The Holver Alley Crew

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  The wrong key, Asti thought. A very wrong key. Asti looked about, desperate to change the subject. “Is this a jail cell or something?”

  “No,” Win mused. “This is Saint Bridget’s. One of the sleeping cells for the order.”

  “How—how the blazes did we get here?” Asti lowered his voice, as if the priests might be listening. Or the saints themselves.

  “Once you started thrashing, and Lesk realized which way the water was flowing, he—you have to remember the look on his face, Asti.”

  “Afraid I don’t.”

  “It really was, the way it fell, I just . . .” He laughed, full and rich. “Saints, that was something to see, his whole air just collapsed like a bad cake.”

  “How did we get in the church?”

  “Sorry, I’m getting to it. Anyway, Lesk ran, ran like blazes out Kimber’s back door. You went after him, leaving the rest of his thugs bleeding and moaning on the floor. You chased him down the alley, out through the square, and up the steps of Saint Bridget’s.”

  “Middle of the street, me covered in blood, him running?” Asti asked. “How am I not in shackles at the Constabulary?”

  “Would you let me tell you?” Win shook his head. On some level, Asti was thrilled. This was the most life he had seen out of Win since the fire. “Anyway, you were right on him, and I did my best to keep up with you. Right when he reached the top of the steps, you grabbed him by the neck and just picked him up off the ground like a doll.”

  Asti could scarcely believe that. “Seriously, Win, that’s not—”

  “I’m in a house of God and saints, Asti, and that is what I saw.”

  “All right, so then what?”

  “You pulled him close, his ear right to your mouth—”

  “I bit it off?” Asti’s hand went to his mouth on instinct.

  “No!” Win sounded shocked that Asti even suggested it. “You whispered something to him.”

  “What?” Of everything Win had told him, this shocked him the most. “What did I whisper?”

  “If you don’t know, then only Lesk and the saints do. I was at the bottom of the steps, still catching my breath. After you said it, you tossed him down the steps. He landed, broken and bruised, at my feet. And you just . . . crumpled.”

  “This is where the sticks should have grabbed me.”

  “They were there, but so were the priests. They were right at the door, and they pulled you inside.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I’m not entirely clear, but the Constabulary did come running up to the church doors for you. The priests told them that you were under their sanctuary and that they would not bind you.”

  Asti was unable to comprehend why they would do that. Typically one would have to directly ask for sanctuary, and most priests would be loath to grant it to someone who had just thrashed another man on the church steps.

  “About then is when I got involved, and Kimber arrived. She lodged a direct complaint against Nange and his friends, that they came into her establishment and drew weapons. She told them they were asked to leave, and then her employee used force to remove them.”

  “Her employee would be me?”

  “I added myself as witness,” Win said. “The long and short is, the sticks had little choice but to leave you be and bind Lesk.”

  “Nange got bound?” Asti couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “That does put a nice cap on things.”

  “I thought it would cheer you,” Win said.

  “So . . . can I leave the church? Once I get cleaned up, of course.”

  “As far as I know. I have some fresh clothes for you here. Kimber brought them over.”

  “Kimber, she’s . . . she’s not here, is she?”

  “No.” Win picked up the bundle of clothes from the floor. “She put on a good show for the Constabulary, but you . . . this whole business really shook her. She didn’t want to see you. She told . . . she told the priest she was afraid for your soul.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Asti muttered. He took the washbasin from Win. “I’ll take care of myself here. You . . . you can go on, get ready for tonight. I’ll see you at the stable.”

  Win hesitated. “Are you certain?”

  “This . . . this isn’t the first time the key has turned, Win.”

  Win got to his feet. “I’ll see you there, then.” With a quiet nod he left.

  Slowly Asti washed the blood off his hands and face. Then he stripped off his clothes and dressed in the fresh ones. He made each moment, each act, deliberate. He demanded complete control over his hands and body. The beast would not get it again, even though he could feel it growling softly in the dark corner of his brain.

  This time, this last time, he had gotten lucky. By all rights he should have woken up on his way to Quarrygate. He could have woken up to the dead bodies of Kimber and Win, massacred by his own hand.

  Never again. He’d hold down that beast, even if it killed him.

  Asti left the cell. Two priests, one much older than the other, stood waiting outside the door.

  “You are well?” the younger priest asked.

  “Well enough,” Asti said. “I—I don’t understand why you did what you did for me, but I’m grateful.”

  The older priest stepped forward and touched Asti’s head. “Sometimes the why is all the reason we have.” He patted Asti on the hair and walked off.

  The younger priest looked embarrassed. “Please excuse Reverend Halster. He is quite advanced in years.”

  “It’s all right,” Asti said. “I really do need to go, though. If that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  Asti stepped away, looking for the fastest way out of there, but something held him back.

  “Listen, Reverend. You all are accepting charities for the victims of the Holver Alley fire, right?”

  “We are,” the priest said. “Were you a victim of the fire?”

  “Yes,” Asti started. “I mean, I’m not . . . I was just wondering. You are still accepting. And it is still getting to the people who need it.”

  “Always,” the priest said.

  “Thanks,” Asti said, walking away again.

  “Walk with the saints,” the priest called after him.

  Asti found his way to a set of stairs leading him down into the main chapel and face to face with the statue of Saint Bridget.

  Saint Bridget was the water carrier, shown as a humble woman with two buckets hanging from a pole resting on her hunched shoulders. Asti never could remember her story, something about helping the helpless and climbing up a mountain. Coins and prayer tokens were scattered about the feet of the statue.

  Absently Asti took a coin from his pocket and placed it at the feet, and knelt before it.

  “I’ve never been much of one for prayers. Certainly not to you, but we’re in your house, and your people here did me kindness. Dad was Kieran, so he never took to the church here, and Mother told Verci and me that if we were to pray, it should be to Saint Senea. Guardian of righteous outlaws, I think?”

  Righteous outlaws, indeed.

  “So I’ve got no right to ask, but between Saint Senea and you—you look over the destitute and oppressed—this is a job for the two of you. I don’t want a blasted—” He bit his tongue. No need to blaspheme in prayer. “I don’t want anything for myself, here. But I’ve got a crew of righteous outlaws, destitute and oppressed. Saint Senea, if you can hear this while I’m at Saint Bridget’s feet, this is for you as well. I need all my people to come out all right. I need my brother to live through it, see his boy grow up. Have that boy grow up with a chance to be more than Verci and I ever had a chance of being.”

  Tears came to his eyes. He let them fall on the coins at Saint Bridget’s feet.

  “The rest of them, they all need
any help you can give them. Get them through this night. I don’t care what it takes from me, do you hear?” He took all the rest of the coins he had out of his pocket and dropped them at the statue’s feet. “I’ll take all the fire. Anything that’s supposed to land on them, you give it to me.”

  “Blackberry pie.” Verci leaned into the plate Raych had just placed in front of him. The scent was sinful. “You’re too good to me.”

  “Damn right I am,” she said, sitting down with him. “Still, I thought you needed a little reminder of what you had back home.”

  “I know exactly what I have here,” Verci said. “The two most precious jewels in Maradaine.”

  “Glad you know.” Raych looked around the apartment, wistful. “I don’t suppose I should stay out here tonight, should I?”

  Verci sighed. She was moving to more practical matters. He had hoped to avoid that.

  “Honestly? I don’t think you’ll need to hide.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if things go badly, Asti and I will get squashed, and that will be that. I don’t think they’d waste much time on further retribution.”

  “But yesterday you—”

  “I may have overreacted.” That was the best answer he could give. He didn’t want her afraid, not for herself tonight. “Something was happening and I thought it might be coming for you. But it was just about Asti, really.”

  “Hmm.” She stood up. “Even still, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, last time you rushed us in there. Nothing to eat or drink. It wasn’t the best way to spend a few hours.”

  “Fair enough. So you want to prepare the safe room. Make it cozy?”

  She smiled, if only faintly. “Something like that.”

  “It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the room ready so you can hide in there at a moment’s notice.”

  “But you don’t think something would happen to us here?”

  “I doubt it,” Verci said. He held his tongue on the ideas swirling in his head.

  “But yet—” She could see he was holding back.

  “One, there’s the chance people might come here trying to get Josie. They wouldn’t care that we live here now.”

  “And what would she do? If that happened?”

  “Go in the safe room, use the drop chute to get into her lair in the basement, and then one of her exit hatches, leading to a different house completely.”

  “Drop chute?” Raych’s eyes went wide. “Lair? Exit hatches?”

  “I didn’t mention all those?”

  “No,” Raych said. “Clearly you forgot all that.”

  “This is partially supposition on my part, mind you. Drop chute is real, lair is real. I’m only presuming she has exit hatches.”

  “You haven’t found them?”

  “Haven’t found them yet. There’s a lot to figure out here, and I haven’t had the chance.”

  “I would hope, after tonight, you’ll be spending many more nights at home.”

  “I’d like that,” Verci said. He still hadn’t gotten to eat the pie. It was just sitting there, slowly cooling on the table. That wasn’t right. He took one bite.

  Perfection.

  “After tonight, if all goes well, we’ll be secure and clean, here in the bakery. Just us three.”

  “Asti won’t live here?”

  Verci didn’t want to say, even if all went well, Asti still might not make it. All going well was going to take a lot of blessing and luck. “I don’t think he’ll want to. You don’t want him here, do you?”

  She looked like she was about to pull her teeth out. “Of course he’s welcome if he needs it.”

  “I appreciate that, Raych.” He took another bite. “Almost as much as I appreciate this pie.”

  “You better really appreciate that pie.”

  “You have no idea how much.”

  “All right,” she said, getting to her feet. “I need final instructions before you go.”

  “Final instructions, fine.” He took a last bite of pie and got up. “If trouble occurs, go to the safe room. If you can’t wait it out in the safe room, use the drop chute—”

  “Define ‘can’t wait it out.’”

  “If, for example, said trouble involves the building burning down.”

  Her face went pale and clammy.

  “Just a worst-possible example, love,” Verci said, moving closer to her.

  “Which we’ve lived through once already.”

  He caressed her face. “I know. From the lair, there’s at least one exit to the sewers. It’s not ideal, but it’ll get you out.” He told her how to open that door.

  “All right, when will I hear from you?”

  “Ideally, before dawn.”

  “So at dawn, start to worry?”

  “You’re going to worry the minute I walk out the door.”

  “Yes,” she said, brushing some crumbs off his vest. “But I want to know when it’s no longer unreasonable.”

  Verci kissed her. “I really love you, you know that?”

  “And I’m clearly crazy about you,” Raych said. “Crazy to agree to let you do this.”

  Verci tensed, expecting an argument. “We’ve been over this . . .”

  “And I agree. Crazy as it is, I’m behind you.”

  Verci kissed her again. “I should get going.”

  She grabbed his arm, “But let me make something clear. I understand you’re going to walk through fire and blood for Asti. But if you have to choose between saving someone else and getting out of there, you get out of there. The rest of the crew can hang as far as I care.”

  Verci grinned. “Even Helene?”

  “Especially Helene.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Go on. Before I lock you in the safe room.”

  Chapter 25

  ASTI WAS FEELING STRANGELY nostalgic about the stable of the North Seleth Inn. It hadn’t been much of a planning base, but it had served their needs.

  “You’re thinking we need to drop this place?” Verci asked.

  Asti grinned at his brother. “Yeah, a shame.”

  Kennith stuck his head up from out of the carriage he was working on. “What do you mean drop it? I live here!” His East Druthal accent flared up in anger.

  Verci stepped in front of Asti, and Asti was more than happy to let his brother do the talking. “Look, Ken, this is a big job we’re trying to pull. Thousands of crowns each, if we’re lucky.”

  “So, what, I’ll move out of here?”

  “To be honest, this is the kind of job people would leave town after. Fires will be put to feet after this.”

  “Leave town?” Julien asked from inside the carriage. “Are you gonna?”

  “No chance,” Asti said. “Good or ill, this is where we live. This is our city, our neighborhood.”

  “Not gonna rabbit?” Verci asked.

  “Did you think we were?”

  “No.” Verci stopped and stared at the ground for a moment. “I thought you were, though.”

  Asti was taken aback, but he couldn’t lie to Verci. He stepped over to the corner, Verci right behind him. “We . . . it’s likely we won’t even survive tonight, let alone make off with the prize. But if we do . . . we’ll be flush.”

  “Yeah,” Verci said. “Flush with a hairy eye at us.”

  “Right,” Asti said. He didn’t want to say this, but Verci brought it up. It was harder than he thought it would be. “So it might be smart for us to go separate ways.”

  “Are you dosed?” Verci asked. “What the blazes are you talking about?”

  “Verci, you know what I’m saying.” He looked at his brother, Verci’s eyes imploring and questioning. Asti tapped on his own forehead. “Whatever is going on in here
, brother, it’s getting worse.”

  “No, you had one slip during the fire, brother—”

  “And another the night of the carriage gig. Came close a few more times. Sometimes over nothing.”

  “The past few days—”

  “And today.”

  Verci stopped cold. “You came close again today?”

  “No. I lost it today.”

  “Blazes,” Verci whispered. He glanced about at the group, who were all too involved in one another to pay them much mind. “Where? How?”

  “Nange and his people, they were putting the squeeze on Kimber. The whole neighborhood. And for a moment, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.” That wasn’t true, and he had to let Verci know. “I didn’t want to hold it back anymore. I wanted to let it loose, let it tear Nange’s face off.”

  “Nange is dead?”

  “No,” Asti said, chuckling despite himself. “Some saint had his eye on me, because it ends with the sticks carting Nange away while I kept walking free.”

  “See?” Verci said, putting on his best face. “It’s going to work out. You didn’t kill him. You’re getting better.”

  “Getting worse, brother. Every day it’s like . . . a swarm of ants creeping up the back of my skull.”

  “The gig is over, things will calm down.”

  “Verci!” Asti snapped, trying to keep his voice from going too loud, keep Kennith or the rest from noticing their argument. The last thing he needed was to spook the crew right before a gig. “I could snap anytime. Any. You know that. You don’t want me in your home, Verci. You don’t want me around Raych or Corsi.”

  “Raych can—”

  “Raych can what, brother? Handle me? Do you think you could put me down if I’m in a frenzy, trying to claw her eyes out? Bashing your son’s skull open?”

  Verci’s eyes flared wide; anger flashed across his face. “That . . . don’t say things like that!”

  “It’s the truth, brother. The ugly truth.”

  Verci shook his head. “No. No, brother. That’s not going to happen. Raych understands that . . .”