thing-living beneath the alley itself, as close to its mystical phenomenon as they were.
They focused so intently on the cryptic whispers of what may be that they were blind to the world around them. He'd heard it said that devils resided in the details, as if tightly wound in the threads of a tapestry, and he agreed with the idea. The details so captivated the imagination that the overall design was often forgotten.
'A willful ignorance,' he said under his breath, exiting the alley and heading east, angrily tossing aside the Winterfirst mask he had considered wearing to conceal himself in the streets. He cursed Quessahn's misplaced compassion as much as he respected her ability to maintain such conviction, and he cursed himself for being unable-or perhaps unwilling-to indulge in the same luxury himself.
He strode down the center of empty avenues, spotting only the occasional servant at back doors or swift- footed lamplighter returning home after the evening's work was done. Though he glared at any who crossed his path, yearning to draw his sword, he kept to back alleys and shadowed streets. He saw none of the order's soulless ahimazzi, and Watch patrols seemed more focused on main streets and wealthier blocks, where many of the murders had taken place. The ward was quiet, as if the streets themselves were holding their breath, waiting for something to happen.
Rounding a corner, barely two blocks away from where Tallus was said to reside, Jinn received his quiet wish.
'Hold there, deva!'
Jinn grinned at the sound of Dregg's voice and paused as four men in Watch uniforms stepped into the lamplight ahead. Five more approached him from behind, keeping their distance. Even so, Jinn could see the Watchmen's disheveled and dirty tabards. They wore scuffed swash-cuffed boots more suitable for dock work than Watch duty, and the weapons they had drawn were mismatched and nonstandard. There were nine of them, the increased patrol number set by Allek Marson before his death, but the men Jinn faced had never known the honorable rorden. He doubted they had any particular knowledge of the Watch at all save the dimensions of old prison cells.
'You couldn't hide for long, Jinnaoth,' Dregg said, pacing behind the four men at the far end of the avenue, a depressing sight, seeing Allek's secrecy perverted and used to bring in hired thugs for Lucian Dregg.
'I'm not hiding at all, Dregg. Have you been looking for me?' Jinn replied, raising his arms and spreading his coat wide, sword clearly visible in its scabbard.
'You are a murderer, or haven't you heard? I imagine they'll make me a commander for bringing you in.' Dregg smiled over the shoulders of his thugs.
'You're delusional, Lucian,' Jinn said, though his thoughts drifted, old battles and duels flashing through his mind, the memories flooding through his flesh as they stitched his present to bits of his bloody past.
Rorden Dregg laughed, a deep, confident chuckle that lasted a breath too long, a note of uncertainty ringing in Jinn's ears as it faded.
'You'd be surprised at what a little coin and a good story can accomplish,' Dregg replied.
'No, not that,' Jinn said, lowering his arms and sweeping his coat over the hilt of his stolen blade. 'I meant about you bringing me in.'
Dregg ceased his pacing and glared at the deva. 'Take him,' he growled. 'No need to be gentle.'
Jinn drew his sword as the nine men approached, some forgotten instinct making him wave the blade's tip over the ground in a circular motion, an archaic duelist's ritual whose meaning had been lost centuries ago. Dregg's patrol of false officers swaggered as they neared, knowing smiles spread on their unshaven faces. They formed a crude circle around Jinn, their steps out of sync with one another as they revealed their inexperience in anything approaching a group strategy.
'No discipline,' he muttered, keeping still and wondering which among them would break the circle first.
'Aye, there'll be discipline all right, bright-eyes,' said their largest, a hulking man with a shorn scalp wielding a thick, jagged-edged blade. 'First lesson, we teach you how to bleed.'
The large man rushed in, sure on his feet and wielding the heavy blade with some skill as he anticipated Jinn's deft, quick slash and blocked it. Drawing the blade back to strike again as his grinning companions watched, the big man did not, however, anticipate the position of Jinn's feet. Jinn ducked low under the powerful stroke, his outstretched leg slipping between his opponent's and hooking one knee as he twisted toward the large man's back.
Unbalanced, the big man stumbled forward and caught a kick to the back of the head that sent him smashing facefirst into the cobbles. Using their surprise at the swift maneuver, Jinn spun into the others with deadly precision. Steel screamed as he struck forward, defended backward, and walked an invisible line where the thugs' circle should have been positioned, a careful offensive step that kept them on the move, stumbling over one another to reach him.
Three fell, clutching their stomachs, in Jinn's first pass. Two more fell as the other five attempted to join the fray, their swords tearing at only his cloak and glancing off of his leather armor, the luckiest strikes drawing thin, shallow cuts but little else. He attempted to return the wounds in kind, but ironically, as the number of his opponents diminished, their tactics grew stronger.
The remaining three thugs surrounded him more carefully, avoiding the groaning men on the ground and making use of the space they had available. Jinn glanced toward the rorden as the thugs studied him and each other. Dregg had slipped away, a disappointment that the deva hoped to rectify before morning.
His left arm and shoulder bled freely from the clumsy cuts that had reached through his defense. Wincing, he stretched his shoulder painfully as a wild-eyed, thin man snarled at him over the edge of a bloodied saber. Jinn nodded at the man in mocking approval and dashed forward, bending low as the sword on his left whistled over his head. The flat of the thrusting blade on his right he blocked barehanded, cold steel sliding across the numb flesh of his palm.
He came up between them, sword vertical as the thin man parried. At the ring of steel on steel, Jinn spun against the man's right shoulder, knocking the thin man off balance as the deva brought his stolen blade around. The swift, wide arc of his sword stopped only when it struck bone. The thin man's head lolled to the side, his neck gaping like a toothless mouth as he slumped forward, freeing Jinn's blade with a twitching jerk.
The other two men stared quietly at the third, their swords wavering as they stepped back a pace.
'Dregg's coin isn't enough for this,' one said as he turned to run, his companion close behind.
Jinn breathed deeply, his lust for battle lessened but not sated. Frightened shadows hovered in the corners of several windows above the scene, but no one cried out for the Watch, too scared to call attention to themselves. Jinn sighed and resisted the urge to bow in a mocking salute to the voyeuristic eyes that took such a sickening enjoyment in the blood sport. At the sound of a pained groan, he turned. A large man rose from the ground to spit blood and teeth on the cobbles.
The big man surveyed the area, his eyes roaming from one body to the next as he wiped the thick crimson stain from his lips and met the deva's cold stare. He grinned and pointed.
'They cut your arm up pretty good,' he said, resting the heavy sword against his shoulder.
'That they did,' Jinn replied, narrowing his gold eyes and clasping the wound tightly. 'It appears I already knew how to bleed. Is there to be a second lesson?'
The large man raised a thoughtful eyebrow and looked once again at the others. 'Second lesson… is know when to quit,' he answered and turned away, pulling the Watch tabard over his head and throwing it aside.
Jinn knelt to wipe the blood from his blade and paused, listening as screams echoed from the direction of the seaward wall. Annoyed, he stared down the avenue then glanced east, just a short run from the tower of Archmage Tallus.
The screams grew louder.
Cursing quietly, he followed the direction of his instincts, a slave to the celestial blood of his forced immortality. Despite himself and all argument to the contrary, he headed west, toward the screams.
The wailing screams had died down as Jinn arrived. He hid across the street from a modestly large mansion as servants and guests crowded outside an open iron gate. They huddled together for warmth, a few openly weeping as Watchmen entered and exited the home, speaking to one another in hushed voices and reporting each in turn to Lucian Dregg. The rorden seemed neither surprised nor concerned, pacing angrily outside the gates and glaring at those gathered before them. He crossed his arms as the first body was removed, covered by a stained sheet, and loaded onto an open cart. Eight more quickly joined the first, the crimson marks on each sheet
