“Let him go,” Amaranthe said.
Blood oozed from the thug’s nostrils. As soon as Sicarius stepped back, the man collapsed. A final spasm wrenched his body, then he lay still.
“Uhm.” Amaranthe stared. “That’s unexpected.”
Sicarius opened the man’s mouth and probed about with a finger.
“Think he poisoned himself?” she asked. “Or are you searching for gold teeth to help with our financial problems?”
“No residue or capsule in his mouth that I can detect, and I didn’t notice him swallow anything.”
With his knife at the man’s throat, Sicarius probably would have felt that.
She nibbled on a fingernail. “Any thoughts on what might be responsible? He’s too young to spontaneously seize up and die. Think someone…didn’t want him sharing secrets? And somehow rigged it so he’d die if he did? Is that even possible?” She had never come across the like during her enforcer career, but she had never dealt with magic in those days either. Until a few months ago, she had not known it existed.
“Possible, yes.” Sicarius rotated the dead man’s head and leaned closer. “There’s fresh scar tissue and something under his skin, a nodule or shot from a blunderbuss perhaps.”
“Does the other man have it?”
He gave her a sharp look, then examined the second body. Amaranthe slid the door open a crack to check the factory. Light and voices still spilled from the office.
“Not in exactly the same place,” Sicarius said, “but yes.”
His black dagger appeared in his hand, the metal so dark it seemed to swallow the lamplight. He sliced into one of the men’s necks, and Amaranthe looked away. She ought not be squeamish about such things by now, but the idea of cutting open a corpse to investigate inside unsettled her.
“Huh,” Sicarius said.
“What’d you find?” She drew closer, despite her stomach’s protests.
“I didn’t.” He was probing around inside the wound. Blood dripped from his fingers and onto the floor. “Whatever I felt disappeared.”
“Maybe you…imagined it?”
He gave her a flat look.
Right, he was about as imaginative as a stump.
Amaranthe waved toward the loading bay. “Shall we see if we can find evidence of tampering?”
Sicarius searched the bodies first, then slipped into an aisle formed by crates on one side and bolts of textiles piled head-high on the other. She supposed that meant yes.
Footsteps sounded in the factory. Cursing under her breath, Amaranthe cut off the lantern again. She felt her way down the aisle after Sicarius.
The heavy door slid open.
Light pushed back the shadows near the entrance. Amaranthe lunged around a crate at the end of the aisle, though she left her head out far enough to peer around the corner. The blond couple walked inside, lanterns held aloft. Alarmed chatter broke out when they spotted the bodies.
Amaranthe wished she could understand their words, though she had no trouble reading the surprise in their tones.
Sicarius touched her shoulder and murmured, “They stopped by to check something on the way to dinner. They don’t recognize the men, and they’re—”
The couple ran out the door, and darkness swallowed the bay.
“Leaving?” Amaranthe guessed.
“Going to get the enforcers,” Sicarius said.
“Emperor’s warts. We won’t have much time to investigate now.”
She relit her lantern and jogged down the aisles, eyeing crates, sewing machine parts, and more fabric than she had ever seen in one place. Nothing appeared unusual or out of place. As minutes skipped past, she clenched her fist, sure they were going to be denied clues to some heinous plot.
Steam brakes squealed outside—an enforcer vehicle pulling up, Amaranthe wagered.
Sicarius appeared out of the shadows. “We must go.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“Nothing they might have left? Nothing special they might have come to steal?”
“No.” Sicarius gripped her shoulder and rotated her toward the end of the aisle. “Go.”
Vehicle doors slammed, and voices drifted in through the open loading dock entrance. Amaranthe cut off the lantern and reluctantly let Sicarius push her toward the sliding door. They could return tomorrow night and investigate more thoroughly.
Footsteps sounded outside the roll-up door, and she picked up her pace. Flickering lamplight came from behind as enforcers crowded the loading docks.
She and Sicarius slipped past the bodies and into the factory. He halted. Another pair of enforcers had entered through the front door. Their lantern light gleamed against the brass sewing machines on that end of the building.
“Not good,” Amaranthe whispered. “If we’re seen here, it’ll incriminate us. Further.”
She knew she was stating the obvious, but Sicarius moved without comment. They crouched low, easing along the wall until they reached a corner near the entrance. She had hoped the enforcers would go down the center aisle to meet with their comrades in the loading bay, but they remained up front. One leaned against the frame of the door, and she grimaced. They must believe criminals were still on the premises, and they had set up a perimeter to watch the exits. She thumped her fist on her thigh. They—she—had dawdled too long.
Perhaps they could escape through a window, but the enforcers would spot them if they opened one at floor level. If they could reach the higher ones…
“Loft,” Sicarius murmured, following her gaze.
Amaranthe eyed the ladder leading to the second level of sewing machines. No more than a few meters from the door, it rose well within the enforcers’ sight. But Sicarius did not head that direction. She followed as he weaved through the workstations and stopped at a support post halfway down the center aisle.
Before she could question him, Sicarius shimmied up the post as if it were a rope. He lunged sideways, caught the edge of the floor above, and pulled himself through the open railing.
Not sure she was agile enough to duplicate the feat without making noise—or falling to the floor a few times—she eyed the enforcers. She had worked this part of town when she was a patroller, and these men had familiar faces. She thought she knew the name of the older fellow, but that meant little. Last she heard, she was more hated by enforcers than by anyone else, both for the role she had played in getting her old partner killed and for allying with Sicarius to—according to the newspapers—kidnap the emperor. As far as she knew, nobody knew the truth, that she and Sicarius had saved Sespian.
The enforcers turned to speak to someone outside. Figuring that was the best chance she would get, Amaranthe gripped the worn post and hopped up, digging into the support with the inside edges of her boots. Squeezing and pushing with her legs, she clawed her way toward the ceiling.
The hilt of her short sword clunked against the post. Wincing at the noise, she checked the enforcers. One frowned her direction. She froze.
The ease with which she saw them made her feel vulnerable, perched halfway up the post. She reminded herself their light should dull their night vision, and she ought be cloaked by darkness.
The enforcer walked her direction, his lantern in hand. He drew his sword as he advanced. He might not see her, but he had heard her.
Amaranthe was about to drop down and dart into the shadows when a soft clank sounded across the building, in a corner near the front door. The enforcer’s head whipped about.
Trusting the distraction came from Sicarius, Amaranthe hustled the rest of the way up the post. At the top, the smooth floorboards offered nothing to grab, and the edge of the loft hung five feet away. Figuring her legs were stronger than her arms, she maneuvered herself as best she could to push off. After a final glance toward the enforcer, who was now investigating the corner where the noise had sounded, she lunged, making a horizontal leap.
One hand caught the lip, and one didn’t. Her knuckles sm
ashed against the floorboards, and for a moment she hung by one set of fingers, her legs dangling free.
Amaranthe forced calm and pulled herself up enough to grab the lip with her loose hand. With both arms anchored, she rocked her legs from side to side to create momentum. She swung them up, catching the lip with the inside of her foot. From there, she was able to scramble though the railing.
“Good,” came Sicarius’s voice, soft and nearby.
She gaped into the darkness. “If you were right there, why didn’t you give me a hand?” she whispered.
“Training.”
If not for the enforcers below, she would have let out a long groan. Sicarius pulled her to her feet and gave her no time to complain further. Stepping carefully, toe first, she followed him across the floorboards without a sound.
Sicarius stopped below a window not visible from ground level. He eased it open, checked the alley below, then led the way outside.
Cool, damp air breezed past Amaranthe’s cheek. The brick exterior might have proved as hard, or harder, to scale than the post, but another window adorned the wall above the first, providing ledges and sills for handholds. Soon they reached the flat roof. From there, they found adjacent buildings lower than the factory and close enough to reach by jumping the alleys. When they dropped to the ground a half a block away, Amaranthe leaned against the wall to catch her breath and appreciate their escape.
Not one for idle chatter, or chatter at all, Sicarius waited in silence.
“Interesting evening,” she said, hoping to draw him out. “When you said ‘good,’ did you mean I looked good, as in all those workouts are improving my skills, or it was good that I didn’t fall?”
“Yes.”
She snorted. “Thanks.”
When he did not speak again, she headed for the street. Sicarius walked beside her.
“I guess we better check on the others,” she said. “It’s always possible they’ve found some trouble of their own.”
He said nothing.
“You’re an awful conversationalist,” Amaranthe said. “How is it possible I prefer spending time with you?”
“Most people don’t want to talk to assassins.”
“I’m a unique individual.”
“Yes,” he said, deadpan.
“I’m never quite sure if you’re complimenting me…or not.”
His eyes glinted as they passed a streetlamp. “Good.”
CHAPTER 3
When Books and Maldynado returned to the rumbling, clanking, hissing belly of the pump house, Books searched for Amaranthe with a bounce in his step. He strode into the warm boiler room, which had been claimed as the recreation/training/dining room for the group.
A knife whistled through the air, almost giving him a second shave for the day.
He jerked back as the sleek steel thudded into a scarred log propped upright in the corner. The knife, hilt quivering, joined others. Several more littered the concrete floor.
Books glowered at the thrower.
“You should knock.” Seventeen-year-old Akstyr was the age Books’s son would have been if he were alive, but there were no similarities. Dressed in oversized shirt and trousers, Akstyr wore a perpetual sneer and would have looked like he made a living mugging old ladies even without the spiked black hair and arrow-shaped gang brand on his hand. “Bad to walk up on a man handling his weapons.”
“There’s no door.” Books smothered the urge to tack on “young man,” instead tapping the brick archway for emphasis.
“Then you should at least look before popping in. We’re having a lesson.”
Basilard, the putative instructor raised an apologetic hand toward Books. The ex-pit-fighter, with a briar patch of scars crisscrossing his pale face and shaven head, appeared as thug-like as Akstyr. Yet the mute man rarely caused trouble, so Books was inclined more favorably toward him than Akstyr or—
Maldynado bumped into Books as he passed into the room, a half-devoured pastry dangling from his lips. “You tell them about the bodies yet?” he asked, the food churning in his mouth on display like concrete in a mixer.
“Bodies?” Akstyr hurled another knife into the log.
“Not yet.” Books crossed the room to check the boiler, figuring it would be safer over there than near the practice area. He peered into the furnace and was mildly surprised someone had shoveled more coal in recently. “Is Amaranthe here?”
“Nah.” Akstyr collected his knives. “She and Sicarius are out, asking about a job.”
“I’d prefer to wait so we only have to tell the story once.”
“Not me.” Maldynado grinned and launched into gory descriptions of the bodies, speculations about an evil man-eating tunnel beast, and—his favorite part—how Books had fallen into the water, gotten tangled up, and screamed like a girl being mauled by a bear. He acted out the last part, which put Akstyr on the floor in guffaws. Even the saturnine Basilard smiled with appreciation for the flamboyant storytelling.
Books turned his back to them and checked the gauges on the boiler. He fiddled with the pressure regulators and pretended he could not hear Akstyr and Maldynado’s continuing mirth.
Basilard joined him, held out a throwing knife with one hand, and twitched a sign with the other: Practice?
Though Books was not as apt at reading Basilard’s hand codes as Amaranthe—who seemed to know what others were thinking whether they used words or not—he had seen that sign often enough to know it.
“I appreciate your willingness to instruct,” Books said, “but the four hours of training Sicarius inflicts on us every morning are sufficient for me.”
At five-and-a-half-feet tall, Basilard stood a foot shorter than Books, but he had the sturdy stoutness of a brandy still. Books poked at the coals in the furnace, so he could pretend he did not see the man’s stern frown.
You practice more, Basilard signed, which Books took to mean he needed more work than the others. No great illumination there.
“If the fate of the group ever rests on me being able to hurl a knife into a person at twenty paces, I suspect we’ll be doomed, extra practice notwithstanding. I’m not even sure I could—” Books didn’t finish his thought aloud—that he did not know if he could kill anyone. Thus far, the job had not required it, not from him. Amaranthe had never implied he need do more than defend himself. Still, Akstyr and Maldynado had fallen silent, and Books sensed them listening, waiting for more laughter fodder.
Basilard merely stood, knife held out, gaze unrelenting.
“Fine.” Books took it and went to the chalk mark on the floor, the one spot from which he could usually make the throw.
Maldynado and Akstyr leaned against the wall. An audience. How delightful.
Books faced the log, lifted the knife above his shoulder, held his left arm out to sight along, and threw. The blade spun three times and landed point first in the log. It quivered a foot below the black heart some artistically challenged soul had painted in grease, but he was tickled whenever the knife did not bounce off or miss altogether.
Basilard pointed to the floor three feet farther back, and Books groaned.
Maldynado chuckled. “No bounty hunter is going to let you line up at precisely ten paces for the throw.”
“Unlike you, I don’t have a bounty on my head.” Books shuffled back and accepted another knife. “I’m here because…” He wanted to be? That wasn’t exactly it. Because Amaranthe had come to him, seeking a research assistant, and he had been tired of drinking himself into oblivion every day, dwelling on the past, and relying on his landlady’s charity to survive. If he had known he was signing up for hours of running, calisthenics, and weapons training every day, he would have kept the bottle. Maybe. A year had passed since his son died, and more seasons than that since his wife left. He had grown weary of mourning and feeling sorry for himself, but he had no other family. Two decades had disappeared since the Western Sea Conflict, where his father and older brothers, marines all, had fallen in naval batt
les. Not that they had been much of a family, even when they were alive. It depressed him to realize he was probably only here, with these men, because he did not want to be alone.
Basilard bumped his arm: Throw.
“Right,” Books murmured.
He lined up and threw again, but he judged the revolutions poorly, and the knife bounced off the log.
Not for the first time, Basilard demonstrated the no-spin method he and Sicarius used. They could stand anywhere and hit their targets; Sicarius did not even need to be standing. More than once, Books had seen the man hit moving targets while jumping off roofs, rappelling down cliffs, and other athletic feats Books could barely manage by themselves.
“Relax, Books.” Maldynado snickered as the sixth or seventh knife clattered to the floor. “I’ve never seen anybody look so uncomfortable doing—well, everything. How can you have been born in the empire and not have more familiarity with weapons? Didn’t you go to the mandatory training classes when you were a prim little student reading encyclopedias?” He pointed toward the knives. “Your arm needs to do a whip action. You’ve got to be relaxed to make that.”
“Pardon me if the idea of hurling four inches of steel into someone’s chest doesn’t relax me.”
“That’s a log, not a person,” Akstyr said.
“Though we can see how it’d be confusing,” Maldynado said. “Here’s a tip that helps me tell the difference: people scream a lot more when they get hit.”
There were times Books wished he had the gumption to walk over and punch Maldynado in the mouth. Actually, it wasn’t so much a lack of gumption as the knowledge that he would be the one who would end up with his face smashed into the floor.
Basilard waved for Maldynado and Akstyr to give up audience status and practice as well. Unfortunately, that did not silence their tormenting.
When Amaranthe walked in an hour later, Books dropped the knives and greeted her with wide arms and a hearty, “Amaranthe!” that probably sounded desperate. Fortunately, the boys tended to be more civilized when she was around. Despite her gray military fatigues, combat boots, short sword, and dark brown hair swept into a no-nonsense bun, she always struck him as the kind of girl he would have wanted for a daughter rather than some knife-hurling mercenary.