by Dawn Metcalf
Joy twisted her fingers in her lap. That sounded bad.
“Did you want to break up with him?”
“No,” Monica said slowly. “It was just...easier. To be mad.” She inhaled a great gulping sob. “But it’s awful! He won’t answer his phone, and I’ve sent a hundred texts and emails to apologize and so far, nothing.” Joy heard her friend’s voice muffled by tissues. “I deserve the silent treatment, okay? I get that. I was a brat. I own it. But I can’t say I’m sorry if he won’t pick up the phone!”
“Have you gone over to his house?” Joy asked.
“No. That seems a little too sparkly-vampire-stalker for me,” Monica said. “I’m desperate, yes, but not so desperate as to have the door literally slammed in my face. I have some pride.” She sniffed again. “Okay, not much, but some.”
Joy kicked her heels and sighed. Sometimes having an invisible boyfriend was easier than having a flesh-and-blood one. “I wish I could tell you what to do.”
“Yes,” Monica said. “Please! Please tell me what to do! You are my best friend and Gordon’s a great guy and I screwed up and I really need someone to tell me what to do because I’m out of ideas and I feel miserable knowing that he’s miserable and mad at me, too, and this whole time everything was perfect until I opened my big mouth and started being scared.” She took a deep breath. “How do I fix it, Joy? How do I take it back?”
Joy rubbed a hand over her eyes, feeling her sugar levels dive. Stress did that to her, and things had been more stressful in the past forty-eight hours than they’d been in the past four months. She took a deep breath. What would Monica say to her?
“Say you’re sorry,” she said, wiping the drying sweat off her forearms. “Keep saying you’re sorry over and over until he hears you. Until he gets it.” Joy tucked a hair behind her ear. “If he loves you, he’ll forgive you. That’s what good boyfriends do.”
Monica sighed and sniffled. “I’m a lousy girlfriend.”
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Joy said. “Try harder next time.”
She could hear the tears start again. Monica’s voice was damp.
“I really want there to be a next time.”
“So tell him that,” Joy said. “You are beautiful and funny and smart and an awesome dancer and a very best friend. What’s not to love?”
“You should tell him that.” Monica laughed.
“I will the next time we all get together,” Joy promised. “Meanwhile, I think we both need a breather. Take a break from groveling and I’ll meet you downtown for coffee and shoes. I think we need some girl time, just the two of us.”
Monica hesitated. “That almost makes up for blowing off my phone calls.”
“I’m sorry...” Joy said.
“I know. I get it. Apology accepted,” Monica said, taking a cleansing breath. “Okay. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. You got it,” Joy said. “Ten a.m. First purchase, my treat.”
Monica chuckled weakly. “My, my, Miss Moneybags. Do I hear some new shoes calling my name?”
“I was thinking more like caramel lattes.”
“I think you need your ears adjusted,” Monica said through a last stuffy sniffle. “Thanks, Joy. You’re BFF gold.”
Joy looked at her arm, humming with honeyed glyphs. “Anytime,” she said, and she was surprised to find that she was smiling. “Love you, lady.”
“Love you, too.”
“And remember,” Joy said. “No Stupid.”
“Pshht.” Monica sighed. “Too late.”
Joy thumbed off her phone, feeling better. Exhausted but better. Enrique was right: real life was really all about this.
There was a polite tap at the top of the stairs. A uniformed driver held an armful of file folders and tipped the brim of his hat.
“Here for the files,” he said. “And for you, Miss Malone.” He straightened at the waist as impeccably as his employer. “The Bailiwick sent the car for you, miss. You should come at once. Master Ink is waiting.”
She’d heard all she needed to hear. Joy grabbed her purse and vaulted the steps, pausing only to say two words: “Let’s go.”
* * *
She woke when the car rolled up to the brownstone steps. Kurt was waiting by the curb, a hand in his jacket, looking stern. Joy let herself be pulled from the car and whisked through the front door and into the lobby. She hadn’t even registered her feet touching the stairs.
There were no courtesies, no greetings, no rebuke—Kurt escorted her swiftly into the Bailiwick’s office, sat her down and shut the doors.
It was dark. The shades had been drawn, the cheery sunlight shunned. Water still burbled from the flanking fountains, but it took a moment for Joy to register any other sound. Graus Claude was not at his desk but in the corner of his bookshelves, consulting a large tome on a pedestal. Ink stood next to him, holding the sword. They both looked up as Kurt departed.
Joy dropped her purse on the floor and crossed her ankles. She always felt like she ought to be wearing a skirt here. With hose.
“Miss Malone,” Graus Claude rumbled. One of his hands flipped the page. Two others crossed their arms. The fourth scratched the side of his cheek with one claw. “I trust your journey was uneventful. I apologize for the necessary inconvenience, but it was urgent that we speak.” He glanced once at Ink and made his way across the room, his giant feet shuffling over the hardwood as his massive head swayed back and forth. He eased himself down behind his desk and smoothed his calloused hands over the carved armrests. “Ink and I have been discussing the matter, and I need you to describe this obstinate attacker in your own words.” Four sets of fingers threaded together as his pointy teeth flashed. “Please.”
Joy glanced at Ink, but his face was blank and his eyes of bottomless night told her nothing. Graus Claude similarly gave no indication of what he expected other than what he’d requested. She wondered who was suspicious of what and who was proving what to whom. She felt a knot of guilt in her stomach as she imagined Ink’s opinion of her secret joint venture with the Bailiwick at Dover Mill. She knew she could never lie to Ink if he asked.
“It...he looks like a knight in a red suit of armor. He usually has a sword, although this last time he had two. When Ink...” She trailed off. Ink didn’t move, but his body language screamed guilt and warning. Joy switched pronouns quickly. “When we thought it was over, I remember looking at the guy’s throat—for a pulse—there was no movement.”
Graus Claude watched her with those icy-blue eyes like shards under his protruding browridge. “Are you sure it was a ‘he’?” he asked.
“I think so,” Joy said, recalling details. “The way his voice sounded, how he moved, other things.” She was familiar enough with kinetics to recognize gymnasts from their routines on the floor. She knew there was something different about the last knight from the way he moved: his gait had been different, his fighting style changed.
The great toad was inhumanly large, especially up close. “Did you ever see its face?”
“No.” There was a twinge in her shoulder as she sat up in her chair, and something shifted in her body and her memory. “Wait. The first time I saw it, his lower faceplate came off. It...” Images clashed. Something wasn’t right. “He had a gray, bristly jaw.” She looked at Ink, whose eyes were flat as plastic. “And blue teeth.”
The Bailiwick sighed. “And did you check the dead man for blue teeth?”
She didn’t know. Ink shook his head. They hadn’t.
“No,” Ink said.
“But the second time, he was clean-shaven and pale,” Joy said. “When I looked at his throat...for a pulse...”
The Bailiwick’s attention shifted to Ink. “And what did you do with the body?”
“Inq offered to take care of it,” he said quietly. “I was not fami
liar with what to do in the circumstances.” Joy winced.
“Indeed,” his employer replied. “In any case, I surmise that his teeth—should you have taken the time to check—would not have been blue.” Graus Claude picked up the old sword as he addressed Joy. “A blood-colored knight, always bearing a weapon, whose clear intent was on nothing else, no one else, but you. Is that correct?” Joy nodded. The Bailiwick’s hands fanned in a hopeless gesture. “It’s the Red Knight.”
No one said anything, so Joy spoke up. “Who?”
Graus Claude ignored her, shaking his head in dismay. “I apologize for my gross oversight,” he said. “It seems I underestimated the severity of the sentiment against you and the lengths to which it had been pursued. It does, however, explain the elusive quality of our quarry having been able to supersede the Edict and evade Ink’s swift justice, but—as Sir Doyle so aptly observed—‘once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”
“That’s Sherlock Holmes,” Joy said.
“A character written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” Graus Claude said evenly. “In any case, it explains everything except your inestimable ability to remain alive, Miss Malone. It quite defies probability.” The toad’s eyes turned to slits. “You still have that boon, don’t you?”
“The four-leaf clover?” Joy said. “I keep it in my wallet.”
His great arms spread as if to say, Well, there we are, then, and rested all four on the desk. “Unbelievable,” he said. “I am forced to admit that I am completely astonished by either your auspicious luck or the whim of blind providence.”
“But who is the Red Knight?” she asked.
“An assassin,” the Bailiwick said. “The ultimate assassin. The Red Knight possesses a flawless record, a daunting reputation, and exists for a single purpose, which, in this case, is to kill you.” Graus Claude grumbled as if it were a personal insult and not a chilling death sentence. Joy squeezed her elbows to keep still. “Unfortunately, the Red Knight is not so much a ‘who’ as a ‘what’—since the Red Knight is a title, an auspice that is taken on willingly within mercenary leagues. Anyone can assume the auspice and become the Red Knight. If a Red Knight dies, another manifests its signatura with slight alteration and takes its place, resuming the task that the previous knight left unfulfilled.” The great toad shook his head. “There is no stopping the Red Knight once it has been assigned—it will keep coming, returning again and again as different mercenaries, until the terms of the contract have been fulfilled.” He groaned with exasperation or effort to move himself in his chair. “You see, now, why the knights you saw did not act similarly nor carry the same weapons nor use the same tactics? They were different Red Knights. It explains Jaiveer Sungte and his elemental blade—he must have been the last Red Knight since the Old Wars, enjoying his golden years, which is the last recorded sighting of one hunting in the Twixt.” He cocked his browridge in Ink’s direction. “Once he saw you, Master Ink, he must have realized what protected Miss Malone—not only a Scribe, but the Edict, as well. He could not have hoped to succeed, so he fled to incarnate the next Red Knight.” He tossed the sword aside. “So much for retirement.”
Joy tightened her hold on herself. “I don’t understand. How would that change anything?”
The Bailiwick stroked the edge of the desk, an almost self-conscious gesture. “The Edict binds all within the Twixt to the Council’s decree by their signaturae, the leash of our True Names. For Jaiveer Sungte, this prevented him from doing you harm because he, as the Red Knight, was bound to obey the Edict because he was the one bearing the signatura at that time. Yet the Red Knight’s contract is binding, as well, and he could not fulfill it. In order for the Red Knight to succeed, a new Red Knight would have to take his place, one who would ‘refresh’ the signatura, conveniently outside the original parameters of the Edict.” Graus Claude stretched for an analogy. “Are you familiar with seppuku? An honorable death to avoid disgrace?” Joy shook her head mutely. “It is the closest equivalent, but imminently more practical since with the death of Sungte, the next Red Knight could take his place. Because the Red Knight’s signatura is transferable, it changes slightly, binding itself to the next individual’s own signatura. While Sungte as the Red Knight was bound by the Edict, the newest Red Knight was not. Nor would be the one after that. Nor the one after that.” The Bailiwick sniffed. “A neat loophole the Council has not considered before this.” He cast a baleful eye at the blade on the floor. “You can keep killing them, Master Ink, but the Red Knight is innumerable, unstoppable. He is a death sentence.”
“He is an assassin,” Ink said. “They are each—whomever they are—hired killers.” He looked like he wanted to reach out to Joy. “Anyone solely motivated by greed can be dissuaded by wealth.”
“Master Ink, you cannot simply ‘buy off’ the Red Knight,” the Bailiwick said. “The knight is not motivated merely by riches. He is bound by contract, inviolate until either the contract is fulfilled or the order is rescinded, forfeiting the not-inconsiderable fee.” A single claw tapped the desk. “Should you offer to bribe the Red Knight, he would most likely use that moment of parlay to kill Miss Malone or, should he take the money, be obligated to kill her at another time, fulfilling the terms of his contract and then killing himself shortly thereafter for breaking an agreement with you. He is bound until death.” He glanced between Joy and Ink meaningfully. “I assure you that none who bear the Red Knight’s mark would consider such an offer for even a moment.”
Joy sat against the back of the chair, her body exhausted from its near-constant exposure to fear the past few days. She felt a helpless cry bubbling in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard and rubbed her eyes.
“Our one advantage thus far is that it has had difficulty finding you,” Graus Claude said. “Usually it tracks an individual by its signatura, like a bloodhound, but you are human so it must be stalking you, learning your patterns of movement, lying in wait for you to appear or to mark you in some manner in order to track you.” Ink missed the subtle insinuation, but Joy understood, thinking of the ghostly mark still ablaze on her back. Could that be it? Not a signatura, but a tag? A tracer? A target drawn directly on her skin? “But as that is not the case,” he added smoothly, “there is an opportunity to keep you safe by removing your set patterns and order of operations—unless you plan to remain in your home until this matter can be resolved?”
“I thought no one could stop the Red Knight from fulfilling its contract,” Ink said.
The Bailiwick clicked his wireless mouse and the computer monitor sprang to life. “I said it must either fulfill its contract or have its orders rescinded,” Graus Claude said while opening various applications. “I intend to alert the Council about this gross infraction and the loophole and force a retraction. We won’t even have to identify the culprit, although I would dearly like to pursue that vein, but time is of the essence and an Amendment can produce the necessary results that a lengthy investigation cannot. We will have to sacrifice identity for immediacy.”
“How long will that take?” Joy asked.
“To pass an Amendment?” Graus Claude said. “I’d rather not presume.”
“It cannot wait,” Ink said.
“Indeed not,” the Bailiwick agreed, typing with two hands as the third kept hold of the mouse. “Miss Malone will be brought before the Council as soon as the charges levied against her are next in queue. She must present herself and her preference of choice regarding judgment, and we must assure that she lives long enough to make her appearance. The Council does not abide delays.” His fourth hand scratched the top of his head. “I will use that argument to boost its rank on the agenda.”
“I have another idea,” Joy said.
Both Ink and Graus Claude looked at her. Ink’s face did say something this time: speak carefully. Joy took a sip of water to buy a second to thin
k.
“Ink gave me a protective pendant, but it broke,” she said. “That one thing saved my life.”
“You wish to have another such protection?” Graus Claude asked.
“No. A better one,” Joy said. “I’d like to use the Red Knight’s signatura in a ward.” Joy carefully avoided saying too much. She didn’t want to get Inq into trouble in case Graus Claude disapproved. Without his pair of gold-rimmed glasses, he couldn’t see the invisible golden armor already drawn on her skin. “If I could use it in a protection, then I don’t need permission, right? I could safeguard myself against the Red Knight until the Amendment passes.”
“Whoever ordered the Red Knight broke the law defying the Edict,” Ink added. “This could be reparation until the matter is formally addressed by the Council.”
The Bailiwick stopped as if caught with a flashlight under glass. He glanced suspiciously from Joy to Ink and back again, his four arms rigid in their positions of efficient task management. He seemed utterly perplexed.
“That would be...an elegant solution,” he said. “One that I imagine the Council would support in the interim to avoid any further abuse of their decree.” He paused another fraction of a second. “Yes, I believe that could be managed if the proper details were in alignment.” One hand gestured to Joy. “To obtain the current Red Knight’s signatura will be difficult but not impossible,” he said. “Although it might prove to be an...expensive...venture and one which, once it was discovered, will only buy you time until the next Red Knight emerges.”
“I will pay for it,” Ink said.
Graus Claude’s eyes never wavered from Joy. “Although I have no doubt that your earnings could adequately cover whatever costs were involved, Master Ink, the truth of the matter is that this transaction now resides well outside your purview, and is firmly within mine. And while the young lady continues to be your mortal paramour, Miss Malone is regrettably no longer your lehman and, as you both have quit the pretense of her ever accepting your signatura and thus your formal claim, she is—in a manner of speaking—no longer your affair. While she may accept your offer, this conversation and contract is between Miss Malone and me.”
