“I’m afraid that didn’t really make it down this way,” Verci said. The pamphlet certainly didn’t. The only news of the murders he had heard was something about dissidents trying to kill members of Parliament who then got captured and arrested. Not anything that concerned or affected him.
“I get that,” Hemmit said. “Down here across the river, it’s all just northside swells fighting other swells, right?”
“Saints, Hemmit, don’t pander to them. They’re westtowners, not idiots.”
Asti sighed. “And I’m sure part of our neighborhood burning down doesn’t really measure up to members of Parliament or political radicals, hmm?”
“On the contrary, that’s what really matters,” Hemmit said passionately, tapping a finger on the table in emphasis. “These people—you people—you’re the ones we need to help bring voice to.”
Lin handed over a copy of their newssheet. “Getting your story, the story of this neighborhood, into the hands of people who could make a difference, that matters. That’s what we’re here for.”
Verci looked over the newssheet for a moment. It was what he expected. Fiery rhetoric and idealistic politics. He wondered if either of these two ever had struggled or gone hungry.
Kimber came over with the cider and wine bottles and glasses. Hemmit uncorked it and poured out for himself and Lin. “This is what I know so far,” he said. “Fire burns down your alley, where your home and shop are. Fire brigade doesn’t come until it’s pretty much burned out. Brigade chief spends some mad crowns for a few days around there and disappears.”
Verci almost choked on his cider when Hemmit said that. Brigade Chief Yenner didn’t so much disappear but was caught and tortured by Asti. Yenner led them to Tyne, which led them to Colevar and Associates, which led them to Andrendon and Lord Henterman. He wasn’t sure how much of that should be told to Hemmit and Lin.
“All right?” Lin asked.
“Fine,” Verci said.
“Next, most of those lots were bought out above market price. Someone was collecting the land, and that’s the mystery.”
Asti nodded. “We know this, and you know this. So what’s next? What can you discover? What can you do?”
“We can get more people to know it,” Hemmit said.
“How does that help us?” Asti snapped back.
“It’s been my experience that the city is filled with bits of knowledge,” Lin said calmly, pouring herself her own glass of wine. “Several people may know something else about the fire, or the land purchases, but not know what we know. Publication—”
“Puts the bits together, yes,” Asti said. “I was hoping you might have some bits we don’t have.”
“Hard to say,” Hemmit said. “We don’t know all that you know.”
Kimber came with two strikers and put them in front of Lin. “Anything else?”
“Fine for now,” Lin said, picking one up and taking a bite, quickly devouring it. Verci was surprised, given how lithe she was.
Asti gave her an odd regard. “She’s an eater, isn’t she?”
“We all have our appetites,” Hemmit said, pouring himself another glass of wine. “Let me tell you why we’re interested in what’s going on here, and in the two of you.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his satchel. “Did you two vote?”
“Of course,” they both said in unison. Verci chuckled. Dad, despite being a thief and a scoundrel, always spoke of voting with a strange combination of disdain and reverence. Verci hadn’t taken it seriously until recently. Opening a shop, going straight, being part of the community . . . voting seemed like it ought to be an important part of that.
“Who’s your Alderman seat?” Hemmit asked.
“The 15th,” Asti said. “It’s been Lammart for a few years.”
“You voted for Lammart?”
“He’s a decent enough bloke for a Uni swell,” Asti said.
“What if I told you Lammart isn’t going to win the 15th?”
“How could you know that?” Verci asked.
Hemmit placed the paper on the table. It was a map of the city, roughly sketched out. Hemmit tapped on the part of the map that showed North Seleth. “Because they’ve redrawn the 15th.”
Verci turned the map for a better look. The seat districts were drawn out on it, and it was not what Verci remembered. The 15th ought to be Seleth and North Seleth, Benson Court and Holmwood. Instead it was North Seleth and Benson Court, and a part of the neighborhoods on the other side of the river.
“What the rutting blazes is that?” Asti asked. “When did that happen?”
“Very quietly three months ago, when most of the newsprints were busy with that mistress scandal that ousted Strephen. It was a perfect time to get something like this drawn up and approved by the Duke.”
“You know what this means?” Asti said, more to Verci than the others. “There’s probably enough votes to drown us out, so our seat in the council will go to some north bank tosser who’s never stepped foot in this part of town.”
Verci looked more closely at the map. “And what was the 15th is now part of four different seat districts. Lammart probably won’t get many votes in any of them.”
Hemmit nodded. “Whoever takes the 15th won’t argue against some sort of project in this part of town that would inconvenience his voters, because he won’t need these voters.”
Asti let out a low whistle, staring at the map.
“Now,” Hemmit said, “you were going to tell us more things you know.”
Asti drummed his fingers on the table. Coded message. How much do we trust them?
Verci tapped a quick response. This much.
“We’ve heard a bit on our end, something called the Andrendon Project,” Verci said. “We really don’t know much of what it’s about, but it seems the land purchases are tied to that.”
Asti nodded. “And something is being built already.”
“What?” Verci asked in unison with Lin and Hemmit.
“I just saw it,” Asti said. “Someone is building a house there.”
“A house?” Lin asked. “Amid the burned-down wreckage?”
Verci was surprised by that. He would have thought, if anything, it would have been something like a factory. Anyone spending the kind of money that Colevar and Associates were offering must have been expecting a high degree of return, and that had to mean something industrial or commercial, like the stuff being built out in Shaleton.
He had presumed that was the whole point.
“Just a single house?” he asked.
“Well, so far,” Asti said.
“Where?” Verci asked.
“Right at Win’s place.”
Verci’s stomach turned. “That’s horrible.”
“A single house hardly sounds like something that would be called ‘Andrendon Project,’” Hemmit said.
“Unless it hides something else,” Lin said as she gazed off to the distance. “You’re sure about that name?”
“It mean something to you, love?” Hemmit asked.
“And it might to you if you had stayed in school,” Lin said. “Andrendon. It’s an old Saranic myth, or more to say, a myth about Saranus.”
“Saranus?” Verci asked. He didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Ancient city that was the seat of power in what would become Druthal,” Asti said. “It’s half-myth in and of itself. Fell to the Kieran Empire a few thousand years ago.”
“Why do you know that?”
“Because I know things. But I never heard of Andrendon.”
“That’s because it’s rather obscure, taking a rather deep study into mysticism.”
“Oh, was this that course you did with Professor Jilton?”
Lin shuddered. “Horrid. But if I remember correctly, the Andrendon was sort of a magical citywi
de transportation system. The word even comes from Old Kieran for ‘wind riding.’”
Verci was thoroughly lost. “Why Old Kieran?”
Lin took another sip of wine. “Because the only things we really know about Saranus come from Kieran reports.”
“What might it—” Asti started to ask, when something crashed through the front window. Glass flew into the taproom, and something hard knocked one of the patrons in the head. He went down like a sack.
Then another came hurtling through. Asti was getting to his feet, but before he was up, Lin was struck. Blood gushed out of her nose as she fell to the floor.
Verci noted the weapon. A brick.
“Graces, what—” Kimber shouted, interrupted by a few more bricks flying into the place. These were wrapped in burning paper. Asti was already launched at her, pulling her to the floor before she was clobbered.
“What is going on?” Hemmit asked.
Verci looked around. For once, Doc Gelson wasn’t deep in his cups in the place.
“No idea,” he said. “Get her out of here.”
Asti was checking on Kimber, who was in something of a panic. “Stay down, stay down!” he shouted.
“Who—why—” Kimber sputtered.
“Verci, fires!” Asti said, pointing to where one of the flaming bricks landed.
“Got it!” Verci bounded over to it, before he remembered he shouldn’t be bounding anywhere. He almost collapsed from the pain. Hemmit raced over, taking off his vest and beating down the nascent fire with it.
Hoots and hollers came from outside, and then the race of footsteps as they ran away.
“Is this typical?” Hemmit asked.
“No,” Verci said. “I’ve never seen anything—”
Verci was cut off by a primal yell. Asti was on his feet, knives in hand, eyes red with rage. Before Verci could say anything else, Asti ran out into the night.
* * *
Asti was in a deep red haze of rage, but it was his own. The ants crawling under his skin were marching with him. The beast was right at his side, for once a partner. Right now, they all wanted the same things. They wanted to chase those boys, run them down and bleed them out.
They weren’t even running, just hooting and howling as they went down Frost, toward Saint Bridget’s. At a shop down the way, they threw two more bricks through windows.
Asti charged in, knives out. One of the gang boys wound back to throw another brick, and Asti was on him, stabbing him in the chest and back at once.
“Saint Hesprin!” one boy shouted. “Run, run!”
They dashed off, and Asti was on them. They gave him good chase, they could run fast—but he could run long. He’d run them down. The beast always did.
They turned off down an alley, and Asti was about to dive in there after them when a voice broke through the red haze.
“Mister Rynax! They got him! The sticks nabbed the chomie!”
Asti turned. The kid—Asti forgot his name, but he was one of Mila’s. The kid was running over, out of breath. “The sticks pinched him good.”
Asti could barely find voice, forcing each syllable was work. It was almost as if his brain didn’t know how to make words anymore. “They got . . . Ken?”
“Three of them, loaded him into a lockwagon!” The kid pointed down the street, where a Constabulary wagon was trundling down the road. Kennith was in there. Kennith had been arrested.
Kennith needed him. If that wagon made it to the stationhouse, that would be the end for him. He’d be in Quarrygate after that, probably for the rest of his life.
Kennith needed him. That was the anchor Asti needed to pull himself out of the red haze and back into his rightful skull.
“I’ve got it,” Asti said, pushing the beast back in its cage. “Go into the pub, tell my brother . . .”
A brick flew out of the alley, cracking the kid across the skull. He hit the ground, blood pouring out of his head.
Asti saw the two hooligans standing halfway down the alley, both howling with laughter. The beast wanted them both, wanted out of its cage, but Asti held it fast.
These two boys, these bastards, were nothing. Not worth losing himself, what scraps of his soul he still had. Instead he scooped up the kid. The poor thing had half his head caved in.
Asti ran back into Kimber’s with the boy.
“I’ve got a kid here! He needs help!”
Verci and Hemmit were up and at it, helping Kimber and the other folks. Verci came limping over, looking like each step was agony but he wasn’t going to let it stop him.
“Oh, saints and sinners, is that Jede?” Verci asked.
“I thought his name was Tarvis.”
“They’re brothers,” Verci said, looking meaningfully at Asti.
Asti nodded. “He said Ken’s been pinched. I’ve got to—”
“The sticks have him?” Verci asked. Asti just nodded. “Asti, if they’ve grabbed him, that’s an arrest, lawful. You can’t—”
“It’s Kennith,” Asti said. He took a kerchief out of Verci’s pocket. “He’s only in this because of us. I ain’t going to let him pay for us, not a chance.”
Asti didn’t wait for a response, tying the kerchief around his face as he went back out into the street.
He was half a block away before he realized Verci wasn’t right at his side.
Of course he wasn’t, not with his foot messed up. But Asti couldn’t shake the feeling that even if Verci was in top form, he still wouldn’t have come.
Chapter 20
MILA WAS ONLY A couple of steps behind Helene when she was grabbed and thrown against a brick wall.
She gasped for breath, unable to cry out to Helene as a fist drove into her chest, another cracking against her nose. A third blow came, but she gathered her wits enough to drop out of the way. Her attacker punched the bare brick wall. He howled in pain, shaking his hand. That gave her a chance to scramble out of the way, pulling her rope off her hip. As he turned around to face her, she had it looped around one hand, and then the other. In half a click she had his arms bound behind his back.
“Who sent you?” she hissed in his ear.
“These blocks are ours, girl,” he said. “None of you or yours are going to have them.”
She kicked his knee, and as he dropped down she yanked up the rope, dangling him by his arms. A disquieting pop came from both his shoulders, and he cried out.
“Me and mine?”
“You know what I mean. You and your boys. The Old Lady. The Rynax crew.”
She jumped onto the small of his back. “Who sent you?”
“These streets are Treggin’s, and you know it.”
“Where is he?”
“I ain’t going to—”
His words were cut off by the knife in his throat. Little Tarvis had leaped out of the shadow, burying his blade in the kid. Tarvis looked up at Mila, his eyes full of rage. “He wasn’t gonna talk.”
“Tarvis!” she shouted, dropping to her knees. She grabbed hold of his shoulders. “Are you—why did you—”
“Because he was a waste of time,” Tarvis said.
Mila looked around. She wasn’t even sure where she was, the night was so dark, and her head was still spinning. She wasn’t sure if there were any other Scratch Cats or Crease Knockers nearby, but she could hear the hollers and cat calls in every direction. They were everywhere.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, coiling her rope back up. “We’ve got to get off the street.”
“Street’s where I belong,” Tarvis said. “Can’t find Jede. He’s not in Gorminhut no more.”
“He’s probably looking for you,” Mila said. “Let’s get to the safehouse. We should—”
“I know what I need to do,” Tarvis said.
Mila put on her best strong face, even though
her gut was churning with fear and terror. “You and me need to get out of here. Come on.”
She started back out of the alley, knife in one hand, rope in the other. Tarvis was right with her, his own knives at the ready.
On the other side, she heard the boys still hooting and hollering, but then another voice broke through, asking something, almost politely.
“You told me you had found Miss Bessie. Why did you waste my time?” He spoke like an educated man, hitting those same vowels and consonants that Mister Gin had been teaching Mila.
“She and that other skirt ran this way—”
“Yes, but you don’t have them yet,” he said.
“Sorry, Mister Treggin. We chased after—”
The gang boy earned a slap. Possibly for saying Treggin’s name.
This was Treggin. He was right here, in the street. Mila signaled to Tarvis to stop.
“Don’t be sorry, just keep up with the trouble. That’s the main thing tonight. Show these streets who they need to fear.”
He started to walk away.
“Tarvis,” Mila said quietly. “I’m going after them. Treggin’s there, I can’t let him go.”
Tarvis nodded. “Who do I stab?”
She sighed. She knew she shouldn’t bring him into this. But he was here, in it, and she didn’t have anyone else. “Anyone who gets in your way. But if things get hairy, run.”
She took the rope off her belt and strolled out onto the street, playing at being Miss Bessie, Josie Holt, Asti Rynax—anyone other than Mila Kendish. She had to be someone who could win.
“Hey, fools,” she called out. “You think this little brannigan means you own these streets?”
“Brannigan” was a word Mister Gin liked to use. She was pretty sure she used it correctly. Treggin stopped in the middle of the street and turned to her.
“Who in the name of the saints are you?” Treggin asked. The rest of them were dumbfounded for a moment, giving Mila a chance to get a good look at Treggin. He looked like a man out of place, a swell dressed in the costume of a street rat. Teeth too straight, face too clean.
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