Nothing.
The hammer!
She didn’t have a limb free to stop him from bringing up his left hand. She saw the grime on that thumb as it came up for the hammer. She involuntarily swallowed as he pressed the warm barrel against the soft flesh under her jaw.
He squeezed her throat harder. Her lungs protested against the held breath. In slow motion she saw the cylinder of his gun rotate to a fresh chamber and the shadowy dimples in the points of the glistening copper-cased bullets. He’d spent a shot before she arrived. The barrel had three empty chambers, and she was reminded of the day-night dials in the workings of a clock face. His finger moved toward the trigger.
The report from a single shot rang in her ears. Scorched cotton and gunpowder clawed at her throat, and she gratefully inhaled it. Wiped the blood spray on her hand across the man’s jacket. Blood soaked his shirt in a blossom that seeped outward from the bullet wound in his chest. Blood bubbled from his mouth and nose as he worked his jaw, forming a wordless final protest. His eyes were unfocused. She untangled her leg from his and stood.
“A gun can always be taken and used against its owner,” Dug said from behind her. His distaste for the weapons was made clear at any opportunity.
A glance over her shoulder showed Talis that he and Sophie had dispatched the other men neatly. There was barely any blood on her crew, and not much of it their own. Good. There would be fresh bruises, though. She swallowed hard against her battered throat.
She claimed the other revolver from her would-be assassin. The custom holsters, too. Figured she’d earned them. She found his pouch of ammunition and took that, along with his purse. What honor she had was not wasted on such decisions.
“Same’s true for knives,” said Sophie, her chest heaving as she stood over the last man to fall. There was a dark-tinged slice in one of her satin sleeves, a light kiss from the machete that was now protruding from its owner’s chest.
“Not these knives,” said Dug, and he absently squeezed the grips on his two blades like he might the shoulder of a friend. There wasn’t a drop of blood to be wiped off their lethal edges. The same could not be said for the corridor flooring beneath the three men who had danced with Wind Sabre’s first mate.
A tiny bell rang as the door opened into the dimly lit shop, a cheerful sound that pretended the morning was normal and benign. The cacophony of Subrosa faded to a murmur inside the carefully kept shop.
From a low display table in the center of the shop, polished brass and copper reflected the flickering of simple candelabras which swung in small circles with the vibrations of the city beyond the shop’s walls and ceiling. Lining the walls to either side, varnished boxes with framed paper labels were stacked in neat rows on shelves, giving the impression that this was more of an archive than a store. A waist-high glass cabinet stood just within the door, with a selection of hand-carved pipes and knife handles on its lowest two shelves, and a selection of jewelry, pocket watches, and small silver trinket boxes featured below the cabinet’s glass top.
Beside the cabinet stood a tall, narrow time piece with complicated workings, pull chains and weights of hammered copper and pewter, and a pendulum shaped to look like a glow pumpkin. The back of the cabinet was painted black and shone with inlaid chips of quartz which twinkled like a field of stars. The day-night dial placed Peridot’s sun in the late morning position over Bone skies. The disk behind the sun’s movement piece was intricately etched, but from the door and without better lighting, Talis could not make out the details. A clock that fine was a rare sight, but she could look at it on her way out, after she’d gotten satisfaction from Jasper. In the form of explanation or, better, compensation.
Talis shouted for the proprietor, louder than necessary. The space was not large and Jasper had keen hearing. She hardly cared. Her throat objected to the burst of sound she forced through it, but she enjoyed the way the rasping bark punctuated the quiet shopfront.
She’d nearly decided to give Jasper the benefit of the doubt, but that party outside had changed her mind. Too many people knew about the ring. Too many people for Jasper not to have some responsibility in the matter. Either he’d badly misjudged someone, or he’d told someone. He owed Talis an explanation, either way.
But there was no response to her shout. No shuffle in the back room to indicate that he’d heard her and was moving his enormous person toward the curtained door. She crossed to the shop counter and tapped a fingernail on the brass bell that hung over the well-polished wood. A clear, sonorous tone rang out. She shouted again, then winced as her throat made her regret it.
Still nothing.
She looked at Dug. If Jasper had gone out, there would be a clerk left in charge, or the door would have been secured. There was too much of value in his storerooms to leave unattended, parcels inbound and outbound, and none of them strictly legal.
She glanced around the showroom, trying to measure for a sense of trouble. The floors were swept clean, the shelves without dust, and the glass cases free of fingerprints or the haze of neglect. Nothing was out of place. Except Jasper.
Talis and Dug drew their weapons again.
Dug lifted the hinged portion of the countertop and moved behind it. He used the point of one knife to push back the heavy curtain to the room beyond. All was dark.
Talis had been in the private area of Jasper’s shop a handful of times, but only passing through
