Caine Black Knife

Anything I needed to know, I could find out in the morning. After the shooting was over.

*You want me to stuff my aging ass into that meat grinder? * I monologued to my audience of one. *Make me a fucking offer.*

God did not reply.

I shrugged. “Have it your way,” I said aloud. “I’m going back to bed.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed. Leaning on my knees. Staring at the floor. At the splotch where I’d spat that mouthful of water. Just a blot now, about the size of my hand, darker in spots where water had soaked into wood through worn-down varnish.

It had tasted like blood. .

Now, in the dim pulse of fireglow through the skylight, it looked like blood, too.

Gunfire and screams.

Dizhrati golzinn Ekk!

And bubbling up out of that soggy black swamp of that dream: stone walls crumbling beneath my fists and two of me leaping into a bedroom full of screams and blood-A thin pale human dying across the body of a young trim redhead-

And the saliva that pumped along my tusks when both of me heard howls coming from the twin bassinets beside their bed.

This prophecy thing pretty much sucked dog ass.

I put my shirt on. After a second’s thought, I added the rest of my clothes: my knives, the spring-loaded baton, the garrote, and the spare clips for the Automag. Even the flatpack of picks. Because you just never fucking know. Then I headed for the stairs.

At the landing below the second floor, I heard Pratt’s voice. He didn’t sound happy. He sounded like he was trying not to crap himself.

“I’m sorry, goodmen. Please, the hostelry is closed, you’ll have to come-no, Kravmik, don’t- !”

A stranger’s voice drawled, “Yeah, Kravmik. Don’t.”

The period on the sentence was the cold double-click of a single-action hammer going to full cock.

The stranger had an Ankhanan accent.

Somebody else said calmly, “Go sit down. Both of you. Next to the girl.”

On the landing above the lobby, I stopped and muttered, “Shit.”

There was a window at the far end of the hallway behind me. I was already turning for it, already seeing myself dropping the four, maybe five meters to the alley, when I heard “But he’s not even here.”

Pratt sounded desperate. “He ate, changed his clothes, and went right out again- he had something to do with Knight Aeddharr-I don’t know what it was-”

“Put it away, Hawk,” the calm voice said. “There’s no need for that. Yet. Whistler?”

“I’ve got him.”

“What are you doing? What is that thing?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The voice of Whistler: “Now. Did Freeman Shade really go out?”

“No, not really,”

Pratt said sheepishly. “I just made that up, because I was afraid you guys might want to hurt him or something.”

“Pratt?” Kravmik’s rumble sounded blankly astonished, and a woman’s voice said, “Lasser, what are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Pratt told them. “These are good people. Really.”

“That’s right,” said the voice of Hawk. “We’re good people. Now shut up, both of you.”

“Hey-” Pratt lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Hey, do you know who he really is? I mean really?”

“Yeah,” Calm Guy answered. “We know. We’re friends of his.”

“Oh, good. Everything’s better when everybody’s friends.”

Up on the landing, I wasn’t feeling friendly.

A professionally laid-in Charm. At least one handgun. Three in the lobby, one a thaumaturge. That meant probably one in reserve on the street out front and two more covering the alley. That’s where they’d have the heavy stuff. And the Smoke Hunt was on its way.

“Pratt, let’s take a walk up to his room. Whistler, on me. Hawk, watch the grill and the girl.”

“By myself?” Hawk sounded bemused rather than worried. “This could get interesting.”

“If he slips us, use them. Use the girl.”

“He’ll give a shit?”

“Sometimes he gets sentimental. Especially when they’re pretty.”

“I’m feeling a little sentimental, myself. .”

“Keep your pants on. She won’t live that long.”

“I can be real fast-”

“Yeah. If there’s time we’ll all get a turn. But I’m first, get me? Whistler. Come on.”

I pulled up the rear of my tunic, drew the Automag and very gently racked the slide. Holding the big pistol tight against the back of my right leg, I started down the stairs.

Sometimes I do get sentimental. Especially about people who work for a living. Pretty or not.

To my left, through the posts of the bannister: Kravmik sat half hunched across Yttrall Pratt next to the dining-hall door, shielding most of her tiny figure with his huge curve of shoulder. In front of them slouched a nightclub-pale junior featherweight with glossy black hair, his compact efficient-looking frame loaded into a slashed-velvet doublet and hose under a loose knee-length cape. Hands empty. Loose.

Hawk. The gunman.

Middle of the lobby: Pratt, hurricane lamp in one hand, turning toward the stairs, catching sight of me, face lighting with a smile of pure uncomplicated welcome. At his side another smallish man, thin, long-faced, balding, folds of flesh sagging under eyes mournful as a bloodhound’s, wearing a thigh-length hunter’s vest, all pockets, a twist of thread between thumb and little finger on which spun gemstone flashes.

Whistler. The thaumaturge.

And half-turned toward the stairs, left hand extended to usher Pratt and Whistler past, bigger, solidly into cruiserweight, head shaved and polished the color of tea-stained mahogany, also doing the slashed-velvet doublet thing but his worn open like a jacket, no hose here-the pants would look normal enough on a darkened street, but even in Pratt’s lamplight they jumped up and bit: close-fitting heavy leather, flapped at the ankle to overlap instep and heel tendon, jointed at the knee, thick boiled panels over hamstring and quads joined by heavy wire, not much against a bullet or a Khryllian morningstar, but they’d turn most blades-and it was a good bet the jerkin under that open doublet was made the same way because that’s what Grey Cats favor when going out for red work. Or ex- Cats gone merc.

No-name. Calm Guy. Giver of orders. Whose right hand was out of sight.

This might turn out to be a bit of a trick.

Another step down the stairs and Pratt’s pure uncomplicated welcome burst out with pure good nature. “Hey, here he is now!”

“Hey, here I am now.” The Automag was cold through the thin cotton of my breeches. “Let’s nobody get stupid.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Calm Guy didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. “You first.”

Another step down the stairs. “Civilians can walk, huh?”

“Maybe they could have,” Calm Guy allowed, “if it had been my idea. Since it was yours, I like them where they are. At least until I see both your hands.”

“You first.”

A shrug. “I’m easy.”