The Iron Thorn

smiles and manners, to do what a nice girl would do. I reached up and knocked Dorlock’s hand off my shoulder, hard. “Perhaps I don’t want to get along that way.”

Dorlock’s pouchy face fell in on itself, anger stealing into his small eyes. Hidden anger, like a snake. The most dangerous type.

“You don’t have any weight to throw around, lassie. I’m the one watching your hide underground, and it’d behoove you to treat me sweet.”

Before I could snap back at him, the Nash creaked as someone sat down next to me. “You know, Dorlock, I’m impressed. Behoove is a big word for you.”

I turned to stare at the stranger and met his eyes. They were silver. His smile was crooked, and his hair was long, swept back with a rash of comb tracks. The stranger’s hand was firm and ridged when he took mine and shook it. “Dean. Dean Harrison. And you might be?”

I opened my mouth, shut it. I didn’t quite know what to make of the stranger, except that he didn’t seem to care for Dorlock any more than I did, and his hand was warm.

“I might—” I started.

“She might be with me.” Cal reappeared, irritably juggling his camp duffel and two helpings of takeaway. I watched Dean tilt his head back and look up to Cal’s considerable knobby-kneed height.

“Sorry, brother. I didn’t know she was spoken for.”

“Oh, for the sake of all His gears,” I huffed at Cal. Of all the times for Cal’s tough act, this was the absolute worst. I shook Dean’s hand in return. “I apologize for my friend’s manners. I’m Aoife Grayson.”

Dean’s eyes and smile were both slow, but there was nothing dumb about them. He took the seconds to memorize everything about my face. I’d seen the same look on master engineers, contemplating a new device or problem. Dean took me in, and he smiled. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Aoife.”

I returned the smile, writ much smaller. Boys—men—weren’t in the habit of smiling at me. I was odd, and I knew it. The few smiles before Dean’s had lead to pranks, but when I looked Dean in the eye, his pupils just grew wider.

Cal grumbled, his face turning colors. “Aoife. We need to go with Mr. Dorlock.”

Dorlock himself had turned a plummy shade of purple, huge hands clenching and unclenching like they wanted for a neck. “Harrison, you little ratlick, what are you doing yakking to my clients? They hired me fair and square—go poach somebody else’s hire, vulture.”

“Like I was about to bend your girl’s ear on,” Dean said. “You don’t want Dorlock, miss. He pays the barter boys down here to talk him a good game, and he poses the part, but it’s all fancy. Man will have you chumming a ghoul nest inside an hour if you go with him.”

“Guttersnipe!” Dorlock roared, raising his fist to Dean. “They chose me. Market rule says free hires to all. The sweetheart here and her companion want to go underground, and underground they’ll go.” He didn’t have the false face of a kind old uncle any longer. Rage had turned him crimson.

“Never knows when to shut his yap, either,” Dean muttered, standing up. His full height was a head shorter than Cal, but Dean was broad and solid where Cal was still disappearing inside his school clothes. Dean’s face wasn’t but a year or two older than mine, but it held a spark of wickedness, a blade-edge of worldly knowledge that a person could only light by seeing too much, too soon. Conrad had the same look. I didn’t trust Dean, but I was starting to like him.

“Listen, Dorlock,” Dean said. “I’m being a pal and giving you a chance to walk away dignified-like.”

Dorlock’s nostrils flared. “Or?”

This time, Dean’s smile wasn’t slow and it wasn’t warm. “Or,” Dean said, “I can show your shame to these nice Uptown folk. You choose.”

I stepped back to stand by Cal in anticipation of a blow or a knife between the two. Dean had to be crazy, mouthing off to someone the size of Dorlock.

“You runt,” Dorlock panted, a vein in his temple throbbing like a swollen river. “What do you mean, poaching on this sweet little thing?” He reached for me again, my hair, my cheek, and I swatted at him again. It was like fending off an ungainly octopus.

“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?” Dean drawled. “By decades or so?”

I took another step back, this one involuntary.

Dorlock let out a yell and pulled a length of pipe with a wrapped handle from his belt. Dean reached into the pocket of his leather coat and brought out a palm-sized black lacquer tube. “You know that saying about bringing a knife to a gunfight?” he asked Dorlock. “Same principle applies, old man. Don’t think I won’t show steel just because we’re in market grounds.”

“They hired me,” Dorlock rumbled. “You’re just a huckster, kiddo, not worth my time to spit on.” He turned to me with a smile revealing one missing front tooth. “Come on, lassie. Come away from that trash now and we’ll go down under and on to the country like you wanted.”

Dean moved just a bit, so that his body was between Dorlock and me. It was an artful move, executed like a dance. “All right, hard road is your road, old man.” He gestured, his leather jacket creaking. “Show her your arm, Dorlock. Show off a little for us here.”

Dorlock fell silent. “You,” he said to me. “Come on now.”

“No,” I said, shrinking away from his grasp. “If I’m paying you fifty dollars, you can show your arm.”

Dorlock sneered. “I don’t need the whingeing of a spoiled schoolgirl,” he said. “Or a deadbeat doper boy who doesn’t know his north from his south.”

“North,” Dean said, pointing over Dorlock’s shoulder. “True iron in my blood. What’s in yours?”

“I think you better show us your arm, mister,” Cal said. “See what this guy’s on about.”

Dorlock balled up his fist, but Dean caught it and turned Dorlock’s great fleshy slab outward. Three straight lines were burned into the skin, puckered and red with trapped infection. Cal grimaced. I didn’t want to move closer, but at the same time I couldn’t resist staring at the pus-filled wounds. They were wide as my wrist, weeping and hideous.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Those, boys and girls, are ghoul kisses,” Dean said. “Comes from the acid on their tongues, when they lay them against you to claim ownership. This fat bastard has a deal with one of the dens downside in the sewer, to deliver fresh meat when he’s able.” He released Dorlock and folded his arms. “Ain’t that right, tubby?”

I stared at Dorlock, feeling sour creep up the back of my tongue. I’d been ready to hand over my money to a man who’d sell us for meat. Conrad would have seen this. All I’d done was nearly gotten Cal and myself eaten.

Dorlock’s stomach jiggled with fury, and he let out a roar. Dean stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Spare me! Free hires within market bounds, Dorlock, you said it yourself. You want to debate the law, we can take it to the old spider-lady who keeps the books.” He winked at me. “Nice old gal. Bites the head off of you if the verdict don’t come down on your side. Figuratively speaking.”

There was a long, razor-sharp moment between the four of us, and then Dorlock swore. “It’s your funeral, stupid girl. Next time you trust a pretty face I hope it’s a springheel jack waiting underneath.”

He stomped back to his tent, and Dean flipped the black cylinder one last time before he shoved it back into his pocket. “So, it seems you folks are in need of a guide.”

“Y-yes,” I managed. I sounded like a child who’d been caught out of bed, and I cleared my throat. “I mean, we are. Still.”

Cal scoffed. “And let me guess—you’re the answer to our plight?”

Dean passed a hand over his hair, putting the slick strands that Dorlock had mussed back in place. “I’m a bit of a tradejack, and guiding is one of my trades. I don’t need to advertise because I’m good. And I sure won’t charge you any fifty dollars.”

“Was Dorlock really going to feed us to ghouls?” I asked him, the blue tent now crouched like a poison mushroom. It seemed like the sort of thing you’d read in a Proctor manual, something that was supposed to scare us into behaving.

“Sweetheart, your white flesh would be their filet mignon,” said Dean. I flinched. Cal glared.

“Watch your language, fella. That’s a young lady you’re talking to.”

“Word of advice, kid,” said Dean. “This may be the Wild West down here, but you ain’t a cowboy. You’re not even a boy in a cowboy suit.”