Dark Currents

by Lindsay Buroker

  “You misunderstand me, ma’am,” Amaranthe said. “We’re not assassins or simple mercenaries. We only take on work that helps the city or the Turgonian people. We call ourselves The Emperor’s Edge because we aim to win Emperor Sespian’s approval.” And pardon. And a place in the history books.

  “Your negotiation tactics are shrewd, but I don’t believe you. You’re fugitives with bounties on your heads. His bounty—” Klume pointed at Sicarius, “—is signed by the emperor himself.” She lifted her chin. “Seven thousand.”

  “What you say is true, but my bounty is a misunderstanding, and Sicarius has…uhm…decided to work toward exoneration.”

  “Eight thousand.”

  Amaranthe closed her eyes. Trying to explain was a waste of time. “I think we’re done here.” She headed for the door.

  “Wait,” Sicarius said. “Leave us,” he told Klume.

  Though no warmth softened his words, Klume smiled triumphantly and gave Amaranthe a we’ll-see-who’s-in-charge look as she strode out.

  Amaranthe pushed the door shut and faced Sicarius. “No.”

  “We need the money,” he said. “Books’s job in the pumping house isn’t enough to outfit six. To create the force you wish, we need better gear, practice swords, armor, firearms, and a steam carriage so we don’t have to use the trolleys and risk running into bounty hunters and enforcers.”

  “I’m aware of that, but we aren’t assassinating people, especially not for the crime of being good at business.”

  “If she’s using the Science, she’s violating imperial law.”

  “What Kendorian would be dumb enough to use magic in a city where it’s not only forbidden, but where people are so superstitious they’ll turn you over to the enforcers just for talking about it?” Amaranthe shook her head. “No assassinations.”

  “You don’t need to come,” Sicarius said.

  “We’ll get money another way.”

  “Sespian need never know.”

  “No.” Amaranthe slashed her hand through the air. “You can’t work to earn the emperor’s favor in the open while sneaking about in the dark, committing vile crimes. Why do you think he hates you?”

  It was the wrong thing to say, and she regretted the last sentence as soon as it came out. Sicarius’s expression never changed, but those dark eyes grew flinty. He stalked past her and opened the door.

  “I’m sorry,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  Ms. Klume, who stood outside the door, raised her eyebrows as Sicarius strode by. Amusement curved her ruby lips when Amaranthe burst out, hand stretched after him.

  She lowered her arm and stopped. If she wanted outsiders to believe she led the group, chasing after Sicarius like a spurned lover would not help. Coolly and calmly, she faced Ms. Klume.

  “Thank you, but we won’t be accepting your offer.”

  Though she doubted she fooled anyone, Amaranthe clasped her hands behind her back and strolled through the factory, chin lifted. Since the number of workers had dwindled, she wondered if anyone would stop her if she chucked a wrench into one of the steam looms. Alas, that would probably not create the image she wanted for her team either. Disgruntled by the whole encounter, she yanked her parka off the hook by the door and strode outside.

  Rain pelted the sidewalk. Streams ran down the concrete street toward storm drains. Gray clouds promised an early dusk, and gas lamps already burned at intervals. She did not see Sicarius, only workers with their collars turned up. They hustled toward trolley stops or peddled bicycles vigorously to reach dry destinations.

  She tugged her parka on and pulled the hood over her head, trying not to see the dismal weather as a portent for the future. She had only been the leader of her group of outlaws for a couple of months, so she supposed it was natural for everyone to assume Sicarius, with his years as an assassin, was in charge of their outfit. He had agreed to work for her because she had proven she was a creative—technically, crazy was the word the men used—schemer who could surprise victory even from powerful opponents. And the team had worked well together in the past weeks, doing more than a few good deeds. The problem was nobody important knew about them. It was time to change that. It was time to find high profile work that would attract attention. Maybe the woman Klume hated was worth investigation, if not assassination. Maybe there was something suspicious about such rapid success.

  A sharp report sounded behind her.

  Something whizzed past her ear. Stone cracked and sheered off the corner of the building beside her. Amaranthe darted toward a nearby alley, glancing down the street as she ran.

  Not ten paces back, a figure pointed a smoking pistol her direction. Though a cowl obscured the owner’s face, she glimpsed a brand on the hand gripping the weapon. In the fading light, she might not have recognized the symbol, but she had seen it often as an enforcer: a skull and an X. The Buccaneers gang.

  “Idiot!” Amaranthe shouted at the man. “The mark is up ahead. Didn’t you listen to anything Coxen said?”

  She sprinted into the alley, hoping her invocation of the Buccaneers’ leader would befuddle the man momentarily. She pounded up narrow stairs between two towering factories. A question floated back, too muffled to hear clearly. Amaranthe turned into another alley paralleling the main street. The last corner fell behind her, and she raced down a cobblestone slope slick from the rain. Only when she neared the main thoroughfare again did she slow, softening her footfalls.

  She peeked around the corner. The pistol shot had cleared the streets of everyone except the cloaked man. His back was to her. He finished reloading the pistol, drew a short sword, and crept toward the first alley she had turned up.

  He called out, but the rain drowned his words.

  Silently, Amaranthe slid a dagger and her own sword out. She slipped after him. The man reached the alley and stuck his head around the corner. He drew back and peered about. Knowing a single glance back would reveal her approach, Amaranthe turned her stealthy advance into a run.

  The man must have sensed it. He turned, cowl spilling around his shoulders. Amaranthe sprinted the last few yards.

  He raised his pistol. Without slowing, she hurled the knife.

  Though it was not balanced for throwing, the hilt clipped his hand, knocking the pistol from his grip. It clattered to the sidewalk, firing when the hammer struck. The man cursed and jumped, probably afraid the wayward ball would hit him. It gave Amaranthe time to close the remaining distance.

  Rushed, he threw a wild first strike. She parried and startled him by darting past him instead of launching a jab of her own. A kick to the back of his knee stole his balance. She grabbed his flailing arm, wrenched it behind him, and twisted his hand against the wrist. His sword clattered to the sidewalk beside the pistol. She pressed the point of her blade against his kidney.

  She said, “Tell Coxen—”

  A throwing knife spun out of nowhere and lodged in the man’s neck. Startled, Amaranthe jerked back, releasing him. The thug died before his body crumpled to the ground.

  Sicarius glided out of the shadows across the street.

  “Why did you…” she started, but he pumped his arm and threw a second knife.

  In the dim light, Amaranthe could not follow its path. A pained grunt came from the roof above her. A heartbeat later, a man smashed onto the sidewalk, the throwing knife lodged in his eye. A repeating crossbow flew into the street, and the impact sent a bolt flying. It skidded into a curb beneath a gas lamp, revealing a green smudge of poison on the tip.

  Amaranthe rested her hand on the damp stone of the building for support. Maybe it was time to get more serious about looking for a disguise to wear in public. The fact that she had the most common eye, skin, and hair color in the empire had served her well so far, but apparently no more.

  “Mercy has no place out here.” Sicarius retrieved his knives. “If you’re lenient with bounty hunters, they’ll try again, and they’ll speak to others of your leniency, which will
encourage every pauper to take a chance.”

  “I can’t argue with your logic, but it’s not in my nature to stick knives in people’s backs.” Amaranthe grimaced at the broken body of the man from the roof. “Or eyes.”

  “Adapt.” After cleaning and sheathing his knives, Sicarius searched the bodies of the dead men, removing their valuables, before coming to stand beside her. “Are you injured?”

  She straightened. “No. Of course not. That was all part of my plan. I was acting as bait to lure bounty hunters to attack, so you could sneak over and kill them and take their ill-gotten thug earnings, thus—” she lifted a finger, “—alleviating our money problems.” That sounded plausible, didn’t it? He might even believe it. If he had the intelligence of a sloth.

  The flat look Sicarius gave her suggested that sloth would have to be drunk to be fooled by her extemporizing. He handed her a few crumpled bills, not enough money to buy a meal much less gear. “Bait doesn’t survive long.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t left in a huff, I wouldn’t have been bait. You know I need a keeper to watch over me while I’m dreaming up fanciful schemes.” She smiled to let him know she was not truly accusing him of anything; she had been the idiot, and she knew it.

  “I don’t huff,” Sicarius said, though his tone softened.

  “Ever?” She nodded toward the street, and they strode away from the dead men. In the city, only soldiers were permitted by law to carry firearms, so enforcers would doubtlessly show up to investigate the shots soon. “Must be disappointing for the ladies.”

  Apparently the comment did not deserve a response, for he only said, “What’s the new scheme?”

  Business first with him. Always.

  “I want to investigate Ms. Klume’s adversary before returning to the pumping house,” Amaranthe said. “Just in case something interesting is going on there. Waiting for the right people to hire us isn’t going to get us where we want; we need to go out and find…” She groped for the right word. A mission? A project? A job?

  “Trouble?” Sicarius suggested.

  “An endeavor that will help the city and prove to the emperor that we’re undeserving of the bounties on our heads and we’re invaluable resources to his regime.”

  “Trouble,” Sicarius said.

  She grinned sheepishly. “Well, probably. Yes.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Kendorian businesswoman’s office boasted neatly filed papers and meticulously organized bookshelves. A hint of lye soap hung in the air. The potted plant perched on the windowsill sported no dangling dead leaves.

  Within seconds of walking in, Amaranthe was glad she had refused the assassination gig. One probably should not form opinions about people based on the cleanliness of their workspace, but she promptly liked this Telnola more than Ms. Klume.

  Of course, that did not keep her from rifling through filing cabinets and desk drawers. Working by lamplight, she spent thirty minutes investigating, or, as Maldynado often called it, snooping.

  Engrossed in logbooks, she almost missed the door opening. She reached for her sword, but it was only Sicarius. Coal dust smeared his hands and darkened his blond hair.

  Guilt nudged Amaranthe to say, “Sorry to send you to investigate the machinery. I figured you’d be more likely to sense magical doodads than me.”

  “Artifacts,” Sicarius said.

  “What?”

  “The Turgonian language lacks words to define the various contraptions crafted by practitioners specializing in Making, but artifact is the word most frequently used to describe imbued devices, especially those small in nature. Construct, such as the soul construct we battled, has similar connotations, though tends to refer to ambulatory creations.”

  Amaranthe nodded, absorbing the information, though his monotone delivery tempted her to tease him. “Are either constructs or artifacts sentient enough to be offended by being called doodads?”

  “Rarely,” Sicarius said without blinking.

  She sighed. The man was impossible to tease.

  Amaranthe closed the file she had been perusing and returned it to its proper place in a cabinet. “Did you find anything magically suspicious in the factory or about the furnace?”

  “No.”

  “Me either.” She waved to encompass the office. “From what I’ve learned, Telnola is visionary, efficient, and willing to take risks. She established a small fortune by buying faltering mother-daughter sewing shops and turning them profitable by introducing mass production through sewing machines and mechanized looms. Everything about her background suggests she’s the type of person who would hustle to accept an opportunity to start a business in the empire where steam-powered facilities are the norm instead of an anomaly. There’s no unexplainable efficiency in the logbooks. If she’s beating Klume, I’m guessing it’s because she’s good, not because she’s magically assisted.”

  Sicarius listened. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, he was not the sort to tease her for going on and on. He simply said, “Agreed,” and added, “though I haven’t checked the loading docks and bay yet.”

  “We can go out that way,” Amaranthe said, “but I suspect Telnola is innocent of any crimes. She’s hired more than a hundred workers in the last month, and she’s excelling here. In short, she’s exactly the type of entrepreneur Sespian hoped to attract with his tax incentives. Which means the trouble we hoped to find here isn’t likely to manifest itself. At the very least, you can feel good for choosing not to assassinate her.”

  “I did not make that choice.”

  No, and even knowing what she had just told him, he would probably still accept the assignment if motivated enough. “Then I can feel good for choosing for you.”

  She smiled. He did not.

  “Loading bay. Right.” Amaranthe grabbed her lantern and headed for the door.

  Night pressed against the windows overlooking the factory’s main floor. Her lamp illuminated the first couple of sewing machines in rows that stretched throughout the cavernous room. Before they had gone more than a few steps, the scrape of a key fumbling for a lock whispered through the silent building. The front door.

  Sicarius disappeared into the shadows below a fifteen-foot-high loft that housed more rows of sewing machines. Amaranthe cut off her lantern.

  The front door swung open. Two figures stepped inside, each holding lanterns of their own. One man, one woman, both with blond hair, advanced down the central aisle. They lacked the furtive mien of robbers, and the pale hair suggested they might be Kendorians. They chattered in what was presumably their native tongue.

  Using the wall as a guide, Amaranthe eased beneath the loft. She assumed Sicarius, who had explored more than she had, was heading toward the loading bay and a back way out.

  Amaranthe bumped into someone. She expected Sicarius, but a knife rasped free of a sheath. She jumped back. Shadows hid details, but the dark figure loomed too tall and wide to be Sicarius.

  An uncertain pause from the person gave her time to switch her lantern to her left hand and slide her sword free.

  “Rovich?” the figure—a man—asked, voice dull and stunned, as if he knew she was not who he thought but could not imagine who else she might be.

  “No,” Amaranthe whispered, “but if you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, I’ll tell you who I am.” She glanced over her shoulder, fearing the scuffles and whispers would alert the couple, but they had reached the office, and a conversation flowed from within, the words sounding casual and unconcerned.

  “Uh,” the man said. “No, you tell me who you are, or I’ll—” He sucked in a startled breath.

  The shadows cloaked movement behind the man, but his reaction suggested someone had come up behind him with a weapon. Sicarius.

  Amaranthe followed as he pushed his prisoner past a large, sliding door and into the colder air of a loading bay. On the far side, beyond aisles of barrels, crates, and bolts of fabric, a roll-up door was open to the night.

 
; The toe of Amaranthe’s boot nudged something, and she halted.

  “Close the door,” Sicarius said before she could investigate.

  Assuming he meant the order for her, she groped for the handle. She eased the door shut, trying not to make noise.

  “What were you doing in here?” Clothing rustled—Sicarius jostling his prisoner.

  Amaranthe knelt to relight the lantern.

  “Eat street,” the thug said. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”

  Her light stirred to life, revealing the thug with Sicarius standing behind him, a knife to his throat. The heavyset man wore ill-fitting, mismatched clothing and bracelets that might have been working wrist shackles once.

  Another bounty hunter? If so, an inept one.

  The lantern also illuminated the cut throat of a second man, the body Amaranthe had bumped against. The man Sicarius restrained paled when he spotted the body.

  “What were you doing in here?” Sicarius asked again, his voice colder than the room.

  “You might want to answer.” Amaranthe decided revealing names might move them to the information-sharing portion of the interrogation without the application of imperial torture techniques. “If Sicarius has to ask twice, it’s a sure sign maiming and pain are imminent.”

  The man’s eyes bulged. “Sicarius?” he whispered.

  “Is whatever you’re doing worth dying for?” Amaranthe asked.

  A puddle formed between the thug’s boots, and she figured that was a good sign he would talk—and that she should step back—but he whispered, “No, but I can’t…can’t say anything.”

  Sicarius’s blade bit into flesh, and blood trickled down the man’s neck, staining the collar of his shirt.

  “Please, I can’t.” A tear slid down the thug’s cheek, out of place on such a hardened face.

  “Why?” Amaranthe asked. “What were you doing that’s so important to keep secret?”

  “They just wanted us to—” He gasped in pain, back arching.

  At first, Amaranthe thought Sicarius had done something, but the man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and quakes wracked his large body. A seizure?