Mancrest ignored him. Hands gripping the bars, he told Amaranthe, “It’s my duty and obligation to capture criminals if I have a chance.”
“Our duty sometimes lands us in unpleasant circumstances.” A fact she knew well, since following duty was what had set her on the path that resulted in her becoming an outlaw. She nodded toward the key ring. “I can make it easier for you to unlock yourself, if you tell me what you know about Sicarius’s capture and the kidnappers in general.”
Mancrest’s shoulders drooped, and he leaned his forehead against a bar. He chuckled ruefully. “When I imagined how tonight would end, it involved me questioning you about what you knew, not the other way around.”
“He should have come up with a more clever ploy then,” Books said out of the corner of his mouth to Maldynado.
“For once, we agree,” Maldynado said back.
“Was this interrogation you imagined happening here or at Enforcer Headquarters?” Amaranthe asked.
“Fort Urgot,” Mancrest said.
“I’ve been questioned there before. I don’t care to arrange another visit. Are you going to provide the information I requested, or not?”
“What will you do with the information?”
“Rescue my men and stop the kidnappers from whatever it is they’re doing,” Amaranthe said. “Given the nefarious nature of the disappearances, I doubt it’s wholesome.”
“Why are you bothering?” Mancrest asked. “I understand your comrades are missing, but you were involved in this before that, were you not?”
“I want exoneration, so I help the empire when I can. Now, speak.” She gave him her best icy-cold-Sicarius stare. Given the hours she had wasted coming to Pyramid Park, it was not difficult to muster.
Still leaning his forehead against the bars, Mancrest considered her. His eyes flicked downward, taking in her newly acquired rifle. “I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t killed me for my attempts at trapping you.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Amaranthe said.
“I might,” Maldynado said. “Since you keep using me to get at her. Street licker.”
“No,” Mancrest said, holding Amaranthe’s gaze. “I’m beginning to see that. I don’t know who has Sicarius, only that an anonymous message came into Enforcer Headquarters, informing them he’d been captured and would be delivered dead by the week’s end.”
Amaranthe’s breath caught. A steam tramper stomped all over her theory that these kidnappers were collecting superior athletes to turn them into soldiers. If they intended to kill Sicarius in a few days...
She closed her eyes. Then she had a few days to find him. That was what she needed to focus on.
“Also...” Mancrest slipped a hand into a pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “One of the rookies brought me this advertisement for approval. Someone mailed it in with scrip from a mining outfit.”
Amaranthe’s ears perked. Mining outfit?
“I disapproved it. The Gazette doesn’t accept ads for just any business, certainly not anything that sounds like a spiel from a pitchman’s oiled tongue, and we don’t take scrip for payment either. Later I realized it came in a couple of days before the first abduction. It could be unrelated, but...” He spread a hand, palm up. “Perhaps not.”
Curiosity piqued, Amaranthe took the paper from him. Before it had been folded, it had been crinkled, as if it had spent time in a wastebasket. Books peered over her shoulder at it.
Foreman got you down? Do you deserve more? A home on the Ridge? A say in the government? It’s all possible. Invest in your future now. Enquire at the Imperial Tea House.
“Interesting,” Books said. “Perhaps a recruiting letter that was intended to gather more miners?”
“Raydevk didn’t seem too bright,” Amaranthe said. “I could see him trying to recruit people for criminal activities in a newspaper.”
Mancrest’s grip tightened on the gate bars. “Raydevk? That’s the name I got when I checked at the tea house. Is this tied in with the missing people?”
“It’s possible.” Amaranthe handed the note to Books to study further. For all she knew, he could do some handwriting analysis to identify likely culprits. “We had a run-in with some miners. What else did you learn at the tea house?”
“Little,” Mancrest said. “Despite the lofty name, it’s run by the same people that own half of the mines in the mountains, and it’s something of a slum establishment for lowly workers who can only pay in company scrip.”
“I know it,” Amaranthe said, her tone cool. “My father used to go there when he was in town.”
“Oh.”
“Smooth tongue there, Mancrest,” Maldynado said.
“Yes, uhm, they picked me out as warrior-caste right away,” Mancrest said, “and nobody answered my questions. I was trying to find out where the fellow lived and what he was selling.”
“Perhaps we’ll check it out later,” Amaranthe said. “We have another mission tonight.”
“If you find out anything,” Mancrest said, “and you need any help...”
“Oh, sure,” Maldynado said. “You’ve only tried to lure us into traps twice. Let’s arrange another meeting. Maybe the third time, you’ll figure out how to get us.”
“I understand why you might not be quick to trust me,” Mancrest said.
Amaranthe snorted.
“But—” he lifted a finger, “—if you seek exoneration, then you’ll want me there to witness your magnificent capture of the perpetrators. As a man from the warrior-caste, I would also be obligated to report the truth as I saw it.”
She watched his face, trying to decide if he was eager for a story or if he simply wanted another chance to ensnare her. If he had gone to this tea house, then it might indicate the former. But Maldynado was right. She’d be an idiot to give him another chance to betray her.
“I’ll think about it,” Amaranthe said. “Gentlemen.” She nodded to Maldynado and Books. It was time to go.
They started down the corridor, but Mancrest cleared his throat.
Ah, the keys. Right.
Amaranthe removed them from the protruding stone on the wall and dropped them on the floor in front of the shop.
“Didn’t you say you’d let me out if I shared what I knew?” Mancrest eyed the keys. They were closer but still too far for him to reach.
“I said I’d make it easier for you to unlock yourself,” Amaranthe said. “Now you’ll only need one clothes hanger instead of two. Good night.”
She, Maldynado, and Books headed out. Midnight had to be growing near, and they had much work to do.
CHAPTER 10
Soft rain pattered onto the cobblestones and railway tracks alongside the street. Amaranthe pedaled up the waterfront, trying to hover above the damp bicycle seat in an attempt to avoid a wet backside. Maldynado rode alongside, his knees nearly clunking his own chin with each revolution—he had been unable to find a taller model left on the communal rack and had refused a couple of larger bicycles that appeared “too feminine.” That it was well after midnight and no one was around to see him riding did not seem to matter.
He also balanced the soldier’s rifle across the handlebars. Tonight, it might be worth risking the unwanted attention of being spotted with firearms in the city. Amaranthe wore a pistol on her sword belt, opposite the blade. A light jacket hid the firearm, and Maldynado could always toss the rifle if potential witnesses spotted them.
They pedaled through darkness punctuated by puddles of light from gas lamps. On the other side of the tracks, water lapped at the pilings of docks, many supporting towering warehouses, all dark this time of night. Amaranthe supposed they would not luck across one with a brightly painted sign that read, “Kidnapped athletes stored here.” This time of year, the docks saw a lot of traffic and would make a poor hideout for those engaging in felonious activities.
“There’s the spur.” Maldynado pointed at tracks veering inland, away from the main line. The wet steel gleamed under
the influence of a corner street lamp.
“Let’s check it,” Amaranthe said.
She turned onto the street, glad to leave the bumpy cobblestones for a modern cement avenue. A hill loomed, though, and Maldynado grumbled under his breath, something about it being less work to carry the small bicycle up the incline than to pedal.
Warehouses continued for the next few blocks, and commercial and residential tenements rose beyond that. Amaranthe doubted they needed to search that far up the hill.
“What are we looking for exactly?” Maldynado asked.
“A door large enough to hide that rail carriage.” Amaranthe yawned. She was starting to feel the lateness of the hour. “Though freight cars are sometimes shunted up the sidings, they don’t spend the night. Our kidnappers have to be able to hide their conveyance when they’re not using it.”
“A lot of these doors are big.”
“But are they big with railway tracks leading beneath them?”
“Ah, not all. Just...” Maldynado pointed. “There’s one.”
Amaranthe parked her bicycle against the brick wall of a building on the opposite side of the street. They were between lamp-lit intersections, so shadows would hide them from anyone looking out a window. Not that she expected to chance upon the villain’s hideout in the first place they checked, but one never knew.
A couple of blocks up the hill, a ponderous steam vehicle rolled onto the street with twin lanterns lighting its way. It had the girth of a rail car itself, and swinging mechanical arms stuck out of the upper portion of both sides, like a pair of bug antennae. A stench reminiscent of burning hair wafted down the street ahead of it.
“What is that hideous thing?” Maldynado had also dismounted and leaned his bicycle against the wall.
“You’ve never seen a garbage steamer?” Amaranthe asked. “How can you have lived your whole life in the city without seeing one?”
“I don’t know.” He clasped a hand over his nose. “I tend to run the other way when I smell a stench like that in the middle of the night.”
The vehicle trundled to a stop and a soot-caked man with a greasy beard and hair in need of scissors hopped out. He grabbed a couple of ash cans in an alley and dumped them into the back. He opened the door to an incinerator that burned independently of the firebox powering the boiler. The contents of a bronze waste bin went into the flames.
“Why don’t you take a look at that building?” Amaranthe waved to the one they had stopped to check. “I’m going to talk to that fellow. If he works at night, he may have seen something suspicious on his route.”
“Be careful,” Maldynado said. “He looks dangerous, like he doesn’t see daylight too often. Probably not women either.”
“So, he’ll be happy to see me.”
“He’d be happier if you were in something less...well, less. What happened to the disguise I got you before we went into the mountains?”
“The one that showed more skin than most people reveal in the public baths? Sicarius didn’t like it.”
“First off,” Maldynado said, “you shouldn’t take fashion advice from someone whose wardrobe is monochromatic. Second, he didn’t like it? How could a male not like seeing an attractive young female in that outfit? Whatever is wrong with that man is no small thing.”
“I’ll let you tell him that when we find him.”
Amaranthe waved him toward the building and jogged up the hill.
“Hello,” she called to the man, not wanting to startle him. A second fellow sat in the cab of the vehicle, and she lifted a hand in greeting toward him as well.
The garbage collector nearly dropped the can in his arms when he spotted her. He glanced over his shoulder, perhaps thinking she was speaking to someone else.
“That’s a nice looking steamer,” Amaranthe said as she drew near. She fought the urge to crinkle her nose, not entirely sure all the foul smells came from the vehicle.
He scratched his tangled hair, probably trying to figure out why a woman was running up to him in the middle of the night. “Yup, yup ‘tis.”
“I was wondering what those arms do.” She pointed at the articulating antennae-like devices.
“Yup, yup, they’re for fetching big pieces outta hard-to-reach spots. See them claspers at the end?” The man went on to detail dozens of features of the vehicle, which turned out to be a brand new model. After a barked warning from his co-worker, he continued to work while he talked.
Amaranthe walked beside him and grunted encouragingly from time to time, figuring they were bonding. The man ought to think her less odd if they had established a rapport before she started pumping him for information.
“Yup, she’s a real fine lady.” He finished by patting the vehicle on the side. “You want to ride along a spell?”
“Tempting,” she said, “but I’m on a quest.”
“Oh?” He scraped his fingers through his tangled beard.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a fancy black rail carriage rolling through this neighborhood late at night? It would have been in the last two...”
She trailed off, since he was already nodding.
“Seen that beauty a couple of times. That’s a custom job. Ain’t no factory-made model, no, ma’am.”
“Did you see it on this street?” she asked.
“Naw, over on West Monument. Saw it rolling out of the old fire brigade building a little after midnight a few nights back.”
“Monument, good, thank you.” A nervous flutter disturbed her stomach. That was the direction she had sent Books and Akstyr. “I don’t suppose you’re heading over that way?” she asked, thinking of the proffered ride. It would be faster than the bicycles if she could convince these fellows to detour from their route—and not pick up trash on the way.
“Naw.”
“Any chance you could be convinced to head that way?”
“Well, my partner drives, so reckon I gots to ask him.” The man held up a finger, then swung up to address the person manning the controls.
While they conversed, Amaranthe looked for Maldynado. She could signal him to stop searching the buildings off this spur if she spotted him, but nothing stirred on the street. A muggy breeze whispered off the lake, bringing harder rain. Another reason to switch from bicycles to covered conveyances.
“...take that long,” her scruffy ally was saying.
The only word Amaranthe caught in the response was “teats.” She arched her eyebrows. The fellow might be invoking the ancient imperial platitude about the unfairness of suckling on a dog’s rearmost teats, or he might be referencing her chest. Neither sounded promising.
“...nice girl,” Scruffy said. “...not going to do that.”
“Nice?” the response came, voice louder. “Nice girls don’t roam the streets at two in the morning. They’re home with their fathers or husbands.”
“Ssh. I’m not asking her...”
No, this did not sound good at all. She took a step forward, thinking she had better handle the negotiating, but Scruffy swung down and faced her first.
“Sorry,” he said, “but Chalts figgers we’re going to get took down by our boss if we delay our route that much, so it’s got to be real worth the hollering at.” He shuffled his feet and prodded one of the vehicles fat tires. “He says we’ll do it if you show us—show him—your, uh...”
“Emperor’s warts, Scuv, we’ll be here all night if you talk.” The second man leaned out of the cab so the lights on the vehicle illuminated his face. He was comelier than his scruffy comrade, but that did not make Amaranthe appreciate his request more. “Pull up your shirt and show us some teats, and we’ll give you a ride.”
While she had paid greater prices for things before, she doubted a mercenary leader striving to build a reputation for competence should entertain such an offer. She unbuttoned her jacket, intending to show them her pistol rather than any skin.
“She’s going to do it!” Scruffy whispered in an aside to his comrade.
“Told you,” the other muttered. “She probably—oomph!”
Without further warning, the man flew out of the cab and crashed to the street at his comrade’s feet. A familiar figure slid into the vacated seat—Maldynado. The soldier’s rifle rested across his lap.
“I haven’t even seen under her shirt,” he said, “so there’s no way you two shrubs are going to get a show.” He gave her a wide-eyed significant look, as if to ask what she had been thinking by unbuttoning her jacket.
Amaranthe smiled and lifted the garment to display the pistol.
“Ah, right.” Maldynado wriggled his fingers. “You coming? I’m sure I can drive this.”
“You want to steal it?” She eyed the garbage workers.
Scruffy was helping his comrade to his feet amidst much groaning.
“I just wanted a ride,” Amaranthe added.
“Aw, come on, boss,” Maldynado said. “I haven’t gotten to abscond with an official imperial vehicle since we molested those soldiers up at that secret lake.”
“We didn’t molest them, we helped them.” Amaranthe rubbed her face. It was so difficult to establish a reputation for being a doer of good. “These two gentlemen were going to give us a ride. I don’t think we need to steal their vehicle and get them in trouble.”
The man Maldynado had thrown out lunged for the cab, his hand balled into a fist and drawn back to throw a punch. He halted mid-swing when the rifle whipped up. The cold steel muzzle pressed against his forehead.
“I don’t think we want these fellows riding along with us,” Maldynado said.
The driver backed down, arms raised. “Told you she wasn’t nice,” he muttered to Scruffy.
“What did I do?” Amaranthe asked.
Both men glared at her. Maldynado grinned. Yes, this might have gone past the point of salvaging with words. She took out her pistol. Though she did not point it their direction, she made sure they saw it.
“You two have any rope in there?” she asked Scruffy.
“Spare winch cable.”
“Can you get it, please?”