The Holver Alley Crew

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “I guess I don’t anymore,” the man said. “I don’t think there’ll be any more work.”

  “The place burned down?”

  “The parts that mattered,” the man said. He was definitely one of Tyne’s guards, an old veteran by the looks of him. “Mister Tyne is dead, so that’s the end of that.”

  “You saw him dead?” Asti asked. The man nodded somberly. “So why am I alive now? Last bit of revenge?”

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Asti said, now placing him. “You were the guard who ran off earlier. Didn’t want to fight me.”

  “No, not from tonight,” the man said. He leaned in closer. “You might not. Last time I saw you, I was little more than a hairy sack of bones. But your face. Your face is burned in my heart.”

  Asti felt disturbed, threatened by the man’s intensity. The man didn’t seem hostile, though. He could have easily killed Asti if that’s what he wanted. Unless he wanted to savor the moment, really drive home to Asti who killed him and why. The saints knew there were plenty of men out there who wanted him dead and for good reason. Perhaps it was his due.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Asti said. “Whatever wrong I did you . . .”

  “Wrong?” The man laughed. “No, no wrong at all, mister.”

  “Then . . .” Asti let his words hang.

  “You saved me,” the man said. His eyes were wet with tears. “I had been held in Levtha Prison for over a year.”

  “Levtha?” The word hit Asti like a hammer. “I . . . what did I do?”

  The man sat back. “I had given up hope. I had been captured when my ship crashed on Haptur after a storm. Twenty-nine men, and by the end there were only four of us still alive. I was nothing but a wreck of a man. Hopeless, until suddenly there you were.”

  “There I was how?” Asti asked cautiously.

  “You don’t know?” the man asked.

  Asti faltered. “I—I honestly don’t remember anything about escaping Levtha.”

  The guard nodded, like he understood exactly what Asti meant. “I remember it like yesterday. You kicked open the door of our cell and you . . . you looked like something out of scripture. Like Saint Jontlen, ‘red-eyed and anointed in blood.’ And you told us to follow you.”

  “I did?” Asti had never thought he was anything other than mindless rage when he lost it.

  “You fought our way to the docks. You fought . . . I’ve never seen anything like it. You got the four of us onto a small sailing skiff, and a group of Poasian archers came down. You went after them to cover our escape. We . . . we didn’t see what happened to you.”

  Asti sat back, shocked at this narrative. Were his rages more controlled than he had thought? Was he capable of recognizing friends when he was in that mode? Could he make choices like sacrificing himself, saving others?

  He hadn’t hurt Kimber or Win. Or Mila. She had been able to subdue him. At the time he had only thought of it as a testament to her skill and determination.

  The man continued his story, breaking Asti’s reverie. “After a while me and the rest of the boys, we started to wonder if you had been real. My mother, she was a Waish woman, she had told me stories of adshylla, spirits of the dead who come to help people when they are in desperate need. And I prayed to God, sir, and you came.”

  “I’m no spirit of the dead, friend,” Asti said.

  “But you were a gift from God.”

  Asti let that sink in. He slowly pulled himself to his feet. “Thank you, sir, for all that you’ve done for me tonight.”

  “I have a debt to you,” the man said.

  “Not anymore,” Asti said. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a few twenty-crown notes. “In fact, I think you should take this.”

  “I couldn’t,” the man said.

  “I’ll point out that you are out of employment now, and that is my fault.”

  The man shrugged in ascent. “You have a fair point.” He took the bills. “You able to walk?”

  “I’ll make do,” Asti said. “I did get off Haptur, after all.”

  Chapter 34

  THREE BELLS BECAME FOUR BELLS. The money had been counted and counted again. Bills piled in neat stacks, each share set to the side in satchels. The cups were still untouched. Julien went out for a bit and returned with fresh clothes. Everyone in costume had cleaned up and changed. Some people had dozed off. Cort and Win were talking quietly by the stove. Kennith was working inside the carriage.

  After hearing the distant peal of four bells from whatever church was closest, Verci decided they had waited long enough. He went back to the big table and picked up one of the cups of wine.

  “All right,” he said in a loud voice, holding up the cup. “Let’s do this.”

  The rest of the crew all got to their feet and came around the table, a slow, weary stagger. Verci held his pose, and the others joined him one by one, until the last cup sat alone on the table.

  “We had a good run tonight,” Verci said. “All told, probably the best one I’ve had. But it was not without its costs.”

  A few heads hung down. Win bit his lip, looking like he was holding back a sob. Julien’s wide eyes held back nothing; tears poured down his face.

  “So before we go, let’s raise our glasses to our success, and to the man who made it possible.”

  “To Asti,” Helene said.

  “To Asti,” the rest echoed.

  “That’s very sweet.” Asti’s voice came from the door. Verci dropped his cup and ran over. Asti was even more of a mess, his face covered in bruises, angry red welts, and burns. One arm was an unnatural purple and swollen.

  He was on his feet, though.

  Verci grabbed him in a hard embrace, lifting his brother off the ground.

  “Ow, Verci, let go!” Asti shouted. Verci put him back down. “I’m battered all over.”

  “You look like God himself beat you,” Josie said.

  “Hardly,” Asti said. He limped over to the table and picked up his cup of wine. “In fact, I am a gift from God.”

  “You really got hit in the head, didn’t you?” Helene asked.

  “Quite a lot,” Asti said, drinking his wine. The rest all did the same. “What was our take?”

  “One hundred twenty-seven thousand, four hundred crowns,” Verci said.

  Asti let out a low whistle. “That’s some serious money. We could give Josie her cut, set aside a good chunk for the neighborhood, still split the rest nine ways, and each of us can slip off and live pretty comfortable for the rest of our lives. No real worries, hmm?”

  He sat at the table, put his cup down, and leaned back. Verci could see from the look in his brother’s eye—the one that was still open—that Asti was up to something.

  “Pretty clean and plush, we’d all be,” Asti said. “We could move on, forget about Holver Alley. Forget about what was done.”

  “I’ll never forget,” Win said.

  “Tyne’s dead,” Mila said.

  “You’re sure?” Asti asked her.

  “By her own hand,” Helene said.

  Asti raised his glass to Mila. She returned the gesture and sipped hers.

  “So Tyne is dead. And if this began and ended with Tyne, then we’d be done.”

  “If?” Verci asked.

  Asti took out a piece of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket and tossed it on the table. “A letter from our friends at Colevar and Associates, thanking Mister Tyne for his help in securing some of the desired land in North Seleth for their clients.”

  “Their clients?” Verci asked. “Who?”

  “That remains a mystery,” Asti said. He sipped more of his wine.

  “Tyne was a middleman for someone else?” Helene asked.

  Josie asked, “Someone making a move in my nei
ghborhood?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “And ‘some of the land’ it says?” Josie snatched the paper away from Asti.

  “So whoever hired Tyne, they’re not done.” Asti took another sip of his wine.

  “What are you going to do?” Helene asked him.

  “I am going to drink this excellent wine,” Asti said. He looked over to Verci. “Spoils from the entry point?”

  “Ken grabbed it.”

  “Well done, Kennith,” Asti said. “After that I will have someone set this broken wrist, which hurts like blazes, let me tell you. If someone can get some ice for this eye, I would be very grateful.”

  Kennith looked up. “Missus Holt, is there ice?”

  “There’s an icebox back there, had it stocked up this afternoon,” Josie said absently, attention still on the letter.

  “You think of everything, don’t you?” Asti said to her. He looked around the whole warehouse. “You thought we might need someplace after tonight?”

  “The thought that this didn’t end with Tyne crossed my mind,” Josie said.

  “And now we know,” Mila said quietly.

  “Now we know,” Verci said. His brain was buzzing. He wanted nothing more than to go to his wife, his bed, and to sleep for ten days.

  “So after I rest and heal up,” Asti said, “I’m going to see this through until I find the absolute bottom of it.”

  Josie raised her cup. “If you’re running a long game, Rynax, you’ve got this place to run it out of.”

  “And you behind it?” Asti asked.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions, Asti.”

  “You’ve got me to the end,” Mila added.

  “Thank you,” Asti said. “Anyone else?”

  “Are we in?” Julien asked his cousin.

  “As long as it takes,” Helene told him.

  “You people are crazy,” Gin announced. “But you do good work.”

  “You in?” Asti asked.

  “Absolutely. I’ve missed this sort of thing.”

  “Win?”

  The locksmith drummed his fingers on the table. “This wasn’t about the money for me. This was about doing something, keeping occupied. Long as you have something for me do to, I’ll do it.”

  “Kennith?”

  The Ch’omik man furrowed his brow. “These clients of Colevar and Associates . . . they want more of North Seleth. We’ve seen what they are willing to do.” He set his jaw; anger flashed in his eyes. “My grandparents fled Ch’omikTaa because men of power ousted them from their land. Men who did what they wanted since no one would stop them.”

  “That’s not the case here,” Cort said.

  “Not with us,” Kennith said. “Not with me. I’m not going to be someone who doesn’t do something when he can.”

  “Makes sense,” Cort said. “These folks still want the land, and that includes my shop. So I’m with you.”

  “Verci?” Asti asked. “Are you with us?”

  There was a huge temptation to take his sack and walk out. Asti would understand. Asti, of all people, knew that sometimes you had to walk away. Especially with a wife and child. With money, he had security.

  Verci looked over at Josie. She had plenty of money, but only the security of fear. Even her money, her paranoia, hadn’t protected her neighborhood. His neighborhood.

  “Blazes,” Verci said. “There’s no safety here, for any of us or ours, until we dig this out all the way. Is there?”

  “Probably not,” Asti said. “But I’ll look out for our family, if that’s what you need.”

  “We’ll look out for our family,” Verci told him.

  “Good then,” Asti said. “Everybody get some rest. We’ve got work to do.”

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