shadow.
Ahead was old man Eaton’s barber pole. The red spiral was long gone, wiped away by the sun and the rain and Eaton’s legendary miser’s fist.
The wind shifted. On it rode the stink of Mama’s hex-brew.
I’d dabbed the barber’s pole earlier. Which meant someone with murder in his heart had passed this way since then, headed for my door.
I took a moment to rearrange certain accoutrements. Toadsticker found his way into my right hand. The brass knuckles slipped around the knuckles of my left. My knife moved from my boot to Sticker’s empty scabbard. I buttoned up my dark coat and pushed my hat down and worked my way from shadow to shadow, heading home.
I finally hit Cambrit. I peered around a corner long enough to see my door. It wasn’t aflame. There was no one on the street, no one lurking in any spot I would’ve chosen to lurk.
But I smelled the stink, strong and steady, and I knew damned well he was out there.
So I waited.
You’d be surprised how hard just waiting can be. Especially when you’re waiting for trouble. After a while, the urge to charge in and do something, do anything, becomes almost unbearable.
I’d seen that urge get too many men killed during the War.
I made myself comfortable. I shifted my weight from knee to knee. I concentrated on my breathing. I let time pass, let it act as my silent ally.
An hour passed.
Another.
Finally, right after the tired moon set, my hidden friend gave in to impatience.
He’d been hiding in the narrow alley beside Mr. Bull’s place. That alone showed he wasn’t bright. That’s a dead end, a shallow three-walled coffin with no way out.
He was a big man. Ogre big, nearly. Tall and thick, with long hair tied back in a ponytail. His boots were loud on the quiet street. He huffed as he walked.
He reached my door. He put an ear to it, listened, tried the knob.
I started moving myself, using the shadows, watching my feet.
He put a massive paw on my door and pushed. When that didn’t work, he put his shoulder against it and pushed again.
I saw the frame give a tiny bit.
He withdrew, took a pair of steps back, and then hurled himself at my door, shoulder-first. It gave way, and he rushed into the sudden inky darkness.
There was the sound of heavy things falling, and a muffled cry, and then silence.
I darted to stand beside my splintered door and dared a quick look inside.
It was dark, but I saw the boot-soles upright on my floor, and heard a faint moaning.
I darted across for a better look. My man was down, his head buried under a pile of loose bricks and jagged stones, and I didn’t think he was faking an injury.
Finding loose, broken bricks in Rannit is easy. Earlier in the day, I’d gathered quite a stack. Rigging them to fall if visitors failed to reach up and tug on a rope beside the door wasn’t as easy as picking up brickbats, but it had certainly been worth the effort.
My visitor stirred. Bricks slid and fell. He was even bigger up close. I pushed what was left of my poor door shut and grabbed the length of stout rope I’d wisely left tacked to the wall. I hog-tied him before he could do much more than wiggle.
Then I lit a couple of lamps, shoved my desk out of the way, and sat on my chair, close enough to give him a good thump on the back of his head with Toadsticker, should the need suddenly arise.
He just watched me, his eyes wary. He didn’t bluster or beg or threaten.
His clothes were shabby and worn, but they were city clothes from Rannit, and if his boots had ever seen the quaint pastoral beauty of Pot Lockney they didn’t bear the marks of the journey.
“Local boy,” I said. I let Toadsticker glimmer a bit in the lamplight. “Out to make a little extra money, are we?”
He spoke then. He was apparently displeased with my hospitality and my parentage.
“Tsk tsk.” I interrupted his narrative with a friendly swat. “That’s no way to talk. Not when I’m holding a sword. Think what might happen if I took offense.”
He shut up.
It was only then I noticed he didn’t stink of Mama’s brew.
I sat up straight. I’d smelled it outside. So if I wasn’t smelling it here, that meant my trap hadn’t managed to snare all the Markhat-haters in the neighborhood.
“You’re not alone.” I twirled Toadsticker as though winding up for a blow.
“Wait. Wait. He paid me. Said he wanted you pounded good before he came inside.”
“Pounded good. I see. Was slipping a knife between my ribs also part of the deal?”
“Mister, I said I’d give you a beating. I didn’t say nothing about killing. You can ask around. That ain’t my line.”
“I’ll let the Watch do the asking.” He paled a bit at that. “You got a name?”
“Mills. They call me Grist.”
“I’ve heard of you. Fists for hire. Glad you had your little accident before you found me napping.”
I had heard the name. Never in connection with a killing. Which didn’t mean he was really Mills, or that Mills never killed. “Now, about the man who paid you. An out of towner?”
He frowned, wondering how much I knew, and what lies he might dare tell. “Some hayseed from a farming village. Pots Locked or Pig Valley or some such damned place. He never gave a name and I never asked. Hell, mister, I took a half a crown and said I’d beat you down. I didn’t come in for murder. Ask around. I do beatings, but I never killed a man.”
“Half a crown. With another half a crown to come?”
He tried to nod. “As I was leaving. That was the deal.”
“So if I look in your pocket I’ll find half a crown.”
“All right. All right. Twenty-five jerks. But that’s the truth, I swear it.”
“This hayseed. Where did you meet him?”
“The docks. A guy knew a guy who heard somebody wanted somebody beat.”
“And what does he look like?”
“Short. Bald. Fat. Missing teeth. Smelled like pig shit.”
I shook my head in mock dismay. Toadsticker gleamed in the faint light.
“That’s everyone down at the docks. Not good enough. Too bad for you.”
I didn’t have to raise the sword.
“No! Wait, all right, wait. I followed him after we talked. He’s staying at a place called the Bargewright. Room on the ground floor. Mister, I’m telling the truth.”
I kept my face impassive. “You followed him? Why?”
He made frantic gobbling noises until I nudged him with steel.
“Because they promise half up front and the other half afterward and sometimes the only money they’ve got is the first half. I need to know where to look if they short me. That’s the truth.”
I sighed and took Toadsticker away.
“I’m going to leave the money in your pockets. I figure it’ll take you about an hour to work past those knots. When you’re done, what are you going to do, exactly?”
“Leave. Leave and never come back.”
“Do you have plans that involve you running down to the docks and paying a visit to the Bargewright?”
“No. No. Mister, I’ll leave here and go home and you’ll never see me again.”
I rose. “Tell you what. Clean up this mess and I won’t come looking for you.”
“Anything you say. I promise.”
“Right. I’m leaving. If you’re still here when I get back I’m either giving you to the Watch or feeding you to the halfdead, depending on the hour. You didn’t see a cat around, did you?”
