Transmuted

by Karina Cooper

  The first hand that reached for him earned a stare so pointed, so fraught with challenge, that the man who’d braved it hesitated.

  A voice cracked. “Bollocks, it’s th’ ringmaster!”

  Well informed, these door wardens.

  “Take your hands,” Hawke said, every syllable encased in velvet and steel, “off what is mine.”

  That he claimed Ashmore his was a small detail my tutor would no doubt counter later. For now, he was an intelligent man not accustomed to sacrificing his well-being for pride.

  In the seam of light, only Hawke remained clear to my eyes. He stared down the faces I could not see; a man on two legs and yet for all the world, he seemed larger than the space he occupied—stronger, much more dangerous.

  A monster in disguise.

  I swear that he did not so much as growl, and yet every hair on the back of my neck lifted as though he had; the primeval awareness of man when faced with the great terror of the dark was a thing that ran deep in every one of us.

  Every breath in that cavern stilled. Mine stuttered.

  I was used to him, had seen him imprisoned and bloody. I’d felt his body within mine, and still, he gave me pause.

  He was human. I had little enough doubt. But he was also something more.

  The moment fractured on an unsteady clearing of the throat. “Let him go,” said a voice, this one slightly more polished in tone. Hardly the same as those agents of the Crown, but suggesting of some familiarity with courtesy. “If you please, Hawke, let them go, as well.”

  Ah. So somebody knew of my companion direct. That might make this easier.

  Or much more difficult, depending on how far that knowing went and what the man might feel was owed him.

  Hawke had not taken a hold of anyone, not physically, but the sheer presence of him was as a serpent to sparrows. They had all but frozen in place beneath his stare.

  That stare pinned upon the speaker.

  “There’s no need for you to clarify your stance,” the voice continued. Reasonable fellow, really. “Bring out your companions. We will not lay hand upon them.”

  Lovely an assertion as that was, I had no reason to trust it. That they let my tutor go only meant that both were now ringed with the lanterns, and the men dimly shaped behind the glare.

  Still, it was something.

  I stepped out of the tunnel without waiting for Hawke to summon me, but I was not so foolish as to let down my guard.

  The three of us stood in a ring of light, each lamp held high enough with express intent to blind. At the very least, it soured my vision, leaving afterimages that popped when I blinked. My head struck up a painful echo, and I wondered if all the smoke I’d breathed had congealed in my scratchy throat.

  What I saw of the area was as I’d remembered it. The Underground was made up of sewage tunnels, abandoned channels once dedicated to railways that had not lasted, and many times more of passageways that no map had charted. The ceiling remained low enough that Hawke could reach up and touch the dank stone, and the overwhelming fragrance was that of sewage and rot.

  There were places where such things were less noticeable, but most who lived in the dark and dank had grown used to it. Numb, no doubt.

  A figure detached itself from them what circled us.

  He was not overly tall, and stooped beside, but thick of build and sturdy. A bit like a mule, even in face. There was little softness about him, and I garnered a glimpse of pale hair beneath a grimy cap. It was something of a top hat, but with the high bit cut off and sewn over with a patch of something that might have been red once upon a time.

  For all the intellectual awareness that shaped his words, and some of his dialect, he had powerful arms that hung a bit lower than expected of one with better posture. A large, hairy finger pointed at me. “Who’re you, then?”

  “Collector,” I said flatly. I preferred to get such matters out of the way.

  “Where’s your notice?”

  “I’ve none for my current,” I said, but offered a hand palm-up. The chit did not glow in the light; the glass was far too clouded for it. “Nevertheless, I’m here on business.”

  Ashmore watched the ring with a sharp intensity I knew made some nervous. Less monstrous than Hawke’s brand of notice, but still universally reviled; Ashmore tended to study one with the inherent demand of a teacher scrutinizing an errant schoolboy. The men closest shifted foot to foot.

  Even grimy as he was, the sheer paleness of my tutor’s complexion glowed like a moon where the lamplight touched. Soot and grime made him appear somewhat sickly, though little else about his demeanor suggested fragility.

  That I had come with two powerful men, and one rather more obviously so than the other, marked me as a body to mind. It also, in the vernacular of the territory, declared me as something more than a guttersnipe—albeit less than one of the true powers that operated below. Who those were tended to shift according to the tides of fortune.

  As ever, I occupied the uncertain role of wart. Best not to touch overly much lest it spread.

  The spokesman of the wardens took from my gloved palm the glass. He looked it over, wrinkled the whole of his face, licked the glass once, and buffed it against the tattered lapels of his jacket. When it did or did not do whatever it was he expected, he grunted and stepped away to confer with someone I couldn’t make out. A shorter bloke, maybe a carrier. He was gangly of figure, and hunched.

  He darted away, footsteps flapping against stone.

  The man returned, chit in hand, and passed it back. “You’ll have to wait a bit,” he told us.

  I pocketed the bit of glass. I’d return it to the wardens minding whatever exit I chose. This would ensure that only them with business carried the chits.

  I intended to complete my business tonight. “How long?”

  “Long as it takes,” the leader replied. His eyes were black, or perhaps just hard to see while the wardens kept us blinking.

  I frowned. “For what purpose?”

  “Any bleeding purpose we want,” the man replied, rather amiably for all the threat implicit within. “We say wait, you wait.”

  The most aggressive of my companions did not like this. For all Hawke remained motionless beside me—a looming statue caught and yet unaffected by the glaring light—I could sense the palpable impatience he mercilessly leashed.

  It startled me how much scrutiny I gave to this lack of motion; part of me still imagined Hawke that caged beast prowling back and forth before iron bars. This stillness, this utter control, felt odd upon him.

  Yet didn’t he usually exert such constraint upon himself?

  A telling thing that even I had begun to forget which was Hawke and which the beast the Veil had made of him.

  Or maybe which was the man I’d known.

  Of its own volition, my hand lifted.

  As though he knew—as though he bloody well expected it—Hawke’s fingers closed hard over mine. Trapped my hand at his side. He did not look at me.

  I could not, in that moment, look at him.

  The tableau, I was well aware, did not give the appearance of a man minding his lover.

  Yet a part of me thrummed in response. His hand was warm and dry, large and firm. Calluses that his ringmaster gloves had once hidden scraped against the knit of my glove.

  That it had been over a month since I’d felt them upon me was an inappropriate thought for such a time.

  Still, the whole of me calmed to know that he was close. That he was aware enough of me to catch my hand before it reached him.

  That he held on.

  The man who queried us did not pause to take note. “Your intentions?” he asked, politely enough for all it was directed at Hawke.

  That set my teeth on edge.

  Hawke must have realized it. Perhaps my fingers tightened in his. Perhaps it was some other instinct he bore, or simple awareness of those things that ruffled my feathers.

  Certainly, he’d made an art of ruffling the
m himself.

  His grip tightened, holding me in place. “The market,” he said for me.

  “Why?”

  “Collector’s business,” I interjected tightly, and earned a cocked eyebrow from the stooped inquisitor. “I’ve questions to ask and a quarry to find. Every moment you detain me is another he flees.”

  “Your quarry is not our problem,” the man returned. “Who are you?”

  “Just a collector,” Hawke snapped, stealing the leader’s attention more fully. “You know me.”

  “By reputation.” His eyes squinted, glinting like obsidian as he rocked back on iron- nailed boots. “The pasty one?”

  “Inconsequential.”

  I glanced at Ashmore to weigh his response to this. To my surprise, he betrayed not so much as a flicker of annoyance. In fact, he appeared remarkably serene.

  The leader must have thought the same, for he spent an inordinate amount of time peering at Ashmore. Then, sharply, “What do you bring?”

  “That remains to be seen,” I began.

  “Coin and more for barter,” Hawke cut in. This time, he shot me a sideways glower that said I was to let it go.

  I didn’t care to defer. Unfortunately, he gave me little opportunity to do otherwise.

  “Length of stay?” the man demanded.

  “No longer than dawn,” Hawke replied. The tips of his fingers curved into my palm. A message of some sort. Patience, no doubt. Or obey me.

  I looked at his swarthy hand wrapped around my glove and could not decide what part of this bothered me more. That I felt as though I was deferring, and that somehow this was wrong, or that it seemed appropriate for the moment that I allow Hawke to carry us through.

  Delegation was not an unattractive ability.

  The part of me sworn to opposing him, the same part who did not care to bend knee to a man, bristled at this.

  Yet I had bent knee to Hawke. Willingly. And the rewards had been…agreeable.

  Pride, thy name was as malleable as mine own.

  Whatever conclusion the warden came to, it settled rather more knowingly on his thick features than was particularly pleasant to watch. “As I thought,” he said. A sharp nod punctuated the words. “All right. All’s in order. Welcome to the Underground, you lot.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, stone cold courtesy delivered because it was all I had to give. Sarcasm would no doubt fly over his head.

  His wide lips wobbled into a grin he couldn’t quite muffle.

  A step behind us crunched on the rubble strewn over the ground.

  My instincts, already on edge, snapped. I began to turn, a warning on my lips, but to no avail. Whatever bodies the Underground had cultivated—them of sharp mind and keen sense, agile as rats and silent as the stray cats that hunted them—I was not acclimated to their abilities.

  The blow from a cosh I didn’t see coming shot sparks and stars through my head. Hawke’s hand tore from mine, but where I expected snarling and fury, there was only the heavy thud of his body as it folded to the cobble.

  Ashmore was a smear of vibrant red, a strangled word caught behind his teeth as the cosh that took him traced blood in the air.

  “Oops,” I heard, as though from a very long ways away.

  In my swimming vision, the stocky warden bent over me. I was kneeling. I didn’t recall sinking to my knees.

  Swaying, I thought to myself that I should raise my fists, that I should fight him—fight them all.

  “Yeah,” he said, his face swirling like water. “Sorry ’bout this. Orders is orders.”

  He drew back one large, hairy fist.

  Had he swung a hammer, it wouldn’t have made much difference. There was a sharp white sheet of pain through my head, blinding me, and then only black.

  So it came to pass that we did not enter the Underground dead, but snatched.

  And quite possibly lured into a trap.

  Chapter Ten

  I awoke sputtering.

  A woman’s face peered into mine, delicate of structure but mean of expression. She had a pretty bow mouth twisted into a sneer, and golden hair wrapped together into hanks drawn back from her face.

  Water dripped down my cheeks, pooled into the cushion I found myself sprawled on as I blotted at my stinging eyes.

  The bucket used to wake me ever so graciously thumped against the crown of my head. “You going to sleep forever, you lazy bint?”

  Charming girl, this one.

  I swiped at the bucket with my arm, shoving it off my head and back at her. It swung harmlessly to the side.

  Her fist followed suit, delivering a second thud to my aching head. “None of that. We got orders to bring you up, but a little blood won’t make no diff’rence.”

  The water clinging to my lips tasted metallic, as though I’d licked a ha’penny laced with salt. I spat the taste out, dragging my sleeve along my mouth. “Where’s my men?”

  She reared up to her full height, taller than I but with less girth about her. The greased hanks of her hair fell over her shoulder in thick bands. “Maybe you’ll find out,” she said nastily. “Maybe you’ll join ’em. Getup, or you won’t neither.”

  What a mean piece of work. I eyed her clothing, saw little of use there—no weapons or the like—but a flash of green pinned to her chest earned lifted eyebrows.

  A badge.

  As I clambered slowly to my feet, I found them hobbled by a length of loose rope doubled to ensure I could walk but with narrow stride.

  “Stay still,” the girl ordered. She wrenched my hands behind me, none too gently for it, and bound them.

  I couldn’t imagine Hawke submitting to such humiliation. Had they caged him? Hurt him? What of my tutor?

  I’d bloody well tear it out of their hides, if so.

  Poor girl minding me didn’t pay any note when I bent my wrists together, flexed in such a way as to make her think her bonds tighter than they were.

  A badge she might wear, and I had no reason to consider that bit of verdigris to be anything but, however it pleased me that she wasn’t used to them what made something of an art out of escaping.

  Well, I hadn’t rid myself of all my habits. Rightfully so.

  I smiled most amicably at her as she rounded me once more. This earned a startled stare, a visible shake and a snarled, “Let’s go.” She grabbed me by the arm and thrust me out of the cramped chamber I’d been left to rest in.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been out. An hour? More? The Underground did not see the light of day at any but the farthest reaches, where passages and caverns might give rise to cracks to the ground above. One’s sense of time skewed.

  To make it worse, the whole of my head—my sight, my hearing—felt as though it had been gummed over. Sluggish and awkward, I struggled to focus beyond the pressure congealed between my ears.

  What I could deduce was this: my escort was obviously the territorial sort, for she treated me with more swagger than necessary for a mere guard on the march. She clearly felt that she must make a mark upon me, declare herself more powerful by dint of rope and authority. However, the room I awoke in, while small, was not ill-appointed. A little gloomy, mostly made of cushions and pillows, but acceptable.

  The wardens minding the border had obviously seen something in my company that warranted a runner to whatever Underground power guarded the Wapping entrance. Whether the runner returned with news or the wardens had made a decision alone, they had chosen to ensure we could not flee.

  Hawke was still known enough that bringing harm to his person might not appeal to whosoever demanded us captured. Then again, it was a rare band of thieves that considered a coshing harm.

  Of all of us, it was Ashmore I feared for the greatest. I could talk as low as any guttersnipe, and Hawke was never known to be a man of Society. My tutor, on the other hand, could barely say a word without giving rise to questions of breeding.

  The girl caught the front of my coat in one twisted fist and dragged me at a brisk pace along halls
that seemed dark but clean. Lanterns sparkled as we passed beneath them, stirred into dancing by the briskness of the gait she set.

  That it pushed my hampered stride to the farthest only caused me to stumble, and this seemed rather her point.

  I allowed it. Despite the abrasions formed beneath the knotty rope, I suffered through this small humiliation with my teeth set and a plan forming.

  Clean interiors. Underlings with a badge.

  Enough sway to force a border watcher to send a runner.

  Power had shifted in the Underground. Someone, or a group of same, had risen to a place of authority. Like the gangs of the streets, this was usually done by a matter of wealth; not only in coin, but in information and men, as well.

  Who, then, had claimed Wapping’s Underground as their territory?

  The girl swung open a door, and without ceremony, shoved me through. I stumbled across the threshold, blinded by the sudden flare of searing light.

  A sharper glint of it winked at my left.

  A voice shouted, “Begin!”

  Obeying instincts I had long since learned never to question, I allowed the girl’s momentum to force me to my knees, then threw myself backwards until my shoulders and hips lay nearly flush with the floor.

  The air hissed over my face, a whisper of motion too fast for my eyes to trace.

  Though it tore at the skin of my wrists, I bent my hands, worked them out from under my captor’s hasty knots, and was already moving when the same glint—a line of light caught on a steel edge—reversed momentum and came for me again.

  My heart slammed as I pulled myself into a backwards walkover; energy fueled my reflexes, rode me as I completed a second turn. The flip would have done my circus days proud.

  A sword sheared through the bonds tied at my ankles.

  A man yelled in dismay.

  The girl who’d thought me secure shrieked an uncivility, and in the corner of my sight, her features flushed.

  I did not turn to face her. That would be a death sentence with the wielder of that agile sword at hand.

  The figure that came for me was wrapped in black. Little enough could be seen otherwise, and it gave me no opportunity to try as my opponent harried me across a wide ring of floor. The sword flashed and gleamed, silvered edge caught in the lamplight. I ducked and dodged, sidestepped each meticulous swing.