The Viper and the Urchin: A Novel of Steampunk Adventure (Bloodless Assassin Mysteries Book 1)

by Celine Jeanjean

  “You sure you want to leave?” asked Jake. “We got a good thing going here.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “You never told me what the big deal is with learning to fight with swords, you know.”

  Rory shrugged with all the nonchalance she could muster. It had been ten years since she had met the Scarred Woman, and she had never breathed a word of it to anyone. Not even to Jake. The years had washed the woman’s features from her memory, but to this day Rory could still picture how her rapier had gleamed, how smooth and fast her movements had been, and how easily she had despatched that giant of a man. Rare was the night when Rory didn’t dream she was the Scarred Woman.

  “Just something I’ve always wanted to do, that’s all.” She kicked a piece of unidentifiable rotten fruit out of the way.

  The truth was that it consumed her. She thought of little else — all she wanted was to be a warrior, a hero, like the Scarred Woman. She was also well aware of how ridiculous that ambition was, coming from her. She had been sixteen for about two years now — not knowing exactly how old she was, she picked whatever age suited her — and although she knew her real age was probably around eighteen, she was still small enough to pass for fourteen. And a scrawny fourteen-year-old at that.

  The reaction of the last sword preceptor she had approached before Master Xian was still as fresh as ever in her mind. She had laughed. A big belly laugh, as though Rory’s dreams were a joke. Rory clenched her fists at the memory. The sword preceptor had shooed her away like all the others, and her apprentice had given Rory a good kick up the arse that had sent her sprawling out the door and into the gutter.

  “Gutter rats don’t wield rapiers,” the lad had said before slamming the door.

  Passersby had laughed too, a few shaking their heads and wondering at the delusions of an urchin trying to become a swordfighter.

  Master Xian hadn’t laughed, he had simply named an eye-watering price.

  “You still gonna be a cobbler?” she asked to change the subject.

  “I reckon so,” Jake said. “My Da was a damned good cobbler, and I remember some.”

  “Well, when I’m a famous hero, I’ll come to you and only you to fix my boots.”

  Jake grinned. “Aye, and I’ll only rip you off by half.”

  Rory punched him on the arm. “As if I’d believe you’d rip me off for anything less than the rest.”

  “Fair.”

  They reached the chaotic warren of lanes that was the Rookery, and the air became thicker, full of the cloying stench of mould and decay. Banyan trees poked out randomly from streets and houses, their roots crawling through the cobblestones, their dead leaves and inedible fruits covered in guano, rotting on the ground. Shacks were built resting against their trunks, some turned into little stalls from which cobblers, minor-repair machinists, and other small tradesmen operated. Men, women, and children milled about the streets, calling, shouting, fighting, hawking wares, and arguing, their voices louder than the seagulls.

  Rory and Jake walked past houses that sagged on rain-saturated wooden frames; only a few had been able to afford the conversion to steelwood beams. Some covered their beams with tar, and the rest made do with houses that sweated and rotted under the weight of the humidity.

  Rory waved and called out greetings while Jake stayed silent, only pushing the low-hanging laundry lines out of his way. He had never been one for social niceties. Rory, on the other hand, understood the importance of having friends. The kind of friends that, if you asked after her, would say, ‘Rory? Never ’eard of her. Not seen anyone like that in these parts. You must be thinking of some other lass.’ Those kinds of friends were invaluable, especially when you were in the business of relieving people of their belongings.

  Rory and Jake reached a deserted lane that was more rotten than the rest, and they made their way to a solitary house, its neighbours little more than a pile of rubble overtaken by banyan trees. One side of the house had caved in so that it looked lopsided, like an old man after a stroke. A banyan tree had sprouted on what was left of the roof, its web of roots stretching down what remained of the house’s front like a caul.

  Rory went in first. Inside, there was no first floor to speak of — only a few beams remained. She found the familiar footholds on the wall and began to climb towards the yawning hole in the roof.

  When she reached the top, she walked carefully along an exposed beam until she reached a single black steelwood pillar that stuck out of the house’s side like a finger. A thick coil of rope was tied to it, and she threw it down to Jake.

  Jake lifted himself up the rope easily, the muscles on his bare arms bulging under his brown skin. Rory left him to it, making her way over to their little shelter by the banyan tree. It had taken them a couple of years to build something that could withstand the summer storms, and while the current effort didn’t look like much, it kept out wind and water.

  Rory walked past the shelter and lifted up a couple of tiles, uncovering a niche that held two bulging purses. She took them out, checking their weight, and sat down cross-legged with the purses between her legs to keep them from rolling away. Jake heaved himself up, pulled the rope with him, and came to sit next to her. He picked up his purse, hefted it with one hand, and his normally ugly features broke into a delighted grin.

  “That’s a good bit of coinage, that is.”

  Rory began counting out the day’s takings. Some silver bits, a couple of half coppers and half silvers, five full coppers and a single, beautifully whole and shiny silver. Rory held it up with an appreciative whistle. It was almost perfectly round, if you squinted and ignored where the edges had been shaved or clipped.

  The process of sharing out the loot began. They each hunted around their purses for silver and copper bits to make change for the whole and half coins, carefully weighing them out in their hands to make sure the trades were fair. The flip of a coin, spun just right by Rory’s expert hand, determined that she would get the full silver, and in exchange she gave Jake a few silver bits. He got the extra full copper in a similar arrangement.

  “Coming to the Old Girl’s Arms, then?” asked Jake, carefully putting his coin pieces away.

  “Nah, told you, don’t have the stomach for it. Gonna wait here until it’s time.”

  “Come on, don’t be boring, come for a drink. My treat. Old time’s sake and all that.”

  Rory hesitated. She knew it would be fun to go to the Old Girl’s Arms and chew the fat with Jake, but she couldn’t risk being late and missing the steam galley. Besides, with Jake it was never just the one drink.

  “Not gonna risk it,” she replied. “You could wait with me, though. Escort me to the docks, make the most of my sparkling conversation while you can, and all that.” She winked.

  “Your conversation would be a hell of a lot more sparkly if I could experience it with a pint of cider in my hand.” Jake stood up, pocketed the purse, and stretched, his back cracking like the knees of an old supplicant. “Gods’ breath, that feels good!”

  “The purse or the stretch?”

  “Both.” He grinned. “Come on —” He nudged Rory with his boot. “Come to the Old Girl’s Arms. Just one, and that’s a promise.”

  Rory was tempted — if anything, it would steady her nerves before her adventures began.

  “Well, alright…maybe one.”

  “Atta girl! Reckon you’ll see something real special, too. I feel a lucky streak coming on.”

  “Hold on — you’re going gambling?”

  “Just a little flutter. I got plenty to spare —” Jake patted the pocket containing the purse “— and I’m pretty sure today’s gonna be my day.”

  “Seriously? Jake, how many times you got to lose everything for it to register in your thick head that nobody’s ever lucky with cards? Anyone would think you wanted to be poor for the rest of your life.”

  A chill settled, despite the sweltering midday heat. Jake didn’t reply, looking sulkily at the ground.
Rory looked away, frustrated with his stubbornness, and annoyed at herself for lecturing him when she was just about to leave Damsport.

  The silence stretched on, heavy and uncomfortable.

  “Well, I guess that means you’re not coming,” Jake said at last, breaking the silence, “so I’ll see you when I see you.”

  He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and turned away. Rory’s stomach lurched. This wasn’t how she had wanted to part ways. She tried to think of something to say, but no words came to her. Jake disappeared down into the ruined house.

  She stared at the space where he had been for a moment, a tight feeling in her chest. Of course she was still excited to leave and become a hero. Of course. But dammit if she wasn’t sad now, too.

  Chapter 2

  Longinus sat at a corner table in the Hand and Tankard, surveying the room. He had swapped the black silks he wore as the Viper for simple leathers, the better to blend in with the crowd. He found it best to tone down his natural elegance when mixing with common folk. That said, he was unable to compromise on the cut of his clothes, and he had had his leathers tailored to within an inch of their lives. A shame that he was sitting down, really; they showed off his figure so exquisitely he should have stood at the bar, the better to be admired.

  He listened to the talk around him, waiting for the gossip on the Viper’s exploits. He had spent the last few days locked away writing pamphlets about his most recent kill, and he had left them at the docks first thing that morning for a lucky few to find and read. He liked to think that his prose did more than inform the wider public of the Viper’s actions — it elevated their minds, too.

  Which was why he was growing rapidly annoyed with the direction the conversations were taking: the weather, the upcoming Revels, and speculation as to whether the Old Girl, the Marchioness of Damsport, was going to pass the torch to her daughter. All of it without interest. It was incredible what mundane banalities the small-minded could find interesting.

  Unfortunately, he had to rely on them to spread his reputation about town. His notoriety was improving, but it was nowhere near what it ought to be. The guards always tried to hush his activities, so he had to help things along by distributing his pamphlets. Notoriety helped him get commissions, but most importantly, one could only be an artist if one was spoken of. There was nothing worse for an assassin than obscurity.

  At last, a woman he knew by sight on account of her starched white apron arrived. Mistress White Apron sat down and regarded the others around her table with the kind of smugness particular to a woman about to unveil a fresh piece of gossip.

  “Have you heard the latest on the Smallport killing?”

  At last! Longinus smiled. Mistress White Apron could always be counted on. Maybe he should find out where she lived and distribute his pamphlets directly to her door.

  “Yeah, I hear it were that Viper character again,” said a sailor.

  “Everyone knows that,” said the woman with contempt. “He leaves a card behind. But have you heard the particulars? Hmm?” She looked at the faces of her audience, so puffed up with self-satisfaction she almost seemed to be expanding. Longinus beamed. The saintly woman was about to unveil his new poison.

  Mistress White Apron leaned forward. “I have it on good authority that he skinned his victim. Slipped the skin right off, like you do with a rabbit.”

  Longinus almost fell off his stool. Skinned? Skinned? Had that idiot even read his pamphlet?

  What is the point of me writing them if these simpletons blithely ignore them?

  “Oh really? I heard it were poison,” said another woman.

  “Not this time,” said Mistress White Apron. “I heard it from my cousin’s sister-in-law’s nephew. He works with the guards.” She lowered her voice. “I hear the Viper even drinks the blood of his victims, like a vampire.”

  Longinus felt himself go green at the thought.

  Ridiculous, this is ridiculous…

  But there was nothing ridiculous about the image that was now firmly imprinted in his mind.

  “You’re making it up,” said the sailor, obviously disgusted.

  “I am not,” sniffed Mistress White Apron. “Just because you can’t handle —”

  “If I might interrupt,” said a small pinched man at a table next to them. “I saw the body myself and…”

  Longinus couldn’t listen to any more. The butchery of his art was almost as unbearable as the thought of the Viper drinking blood. He fumbled into his purse and produced two coins, which he threw on the counter before hurrying out.

  “Hey, I haven’t weighed them,” shouted the barkeep.

  Longinus ignored him, pushing the door open with trembling hands. Once out, he leaned against the wall, taking deep gulps of air. The barkeep hadn’t run out after him, and he guessed that his coins had been heavy enough for his meal and drink. Not that it was a surprise: Longinus’ fingers were unrivalled in their ability to estimate a coin’s weight.

  When he felt steadier, he peeled himself from the wall. He needed to get home to rest before the night’s job, and tomorrow he would address this gross misunderstanding of his art. He couldn’t have all these ridiculous rumours circulating about the Viper. He would simply have to increase the volume of pamphlets and distribute them more widely.

  The propensity of the common man’s mind to turn to the violent and bloody really was intolerable.

  Chapter 3

  The five-o’clock cacophony began with the clatter of bells, as usual. It was quickly followed by a swelling of drums, steam trumpets, gongs, water chimes, and whatever other instruments the temples used to mark the hour. Timekeeping was as fluid a notion in Damsport as Rory’s age: each of the myriad of temples had its own concept of time, so that every hour the o’clock was sounded for a good fifteen minutes.

  When silence returned, indicating that it was some time after five, Rory got up and stretched. Time to go. The Starry Inn wasn’t far, but she wouldn’t take any chances. She kissed a couple of her talismans at random, not caring who she prayed to as long as whoever it was listened and brought her luck.

  She gathered her meagre possessions: a silk line and grappling hook, which she wrapped around her waist, and a Talegian steel dagger. The dagger was unusual, fashioned out of a single piece of steel, the handle curved to look like a peacock’s head, the blade itself like the sweep of tail feathers. It was small, the blade thin, but it was as sharp as a razor, and Rory loved it more than anything in the world.

  She was about to take her purse when she heard the whistle that meant Jake was outside. Grinning, she hurried over to lower the rope.

  “Well, I’m flattered that you’ve interrupted your drinking to come say goodbye,” she called as she went back to pocket the purse, carefully making sure the bulge wasn’t visible through her tunic. She pulled on her threadbare trousers to tuck as much as she could into her boots, a token effort at looking respectable. “Or is it that you’ve come to escort me to the docks? I think an escort would be fitting for the — stone the gulls, what happened to your face?”

  Jake hauled himself onto the roof with a grunt. His lip and nose were bleeding, as was a nasty gash on his eyebrow. An angry swelling shut his eye and another bruise bloomed on his jaw like an ugly flower. He moved gingerly, in obvious pain.

  “I’m sorry, Rory,” he said, slurring ever so slightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  Her stomach relocated to her boots when a second head poked out from the hole in the roof.

  “Jake, who is that?”

  Jake shook his head, not meeting her eye. The man came and stood next to him, and it was like a boulder settling into place. Jake and the man were as tall as each other, but the newcomer was even beefier, with no neck to speak of, so that his head seemed to be skewered directly onto his shoulders. Rory took a step back.

  “I’m sorry, Rory, I really am,” said Jake. “I just need a little. Maybe half. You’ll still have plenty to go on with.
I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

  Rory shook her head. “You ain’t getting nothing from me. I can’t pay for the steamer if you take half, and you know it. This is your shit, you deal with it.”

  As she spoke, another man climbed up to the roof, and then a third. They looked like copies of the first: neckless wonders with scowling faces.

  “Alright,” said the first. “I didn’t come here to listen to a domestic with your girlfriend. She got the money?”

  When Jake didn’t answer, the man swung a fist into his kidneys, and he groaned in pain.

  “I don’t like silences,” said the man. “She got the money?”

  Jake nodded miserably.

  “You boys stay away from me, alright,” said Rory. “I ain’t got nothing to do with this. This ain’t my man, and this ain’t my business.” She stepped further back, all too aware that she was cornered. There was nowhere for her to climb from where she was. She pulled out her dagger.

  “Well, well, seems we have ourselves a kitten with a claw,” said the second.

  “Rory, don’t make things worse than they are,” pleaded Jake. “I’ll make it up to you one way or another, I promise. Just give them what they want so they’ll leave.”

  Two of the men advanced on Rory, the third standing menacingly next to Jake. When they were close enough to her, Rory lashed out at the first thug with her dagger. He dodged easily, moving his bulk with surprising speed. The other grabbed hold of her, pinning her arms to her sides. She squirmed and kicked uselessly.

  “Get off me, you fish-brained cretin!”

  The first thug patted her down, found the purse, and took it.

  “Hey,” protested Jake, “you only need half of that.”

  “Half of the purse is to pay my employer, the other half is my fee for inconveniencing me. Time’s a precious commodity, and I don’t like mine wasted.”

  The thug released Rory with a shove, sending her staggering dangerously close to the edge.