”

  “He worked on this job with Luca Vrana, no?”

  Sal gritted his teeth but nodded all the same. “It was Pavalo Picarri, then? He ratted us out to the steel caps?”

  “If I knew this thing, you would be the first to be knowing,” Nabu said, as he made a show of frowning. “This Pavalo, he is not the only casualty, I am hearing.”

  “No?” Sal said, his pulse quickening. “Who? ”

  “But you know already, I am thinking. This friend of yours, Antonio Russo. He was killed on the job, I have in my hearing.”

  “At last it seems your source has steered you wrong. I heard just this morning that Anton is breathing, but has yet to wake.”

  “Ah, but this is the way of things. A cruel world we are living in. I tell you, be wary of this Luca Vrana. He is a dangerous man.”

  Sal smiled. “Don’t you worry, Nabu. I’m well aware.”

  “Do not worry? As well ask a crone not to nag. Old men worry, my boy, it comes with the aging. What of you, then, young Salvatori? Surely you have not come to my shop only to take advice from an old fool. Perhaps you have something to show me?”

  Sal squeezed the locket tighter. He felt a sudden urge to flee. He should never have set foot in Nabu’s shop, not now that there was a chance that Anton could live. Still, he wanted to know something—anything—about the locket, and if anyone would know something, it was Nabu.

  Sal forced himself to withdraw his hand from his pocket, the locket clutched in a white-knuckled grip as though his body itself resisted. He placed his hand on the countertop and slowly opened his fist. Something inside him tore as each finger lost contact with the gold.

  Nabu’s thick black eyebrows rose as he leaned in for a closer look. Hesitantly he reached for the object, then jumped back as if stung. “I want nothing to do with this!” Nabu said, spewing a stream of foreign curses. He flicked a wrist and backhanded the locket off the countertop.

  Sal caught the locket out of the air before it went clattering to the stone floor. “Lady’s sake, you sun-addled Shiikali, what’s gotten into you?”

  “Be gone from here, and take that accursed thing with you!”

  “Take it easy, Nabu,” Sal said, handling the locket gently as he inspected it for damage. “I don’t understand.”

  “Understand this: I want naught to do with this thing. Destroy it, throw it into the sea, or bury it where it will not be found.”

  “If this is some new bargaining tactic, I must admit you have me at a loss. But listen, I’m not trying to sell it, it isn’t even mine to sell. I only want—”

  “I care not what you do with the thing. So long as you are rid of it. Now be gone with it, yes, I’ll not have it in my shop. Bring this thing here again, and you shall not be welcome.”

  Sal forced a laugh. “Surely this is some sort of jape.”

  Lips pursed, Nabu merely pointed to the door with a thick, ringed finger.

  6

  The Flasher

  S al
left Nabu’s pawnshop shaking slightly, though it had little to do with the chill of the afternoon air. Nabu’s reaction had worried him more than he’d let on. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was about the locket that had caused Nabu to act so strangely. After all, Nabu had never once turned away Sal’s business, no matter how hot the merchandise in question. It was one of the things Sal loved best about Nabu Akkad, and one of the reasons Sal had never used another fence. Besides, he hadn’t even gotten the chance to show Nabu the flasher he’d nicked off that Talent. If anyone would appreciate the novelty of the flasher, it was Nabu. Though after the way the fence had reacted to the locket, Sal wasn’t so sure.

  But why had Nabu acted that way?

  Sal closed his hand around the locket. Rivulets of energy pulsated up his arm. There was no denying that the locket held power, but the nature of this power was entirely unclear.

  For the second time that day he’d been kicked out of somewhere he’d always considered safe, a place he’d thought his own. First his sister, then Nabu; it was as though he were alone in a city of thousands. Sal’s pace quickened. He felt a sudden desire to be far away from Nabu’s shop.

  He slipped through the crowd before ducking into another alley. His hackles rose with the feeling of being watched. He dropped to one knee, reached for the pigsticker in his boot, and pivoted before rising.

  There was pain as something clasped a handful of his hair and wrenched his head back—and there was the sharp edge of a dagger at his throat.

  “Pull that poker, and I slit your fucking throat.” Sal recognized the voice, gruff and cold, entirely devoid of sympathy.

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I much prefer my throat the way it is.” Sal moved his hand away from his boot, but Dellan did not relinquish his grip. “Mind letting me up? I fear if you pull my hair much harder, I’ll end up with a monk’s tonsure.”

  Dellan snorted derisively and shoved Sal awkwardly so that he landed ass first on the cobblestones.

  Sal looked up at the tattooed Vordin, dressed head to toe in black wool and boiled leather, a wicked grin displaying filed teeth. His piercing blue eyes lit with an intensity that made Sal want to shake in his boots.

  Instead, Sal got to his feet and stood before Dellan, defiantly meeting his stare.

  It didn’t matter that Dellan was a killer; Sal knew plenty of killers. Dellan was something else entirely. He didn’t merely kill, he lived to kill. Even worse, Dellan was the sort of man who took pleasure in causing pain.

  “You lost?” Dellan asked.

  Sal shrugged. “What’s it to you?”

  Dellan pulled a folded piece of linen from his pocket. He unfolded the square of cloth to reveal a black smear of ash.

  “Tracer,” Sal said, his senses going on high alert.

  A tracer was something easily whipped up by a minor Talent. All it took was a piece of the person someone was looking for, be it a hair or a toenail shaving, and the Talent could make a device that would guide the hunter to their quarry .

  Dellan smirked and threw the linen square to the cobblestones. He barked out a little laugh as he sized up Sal. “If I went to work on you with my knives, boy, that pigsticker of yours would be good as spit.”

  Sal readied himself to draw the knife from his boot. What Dellan said was true. If he pulled his pigsticker he was a dead man, but that was doubly true if Dellan attacked while he was still unarmed.

  “What are you doing with a tracer? Someone want me dead?”

  The tattooed Vordin barked another laugh.

  “Luca?” Sal asked.

  “Gods, boy, you frightened?”

  Sal was shaking, but tried his best not to let it show.

  “Why should Luca want you dead? Something you want to tell?” Dellan asked, sniffing loudly. “What is that I smell, rat?”

  “What are you doing here, then? Why did you have that tracer?”

  “Luca,” Dellan said.

  Sal couldn’t help but smile.

  “Something droll, boy?”

  “No, no, nothing. It’s only, well, are you Luca’s errand boy these days? Surprising, really, considering your previous occupation. What happened? Don Moretti isn’t upset with you, is he?”

  Dellan drew his knives so fast Sal didn’t even have time to flinch before he felt the prick of steel. He’d kept his feet planted but didn’t know whether that was due to bravery or paralyzing fear.

  “I could do you, you know? Right here.” Dellan said, grinning to show off his filed teeth. “Tell you true, I’d rather take my time about it. Do things slow, the right way.”

  For once in his life, Sal had no smart remark. He stood still as a statue and prayed to the Lady that Dellan would decide not to cut him open there and then.

  The Vordin slowly withdrew his knives from Sal’s skin and sheathed them. “Luca is waiting for you at the Crown.”

  The Crown was an alehouse on High Hill, near the walls of the High Keep .

  Sal nodded, not daring to speak lest Dellan change his mind and decide he’d rather just kill Sal after all.

  Without warning, Dellan turned and walked out of the alley.

  Sal waited long enough to be sure that Dellan was gone before making his way through the alley. It was only after the excitement had passed that Sal began to recall how much his head still hurt. There was no pain on the outside, but inside, his head throbbed. Alzbetta had said it would take time for the spirit to catch up to the flesh, which Sal took to mean he was going to have headaches for some time. Still, he’d do well not to keep Luca waiting. The man was irascible at the best of times, and if people were being killed, the last thing Sal wanted was to upset Luca Vrana.

  Sal passed a pair of black-hooded acolytes. They belonged to the Order of the Flame, a sub-sect of the Vespian Order. Made up entirely of women, the Order of the Flame was charged with, among other things, maintaining the streetlamps throughout the city. The hooded acolytes always traveled in pairs, each holding a pole-candle the length of a man, which they used for lighting the streetlamps every evenfall.

  Sal watched the acolytes for a moment before slipping back into the crowd and pushing his way north. The quickest way to High Hill was to cross the Oleander on the Singing Bridge, cut through the cathedral district, and pass over the Tamber on the High Bridge.

  Sal had always hated crossing into High Town. As if things weren’t bad enough on his side of the river, the people in High Town tended to eye him as though he were something less than they. Even worse, more steel caps patrolled the streets, and so far as Sal was concerned, the fewer steel caps the better. The cream atop the cake was that crossing into High Town merely salted old wounds. It wasn’t so bad as when he was younger, as time had dulled most of the pain, but some memories were still fresh enough to sting.

  Altogether, the walk took him a good half hour, not because any steel caps stopped him but because the streets were filled with the masked revelers of End—most of them loud, unruly, and so drunk they could hardly stand. As he crossed the High Bridge stuffed in the crowd like a Fitzen’s feast roast, Sal was confident that by morning’ s light some unfortunate souls would have stumbled over the parapet due to either drunkenness or a chance shove.

  Even jostled among the crowds, sullen and sore as he was, once he’d crossed over the Tamber Sal couldn’t help but notice the subtle beauty of High Town, from the clean paving stones of the streets to the strongly mortared brick of the buildings, from the brightly burning, freshly polished lanterns of the streetlamps to the shuttered glass windows of the homes. The drastic dichotomy between High Town and Low Town never failed to move him—in what direction, he didn’t know. Yet it was not only the infrastructure of High Town but the people of the district that contrasted with Low Town.

  Dijvois was a melting pot of the latest fashions, influenced by Vinigre to the west, Skjörund to the east, and Kirkundy to the north. The men of late had begun slashing the sleeves of their doublets. The women cut the necklines of their gowns ever lower,
and no longer lined their winter garments in furs such as vair and miniver but preferred sable and marten as the cold months approached.

  The Crown was a reasonably posh establishment, high-class enough that a working stiff like Sal was looked over twice by every patron he passed. He was scrutinized the same way a steel cap might scrutinize a begging street urchin.

  Luca had a table in the back in his usual spot, a cushioned booth laden with pillows where the dock thug could recline and see everything happening around him. There was a jug of beer and a bottle of wine on a table filled with half-eaten plates of food. Luca was never a man to deny himself simple pleasures.

  “Salvatori, come, sit. Have you eaten?” Luca motioned for one of the serving girls. “My friend will take a cup and a plate. I’m certain he has a knife, but a fork will serve nicely.”

  When the serving girl returned with the cup and plate Sal cut a thigh from the capon and Luca himself poured Sal a cup of the wine. The capon was crisp and greasy, and the wine fruity with an overly sweet finish.

  Luca plucked a few grapes, plopping them into his mouth one at a time, while Sal ate his fill. When Sal had washed down his last bite of capon with a second cup of wine, Luca began to speak.

  “Tell me, kid. That last job, has anyone spoken more of it since that night?”

  “Not much,” Sal said with a shrug. “Someone mentioned how it was strange the steel caps showed when they did.”

  Luca frowned. “Oh, and that’s all they’re saying?”

  “I heard a rumor,” Sal said, “about that ward-smith, Pavalo Picarri.”

  “Know something about Pavalo, do you?” Luca asked.

  Sal thought it best to tread carefully. There was a dark look in Luca’s eyes. He’d been jovial thus far, but Sal knew as well as anyone how quickly things could change in a conversation with Luca. His temperament was much like the weather; it could alter drastically with the slightest shift of the breeze.