“You need not waste time at the Velvet. We’ve done that already. Martha’s abductors were never on the grounds, nor were they in association with anyone employed there.” He raised a gloved hand when I started to speak. “Please, Mr. Markhat, accept this as truth. It cost us-dearly-and I am convinced it is accurate.”
“So forget the Velvet,” I said. “That doesn’t leave me with much. Because the only other thing in her life was her home, and her brothers-and you can accept this as truth-they had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all.”
He nodded. “We reached the same surmise.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand any of this.” I sensed our conversation was nearly over. “But thanks, all the same.”
He made a little dip with his head. “And thank you.” He rose, stopped, looked up at me like he’d just thought of something. “I have an idea.”
“Do tell.”
“I am forbidden to divulge the details of certain delicate matters to you. I am bound, by honor and oath, to obey this stricture.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do otherwise.”
He grinned, put his hand quickly over his lips. “Still. I have several errands to run this evening, finder. I am hardly to be blamed if you follow me and perhaps draw your own conclusions as to the nature of my actions.”
I rose too. “Forgive me, but trotting along behind you strikes me as a good way to wind up on the dead wagon in the morning. What if one of your friends mistook me for a common thief or a light snack?” I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
“That is a problem. But happily, I have a coach. My driver is discrete. If you have a dark coat, you could come along, and I assure you no one would be the wiser.”
“What about your oath?”
He shrugged. “The House, as I said, values initiative. If I’m asked if I was followed, I can honestly say I was not. And if they ask if I invited you to ride along with me, well, I should have to confess, but I doubt that I’ll be asked that particular question.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Miss Hoobin has, at best, four days. My efforts to locate her have proved fruitless, as have yours. You lack the time to learn what I have learned. I lack your ability to move about unnoticed, and move about in the daylight. I give you my word you will not be harmed. I give you my word you will be returned here safely well before sunrise.”
He took off his glasses, looked me eye-to-eye. “I am halfdead, Mr. Markhat. That may well deny me a place among the saints, but does it truly guarantee me a throne beside the devil?”
I looked him in the eye. No saint ever had such a face, or such a stare.
“I’ll get my coat. And call me Markhat. Mister is for old folks.”
Evis smiled a pointy smile behind his hand. “Call me Evis. Shall we go?”
We went, the devil and I, out into the night.
Curfew, quoth the Regent, is Rannit’s greatest achievement since the War.
That statement is usually followed by a lot of prattle about peaceful co-existence with our halfdead brethren and statistics twisted to prove that the only groups preyed upon by said brethren are burglars and street gangs. Honest folk, we are assured, folk tired from a day’s honest work, folk at home and in their beds, these folk have nothing to fear from the halfdead.
I sat alone across from Evis. Beside him, on either side, sat two more halfdead, both taller and wider than he. They too wore gloves, and black, high-collared shirts that nearly covered their skin. They smelled of strong fire- flower cologne and new leather boots. Their hats were worn low, their faces were turned down and their chests never rose, never fell.
The driver, surprisingly, was human, as was the man seated beside him. Occasionally they’d exchange a muffled laugh or curse as the carriage lurched over a pothole. Hearing their voices was comforting to me, the sole human passenger in a carriage full of halfdead.
I watched the dark streets roll by through the glass over Evis’s shoulder. Streetlamps guttered and sparked. There was still light in a few windows, and more than once I saw it extinguished as we passed.
We left Cambrit, followed Stewart to the crossing of the Edge Street sewer canal, then veered off down an alley and turned south.
Evis peeped over my shoulder, watched the streets roll by through the window at my back. He’d put his glasses away, and his dead eyes shone now and then in the passing light of streetlamps.
“Do you miss it?” he asked, looking out at the dark. “You cannot appreciate it, under the Curfew.”
The carriage rolled on. I caught sight of a drunk, who saw the halfdead carriage, worked out who it bore and dived clumsily into the sewer canal.
“Miss what? The night?”
Evis nodded.
“It looks so different now. So…bright. There are shadows, to be sure, but light too. Silver light.” He shrugged. “I merely wondered if you ever missed just walking down a street, beneath a half-full moon.”
The turgid water closed over the drunk. If he ever surfaced, I never saw it.
“Oh, not much.” I felt it best not to advertise my recent spate of Curfew-breaking, lest his silent friends prick up their ears. “How about the sun? You ever miss that?”
A streetlamp splashed faint light into the carriage, and I looked away from those eyes before I could stop myself.
“Hardly at all.”
The driver pulled back his reins and spoke, and the carriage slowed, pulled to a halt.
“First stop,” said Evis. His companions stirred, exiting the carriage with all the sound and fuss of a dropped silk handkerchief. “Wait here with the driver, won’t you? My friends and I will see that the site is safe. We’ll call for you, when that is established.”
I shrugged. “Sure.
He smiled, moved and was gone.
I slid over, peeped out the window. The halfdead were gone. Evis had left the carriage door open, so I climbed slowly out.
We were parked at the corner of Gentry and Low. The stench of the canal, a block behind us, rode the night, thick and choking. Weathered brick buildings, two and three stories tall, formed a canyon that blotted out most of the sky.
Rannit is packed with once thriving commercial districts that, for one reason or another, fell into decay. The streets zigzagging off Gentry are some of the oldest. What were once breweries and foundries are now warehouses, hulks and shells, home to rodents and pigeons and failing businesses making a doomed last stand against oblivion. No lights shone in the broken windows, no smoke rose from chimneys, no shapes moved behind the doors. Before the Truce and the Curfew, you’d also have found squatters lounging in the alleys and making their beds in the empty stoops. Now, though, the buildings are empty and still.
“Cheerful, ain’t it?” asked the driver, in a whisper, from his perch atop the carriage.
He held a glossy black crossbow, as did his grinning human companion. Crossbows are illegal inside the city limits. I eschewed to point this out.
“Rent’s cheap, though,” I whispered back.
“Shut up,” hissed the driver’s friend. “Boss said keep it quiet.”
“You boys know what the Boss is up to?” I asked.
They both chuckled. “Yeah, right,” said the driver’s friend, so faint I could barely hear. “We’re in on all the House policy meetings.”
I shrugged, expecting as much.
“They ain’t so bad,” said the driver. “Best job I ever had.”
They fell silent, after that. After a few moments, the driver’s friend jerked and started, fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulled out something that looked like a pocket watch, fiddled with it briefly.
“The boss says you can go and have a look,” said the driver, to me. “That way. You’ll be met.” He hooked a thumb in the direction the halfdead had vanished.
I sauntered off as if it were noon, and I was going for lunch at Eddie’s.
