saw the silver buckles on his fancy shoes, or the swan-shaped silver clasp that held his cloak closed at his throat.
The huldra stirred again in my hand. And as I walked, it showed me things.
You know those skull-face carvings at the right-hand gatepost of Orthodox cemeteries? Looks like a skull-until you see the skull is merely folds in the robe of the Angel Aaran, and part of his outstretched hands.
That’s what it was like, as I walked. I saw stains on the warped planks of Innigot’s floor, and an instant later I saw that they were old blood, blood spilled while three men had held a fourth down and cut him. Blood spilled while Innigot had stood calmly ten feet away, wiping down his dirty glasses with a filthy rag.
I heard shouts in the wind, cries for mercy-sounds that had been there all along, for anyone who knew how to listen.
And so when I looked down upon the Thin Man, I saw his fear, plain as a bucket of sun. He looked up at me with cold brown eyes and a face that betrayed neither guilt nor shame. But he saw something in me, something in my eyes, something that chilled him to the bone.
I laughed. “Well, well.” I stopped, pulled a chair around, sat beside him at his wobbly table. “Come to talk about combs, have we?”
He nodded, licked his lips and swallowed. “I brought all the rest. I have the other seven, right here.”
He reached beneath his chair, reached for a paper bag. I didn’t follow his hand with my eyes, didn’t need to see. I knew the bag was full of silver combs, just as he’d said. Each was a sibling to Martha’s.
I snatched his hand back, put it down flat on the table, withdrew my own hand.
“I don’t want them.”
“I’ll tell you where they came from.”
The huldra showed me words near his lips.
“You got them from a young man named Tenny Hanks. He stole them from his father, who runs an import shop on Vanth. Tenny was a weedhead. You gave him ten crowns, and he smoked that right up and killed himself the next day trying to rob an ogre.” I smiled in triumph. “Isn’t that right?”
He opened his mouth, shut it, tried to decide if he could knock me down and make for the door.
I let him see my eyes. He began to shake.
“I never wanted the combs. All that was a lie. Just like you feared. No, it’s the girls I want to talk about. You know the girls. The special ones. The ones you fed to your vampire friends.”
He choked back a shout, tried to bolt. I shoved him back, surprised at how easily he gave way to my touch.
“I know it all,” I said. He tried to look away, but I held his gaze, let the huldra show me more. “I know about the priest. I know about the halfdead. I know you help them, because they let you watch.” I pulled him closer, laughed when he wriggled and whimpered. “You made a mistake, taking Martha Hoobin. She was no whore, and you knew it. What would your halfdead friends say, if they knew you meant to feed them a rich man’s sister?”
He gobbled and clawed. I tightened my grip.
“They’d have your head, they would. Poor stubborn Miss Hoobin. She preferred her Balptist verse to the mouthings of your Church, and you decided you’d make her pay. What better way to educate her in the mercies of your Church than to feed her to a room of halfdead, you miserable little swine. Isn’t that right?”
“I’ll tell you,” he said, gasping around my grasp. I had him by the throat, one-handed. He grappled and clawed but couldn’t dislodge my grip. “I’ll tell you where they are. Tell you where the halfdead are.”
I laughed. The sound of it was strange, more thunder than voice.
“Oh, you shall indeed. Do you think that will save you?”
“You want to know, don’t you?”
I laughed again.
“I know already.” The huldra whispered again, telling me what was ready to leap from the Thin Man’s panicked lips.
“Below another old warehouse. On Santos. Three blocks from here. They’ve gathered there, already. The party begins in an hour. Have I missed anything?”
He coughed and wheezed, began to turn purple. “You…swore. You…swore…you wouldn’t…harm.”
“Did I now?”
I let go. He fell limp down on the table, threw up, lifted his face, sputtering and spewing.
I saw, without turning, the door open behind me. I saw Ethel Hoobin march inside, and his brothers, and then dozens more. All bore weapons. Ethel and his brothers bore short lengths of chain, each bearing a fresh-sharpened hook at the end.
“Mustn’t break a promise,” I whispered to him. “I shall do you no harm.” I backed away. Let him see the New People, let him read the murder written plain on their hard wet faces.
“Pity that these gentlemen are parties to no such oath. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘pound of flesh’? It’s a quaint country saying. Comes from those chains, and those hooks. I’m sure you can imagine the rest. And if not, well, you’ll see, soon enough.”
I turned from him. Ethel Hoobin met my gaze, though many would not.
“Has he my Martha?”
“He has. He took her.”
Behind me, the Thin Man let out a ruckus. Men rushed forward and blows sounded. He yelped and went quiet.
“Do you know where?”
I told Ethel where. I told him to finish his business. I would wait outside, and we would go and get Martha.
He nodded, and the way parted. As the Thin Man began to sob and beg, I left Innigot’s.
It was still raining outside. The huldra showed me a hidden thing, and I brushed the rain away and set out for Santos Street, through a night made as bright as day.
The huldra whispered. I listened. I knew I would have no need of Evis and his friends, or Ethel and his. The blood I meant to spill lay ahead, and I could not be troubled to wait.
So I walked. Each step took me farther, each breath made me stronger, each whisper of the huldra left me taller, let me see more than I’d seen an instant before. I heard music in the storm, heard voices in the wind, saw wonders and terrors in each flicker of far-off lightning.
Soon, I realized I was no longer looking at walls and doors, but looking down on rooftops and rain-swept streets. I towered above it all, my every step that of a giant, my footfalls the very thunder. I laughed, and the skies split with a terrible bright light. I saw hidden forms twist and dance in the shadows.
Below and behind me, shapes scurried, darting from here to there. Some were dark and swift and seemed at times to fly, while some were slow and steady-Evis, I recalled, as if from an old and distant memory. Avalante. Evis and his soldiers, and the New People keeping carefully apart from each other, antlike in my wake.
I realized I could reach down and crush them, stamp them out like insects. The huldra knew, would show me how. Strange memories rose and fell, of doing just such a thing many times before. Other images followed-faces in the dark, a tower on a hill, fire raining from a wounded crimson sky.
“No,” I said, my voice booming. “It is true I spoke my name. Even so, I shall have no other.”
I wasn’t sure why I said those words. But the huldra knew. It turned me back toward the warehouse on Santos, and soon I could see down upon it, even see the cold dark figures huddled unknowing within.
The huldra knew my wishes. I shrank, until I faced a door. I let loose my hold upon the rain, let it beat down over me, let it sting my face and my mouth with its acrid taste of bitter ashes.
I put forth my hand.
I obeyed. In a moment, I heard the creak of a bar being lifted, and when I tried the door again it opened.
I stepped inside, let the rain and the dark and the huldra blur my form into a simulacra of the Thin Man’s.
I stood in a dark foyer. Wood floor. Wood walls. Ten by ten, maybe, with a single second door set in the wall facing the one through which I’d entered. No candles burned, but I saw.
Saw a halfdead before me. He wore no House insignia, but the huldra told me a name.
