“Endless may he reign.”
“Great men stand before the ocean and command the very waves, while we small folk struggle to avoid the rocks.”
“All are bound by the will of the Emperor,” he said guardedly.
“Spoken truly-and yet where the wise find patterns in the Celestial Order, we lowly creatures struggle to discern the road set before us. I fear, in my haste to be of service to my companion, I have become a target for those who would work against him.”
“That is unfortunate,” he said, his sympathy less than palpable. “And who are these men who seek the injury of my dearest cousin?”
“It saddens me to report the corruption of those tasked with upholding the laws of our land, and of their mistaken crusade against myself and my brother.”
His eyes grew cold as a late-season frost, and I began to worry I’d made a mistake in coming. “Great as my love is for my ally, I cannot interfere with the representatives of the Throne.”
“The men who follow me are on no sanctioned business of Black House, nor, save one, have been adopted officially into its service.”
“Save one?”
“A deputy of the head of Black House, whose iniquities are manifold and beyond dispute. Perhaps you are familiar with him, an Agent Crowley?”
A snarl played across his stony features. “Our paths have crossed.”
I had hoped as much-Crowley had a particular talent for engendering hatred. “To the shame of my ancestors, there was once a time when the agent and I had dealings. Not knowing of our ties as brothers, Agent Crowley hoped to use my services to bring harm to the house of Ling Chi. Briefly, so briefly did I pretend to aid this duplicitous official that I might gain his trust and knowledge of his movements. But the veneer of a traitor cannot gild the core of a righteous man, and my deception has been discovered.”
Ling Chi beat a steady pulse with his jade fingernails, sifting through the bullshit for nuggets of fact. Crowley’s corruption was deep and long-standing-I could name a dozen criminal enterprises he made money off, and there were probably a hundred more of which I had no idea. The Old Man was aware of some of them, more than he let on to Crowley I’m sure, but the Old Man wasn’t the sort to toss aside a good tool just because it occasionally worked without his direction.
Most important, it fit into Ling Chi’s overarching paranoia, a justified mania born of a lifetime of betrayal and deceit. He could well believe that I’d sell him out to Crowley, only to switch sides once things got too hot. It was the kind of thing he would have done-had done, and would do again.
“The cat is unaware of the workings of its paw?” he asked.
“Who can say what secrets are possessed by the master of Black House? He may know of his lieutenant’s doings-he does not support them.”
The tapping slowed, then stopped altogether. “So dear was my well-being to my brother that he jeopardized his safety and reputation in hopes of thwarting a plot against it. How could I, Ling Chi, be expected to do any less?” He smiled savagely, and I was grateful I was not the target of his anger. “Harmony is to be prized above all other possessions-but should my associate discover that the men who plot our destruction have no ear for the words of reconciliation, he may rest comfortably, knowing that what meager force I can offer is at his disposal.”
I bowed deeply, almost to the ground, and left. Rearming myself from the bench outside, I scurried into the bar and took an empty table in the corner. Four Kirens slipped in from the back room, hard men, as distinct from the other patrons as a wolf is from a dog. They approached the table next to mine, and the workers seated there vacated their spot without comment. One of the four, a thickset man with an elaborate dragon tattoo spiraling across his face, looked over and nodded at me. I nodded back. Then I flagged down a serving boy and told him to send over some kisvas.
After a few minutes the front door opened and Crowley walked in, backed by the three boys he’d introduced me to earlier. The bar fell silent and Crowley met the sea of heretic faces with a look of undisguised contempt. He saw me and whispered something to his men. They split off to the counter, and Crowley ambled toward my table.
He stopped behind the chair opposite mine, flush with petty glee. The tavern had returned to something that resembled normality, if you weren’t paying much attention. Crowley wasn’t. “I thought maybe we’d lost you,” he said.
“Just having a drink.” I kicked the seat toward him. “Take a load off. I know it’s been a little bit of a walk.”
“We’re here though, aren’t we,” he responded, dropping his oversize frame onto the beat-up wooden stool.
“It might be more of a contest now that I’m armed.”
“If you thought anything of your chances, you wouldn’t have run.”
“You always had trouble grasping the concept of a tactical retreat.”
“Yeah, I’m an ogre and you’re a genius-but where’s all your smarts gonna get you? Dead in a ditch on a winter night.” His thick bulk shifted back into his chair. “Doesn’t sound so fucking bright to me.”
“Not when you put it that way,” I agreed.
“Course, if you were smart you wouldn’t be here. If you were smart, you’d be head of Special Ops by now. That’s why the Old Man hates you so much, you know-’cause you disappointed him.”
“Daily I lament my failure to live up to his expectations.”
“I tell you, he was shocked as hell when you did what you did. It was the only time I ever saw the bastard get hot.” He flashed his ugly grin, formed as a child when he first pulled the wing off a fly, perfected throughout the long years since by daily acts of cruelty. “What was her name again?”
“Albertine.”
“Right, Albertine,” he said. “Let me ask you, was she worth it? Because as far as I’m concerned, one piece of cunt’s the same as another.”
I let that seep in through my pores, rubbed at it like a sore tooth, saving it up so I could pay it back.
The serving boy came by for an order, but Crowley waved him away. “Why the hell did you pick here to hide? Fucking Kirens.” He looked about disgustedly. “They’re like insects.”
“Ants,” I said. “They’re like ants.”
He pointed one thick finger at me. “Every one of these motherfuckers that bows and calls you master would put his foot on your neck if you gave him half a chance.”
“Either they’re playing at tyrants or cringing like slaves.”
“Exactly! Not like us. No sense of pride, that’s the problem.”
“Not like us,” I agreed. Behind Crowley, Ling Chi’s men were getting restless, understanding enough to be insulted.
“And that monkey talk!” Crowley slapped his knee. “Speak Rigun, you slant-eyed bastards!”
“It’s not that hard, once you get the hang of it. Here, we’ll practice.” I drained the last of my kisvas. “Shou zhe cao ni ma,” I said.
“ Zou ze ca nee maa,” he repeated, then chuckled at his own awkwardness. “What does that mean?”
The tattooed Kiren said something in his native tongue. I nodded at him. “It means, ‘End this motherfucker.’ ”
I swear Crowley was so dumb it took him three or four seconds to put that together. Realization finally dawned on his face and he tried to stand, but I caught him flush against the face and he stumbled backward.
The bar erupted into violence. The men who first moved on Crowley were in Ling Chi’s employ, but it wasn’t long till the crowd got in on the action, happy to provide the arrogant round eyes in their midst a permanent comeuppance. Crowley’s boys went quick. The bartender, whose value I generally rated closer to lichen than mammal, pulled a cleaver from beneath the counter and took the head off a well-built Vaalan with a dispassion suggesting this was not the first time he’d decapitated a patron. The scarred Mirad managed to draw his knife before being swallowed, screaming as the press of men beat him senseless to the ground with whatever makeshift weapons they could find.
After that, I decided it was best to pull toward the back-we didn’t want the heretics getting confused on whom they were supposed to be killing, and anyway the cuff I’d given Crowley had torn at the wound I’d gotten the
