of uncomfortable silence he spread his palms faceup and leaned back in his chair. “Accidents happen,” he said.
I started to walk out, opening the door then turning back toward him. “There’ll be some cleanup required. It’ll be quick, but it’ll be noisy.”
“As you said, we’re Special Operations.”
“When I do you, it’ll be quiet as a chapel.”
He let out an embarrassed chuckle, chagrined at my misbehavior. “Such a temper! You’ll never make it to my age if you don’t learn to enjoy life a little.”
I didn’t respond, closing the door on the blank office and the evil man who lived there.
Then it was back to the Earl, half jogging through the knee-high snow. The constant cold was wearing on me. I could remember a time when the sky was light and the clouds didn’t spew ice, but only dimly.
I arrived to discover the bar had closed for the night-not that we’d see much business, the weather being what it was. The front room was deserted, Adolphus in the back looking after his wife. I didn’t have time to search for him. I wasn’t planning to move on the Blade till nightfall, but I’d need every minute of the interim to ready the setup.
Up in my room I noticed a small envelope on my dresser. Across it Adolphus had scrawled a quick note- Grenwald’s messenger came while you were out. Under different circumstances this would have warranted a good laugh. To think for once in his useless fucking existence my old major actually came through for me, and it was too damn late to do any good. I ignored it and turned to more pressing duties.
I removed the brown-wrapped parcel from the trunk beneath my bed, then sat at my table and began to unpack it. Two hours were lost in the haze of critical but menial tasks required to bring the equipment into readiness. I grabbed a couple of throwing knives and a thin stretch of wire before slipping a tin of faceblack into my pocket and heading downstairs.
I was so fixed on my purpose that I nearly rebounded off Adolphus, who stood at the foot of the steps, rendered nearly invisible by the low light and his own uncanny stillness. Beneath his heavy overcoat a ragged suit of studded leather stretched taut against his chest, and he’d even dug up his old kettle helmet, the steel dented by five years of close calls. Apart from his dress he was also festooned with weapons, two short blades hanging at his side and a battle-ax strapped to his back.
“What the hell are you wearing?” I asked, astounded.
The savagery in his eyes left me with no doubt that my comrade was quite serious in his choice of attire. “You didn’t think you were going alone? This isn’t our first time over the top. I’ve got my eyes on your back, as always.”
Was he drunk? I sniffed at his breath-apparently not. “I don’t have time for this. Watch Adeline, I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Wren’s my son,” he said without affectation or aggrandizement. “I’ll not sit by the fire while his life is in danger.”
The Oathkeeper spare us from such pointless nobility. “Your offer is appreciated but unnecessary.”
I tried to squeeze by, but he put one hand against my collar and held me firm against the banister. “It wasn’t an offer.”
The streaks of gray outnumbered the black in his once charcoal hair. His pockmarked face was heavy. Was I that old? Did I look that foolish, my collar pulled up like a hoodlum, steel bulging from my pockets, a middle-aged man playing at the adventures of youth?
It didn’t do to think like that. Wren needed me-I could have a crisis of faith if I was still alive in six hours.
I brushed off Adolphus’s hand and took a step back up the stairs, giving myself enough room to maneuver. “You’re fat-you were always big, but you’re fat now. You’re slow and you can’t sneak, and you don’t have it in you to kill a man anymore, not the way I’m going to do it. I’m not sure that you ever did. I’ve no time to flatter your vanity-every second you waste, the boy gets closer to death. Get the fuck out of my way.”
For a moment I thought I had overplayed my hand and he would knock my head off my shoulders. But then he turned his face to the ground and all the energy seemed to slump out of him, like I’d put a hole in the bottom of a jug. He turned away from the staircase, his collection of cutlery jangling.
“Look after Adeline,” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour or two.” That was far from certain, but there was no point in saying so. I slipped out into the night.
I crouched by a bush twenty yards out from the back gate of Beaconfield’s mansion. I’d darkened my skin with faceblack, and the wire hanging from my hands shimmered in the moonlight. I was trying to think up a way that Dunkan didn’t have to die. So far nothing was coming.
I couldn’t knock him out. That doesn’t work the way people think it does-one quick sock in the noggin and your mark wakes up an hour later with a dull headache. Half the time he moves and you don’t hit him right, and you’re left standing there like a fool. If you do knock him out, he’ll probably be back up in time to cause trouble; and if he stays down, it usually means his brains are scrambled and he’s going to spend the rest of his life shitting himself, and for my money that’s no great improvement on being dead.
And it was going to be a close thing, even if it went straight, this would be as close a thing as I’d ever done.
And I’d made a promise to Adeline.
The night was getting on and every minute that passed was another for Beaconfield to decide the best way out of this was to feed Wren to Brightfellow’s abomination. The ordnance in my satchel gave me a fighting chance, but not if someone saw me while I was setting up. I cursed the quirk of fate that had mandated the smiling watchman’s presence here, instead of by a fire sipping his whiskey-but there was nothing for it.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Then I was up, a stone flung against the outer wall drawing the unsuspecting sentry, ten yards, five yards and I was behind him and the loop pulled tight.
The garrote is quiet but slow, and Dunkan took a long time to die. First he grabbed at the wire, fingers scratching savagely at his swollen throat. After a while his arms dropped to his side and he ceased struggling. I held on till his skin turned purple, and he kicked his legs in one final spasm. Then I lowered him to the ground, behind the wall where no one could see him.
I’m sorry, Dunkan. I wish it had gone another way.
I closed the lantern above the open gate. The guards would notice the absence of light soon-I hoped the murder of my friend had bought me enough time.
I crept about the perimeter, securing what I needed for the thing to work out. No one noticed-security was lax. Beaconfield might just be dumb enough not to realize I was coming. I hoped so at least.
After everything was set I returned to the back door and picked the lock, not as expertly as the doctor perhaps but without any trouble. I started counting off the seconds in my head once I was inside, my back to the walls, stopping at every sound. The defenses were strangely delinquent, no patrols, not even anyone posted at the stairwell.
When I opened the door to the Blade’s study he was standing in front of the broad windows behind his desk, drinking and watching the falling snow. He whirled his head around with defined celerity. There was a moment of purest shock when he recognized me. Then a smile spread across his face, and he downed the rest of his liquor and set the glass on the table. “This is the second time you’ve come uninvited into my study.”
I closed the door behind me. “Just the first. I sent a man around yesterday.”
“Is that how friends behave? Taking advantage of hospitality to steal intimate correspondence?”
“We aren’t friends.”
He looked a little hurt. “No, I suppose we’re not-but that’s just circumstance, really. I think if things had worked out differently, you would have found me a very reasonable man. Affable, even.”
Two and a half minutes. “I don’t think so. You blue bloods are a little too bent for my tastes. At heart I’m a simple creature.”
“Yes, forthright and candid-that’s exactly how I would describe you.”
We were each waiting to see if the other would drop this pretense of amiability. Inside my skull the clock ticked away-three minutes.
The Blade lounged against his desk. “I have to admit, I’m surprised at how you’ve decided to play this.”
“This is a bit direct for my tastes, but then I didn’t have much of a choice.”
