“Hello, Uncle Harry,” Alys said, with her brightest smile. She extended her hands to her sides and curtsied delicately.
“You were never short of sand, girl. I figured you would be drifting in, with everything else washing up on my shores tonight.” His eyes shifted past her to Dax, then his attention focused back to Alys. “Didn’t know you two were sharing company again.”
“Just business, Uncle Harry,” she said. “He’s come down to Prionside for a case. Fortunately, he was not required to bring any friends with him. For now,” she said. “A single tourist is one thing, but a crowd of them, well, that would be another thing entirely.”
The Blacktide settled back onto the wooden throne, pouring himself a drink. “Your thoughts and mine, as was often the case, do seem to move along a similar course,” he said before knocking back the drink.
“It’s a bad situation Uncle Harry,” she said. “High profile trouble on the docks, and any answers you find will be deemed a bit too convenient, would they not?”
“They would indeed. They would indeed,” the Blacktide said. “Which is why I figured you’d be coming. You always smelled opportunity like it was blood in the water.”
“I learned from the best.”
In response, the Blacktide raised his glass in salute and drank once more. “A girl left on my docks, just a few feet from the water that would have erased all trace of the body.” He settled back in his throne. “No simple murder.”
“She was a message then.”
“I assume as much. But it wasn’t meant for me.”
At that, Dax spoke up, “For whom, then?”
Blacktide Harry fixed him with an unblinking stare. “That is none of my concern. Whoever it was, I am sure they have received it loud and clear, and they will take the appropriate actions. Meanwhile, Magistrate Inspector, you and your boys have cleaned up my docks. And so life moves ever forward.”
“Not yet, it doesn’t,” Dax said. “I mean to find justice for her.”
Blacktide Harry leaned forward in his throne of crates. “Nothing in the rules about justice, Inspector. Your job here is to tidy things up. Clean up the mess that someone made. Whoever that message was intended for? Let them do their business.”
“That message was once a person, and finding out what happened to her is exactly my job, Harry. And I do not intend to leave Prionside till I have accomplished it.”
Blacktide Harry pursed his lips and looked Dax up and down with cold, unblinking eyes. Despite his convictions, Dax wondered if he had overstepped. But the Blacktide merely shook his head. “You’ve grown up a bit from that lost little pup that used to chase our Alys around.”
“Yes, I suppose I have.” Dax took a step forward and the skiff rocked a bit. “The girl was Lydia Ashdown.” He saw the recognition in Blacktide Harry’s eyes. “I have no doubt that her family will be eternally grateful to any who would bring justice to their daughter and their family name.”
The Blacktide smirked, his teeth sharp and white beneath the black of his mustache. “And here I thought you were a crusader, Inspector. But clearly this would be quite a feather in your cap.”
“Not mine, Harry. Yours. If you give us free rein in Prionside until this matter is done, I will be sure your name is brought to the attention of Lord Ashdown himself. Discreetly, of course.”
There was a long, tension-filled silence, made all the more profound given the amount of rough men and women who lined the walls and walkways. Then, suddenly, the Blacktide began to laugh. The sound was rough and barking. “You’ve been teaching him well,” he said through his laughter.
“Who thought he was actually listening?” Alys remarked.
The Blacktide chucked a few more times. “Blacktide Harry, friend of the noble houses,” he said. “I find I do like the ring of that. Very well, Inspector, you and my dear Alys have my permission to poke your nose under every rock in this district. But I cannot guarantee what you might find hiding under those rocks,” he added menacingly. “Since your success might even benefit me now, I have something that might get you started.”
A scrawny, rough-looking man with the stylized hook and rat tattoo of the Stevedore Rats on the side of his neck came down the scaffold. “I’s seen the twist earlier,” he said with a vigorous nod. “Had a black cloak on, skulking around like she up to no good.” He laughed at what Dax assumed was his brilliantly ironic statement, and around the room, other harsh laughter came back.
Alys put a hand up and gave Dax a sharp look indicating he should let her do the talking. She stepped to the bow of the skiff. “Not everyone can be as respectable as you, Master Hookworm,” Alys said with a mocking bow, and the coarse crowd erupted in laughter once more. “But thankfully your keen abilities for detection saw through her subterfuge, so why don’t you tell me where you saw her?”
The Rat leaned forward, his hands gripping the walkway, and he leered down at Alys. “The Blacktide says the information is mine, broker. Information is your trade. You want mine, you offer me a deal, sweet-like, then, maybe I’ll tell you what I saw,” he said as the other Stevedore Rats around on the scaffolding laughed and cheered him on.
Alys locked eyes with the man, and her lips peeled back into a cruel grin. “Oh dear Master Hookworm. A deal, you say? Well then, here is my offer. I offer silence, Hookworm,” she said, her voice shifting from the playful lightness of her previous conversation to a cold, edged tone. “I offer my continued silence, Hookworm, about that night with you and the bucket of fish,” she said.
Hookworm reacted as if she had stuck him in the nethers with a sharpened blade.
“T—Tigress,” Hookworm stammered out. “Saw her going to the Tigress!”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s where she went when I spied her. It was just before sundown. I swear it!”
Alys gave him a gentle smile. “I thank you, Master Hookworm.” She gave a deep bow to the Blacktide, then turned to Dax. “Get us moving.”
Dax moved to the other side of the skiff and began to pole them away, back down the canal and out of the Sumpworks.
“Lot of brass in there, Dax. Bartering with the Blacktide.”
“It worked,” Dax said.
“It did,” Alys replied. “It also could have gotten us both killed. Next time, you let me do the talking. That’s why you’re paying me.”
He nodded and gave her a small smile. “Master Hookworm looked quite surprised.”
Alys’s expression softened and she grinned back. “He most certainly did.”
Poling the skiff through the dark tunnel, the two were quiet for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what happened with him and the bucket of fish?” Dax said.
Alys settled back onto the floor of the skiff. “Sure,” she said with a smile. “But not for free.”
Act 3
The Lady or the Tiger
The mist had grown heavier, like a drizzle that did not fall so much as lie upon the very air itself. Alys walked down the street, her boot heels making a sharp rhythm in the muffled air. As she walked, she methodically cracked each knuckle on her first hand, and then the other before starting over again.
The Tigress, she thought. The thrice-damned Tigress.
“That thing is almost as big as you are.”
Alys was so caught up in her own thoughts that she barely heard Dax when he spoke. “What?” she asked.
He gestured with a finger toward the large scythe across her back. “That monstrosity. You didn’t have it back when we…” he paused. “The last time I saw you.”
“Oh,” Alys said. “My Aunty. Well, you see, Inspector, in a fight, it’s the blade you don’t see that is the one that’ll be your gasper. So while everyone is so focused on what Aunty is up to…” She gestured down to the twin daggers hanging from her belt. “They don’t see these.”
As Dax’s eyes tracked down, she let the weighted end of the garrote drop from her sleeve and in a blur, it was up and wrapped around th
e Inspector’s throat. “And they surely don’t see this,” she said drawing him closer till her face was mere inches away from his.
“Cute,” Dax said, slowly sliding a finger up between the thin wire and the exposed flesh of his collar.
“Aren’t I though?” she said, releasing the tension and allowing the garrote to slip free.
She moved ahead of him, not quite willing to allow herself to walk at his side. Her hand trailed over the stones of the buildings as she walked, feeling the contours of the carved images under her fingertips. Highside might have the beautiful marble statues of the First Ascended, but the simple relief carvings on every Lowside building always felt more right to her.
“So are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Dax asked. “It’s making me nervous.”
His tone was light, but there was enough underneath to show he was not totally unaware of her shift in mood. She bristled at having her discomfort called out so easily, but she wasn’t surprised. He had always been better at reading people than she gave him credit for.
Especially her.
Of course, that went both ways. Since she had seen him on the docks, it had been apparent there was something Dax was withholding.
“I’m not crazy about going to brothels,” she said with a shrug.
“A what? A brothel? What would Lydia be doing in a Prionside brothel?”
“Why do most people go to brothels?”
He wrinkled his lip. “You don’t believe Lydia Ashdown was paying for… ahem… well, you know, any more than I do.”
“You said she was seeing someone her parents didn’t approve of. And I didn’t say she was paying for it.”
That seemed to give him pause. He had his thinking frown on, she noticed. “Do you think it was love?” he asked. “That perhaps she fell in love with someone from the Tigress?”
Oh, Dax. Always the idealist. There was a time when Alys had loved that about him, but that was when they had been childish and foolish and weak. Alys wasn’t any of those things anymore.
“Look. I’m not doubting the power of a Highside bleeding heart, but let me tell you how it works in Lowside.” She gestured to the streets around them, the mud and cobbles, refuse-filled gutters, and tightly-packed stone and wood buildings.
“You grow up down here, you don’t dream of true love. You dream of opportunity. So, you see a Highside toff making time with a Lowsider, that’s not a love story for the troubadours. That’s a mark about to be skinned.” She offered him a conciliatory shrug. “So, no, I don’t think it was love, Dax. I think she was being conned.”
“I see your opinion of people is as low as it always was.”
“When you meet the Tigress, you’ll understand why.”
“I thought the Tigress was a brothel.”
“The Tigress is both place and person, and the world would be a damn sight better if both were burned to the ground and someone pissed on the ashes,” Alys said in an even voice.
Dax grimaced. “Charming.”
“Oh, the place oozes charm. Like an open sore. Speaking of which, I suppose I should recommend you not avail yourselves of the services of the house.”
“But I was hoping they might offer breakfast,” he said with a disappointed sigh.
“Humor, Magistrate Inspector? Well done, but since we’ve arrived at our destination, perhaps it is time for you to reassume your customary mantle of serious, sullen bastard.”
She gestured up above her head. A worn wooden sign swung in the wind. The sign itself had been crudely shaped and painted to look like a roaring tiger with a nude woman astride the back, but the paint was so faded and worn that the only remaining bits of color were dark black stripes.
Alys walked up the two steps and stood in front of the door made from thick wood and reinforced with rusted iron bands. She rapped twice on the door. A small panel opened, revealing an eye and part of a scarred face. The eye roved over Alys.
“Hello, Raff,” Alys said, giving her sweetest smile to the scarred visage in the peephole.
The small panel slammed shut. A moment later, the sharp sounds of bolts being thrown back sounded and the heavy door swung open. Inside, was a massive man, his bald head and face heavily scarred and the lid of his left eye hanging limply down. He nodded his immense head in Alys’s direction, but it was hard to see where the movement originated from, as he seemed to possess no discernible neck.
Alys rested a hand on one of his immense forearms. “Squinting Raff, allow me to introduce Magistrate Inspector Daxton Ellis.”
“Another magistrate,” Squinting Raff growled. “Place is lousy with them this week, and the last one didn’t even pay fully.” He towered over Dax and pushed a finger the size of a blood sausage into Dax’s chest. “You pay yours upfront, gray-bars,” he growled. “New house policy, thanks to your friend skipping on the doxy’s due.”
Dax’s face showed utter shock, though Alys couldn’t tell which had ruffled him more: being accosted by the mountain of flesh that was Squinting Raff, or that he was not the first magistrate to visit the Tigress of late.
Alys grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the guard. Pushing aside the heavy velvet curtains, she escorted Dax into the heart of the Tigress.
Inside, the parlor was lush and decadent. Light shone behind colored glass coverings, causing a fantastic array of colors to cover the space. Rugs with gaudy and intricate designs covered the floor. On chairs and divans across the room rested men and women in outfits that were as ridiculous as they were revealing. They were meant to appear tantalizing and seductive, but Alys had long ago stopped looking only at the bodies and clothing. Now, all she could focus on were the eyes. Sunken. Hollow. Desperate.
She loathed this place.
As she and Dax entered, all eyes were upon them, and as soon as they seemed to recognize Alys, they were off their seats, pressing around her.
“Alys, got something juicy for you. Won’t cost you much,” said one woman.
A young man tried to catch her eye. Gold, she thought might be his name, but she wasn’t sure. It had been a while since she was last here and it was so damned hard to keep up. “I’ve got drops on the Gray Needle bunch. Good. Valuable,” he said, but Alys shook her head.
“Got dirt on a Highside toff, Sewall his name was. Good dirt, Alys!” a girl named Genna said, reaching out toward her.
“Alys!”
“Dirt!”
“Won’t cost you much.”
But Alys wasn’t listening. This was part of the reason she hated coming to a brothel. Every whore had information to sell, but usually it was shit. Exaggerated and twisted to make it seem richer, juicier, and worth more money. Even off their backs, they couldn’t stop deceiving.
“I’m not fishing tonight,” Alys said, raising her voice a bit to be heard over the clamor. “I’m looking for one piece. Highside twist. More lamb than mutton. Came by earlier in the night. So who’s got something juicy now?”
At her words, the crowd of prostitutes grew quieter, and before she had finished speaking, they were already slinking back to their seats. From the upstairs landing, she heard a woman clear her throat. When the affected tones of that nasally voice came, Alys understood why the whores had all gone quiet. Her teeth clenched.
“Why, dear little Rose, how good to see you.”
Alys raised her eyes to the landing. At the top of the staircase was a woman in a long dress and a fur mantle draped over her shoulders. She was the epitome of faded, wilted elegance. The once-beautiful face was caked with heavy powder and brightly colored rouge on her cheeks. Her lips were painted with a spot of vibrant red in the very middle, giving them a perpetual pout that was intended to make her look young and coquettish, but instead made her look sour.
The Tigress.
Alys took a step back. “You forget, Tigress. It’s Alys,” she said, keeping her voice even. “Not Rose. Alys.”
The Tigress, wafted a hand dismissively in the air and batted her heavily colored eyes
. “Of course, dear. It is just so hard to keep track of the little, insignificant details.”
It was an easy shot. A cheap shot. But, as always with the Tigress, it wasn’t the opening shot to worry about. That would be the knife she slipped in when you were distracted.
Despite knowing better, Alys felt the words coming to her mouth almost unbidden. “Of course,” she said with a sweet smile. “Totally understandable. They say the first thing to go with age is the memory.” That was a cheap shot too, she had to admit. For a flash of a moment, she felt a little ashamed at reaching for such low-hanging fruit, but when she saw the lines around the Tigress’s eyes tighten she couldn’t help adding, “Or is it the looks?”
The Tigress began to come down the wooden steps. “From what I have observed among the more aged of our clientèle, it is the sense of whimsy that leaves first. As the years go by, there are so few surprises left in the world.” She paused on the last of the steps and let her heavy-lidded gaze fall upon Dax. “And yet, there can still be a shock or two left.”
She grinned and Alys felt the cold tension in her stomach tighten even more. There was the Tigress’s knife, aimed squarely at Alys’s weakest point.
Dax.
“My little pets,” the Tigress said, clapping her hands. Immediately, every whore in the room sat up straight, attentive as a child at lessons, their unwavering attention on the Tigress. “Why it seems we are blessed this evening.” She walked to Dax and trailed her hand across the cloth of his gray, magistrate’s coat. “This is young master Daxton Ellis, son to the High Chancellor himself.”
In perfect choreography, every whore in the room prostrated themselves at the name. There was a breathy, whispered chorus of honorifics as each whispered “My lord.”
Even postured, Alys saw the look in their eyes. Saw desire and hunger not born of lust, but opportunity.
Dax’s face showed his surprise. “You know me, madam?”
“Oh, everyone knows you, my dear. Or they know your story, at least,” the Tigress intoned. “The little orphan girl who thought she could rise to the station of a noble. And not just any noble house, mind you, but the trueborn line of Aedan himself. How is your uncle, the king?”
Best Left in the Shadows Page 2
