by Frank Tuttle
She thought. She bit her lower lip and Angels bless her, she thought carefully before she replied.
“Oh my.”
“Tell me.”
“When we first started walking out, Father was…cold. He didn’t want to hear me talk about Carris. He didn’t want him coming around. But he was at least civil. Civil but no more. When we announced our engagement, he was the same. Mother said he was just sad at losing his little girl. We thought he’d get over it. And of course he’s always hated the Lethways.”
“Why? Why hate the Lethways?”
Tamar shook her head. “Something about the Army. Father was in the same regiment, the last two years of the War. He used to rail about what an incompetent officer Lethway was whenever the name came up. But isn’t that what soldiers do? Hate their commanders?”
“Universally. But I can’t recall half their names. Seems like your Father knew Lethway well. Did they serve together directly?”
“No. Dad was a cook. Lethway was a Colonel.”
“Why indeed. All right. Your father hates all things Lethway, and he was none too thrilled when you decided to take their name. But there’s something else, isn’t there?”
“I hope not.” Even Mr. Tibbles had the sense to fall quiet. “But one morning I came in early. We weren’t open yet, didn’t even have the ovens ready. But there was a man with Dad, and they stopped talking when I came in, and the man left. Dad seemed angry, but he said it was a tax collector trying to double-dip.”
“Go on.”
“Later that day, Mother mentioned something about the wedding and Dad threw a plate of coffee cups against the wall. I had my back turned, Mr. Markhat, but I knew he didn’t just drop them. It was so loud. And his expression was so angry. Mr. Markhat-do you think they asked for money, and Father said no?”
I put my hand on hers. Mr. Tibbles bared his teeth, but I bared mine back and he wisely let it go.
“If he did say no, Miss, that was the right thing to do. It might even buy us time.”
“But-”
“You can bet they visited Lethway too. And you can bet he didn’t turn them down. They were just taking the chance they could double their profit without any extra work, Miss. That’s all. I’m sure Carris didn’t suffer for it. If it happened at all.”
“Why would Father do such a thing?”
“He’s watching out for you, Miss. Please don’t forget that. And for Heaven’s sake please don’t go accusing him of anything. This is assumption. It’s probably not even true.”
“You think it is. Tell me you don’t.”
“I think it’s possible. That’s all. And it doesn’t much matter, unless it helps me learn who’s making the demands.”
“Will you ask Father?”
“When the time is right. At the moment, he’d probably show me the underside of his boots. I’m not very popular with him right now either.”
Tamar laughed a sad little laugh. “Is Father going to hate all the men in my life, forever?”
“He sure will. Often with reason. But that’s just the way of the world, Miss. Like you said, men are funny.”
“I suppose. So. What’s next?”
“I meet with your future father-in-law tonight. See what I can shake loose.”
“Isn’t that dangerous? Going around after Curfew, I mean?”
“Vampires never bite finders, Miss. We taste of sunlight and purity.”
She laughed. “I see why Darla likes you. She does, you know. When are you going to set a date? You’re already engaged. You haven’t been kidnapped.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” I rose, remembering pressing appointments elsewhere. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”
“How about lunch, right here?”
I shook my head. “It’ll be much later. Where will you be at quitting time?”
“Home. Come around to the back yard. I’ll be in the garden, unless it’s raining.”
I tipped my hat. Mr. Tibbles awoke and yapped at me, his little-rat teeth bared and menacing.
I did indeed have errands to run. I took a pair of cabs hither and yon, and was down to my last silver half-crown by the time I made it home.
My door beckoned. Beyond it lay a bed, of sorts, and some peace and quiet. I had strong suspicions I wouldn’t see much of either for a while.
But I’d left Mama saddled with a miniature Sprang, and though the Hoogas still stood watch on her doors, I decided I’d better poke my head in and at least make sure Mama and Gertriss hadn’t started wrestling yet.
The Hoogas greeted me with ogre eye-dips, and I managed to ascertain that they’d bashed no heads that day. I listened, didn’t hear screeching, and knocked.
Mama came to the door and peeked through the crack.
“Boy,” she whispered. “I’ve got this lot to sleep. Keep your voice down.”
I slipped inside.
Mama had every candle she owned lit and smoking. The aroma was thick and floral. I gagged and made a face.
Mama handed me a wet rag. “Put this under your nose, else you’ll get sleepy too.”
I shoved it over my mouth. It had no odor, but it did render the candle-scent far less potent.
“Mama?”
“All that yellin’ and screamin’ was upsettin’ my nerves,” she whispered. “Sounded like a war in here. Even got Buttercup riled, and she nearly cut loose with one of them howls of hers. I didn’t have no choice.”
“Who was screaming?”
“That Sprang child. Screaming bloody murder. I ain’t never heard the like, boy.”
“He wasn’t making a sound when I left him here.”
“Well, he got good and loud after you left. Hollerin’ for his daddy. Hollerin’ for his brothers. Hollerin’ as loud as he could and fightin’ and clawin’ for all he was worth.”
“What set him off?”
Mama sighed. “Boy, I just don’t know. I set him down with a bowl of soup-good soup, mind ye-and Gertriss wiped his face off and I put a spoon in his fool Sprang hand. And then he went to screamin’ and fightin’. Had to get a Hooga to snatch him up and put him in a bed.”
“He was out all night. Maybe something he saw scared him out of his wits?”
“Sprangs ain’t born with much in the way of wits. But maybe, boy. I tell you I just don’t know. But something ain’t right with that child.”
“You mean aside from being a Sprang.”
“That’s what I means. I ain’t sure yet. But I’m brewing up a special hex, boy. Something that ought to let me see if’n mine ain’t the only hex riding this here child.”
I forgot and lowered my rag.
“You think the kid is ensorcelled? Mama, what the Hell. He’s just a bumpkin kid.”
Mama pushed my rag back up under my nose.
“I don’t know nothing of the sort. Yet. I’m just sayin’ I think I smells a hex. On a child. I tell you this, boy-if somebody has hexed that there baby I’m goin’ to have their gizzard in a bag, and no mistake.”
“What kind of hex, Mama?”
“I won’t know nothin’ ’til I’m done, boy.”
“When will that be?”
“Not ’til after mornin’.”
I cussed.
“Listen, boy, what else am I supposed to do? I gots a banshee and a hexed devil-child and a headstrong niece all under my roof at once. They was about to tear the walls down. You ain’t here to help.”
“No, I’m out trying to resolve this mess. Which I’ve got a start on.” I showed Mama the papers from the Judiciary. “Going to get them out first thing in the morning.”
Mama muttered. It was neither flattering nor supportive.
“Thanks, Mama. How long can you keep them asleep?”
“The young ’un, all day and all night. Gertriss and Buttercup will be stirrin’ any minute now. You’d best git, unless you want a good earful from your partner about how she ought to be out and about and so forth.”
I stood. Mama glared up at me.
“I’ll be out most of the night. Tell Gertriss not to worry.”
Mama just grunted. I got out of there before anyone awoke and resumed howling bloody murder.
Chapter Eight
I hoofed it back to my office after a conversation with Mr. Bull. I took off my shoes and laid out fresh socks and a shirt. Then I fed Three-leg and enjoyed a two-hour nap. I didn’t waste any time pondering who’d hexed the Sprang’s youngest urchin, or why-the night would hold far more pressing perils, and even those I shoved aside.
So I did manage to doze until Mr. Bull began to pound on my door at the appointed hour.
“I’m up,” I yelled. The pounding ceased, and his shadow fell away from my door.
I rose, gathered up my toiletries and clothes, and headed for the bathhouse. I was breaking Curfew with the rich folks, and it wouldn’t do to appear as anything but well dressed and groomed.
Too, I had another stop to make at Darla’s. I’d be cutting our date short, and she wasn’t going to like that. And I’d be breaking Curfew, and she’d like that less.
But the things I wasn’t going to do or say were going to be regarded as the worst insult of all. I couldn’t help it. There wasn’t going to be time for a long talk, much less time to break the news about my new position in the Corpsemaster’s secret army.
So I bathed in a hurry and bought yellow fireflowers along the way. Then in a fit of desperation I bought a box of fancy chocolates sealed with a red silk ribbon. The cab driver grinned.
“You’ve either done something, or you’re about to do something; which is it?”
“Both,” I replied.
“You should have bought roses.”
I gave him Darla’s address. He took the hint and shut up.
The ride to Darla’s was brief. I spent the time glaring at the fireflowers and thinking the cabbie was right. I was delaying the inevitable, and I knew it, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with any way around it.
Drafted. It didn’t seem real. But the black carriage was waiting, and one day soon it would come for me again, and I might be brought home or I might find myself counting skulls out of boredom with the lads at the Battery.
Darla deserved better.
Then why have you waited? asked a snide little voice. All that time wasted. Now it might be too late.
I shoved the thought aside and cussed. The cab rolled to a halt, and I gathered my flowers and my box of fancy chocolates and clambered out.
Darla popped out of her door while I was fumbling with coins for the driver. She was wearing a high-necked brown top that had flower-shaped brass buttons and new black pants and shoes so shiny I knew they’d never been worn. She was dressed to go out, but she saw the flowers and the candy and her face fell.
Just a bit, only for an instant, but I saw and she saw me see and we wound up standing there on the sidewalk facing each while trying to decide who would speak first.
“For me?”
“For you,” I replied, offering up flowers and candy. “An apology for ruining your evening.”
“You haven’t ruined anything. These are beautiful. But we’re not going out, are we?”
“Sorry. No. Not tonight. I’ve got this client, see, and she expects results, and the only way I can get them is to meet certain people at a certain place at a certain time.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“This certain time is after Curfew.”
“I’m afraid so. No way around it, sweetheart. Some people can’t be negotiated with.”
“Did you try?”
“Darla. Honey. It’s your case I’m working on. I tried seeing old man Lethway during office hours and got tossed into the street. This is the only way.”
She sat on her stoop, her arms still crossed. Her hair tossed about in the evening breeze.
“So there’s no time to talk about your carriage ride either. How convenient.”
I couldn’t decide whether to sit or keep standing.
“I didn’t plan things this way. You know that.”
“Actually, Mr. Markhat, I’m not at all sure I know that at all. I’m beginning to think I don’t know a lot of things about us.”
“Darla, that’s not fair. It’s your case I’m working on. You asked me to do this.”
She brushed her hair back, but didn’t look at me.
“If it wasn’t a meeting after Curfew it would be something else.” She raised her hand when I started to protest. “I need to be a part of things. I need to be the first one you tell things, good or bad. I know you well enough to know something was said in Hisvin’s carriage. You’ve probably told Mama. You’ve probably told Evis. You could tell me right here, right now, probably in a hundred words or less. Why won’t you? Why?”
I didn’t answer right away. Even now, I have no idea what I was going to say; when I finally got my mouth open, but it was too late. Darla rose and darted up her steps and slammed her door behind her, leaving flowers and candy forlorn on her stoop.
I knocked, but my only response was the metallic clank of her sturdy door-bolts being thrown.
The cab that had dropped me off came rattling back down the street, heading in the opposite direction. He saw me standing there, saw the flowers and the candy on the stairs, and he rolled to a stop. Wisely, he didn’t say a damned word.
“You were wrong, by the way,” I said as I climbed back inside. “Roses wouldn’t have helped.”
I had the cab take me back by my place so I could pick up Toadsticker. I don’t take it to Darla’s-it’s just a reminder that my business doesn’t always involve pastries and friendly banter.
Darla’s words, and the hurt in her voice, haunted me all the way home. She was right.
And so was I. Which made fixing it difficult.
I didn’t pop back in at Mama’s. I didn’t hear any screaming or glass breaking, and the Hoogas appeared serene, so I just waved and darted in my place and came out with Toadsticker strapped to my waist, hidden under my long coat.
I had a sword on my belt, a knife in my boot and a pair of brass knuckles in my right pocket. The Avalante pin given to me by Evis was on my lapel. I was as ready as I could possibly be to break Curfew with a pair of well-heeled cigar aficionados who might decide during the conversation to reduce my number of functional appendages.
I caught myself glaring at passers-by. Damn it all, anyway. If Darla thought she was unhappy now, wait until she found out the truth.
I had the cab drop me a block from the cigar house. I found a bar and I planted my butt there until Curfew warning-two peals, silence, two more peals sounded, and the barkeep got red-faced and sputtered and finally worked up the nerve to ask me to leave. I plunged out into a street already nearly empty, aside from hurried figures shuttering windows and locking doors and looking furtively about as though they expected to be gobbled up by vampires in the next moment.
I unbuttoned my coat. I didn’t need to. Hell, the halfdead haven’t claimed a victim in the good part of town in years, but I was in a mood and I knew the sight of Toadsticker glittering in the lamplight would keep run-of-the-mill muggers away.
I found a shadowed alley across from the cigar joint and lurked there, waiting. The owners must be well connected, I decided, because they neither shuttered the windows nor turned down the lamps. I could see shapes moving about, but couldn’t discern much else through the curtains.
I waited until Curfew proper rang out, and then I crossed the empty street and marched up to the front doors.
They weren’t locked. I walked through, and a pair of uniformed kids took my coat. I was told I was expected and led down a long hall and into a room the size of a house.
It was paneled in walnut and the floors were covered in rugs and the fireplace at the far end was blazing. The room held a dozen people, sitting and speaking in hushed tones in four little bunches scattered throughout the cavernous room. There were no windows, and it was hot, and from the thick haze of smoke that surrounde
d Lethway and Pratt I gathered they’d spent the evening sitting too close to that unnecessary fire and puffing away on rich man’s tobacco.
Lethway was older than I’d expected, but trim and shaved and sitting bolt upright on a couch designed for slouching. He wore his white hair in an Army officer’s peel and his boots were officer issue and the walking cane leaning by his right knee was topped with the gold dragon’s head of the Sixth.
“Well, well,” said Lethway. His voice was strong and showed no hint of drink despite the half-empty bottle on the table beside him. “Mr. Markhat at last. We feared you discovered other appointments.”
“You said after Curfew. It’s after Curfew. I’m here.”
I sat across from Lethway. That left me facing both men, which wasn’t the perfect place to be if they decided to jump me, but I didn’t think they’d risk making a ruckus indoors with witnesses around.
Mr. Lethway nodded. A pair of waiters appeared and politely ushered everyone save a trio of well-dressed gentlemen and the three of us out. When the last waiter left, he locked the door behind him.
The three stragglers took up stations behind me. They did not sit. They did not speak.
They didn’t need to.
“So that’s the way it is.” There was a box of cigars at my elbow. I opened it, took one out, used the clippers on the table to snip off the end, and put it in my mouth. “Either of you gentlemen have a light?”
“Pratt. If you please.”
Pratt hefted his bulk from the couch with a grunt and fished in his pocket and produced a fancy sparking lighter. I leaned forward, and he stood close. His lighter rasped and sparked and I inhaled.
It was a good cigar. Not as good as the ones Evis gets, but close.
I blew out blue-grey smoke.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it.” Pratt sat back down.
“Tell me what you know, Mr. Markhat.”
“I know a great many things. Geography, for instance. Did you know the Brown River runs for one thousand, two hundred, and sixteen miles past Rannit before it reaches the Sea?”
His tanned face flushed. Pratt glanced Lethway’s way, waiting for some long-established hint.
