The Holver Alley Crew

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  He counted steps, measured each turn. He wanted to be able to trace his way back out.

  Asti used each pushed step to gauge his ankle shackles. The chain between them was long enough to walk, but not to run. Only about a foot to work with. The metalwork was solid enough, though the joint between his left shackle and the chain had a bit of play. A strong enough yank might make it give.

  His arms were shackled behind his back, and his wrists were less than two inches apart. Very little to work with. He didn’t dare feel about with his fingers, not here, not with Miles probably keeping a tight eye on everything he was doing.

  Every other thug in this group dragging him along was probably a former soldier, or just street tough done good. He wasn’t too worried about taking on any one of them, even with his arms behind his back. Miles was a different story. The past two days had reminded Asti that he was a gifted fighter. Asti couldn’t afford to underestimate him.

  A door was opened, and Asti was pushed inside. Wide chamber with a low ceiling. Wooden floor under his feet. Flickering light from warm oil lamps placed all around the room. Scents of roasted lamb and quality wine. Heavy breathing from three people in the room, two men and a woman. Asti was thrown into a hard wooden chair.

  The hood was pulled off his head and Asti was looking into the beady eyes of a bald man with a pointed beard. He was in an office, seated in front of a large wooden desk, neat stacks of papers on one corner.

  “So this is the dirty pirie who thinks he can match me,” the man said.

  “Pleasure to meet you as well, Mendel,” Asti said.

  Mendel Tyne chuckled drily, and then smashed the back of a closed fist into Asti’s jaw. Asti spat out blood and a couple tooth chips. Tyne grabbed him by the chin and pulled his face back over to him. “Do not presume, pirie, that you can use my given name. That you and I are somehow equals.”

  “We’re not equals, Mendel,” Asti said.

  “No, we are not, pirie,” Mendel said. “You do know what that means.”

  “It’s a shortening of ‘imperial,’ as a slur on my Kieran heritage.”

  Asti was hit in the face again. He was ready to be hit that time, rolling with it best he could shackled in the chair. He also yanked both legs as hard as he could in the moment. The bolt on his left shackle gave a little. “Not the word, Mister Rynax.” Tyne was cool and calm now. “I mean that I am a man of substance, power, and connections, and you are a rat—a skilled rat, but just a rat—living in a dismal hole with the dead and dying.”

  “I was moving out,” Asti said.

  “You aren’t doing anything, Mister Rynax. I do commend your ambition, though. Most people don’t ever lift their heads from whatever rock they’re born under. You tried to reach out, grab a piece of something more.” Tyne leaned in and whispered to Asti. “I can respect that, believe it or not.”

  “I believe it,” Asti said.

  “Good. But it’s important that you know your place, Mister Rynax.”

  “My place was on Holver Alley.”

  “Indeed it was,” Tyne said. “You should have stayed there. Don’t you agree, Josefine?”

  The distinctive step and clomp of Josefine Holt’s cane came from behind Asti. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

  “Missus Holt?”

  Miles leaned in, hissing in Asti’s ear. “You just keep getting betrayed, don’t you? First Liora, now this.”

  Asti thrashed at Miles, giving his leg shackles another hard pull as he did so. The loose bolt nearly gave.

  “Learn your place, and learn loyalty,” Tyne said. “Josefine knows her place, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do, Mister Tyne,” Josie said, coming into view. She shook her head at Asti. “You know I had to give you up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d have to,” Asti said.

  “Shows how little you know,” she said. “There is an order to things in these neighborhoods.”

  “And North Seleth is nothing,” Tyne said. “But Josie here was smart, she knew it’s better to be the Queen of Nothing, instead of no one at all. I’m a generous man to people who are loyal to me.”

  “And I’m left under your boot,” Asti said.

  “That was the choice you made, Mister Rynax.”

  Asti turned his gaze at Josie. “You disgust me. You betrayed your people, your neighborhood, everything you were supposed to stand for!”

  Josie’s cane came swinging at his body, knocking him off the chair. He lay on the floor as she hit him again and again with it, against his sides, back, arms, and wrists.

  “Josie, Josie,” Tyne said calmly. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  Josie pulled back. Winded, she sat down on the desk, using the cane to support herself. “Sorry, Mister Tyne. He just—”

  “Yes, he’s an infuriating little rat,” Tyne said. “I’m amazed you hadn’t done that sooner.”

  “I tolerated him for his father’s sake,” Josie said.

  “Loyalty is beyond people like this pirie,” Tyne said. He brushed off his suit and offered a hand to Josie. “Come on now, Josefine. You can point out these spies on my gambling floor. Gentlemen, kill the pirie. Try and make it bloodless, though. I don’t want to have to get the floor cleaned.”

  “As you say, Mister Tyne,” Miles said from behind Asti. Asti had managed to roll over onto his back so he could see how many people were in the room. Eight, including Tyne and Josie.

  “As I say, indeed,” Tyne said.

  Asti gave a hard eye to Josie. “We’re not done here, you know.”

  “We all do what we have to, Asti,” she said. “You should know that.” She took Tyne’s hand, and the two of them left the room. Miles and his men slowly circled around Asti, who still lay on his back, arms underneath.

  With his arms under him, Miles couldn’t see his hands. He couldn’t see Asti work the lock pick in his right hand—the lock pick he had pulled off Josie’s cane—to spring open the shackle on his left hand.

  “So you’re supposed to keep this bloodless,” Asti said.

  “That’s what the man said,” Miles said, leaning directly over him.

  “That’s going to be tough with that bloody nose, Miles.”

  “What—” was all Miles said before Asti rolled back and kicked straight up, pulling the chain on his leg shackles as hard as he could. The weak bolt snapped, shooting Asti’s right foot into Miles’s face. Blood gushed out his old colleague’s nose.

  The other five men were shocked still, just for a moment. A moment was all Asti needed to snap down and pop up onto his feet. His feet planted, he barreled his shoulder into Miles, who was still reeling from the earlier blow. Miles tried to grab on to Asti, to hold his footing, but the force of Asti’s blow knocked him back. With a hard press, Asti pinned Miles to the wall.

  With that spare second, Asti got his left hand out of the open shackle. He had hoped to have gotten it off completely before starting this fight, but these things never go the way one hopes.

  Miles coughed out an inarticulate order while punching Asti in the kidneys. Asti swung out with his right hand, hitting Miles in the face with both the lock pick and the loose shackle. Miles dropped to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Two of the goons made a grab for Asti. They were cocky, since they had taken him easily in the apartment. They had no idea he had let them win.

  He spun and punched one of them, quick and hard, and grabbed the guy by the vest. He gave the guy a hard shove into the other one, and slipped past on the other side. Three more thugs between him and the door.

  Not that he had any intention of taking the door with these guys still on their feet.

  Three short swords came out from their belts. No more messing around. Blood was already on the floor.

  For a moment Asti wanted to let go completely. Just unlock the cage in his
mind and damn anything else. Let the furious beast tear these tossers to shreds.

  No, he thought. Better to die a sane man.

  One jabbed in with his blade, which Asti adroitly avoided, grabbing the thug by the wrist. He forced the follow-through of the thrust to skewer one of the first two who came at him. Hard elbow to the face, sword released. Asti helped himself to it. Yanked it out of the dying thug, hitting the exposed neck of its former owner on the backswing.

  Two men still standing clean, two dying, one hurt, and one off-balance.

  Asti still had a shackle attached to his right arm, and both ankles. Threw him off balance. That backswing went too far, left him open on the right side. One of the blokes with swords took advantage of that. He came in low and quick. Asti scrambled over to the left, while pushing the skewered man onto his friend. Let dead weight do the work for him.

  Asti blocked an attack from the last man, and was about to stab him when another one yanked on the shackle. His arm jarred, the sword flew from his hand and skittered across the floor.

  He gave a sharp pull with the shackled arm, yanking that man close to his friend’s blade. The thug let go of the shackle too late to avoid getting cut, and the shackle shot out and knocked his friend in the face.

  Asti grabbed that man’s head and slammed it against the desk, scattering the pile of papers. The man struggled, grabbing frantically at the papers and trying to shove them at Asti. Asti ignored the letter that flew at his face, smashing the man’s head against the desk again.

  The one thug who hadn’t been injured had managed to push his associate’s dead body off, but hadn’t gotten to his feet. Asti relieved the man he had just concussed of his sword and finished the two of them off with quick strokes.

  The last man standing, holding his wounded side with one hand and a sword with the other, said something in a vain attempt to be threatening, but Asti didn’t even listen. He batted the sword away and stabbed the man in the chest.

  A flash of a memory of the scattered papers crossed Asti’s brain. He didn’t have time to reflect, as Miles had just gotten back to his feet. With a sickening wet sound, he pulled the lock pick out of his cheek and threw it at Asti’s throat. Catching it was easy.

  Doing anything else before Miles was on him wasn’t an option.

  Chapter 28

  “QUEEN MARA.”

  The valet just raised an eyebrow at Mila, the rest of his face stone.

  “I told you—”

  “I heard what you said, little girl,” the valet said. “I’m just not sure what you think it means.”

  “It means you let me down below,” Mila said.

  “I will admit,” the valet said, “that when some people use that phrase, they gain admittance. However, that does not mean we would allow a child—one who clearly slipped away wearing her mother’s dress, I might add—down to the gambling floor.”

  Mila clenched her teeth but took some small comfort in the fact that while the valet recognized the dress was not hers, he in no way suspected its real origins.

  “Look,” she said, making her eyes as wide and wet as she could manage, “I came here because . . . because . . . my mother just ran off with the cook. She was livid because my father is here with his mistress and I need to tell him and I needed to put on something and this was the only thing she left behind and—”

  She had worked herself up into tearful hysterics, which weren’t entirely feigned, and the valet was uncomfortably glancing around and urging her with his eyes and hands to be quieter.

  “Your father . . . he’s here? Downstairs?”

  “That’s where he said he would be,” Mila told the valet. “If I could just go down and find him, that’s all I need to do.”

  “I know I shouldn’t,” the valet said, half to himself. “What’s your father’s name?”

  Blazes. What was the name that old man was going to use? She knew she had heard him say it earlier. Thressen? Tensen? “Thomas Tharen.”

  “Tharen?” The valet screwed his face in thought. “Don’t recall that name off hand, but let’s go have a look.” He waved to the other valet to watch the door while he led Mila down a back stairwell.

  The stairs opened up to a wide, sprawling palace of polished floors, warm candles, and table after table of finely dressed people playing at cards, dice, and wheels.

  “You see him?”

  Mila scanned the crowd, instinctively looking for Julien. He’d stand out in any crowd. Sure enough, there he stood by one wall, but he was talking to some crazy-looking woman. Where was that old man? She bit her lip, not sure how long she could stall. Finally she found Mister Gin and Helene, Gin playing cards and grinning like a cat. “There he is.”

  “Follow me,” the valet said, bringing her over to the table. He tapped Gin on the shoulder. Mila noticed the old man tensing, ever so slightly.

  “Mister Tharen, is it?”

  “Yes?” He barely even glanced at the valet.

  “This . . . girl says she’s your daughter.”

  “She does?” He turned around and really looked at them both. “Well, dear, what are you doing in here?”

  “There’s a problem with . . . with Mother.”

  “Mother?” He shook his head sadly. “I suppose I should have expected it.” He took one bill from his pocket and offered it to the valet. “Thank you so much.”

  The valet nodded, refusing the bill, and walked off. Helene gave Mila a small nod, but didn’t do more than that. She had her hands occupied under the table.

  “Dear girl,” Mister Gin said, moving in close to embrace her. He then whispered. “Is ‘mother’ Asti or Missus Holt?”

  “Asti,” she whispered back. “They grabbed him.”

  “Blast,” he said. “Not much to be done, I suppose.”

  “What are we going to do?” Mila asked.

  “The cards have already been dealt, dear,” he said. “I’m afraid we either play what we have, or we fold.”

  “What’s Julien doing?”

  “Taking care of our mage problem, I think.”

  “He is? How?”

  “I think he’s just doing a Front Door Knock.”

  “A what?”

  Gin gave her a sly wink. “Sometimes the easiest way to trick someone into doing something is to make it no trick at all. Yeah, look.”

  Mila saw Julien take two wineglasses and then making a show of hiding—hiding from the room, not the woman—he poured from Cort’s vial into both glasses. He then offered one to the woman and took the other. He drank his wine, and the woman drank her own.

  “He drank it himself!” Mila said.

  “What?” Helene asked, still at the table, keeping her voice low.

  “Nothing, dearest,” Gin said. “I’m sure it’s fine. Cort said it was essentially harmless, right?” Mila could only shrug. Gin snapped his fingers and called Julien over, stepping away from the table with Mila.

  Mila saw Julien say some polite words to the woman and then cross back over to them. Gin glanced at the woman, and then gave a hard glare at Julien. “You shouldn’t wander away. That’s not what I pay you for.”

  “Yes, sir,” Julien said. The three of them went back to the table.

  “What the blazes just happened?” Helene whispered. “Why is she here?”

  “Just some trouble at home, nothing much,” Gin said for the dealer’s benefit. “Our boy got the job done, though.”

  “How?” Helene’s eyes went wide.

  “I figured she was bored,” Julien said. “So I talked about being bored with being a bodyguard. She liked that. Then I said I had some stuff to help ease the boredom, but my boss wouldn’t like me to take it. So I drank some and gave some to her. Easy.”

  “You drank it?” Helene looked like she was fighting the urge to shout.

  “It’s fine. I do
n’t do magic.”

  “All right,” Gin whispered. “We should go back to the game. Won’t be long before the last hand of the night gets dealt.”

  Tyne was walking with a deliberate, slow pace, obviously his attempt to give Josefine the dignity of keeping up with him. She played up her need for the cane a little more than necessary, which served its function.

  “You do have to admire the audacity of it all, of course,” Tyne said as he walked down the hallway. “In my youth, well, I may have done something similar. I did do a few similar things, come to think about it, which made me the man I am today.”

  “I bet you pulled some good gigs,” Josefine said, with her best good-humored sincerity.

  “I’ve heard some stories of your youth, Josie,” he said. “A few are the stuff of legend, you know.”

  “I was a blazes of a box-girl in the day.”

  “Artistry,” Tyne said with a nod. Josie couldn’t figure out if he was putting on a show of civility, or if he really meant it. She then decided she didn’t give a damn. “Those gigs of old had craft. Dignity. This Rynax’s plan was just a mess. Sneak a few people on the gambling floor, smash a carriage through the front door, and just make a mad grab for the cash? It’s brutish. I respect you turning them in, Josie, because the whole thing is beneath you.”

  “I suppose it was.”

  “When we get out on the floor, just be discreet about who the spies are. We’ll take them off quietly.”

  “Good,” Josie said. “I’d hate to make a big fuss.”

  “What’s the hour?” Verci asked.

  “Three minutes since the last time you asked,” Win responded. He was tapping his fingers absently against his leg. Fingers anxious to be used. Verci was happy to see that.

  “Are we ready to do this?”

  Cort stepped away from the wall, wiping off his hands. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Is it time?”

  “Ken!” Verci shouted up the stairs. “Is it eleven bells yet?”