Ignite the Fire: Incendiary

by Karen Chance

  “Ever been to Portsmouth?” he asked his companion.

  “Wot?”

  “Me landlady sent me a postcard, showing the beach and all. The pier looks nice there. She said they have nice shops.”

  The smaller man turned to look at him. “Are you daft?”

  “No, just makin’ conversation—”

  “You’re not bein’ paid to talk; yer bein’ paid to watch—”

  “Watch what?” Nigel asked. “Nothin’s happening, and we’ve been here a solid hour. I’m about to freeze me bollocks off.”

  His companion suggested something else he could do with his bollocks, which Nigel though was unnecessarily rude.

  “If you’ve never been t’Portsmouth, you could just have said.”

  “Shut it!”

  Nigel shut it, but not because he’d been ordered. The little man had no right to order him around, even if he seemed to think otherwise. They were partners in this, both bein’ paid the same, both answerable to old Tom, who’d probably be interested to know how bossy a certain somebody was bein’.

  Nigel almost wished he’d left the offer of this night’s work in Tom’s famous ledger for some other poor bastard. He should have known it was miserable work when Tom greeted him with a smile, as soon as he came in the pub. And all but dragged him back to his shabby cubbyhole of an office, where the big black book with its flaking spine already lay open on the desk. It was where Tom kept his offers of employment, the kind you couldn’t exactly advertise in the papers.

  “Kept this one just for you, Nigel old son,” he’d said. “Right up your alley it is, and the pay’s better than anything I’ve had come in this week.”

  He’d almost turned it down anyway. The pub had been warm, with a great fire and an even greater press of bodies, and the ale had been good. It always was at Tom’s, which is why Nigel drank there twice as much as anywhere else. Well, that and the fact that Tom had the best payin’ jobs, and his wife made the best sausage rolls in London.

  Shoulda had a couple rolls and gone back to a warm bed, he thought now, glancing at his partner enviously, who didn’t seem bothered by the cold. The hand fondling the cudgel at his waist wasn’t even gloved, although it should have been, for more than one reason. The dark, almost black tint to the nails, which resembled claws in thickness and shape, could have benefited from concealment, even if the man didn’t need protection.

  They looked like talons, Nigel thought, and repressed a shudder.

  But at least the face was all right. The man was swarthy and heavily jowled, with a scruffy black beard containing the remains of his dinner. He looked human enough, closely resembling the sots staggering out of the pub. He’d been in shadow when they’d met, so Nigel had wanted to be sure.

  They didn’t need anything else going wrong tonight.

  “You done lookin’?” the small man asked.

  “Not looking.”

  “You were. They all do.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Just keep your mind on the job. I don’t want to be here all night.”

  Nigel thought they already had been. The damp cold was threatening even the oilcloth greatcoat he wore, making him shiver. He pulled up the collar, which didn’t help, and neither did fidgeting from foot to foot.

  “He’s been in there a while,” he finally said. “This won’t work if he’s drunk.”

  “It’ll work perfect if he’s drunk. Better.”

  He turned to look at his smaller companion. “How better?”

  The man—Ronald, his name was—sent him an annoyed glance. “He won’t notice if you mung it up, will he?”

  Nigel frowned. “I’m not going to mung it up. I know what I’m about.”

  His companion did not look convinced. They waited some more. It became colder, with a chill mist swirling around their feet. Nigel scowled. He was going to get the grippe if this lasted much longer.

  “What if he done a bunk out the back?” he said.

  “He hasn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause that’s him—right there.”

  Nigel turned back toward the pub and sure enough, there he was. A streetlight shone on the man’s blond head before he pulled a cap over it, and briefly highlighted his face. “You know, he’s shorter than I thought—”

  “Shut it and come on.”

  They slipped out of the small alley they’d been using as a vantage point and fell in behind the man and the pretty brunette in a scandalously low-cut, bright red dress, who was hanging off of his arm. They kept their distance, staying back far enough that the increasingly dense fog half hid the couple, swirling up as far as their waists sometimes, making it look as if they were floating. Nigel felt a bit like he was floating, too, not being able to see his boots at all anymore. It made him clumsy, and he tripped over something, just as their prey looked back over his shoulder.

  He suddenly found himself shoved into a wall—by Ronald. “Don’t stagger into me, you old drunk!” the small man snarled.

  “I’m not drunk!” Nigel said indignantly. “Haven’t had a drink all night—”

  “I can smell it on your breath. You’re completely blotto, you are. Don’t lie—”

  “I’m not lyin’! And watch who yer callin’ old.”

  Their prey turned back around, and the couple kept walking, until the fog swallowed them up. Yet Ronald kept berating him about his bad habits and his poor old mother and what a disappointment he was to the family. Which was news to Nigel, who didn’t have a family.

  The small man suddenly broke off, cocked his head and cursed. “That’s all we need!”

  “Wot’s that, then?” Nigel asked, confused.

  “Someone’s about to beat us to the punch. Leg it!”

  Nigel had no idea what the man was on about. Ronald had just come back from an extended trip to America, which was why they hadn’t worked together before, and he seemed to have picked up some very odd jargon. But when he took off down the road, Nigel followed.

  He did it quietly, despite the fact that the close packed buildings in the area concentrated the fog. But his keen sense of smell allowed him to avoid noisy piles of garbage and kept him on the straight and narrow thanks to the rotting stench of the gutter beside the street. But his companion didn’t seem to have that advantage. Nigel could hear him up ahead knocking into a fence, bouncing off a lamppost, and then tripping over a cat.

  The cat hissed and yowled, Ronald cursed again, and Nigel caught up.

  “Where are they?” he asked, panting slightly. “Where’d they go?”

  “There!”

  Nigel followed his companion’s pointing finger down a foggy alley, to where their prey was already being preyed on—by someone else. He scowled. Wasn’t that just the way of it, these days? London was becoming positively disreputable, filled to the brim with the criminal element. You couldn’t trust nobody no more.

  He started forward, only to get slammed against a wall again by the freakishly strong smaller man. “Wot d’you think yer doin’?” he asked Ronald, whose only answer was to put a gag spell on him.

  Nigel struggled with it, wondering if his companion had gone mad. Only to realize that the three thugs in the alley weren’t threatening the couple, after all. But rather another woman who he hadn’t seen ‘cause of the fog.

  She was dressed far more respectably than the clergyman’s daughter still clinging to the blond, in a dark blue, taffeta dress and matching bonnet that blended in with the night. She’d had a blue and black tartan wrap around her shoulders, as well, but it had been pulled off by one of her attackers, whilst another bore her to the ground. She cried out, her attacker laughed, and the third man edged closer, telling him to hurry up.

  “Not ‘till I’ve had me fun.”

  “Oh, this will be fun,” someone said, right before the man on top of the struggling woman went flying.

  Nigel blinked, because no one had touched him. But he understood a little better when he noticed the
bruiser pinned against a wooden fence with four daggers sticking out of his body—one in each limb. The bruiser screamed, the woman screamed, the dollymop in the red dress screamed—and then went running down the street, passing them in a panic. The blond man didn’t go with her, Nigel wasn’t sure why.

  Then he realized why, when the blond began to mop up the street—all by himself.

  One of the thugs decided to rush him with a cudgel, whilst the other—the nervous third—started running away. The first thug was met with a duck and a fist to the face, and the second had a lasso spell sent after him. It wrapped around an ankle and started dragging him back over broken cobbles, which wouldn’t have been too bad—if he hadn’t been face down.

  He started muffled screaming, in between having his face scraped off, which along with the woman’s cries and the fence man’s wails, made quite a commotion. The man with the cudgel didn’t say anything, having been knocked unconscious after his nose caved in.

  Nigel finally managed to rip off the gag, the magic sticking to his face in places and gumming up his fingers, but letting his voice free. “Let’s go,” he said, and grabbed his companion’s shoulder.

  Ronald shook him off. “Not yet.”

  He put an arm in front of Nigel, and stepped back, drawing them both further into shadow, whilst the blond cast something on two of the men that was probably a memory charm. He didn’t bother with the one still screaming on the fence, but he did put a gag on him. That left the suspended man staring at him wildly, his mouth working behind the invisible barrier, but no sound coming out.

  The blond ignored him, and knelt by the fallen woman. “You won’t remember any of this,” he said, raising a hand to her temple.

  Only to have it caught in a gloved hand. “Yes, I will. I’m part demon.”

  The man blinked and glanced around. “Then . . . did I presume?”

  “No,” her lips twisted. “I’m not that much of a demon.”

  He helped her up, and she seemed all right, only to stumble when she tried to take a step. “You’re hurt,” he said, frowning.

  “It’s . . . I believe I’ve injured an ankle.”

  “You had help,” he said dryly, and glanced at the man on the fence. The knives buried in the man’s flesh flew back to him with a gesture, with meaty, squelching sounds. And caused the man to fall to the ground where he landed like a sack of wet sand.

  Despite four gaping wounds, he staggered to his feet and ran off, the gag keeping him from the screams that he probably would have been uttering otherwise. The blond let him go, brought out a handkerchief from his coat and handed it to the woman. She stared at it blankly.

  “For your temple,” he explained. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I have my own,” she said, but didn’t take it out. She seemed mildly stunned. The blond’s frown grew.

  “Do you live nearby?” he asked, using the handkerchief to clean the blood off his knives, before neatly tucking them back into his coat.

  “I—yes. Not far.”

  “Then permit me to escort you? These streets are perilous at night. And not much better by day.”

  “I . . .” her eyes went to the pool of blood her attacker had left. It had splattered when his body fell into it, leaving an odd shape on the ground. She swallowed. “I would not want to put you out, sir.”

  “You won’t.” He hesitated, and then said what they were both thinking. “If I wanted to harm you, could I not have done it already?”

  She blinked, and looked up from the bloodstain, focusing on his face for the first time. She was pretty, Nigel thought. Not in the obvious way of the man’s former companion, but in a subtler, sweeter fashion. And then she blushed, her cheeks flooding pink and her long, thick lashes fluttering, and Nigel revised his opinion.

  She was beautiful, he decided, like a wounded bird. He watched as she put a tentative hand on the man’s proffered arm, then looked up, biting her lip. “Thank you, sir. Ruth Gordon, in your debt.”

  “John Pritkin, at your service.” The man doffed his cap briefly. Then the two started down the road, going slowly so that the limping woman was not rushed, and soon disappeared into the fog.

  “We ain’t going after them?” Nigel asked Ronald.

  “No need. Job’s done, and we didn’t even have to bleed for it.” The small man glanced up. “Come on, let’s get a drink. She’ll take it from here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I hit the ground hard, and more than half stunned. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was or even who I was, and I couldn’t seem to control my body. All I could do was lay there and convulse.

  Part of me felt leaves and sticks and dirt underneath me, and saw flashes of blue light through my closed eyelids, which might have been more of those weird, fey bugs. Just like I might have fallen out of my perch in the tree and hit the ground a good twelve feet below, without a lot to cushion the landing this time. Only, I wasn’t sure.

  Because another part of me was back on a lonely, fog-ridden street in London, making excuses to my smaller companion, because I didn’t want a drink. At least not with him. I took a flask out of my pocket after he left and lifted it to my lips, and felt the burn of cheap gin sear a path down my throat. I drank again before putting it away, and sauntering down the street after the pretty woman and her rescuer.

  “Here—over here! I heard something!”

  The fey shout jolted me out of half immersion, which was good. Because I could hear soldiers coming this way, tearing through the trees without bothering with stealth. I managed to roll ever, onto my face, and breathed dirt for a moment before rolling again, into a bush.

  Thorns pricked my flesh, and when I finally managed to blink my eyes open, it was to notice that the bush wasn’t great for concealment. It had too few leaves and was too close to the path that everybody seemed to be using. But it was the best I could do.

  Because it looked like Guinn had been right, and Faerie was trying to kill me. In more than one way, I thought as my brain went swimmy just as the fey’s shouts came closer. Cut it out, I thought desperately. Cut it out and let me—

  Arsen’s quarters were beautiful, and as big as a palace. They had belonged to his parents before they died, and he had kept them by right, although they were far too large for a bachelor. But he’d grown up here, had played on these balconies, had run across these terraces with the wind in his hair, laughter on his lips, and a kite in his hand, while his mother’s admonitions to stay away from the edge rang in his ears.

  These rooms usually brought him a sense of peace.

  Not today.

  He poured himself a drink and headed out onto one of the smaller balconies. It was freezing, thanks to the winter storm the king had conjured up, to stall his rival’s invasion. But Arsen rarely felt such things, having his people’s natural resistance to the cold.

  But as soon as he breeched the ward, it sounded like an army of banshees had descended on him, the howling was so great. One of his servants came running, probably alarmed at the thought of all that ice and snow besmirching the perfectly polished floor, but Arsen waved him off. And pushed out into the winds anyway, allowing the ward to close up after him and reveling in the wildness of it for a moment, the savagery.

  It fit his mood.

  The balcony had no view, just a wall of white, but then, it never did. It had walls on two sides and faced several tall towers on the others. That left only a small bit of sky visible even on a good day, but also meant that it was well protected from the winds. They barely ruffled his hair as he settled onto the chair where his mother used to sew.

  She’d liked it here, a small enclave away from the hustle and bustle of the suite of a senior lord, where she and her ladies could gossip and laugh without prying ears or watchful eyes. He had rarely come here as a boy for that same reason, it having few attractions for a child. But he suspected that was why he’d adopted it now.

  It had no memories associated with it, no ghosts to tug at his heart string
s, no anything but white sky and creamy marble, leaving him to his thoughts.

  They were not pleasant ones.

  Nearby voices startled me back to myself. Enough to see that a party of silver-haired fey had stopped a short distance from my bush, with their legs clearly visible through the leaves. Which meant that I was probably visible to them, too, with only the darkness hiding me. But darkness was relative around here, as demonstrated when one of those damned bugs landed on my nose, lighting my face with soft blue luminescence.

  If one of them looked down, I was screwed.

  Of course, I was anyway, I thought, when Faerie grabbed me again.

  Arsen saw in his mind that hideous stump, where the king’s hand should have been. That was an old wound, long healed, with only pale skin covering the strangely flat end. It looked like it had been taken off by one blow of a sword, years ago. And that . . . did not fit the story he had been told.

  He tried to think back to the last time he had seen the king. It had been shortly before the battle for the capitol, when Aeslinn had ridden away from the city with a contingent of his most loyal fey. There would be an attack, on one of the two great capitols, the king had declared. He had left Arsen in charge of Issengeir, the governmental seat of the newer lands taken in the easterly wars, while he came here, to the ancient city of Dolgrveginn.

  The attack had come at Issengeir, and had been a complete slaughter. The humans’ magic was difficult to counter, and they had somehow managed to take down the city’s formidable shields. They had also brought an army of blood sucking monsters along with them, beings of terrible power.

  They were unbelievable fast, as strong as a herd of bull oxen, and possessed abilities Arsen had never before seen. He had heard stories of the creatures the humans called vampires, but they had been nothing to this. He’d lost half of his fey in the initial assault and would have lost more if he hadn’t pulled the rest back, to guard the evacuation of women and children that he’d ordered in anticipation of an attack, but which was still ongoing.