Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  “We’re still flush, though,” Drake says. Robert? Is that the boy’s name? Roland? Something like that. “Wouldn’t it be something if we could use Barron’s money to win more off him?”

  “Drake,” Gabriel says sharply. He steps in between Drake and the active table, and the crease to his brow keeps Drake from trying to see past him. “I know it’s very shiny, all that coin piled up there. Of course you want it for your own. But greedy dragons never see the knights coming for them, do they?”

  Drake opens his mouth and realizes he’s about to argue, about to try to claim that he could play just one hand, and stops. “Sorry,” he says instead. Robert or Roland, whichever, makes an aggrieved, disbelieving noise from the table, and Drake doesn’t let himself turn back no matter how much he’d like to. “You’re my luck, Gabriel. If you say no, I guess we don’t play today.”

  “Not today,” Gabriel agrees, and pets Drake’s arm as if he’s done something clever. Drake hopes nobody’s watching them too closely. “How do we find out if he’s in the back?”

  “We ask, I suppose.” There aren’t many whores in the house when it’s slow, but there’s always someone willing to work the winners. Drake studies the side of the room, where a few girls are lounging, watching the table, watching them. One of them—the younger one, with her hair in braids and rouge on her mouth, in a clinging wine-gold dress that makes her skin look dark and warm—smiles just a little when he looks at her, and beckons.

  Drake takes the invitation, threading his way between the dead tables to get to the couch where the whores wait. He can feel Gabriel just behind him and to his right, close enough to touch. Close enough to lay a claim, and the whores can tell, from the raised eyebrows.

  “Good choice,” says the girl who beckoned to him, and winks. “That table’s got no luck at all today, but you’ll always get a good time over here.” She leans forward, so Drake can see down the front of her dress. “You up for it, handsome?”

  “Looking for someone,” Drake says. “Have you seen Barron today?”

  “Haven’t seen him,” the girl with the braids says. She glances at the other whore, who might be a little older, or maybe just more tired, her eyes heavy despite the paint she’s wearing to hide it. “Kate?”

  “Haven’t seen him, don’t miss him. He was in a damn foul mood last night. Don’t think anybody’s in a hurry for him to come back.”

  There’s something entirely too satisfying about that, about the idea that Barron’s nervous knowing they’re still out there in Casmile somewhere. “You know what he was upset about?” Drake asks.

  Kate shakes her head. “I know plenty about him, handsome, but I’m working right now, and you don’t sound like you’re buying.”

  “Of course.” Drake glances at Gabriel for confirmation, and Gabriel shrugs one shoulder. It’s still odd to be making all their decisions, even if it’s clear he does know more about this particular tangle than Gabriel does. “How much?”

  “Just you?” she says. “Six shillings.”

  “Both of us,” Drake says. He doesn’t want to get separated, doesn’t want to leave Gabriel here with nothing to keep him entertained and plenty to make him uncomfortable. He needs Gabriel steady today. Clearheaded enough to help.

  “What kind of girl do you think I am?” Kate asks.

  One who only costs six shillings, Drake thinks, which he knows isn’t fair, because there are plenty of awful things he’d probably have done for that much money a week ago, and he probably will again.

  “I won’t touch you,” Gabriel says. He’s smiling, close mouthed, one of those unnerving expressions that Drake often thinks he does on purpose—the ones that look like he doesn’t quite know what they’re for, and he’s just doing them because other people do.

  Kate glances from him back to Drake, shifts like she’s not sure where the threat is coming from. “You’re going to make trouble if I don’t, aren’t you?”

  “It’ll be the easiest money you make all day. Come on. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d be trying to get you to leave the house with me.”

  “I still want extra,” she says. Her expression is guarded, like she expects one of them to get nasty, like she’s used to men who get violent easily. “Ten.”

  “All right,” Drake says. They can always change their minds later, but best to start friendly. “Lead the way.”

  Kate gets up. “They give you trouble, you just yell,” the other girl says, watching Drake. He gives her one of Gabriel’s just-showing-my-teeth smiles, and she looks away.

  Drake and Gabriel follow Kate to the back of the house, past a silk hanging with a spread-wings design painted on it, to a row of small rooms. There’s a lamp already burning in the room Kate chooses, and under the tobacco smoke it smells like every whorehouse Drake’s ever been to: stale sweat and sex.

  She turns back to them as Gabriel closes the door, and her posture is stiff, worry lines tight around her eyes. “You want a show, then?”

  “No,” Gabriel says. “I want a story.”

  “You sleep with Barron?” Drake helps himself to one of the chairs, and gestures for Kate to take the couch.

  “Girl can’t get a job here if she doesn’t,” Kate says.

  “You don’t like him, though.”

  Kate laughs harshly. “You want me to say I’m waiting to be rescued? Looking for a nice boy to take me away from all this?”

  “No,” Drake says.

  “More like we’re waiting for you to say you wish somebody would take care of the greedy pig,” Gabriel says. This time he smiles like he means it.

  Kate’s eyes widen a little, and she glances between them. “You mean it?”

  “I owe him,” Drake says. “He’s sent plenty of trouble my way, and I owe him for it.” He waits for her to meet his eyes. “I hope you meant it, when you said you knew him.”

  “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Where to find him when he’s not here. Where he lives, if you know. Whether he’s hired himself any bodyguards.”

  “He’ll kill me for helping you.”

  “That’s if he gets to kill anyone after we’re through with him,” Gabriel says. “And there isn’t much chance of that.”

  Kate takes a deep breath. “You promise you won’t hurt me if I tell you?”

  Drake nods. “Lady take the liar,” he says, and Kate shudders a little, because she has enough sense to be afraid, but she nods too.

  And she does know plenty, from the sound of it. How nervous Barron got last night after the bad news, the bravos he hired a few days earlier, the fact that last night instead of taking a whore home with him like usual, he took two of the Peacock’s guard instead. There’s a joke to be made about that, an ugly one, but none of them bother with it. Kate’s voice rises and falls steadily, reciting information. How to get to Barron’s house from here—the son of a bitch has one of the old row houses on top of the Bank Street ridge, fronting right on the drop to the water. How many ways there are into the house, how much the street is lit most nights. Which room is his, up the stairs. Where he keeps his coin.

  That part Drake hadn’t even really thought about yet—but Fates, what luck that would be. Barron’s rich enough to have lent him alone probably twenty guineas over the last year or so, not even counting all the other debts he bought up. If he keeps even a fraction of that on hand instead of in a bank, it’ll be enough for them to live like dragons for a good long time. They can stop worrying, stop counting coins to make sure they’ll have enough food to eat and coal to burn.

  Kate’s running out of answers to give them, her voice dry now, when someone knocks at the door. Gabriel gets up from his perch on the arm of the couch, drawing one of his knives. Kate takes a sharp breath, and Gabriel motions for her to stay quiet.

  “What do you want?” Drake calls. He tries to sound impatient, irritated at the interruption. It doesn’t take much acting.

  “Kate,” whispers a voice from the other side. The other whore, it
sounds like. “Open the door.”

  Drake gets up, opens the door, and pulls the girl inside. It didn’t look like she had anyone with her, but he shuts the door again anyway. “What is it?”

  The girl flinches like he’s holding on to her too tightly, but Drake doesn’t let go. “Barron’s here.” She glares up at him. “He’s asking about you. And I don’t give a fuck about you, but I don’t want Kate caught up in your mess.”

  “Fair enough,” Gabriel says lightly. He turns to Drake. He looks ready for anything. “Shall we go pay our respects?”

  “Let’s,” Drake says, letting go of the girl. He hands Kate a generous pile of silver. “You stay here. No reason for you to get hurt.”

  Kate shakes her head, reaching for her friend. “Who are you bastards, anyway?”

  Drake slides his brass knuckles on and flexes his fingers to settle them. “Drake and Gabriel.” He can’t help himself. He bows like they’re at a midwinter ball, or in the theater. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Now, Drake,” Gabriel murmurs, hand on the doorknob. Drake nods, and they go.

  Barron’s in the middle of talking to someone at the gaming table when they come back out to the main room. He looks almost exactly as Drake remembers him: well fed, gaudy, his clothes a little too extravagant for the house and definitely for the time of day. He’s gesturing like he has everything under control, like whatever story he’s telling is amusement and nothing more, but his posture’s too tense to hold that up.

  Then he glances around the room—casually, like he’s looking for an illustration of his point—and meets Drake’s eyes. He falters in his story, and Drake would swear he turns gray, the blood drains from his face so fast. There’s a big nasty type over by the wall, who starts toward them as soon as it’s clear Barron’s upset.

  “Gabe,” Drake says.

  “Get him,” Gabriel answers, and turns toward the tough.

  Someone screams when Gabriel raises his knife, and the players get up from the table. Drake launches himself toward it, up onto it, coins and card scattering and the wood creaking in protest as he lands—and Barron’s not stupid, he’s turning for the door, trying to put some distance between them—so Drake dives for him, the table crashing down behind him as he throws himself at Barron’s shoulders. The bastard goes down heavily, and there’s more yelling, everyone panicked now.

  “You corpse-fucking—” Barron snarls, trying to push Drake off, and Drake punches him, the hand with all the brass, and there’s a dull, sloppy crack under his hand. Barron stops struggling, but it can’t be that easy, so Drake tangles a hand in his hair and slams his head down on the floor for good measure, once, twice, and there’s blood everywhere and more cracking noises, and he doesn’t want to stop, angry now at the way they’ve had to run, and at Barron’s stupid thugs wanting to kill Gabriel, and that they weren’t safe anywhere, and there’s less crunching now and more just wet noises and—

  “Drake!” Gabriel is yelling, like it’s not the first time he’s tried. He’s pulling on Drake’s sleeve. “Come on. We have to go.” He glances toward the door. “They’re crying for the guard.”

  Fuck. “Right.” Drake lets Gabriel pull him up. “You’re all right?” he asks, because there’s a lot of blood on Gabriel’s front and some of it might be his own.

  “Fine,” Gabriel says, and doesn’t let go of Drake as they start for the door. “Just fine.”

  Nobody’s stupid enough to get in their way—plenty of men might want to see criminals brought to justice, but not many want to take the risk of doing it themselves. Outside it’s starting to rain, the sky dull, the city gray, the cobbles slick under their feet.

  Gabriel turns right, away from the harbor, and Drake goes with him. No good came of separating the last time. He can hear more shouting now, the guards’ whistles, the clatter of hooves. They need to get off the main street, out of sight, now.

  Drake pulls on Gabriel’s hand and tugs him down a side street. It’s too quiet up here, too many houses and not enough shops, not enough places for them to get lost. A whistle blows again in the distance, and they turn a second time, then a third. If the mounted guard find them, they’ll get run down in no time. There aren’t nearly enough escape routes here, not even an easy way up onto the roofs, with how widely spaced the houses are.

  “Across the river,” Drake says at the next corner. They need someplace where they can hide.

  Gabriel nods, and they take off again. He’s moving easily, keeping up, so he can’t have gotten hurt back there, not really. Fates, it all went to rot so fast, the plan unraveling as quickly as they’d made it, and now—they turn south toward the river again. If they can get into the burned quarter, below the river, they’ll have no end of places they can hide, and streets so cramped and narrow the horses won’t be a help to the guard anymore.

  When they come out on Market Street, they’re about fifty paces from the nearest bridge, and downriver someone shouts before they’ve taken more than three of them. They run faster, trying to reach the bridge— Are those footsteps behind them? They can outrun a man, surely. The way is clear up to the bridge, and they duck around an ox cart that comes creaking up to its foot. Someone curses behind them— Good, let the guard get tripped up there.

  There are only a few people on the bridge, one of the narrower ones, and Drake’s already thinking about which way to go on the other side when he sees the horseman riding up the bank, from the right—on a gray, even, and he prays it’s not the captain.

  “Left,” he says, as they weave through the scattering of people on the bridge.

  “Just go,” Gabriel says, maybe agreement—he has to hope so—and then they’re across and turning left, and a whistle sounds behind them again. Damn the guard for being so well organized today.

  Drake doesn’t even see the second horse until it’s too late, until it turns the corner in front of them and rears, and they flinch back but not fast enough—and there’s a sickening cracking noise as one of those flailing hooves glances off Gabriel’s temple.

  He drops instantly, crumpling to the street, and Drake dives for him, pulling him back to keep the guardsman’s horse from trampling him outright. “Gabe,” Drake says urgently, cold with panic. There’s blood, fresh and bright, streaking Gabriel’s face, and he’s limp in Drake’s arms. “Gabriel, please. Wake up. Wake up.”

  He hears the snort of a horse behind him but doesn’t look up. Gabriel’s still breathing, that’s the important part. “Touching, Harwood,” Captain Westfall says. “But your luck’s run out.”

  He should be looking for a way to bolt—between the legs of the bay in front of him, maybe—or preparing for the attack he’s sure comes next, but Drake can’t make himself do either. He holds on to Gabriel instead, watching for the flutter of eyelids that means—yes, thank the Maiden, there—he’s fighting his way back to wakefulness.

  “You’ll come quietly now, won’t you,” the captain says as the other guardsman dismounts, “or I’ll kill your friend right here.”

  Drake glances up long enough to nod—hates the satisfaction on Westfall’s face, the rotting bastard—and presses the heel of his hand to Gabriel’s temple, as if he could stop the bleeding by wanting alone. Gabriel’s eyes almost focus on him, clearing slowly.

  “Up you go,” the other guard says, grabbing Drake by the back of his coat. Drake pulls against the grip instinctively, and gets a blade at his throat for his trouble. “Up, I said.” He doesn’t even sound angry, just bored. Doing his job, like he and Gabriel when they’re working someone over themselves.

  “Let me help him up?” Drake asks, and when the pressure of the blade eases a little, he takes that for the most encouragement he’s likely to get. He pulls Gabriel closer, gets his hands under Gabriel’s arms, tries to stand up slowly. At first Drake staggers, but then Gabriel gets his balance, and they both manage to climb to their feet.

  “Drake,” Gabriel says weakly, his fingers catching in Drake’s coat. “You should have
run. They’ll hang you.”

  “Save your strength,” Drake says. He can feel the little shivers running through Gabriel’s frame, wonders how bad the injury really is. When he turns, Westfall is holding his crossbow at the ready, aimed at Gabriel.

  “Take their weapons,” he says.

  The guardsman strips off Drake’s brass knuckles, searches him roughly for anything else dangerous, then starts to confiscate Gabriel’s knives. It’s a sign of how bad things have gotten that Gabriel doesn’t really fight the effort. The guard finds three knives, all told. Is that all of them? They’ve been through so much lately that Drake’s not sure whether he still has a fourth.

  By the time the search is done, a few more guardsmen have shown up to help. Worst luck they’ve had in days, and that’s saying something. Their hands are pinned behind their backs, and Gabriel’s lip curls in the beginning of a snarl when the rope’s pulled tight around his wrists, but he’s still too unsteady on his feet to manage any kind of real threat. People are gathering on the street to stare. Drake hates all of them.

  “All right, boys,” Westfall says, his tone flat and satisfied. “You know where we’re headed now.”

  The guards on foot patrol march them up the street, and Westfall follows on his horse. It’s not terribly far, up Bank Street and then south along Raven to the prison, barely a stone’s throw from the hanging square. Real fear starts to crawl along Drake’s limbs. They can’t bluff their way out of this, can’t leave it to chance, can’t come back another day when their luck’s better. The prison is squat and ugly, its foundation rain-blackened stone, the door heavy oak. Inside it smells like damp straw, old piss, and fear.

  “Revell,” Westfall says, “take our fancy boy upstairs.”

  “What?” Drake asks. “No, wait, I— Don’t, I want to stay with him.”

  “Don’t make it worse for yourself,” Revell says, taking a grip on Drake’s collar and tugging him toward the stairs. Other guards are dragging Gabriel through a door downstairs, and he stumbles once before he disappears down the hall. “You might have a chance up here, at least.”