them here-Lethway, Pratt or Stricken.
“I’m on your side,” I said.
“Kill him,” shrieked the skull. “Kill him.”
They both charged me.
I hauled my weapon up out of my belt, aimed it, fired.
One went down. The other wisely turned and ran.
I made for the door. On the way, I saw Pratt, trapped in a corner, trying to hold off three men with a broken longsword.
I fired twice more. Two of his assailants fell. The other beat a hasty retreat right into a deadly rain of falling, flaming debris.
Pratt waved and grinned.
I never saw Lethway. Never saw Stricken. By the time I made it to the doorway, the heat of the fire so intense it nearly burned my back, Carris Lethway was gone.
Carriages streamed away from the Timbers, scattering in all directions as Watch whistles blew and the dark street lit up with the ruddy glow of climbing fires. Men ran past, no longer fighting, intent only on getting the Hell out of there before the Watch and the Fire Brigades arrived.
I cussed and fell right in beside them, not caring who was friend or foe. It was over.
And precious few of us had any damned idea who had lost, or who had won.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rescued I was, and by a pair of vamps.
They found me ten blocks from the Timbers. The flames leaped so high they cast shadows all that way.
I’d searched high and low for Carris Lethway. I knew he was barefoot. Injured. Running a high fever. Probably dehydrated and weak from blood loss and sudden exertion. I figured he’d spent most of whatever energy he had left clobbering me, and I didn’t figure he’d get far from the Timbers after that.
But I hadn’t found him. I’d poked under trash heaps. Forced my way inside derelict buildings. Dared the thresholds of half a dozen weedhouses.
I’d found any number of disgusting sights and the kind of smells no sane man can describe. Even my mumbling skull fell silent when I threatened to bury it in a trash heap if it spoke again before sunrise.
But I found no trace of Carris Lethway. The hungry shadows had simply swallowed him whole.
I was hiding in these same hungry shadows when a shiny black carriage slowed and then stopped.
I heard the door open. I never heard footsteps. Suddenly, they were just there.
“Well, well,” said one.
“We meet again,” said the other.
They smiled toothy vampire smiles.
I recognized them as the pair who’d slain the fat man at the Docks.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Out for a stroll?”
“We saw the flames.”
“We came to see.”
“Fires send them fleeing.”
“It’s more sporting that way.”
My hand was already on the hilt of the weapon. I’d paused to reload it a few blocks ago. I wasn’t sure it would prove fatal to halfdead.
I was sure I had no interest in finding out.
“Ah, but I’m hardly fleeing.” I pulled the thing out. “I was just heading home, enjoying the fresh night air.”
They locked eyes with me.
One shrugged.
“Ride with us,” he said.
“We’re done hunting.”
“Quite done.”
“Evis will owe us a favor.”
“A very large favor.”
They turned and made for their carriage.
I let out my breath and followed.
I asked if they had seen a barefoot man. They responded in the negative, though they were quick to point out that their tastes were too refined to allow them to dine upon the sick or the injured. I hadn’t liked the way they looked at me, at that moment. I made it a point to force a sudden wet cough.
They took me home to Cambrit and even bade me a good night. I still don’t know their names or their House.
They regaled with tales of the hunt all the way home.
I hoped I would never see either of them again.
I stayed in my office long enough to change my shirt and coat. The vial that had broken inside my pocket stank of garlic. There was also blood splashed up my right arm. I had no idea to whom the blood last belonged.
The skull was still muttering in the bag. I wished Mama were around with a bit of handy eldritch lore about muttering skulls. I could just stomp the thing into splinters, of course, but for all I knew that would leave me with a pile of vengeful dust. I settled for dumping a bag of salt on it and locking it in a drawer.
Assuming Carris Lethway was alive, I decided he’d make a beeline for Tamar. And since he’d have no way of knowing Tamar was stashed in a hotel downtown, I had a hunch he’d find somewhere near the Fields house to hide, so he could watch for Tamar in safety.
Which wasn’t a bad plan, except that the kid was wounded, feverish and very possibly dying.
I shoved the letters I’d written in a drawer. Toadsticker’s hooks hung empty on my wall. I’d had no time to search for him when the fracas started. I hoped Evis would understand.
The sun was just creeping up when I hit the streets again. The weapon was in my right-hand coat pocket. I was down to a dozen of the explosive rounds it fired, which meant I’d already fired a dozen times. Try as I might, I could only recall firing the thing six times.
Six times or a dozen, I’d slain a wand-waver, and that’s something no mere sword could have done.
I hoofed it until the cabs starting moving. So I was a good five blocks from Cambrit before I caught a ride. From there, I made good time, and reached Fields’s well-trimmed neighborhood before the sky lost its traces of dawn.
I let the cabbie go. The sidewalks were getting crowded. Carris could hardly expect to mingle in his current state. That limited his hiding places.
I made the block, noting places that afforded cover and a good view of Tamar’s home. I picked out six places. All but one faced the front door.
I checked the long shot first. And found signs that someone had been sleeping there. But I didn’t figure it was Carris, since they left behind a couple empty bottles of cheap red wine and the wrapper from a pub sandwich.
Curious. Someone with an interest in the Fields and their servant’s entrance. Might be the butler from down the street, carrying on with a maid.
Or it might be something else.
But it wasn’t Carris, so I emerged from the hedge with as much dignity as I could muster and joined the passing crowd on the sidewalk.
Next, I checked the same clump of hedges that had recently concealed Mills and. I found blood on the leaves, blood so fresh it was still sticky. A bloody scrap of rag was lying on the grass, beside a pair of ragged shoes.
So he’d grabbed clothes and shoes along the way, and left these when they didn’t fit.
