He jangled the bag between his knees and slid his hand inside the pouch. My gut tightened and the fine hairs on my arms lifted. A crackle of tension was all the warning we had. The assassin came out of my room like a midnight storm breaching the sea walls. My gentleman client didn’t get a chance to reveal the rubies. A dagger thrummed in his chest, sending him sprawling.
She crossed the floor in two strides, dropped to a knee over his prone body, tugged the dagger free from his chest, and cut his throat in one brutal slash. Blood splattered across my face, jolting me into action. I bolted for the sideboard and yanked open the top drawer. Empty. How?
“I moved your weapons, thief. Not that your pistol and short knives would have done you any good.”
I turned and pushed back against the sideboard. If she’d wanted me dead, she could have killed me while I was out cold on the floor. So this was just about the cup then? She stood beside the convulsing body, blood soaking into the edges of her cloak, and looked down at the cup. A breeze fluttered a few strands of her braided obsidian hair, but otherwise, she stood perfectly still. She’d killed a man without hesitation. I’d seen murders before, seen tavern brawls get out of hand, and even the most brutish man flinched when he killed. But not her. She’d killed before, perhaps many times. Was I next? If I could make it to the window, I could clamber across the rooftops. Although if I slipped, the fall would kill me as surely as her daggers.
“What kind of fool are you?” she asked.
I pulled my gaze back into the room and found her turned toward me. Blood dripped from the blade in her hand and tapped against the floorboards. This was too much. Pain continued its hammering inside my head and I teetered in place, still partially drunk and in no condition to deal with this whirlwind of a woman.
“What am I supposed to do with the body?” I asked.
She cocked her head in the same birdlike gesture from the alleyway. “You should be more concerned with your life than his death. He was about to kill you.”
“No, he was about to pay me.” I shoved off the sideboard and strode forward like her daggers were of no concern. I could fake bravery; I’d been faking it for years. She couldn’t hear my racing heartbeat.
I scooped the bag of gems out of my client’s upturned hand and stepped away from the body and the creeping pool of blood. “Well, he lied about the payment.”
The bag weighed at least half what it should have, and now I’d have to slip a few gems to the city guards for them to look the other way while I dumped his body in the river.
I turned my head and found the assassin’s dark eyes drinking me in. “Who in the Halls of Arach are you?”
“Those rubies, thief, were not for payment, but for power. This man was a mage, and more will come.”
“A what?”
Finally, her perfect face broke into an expression. So she could feel. From the sharp angles of her scowl, I assumed annoyance. “How do you not understand my words?”
Crazy as a barrel of rats. I poured a few gems into my palm. Light flicked off the blood-red rubies. They were cool and smooth and nothing more. I certainly didn’t get any sense of whatever power she spoke of. “Just rubies, princess. I don’t know what you’ve been drinking, but I wish I had some of it so I could escape this nightmare you’ve dumped me in.”
She stepped on the dead man’s wrist and rolled his hand back. “Look again at your client.”
I followed her gaze and saw a four-cornered symmetrical symbol of interwoven knots branded into his palm. I must have missed it when I picked up the gem pouch. “What is that?”
“Protection.”
“Against what?”
“Against you. This seal hides his true appearance. The truth of him is far worse than the lies you see.”
Enough crazy talk. I had a body to dispose of, a hangover to nurse, and rubies to spend.
“You need to leave.” I scooped the cup off the floor and held it out. “Take your wretched cup and go, and maybe I won’t tell the guards you were here. This is all”—I gestured at the dead man—“an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“In that, you are more correct than you realize.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the cup toward her. “Just take it. I’ve been paid. The job’s done. And I hope we never meet again.”
She blinked, and while it couldn’t have been the first time I’d seen her blink, it seemed as though it was, because her elegantly marked eyes sparkled like the gems in my hand. “That is impossible,” she said.
I had the all-consuming urge to shove her out my door, or maybe out the window. Everything she said alluded to things I was sure I didn’t need to know and that would probably land me in a whole world of trouble. She was trouble. It was in her eyes, in the blood on her blade, and in the way she stood stone still. Everything about her had my instincts clawing to get away.
“You consumed fluid from the cup,” she said tartly, as though I should know why this was so significant.
“This cup?” I lifted it between us, fixed my gaze on hers, and threw the wretched thing out the window without looking. “Not my problem.”
A few seconds beat by, and then the humid breeze brought in the metallic clang of the cup clattering in the street.
I smiled. She didn’t. But she did swallow, and the pale skin of her neck fluttered where her pulse beat fast. Her expression might not betray her, but her body did.
“Best retrieve it before a trader finds it and sells it,” I said.
“That was a foolish thi—”
“As you so rightly pointed out, I am a fool. Goodbye, princess. I’d like to say it was nice meeting you, but it really wasn’t, and in a few hours, I’ll try my hardest to drink the memory of you from my mind. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
I expected her to head for the stairs, but in a flurry of blood-soaked cloak, she was out the window, leaving me staring after her while the man she’d killed cooled on my floor. At least she was gone. Just one more problem to deal with and everything would be back to normal. I had taverns to visit, clients to find, and women to seduce. Not necessarily in that order. First, though, the body and the blood. My stomach rolled and the pain in my head returned, this time thumping behind my eyes.
My client’s dead eyes gazed somewhere in the middle distance, where life couldn’t reach him. I rummaged through his pockets for anything of worth. I would strip him of his clothes too. They had to be worth a handsome sum. I’d have to find a buyer outside Brea for the decorative walking stick. It was too distinctive to offload in the city.
I needed help. Blood was likely soaking through the floorboards, dripping onto the floor below. People would start asking questions soon.
“Daryn…?” I left my loft and clicked the door firmly closed behind me. “Daryn?”
The uneven floorboards of the old coach house creaked and groaned as I stomped down the hall. Brea had swelled and grown around the old buildings, bringing them inside the Outer Circle’s city walls, embracing them like a mother pulling her wayward children close to her bosom and then walling them in for protection or imprisonment. Nobody knew or cared which. The coach house had ceased acting as a waypoint long ago, and now housed thieves, whores, and pickpockets. Daryn usually flitted between all of us, fulfilling odd jobs for a few gems. He often pestered me for advice on thievery, citing his knack for pickpocketing as an innate talent. He was probably good too, but I didn’t want the competition or for him to lose his hands should the city guard catch him. He’d find his way, same as I’d had to.
“Daryn?” I jogged down the staircase. He certainly had a talent for disappearing.
My foot slipped on the step. I shot a hand out and gripped the bannister, immediately feeling a cool wetness under my palm. Then the smell hit me—hot, wet metal and the smell of meat-trader stalls in the sunbaked streets. Blood, so much blood. The bottom step glistened with it, and as my feet carried me down the last few steps, I knew what awaited me, but I had to see, to know for cert
ain, even if every instinct urged me to run. Just turn and run. Run like I had from the workhouse, from the nightmares that stalked my thoughts. Run like the coward I was.
Daryn lay sprawled in the narrow corridor, his hand reaching for the open doorway. His innards spilled from his torso, still wet and reeking. His death had been quick, but not quick enough. My gaze skittered over the kid’s body to the hunched, cloaked figure by the door. A man, at first glance, but as my gaze lingered, I realized it was not a man at all. It lifted its head and fixed a red-eyed glare on me. Once a person, it was now twisted and warped, like a desiccated body left to shrivel into dust.
I scrambled up the stairs into my home. I slammed the door shut and pushed back against it, breaths racing.
Not human. That thing, it wasn’t real. My head told me it couldn’t be real—a hallucination—but my heart, my gut, my instincts knew it was real and it was coming.
An impact jolted the door, throwing me forward.
Oh gods. Teeth gritted, I pushed back hard against the door. The wood groaned and splintered. The vile thing was carving its way inside. I frantically tried to think of a solution. No weapons. The bitch princess had taken them. The window—if I could get to the window before it broke through … But as soon as I stepped away from the door, it would burst inside. I was fast and agile, my trade had ensured that, but would it be enough?
The thing slammed into the door, jarring me to the bone. Why does it want me?
A shadow blocked the window. The assassin crouched on the sill, face half hidden in the darkness inside her hood. “Come.”
Easy for her to say.
“Come, thief, now.” She held out her hand and beckoned me with a quick curl of her fingers.
I pushed off the door and bolted. Within two strides, the door exploded open, peppering splinters against my back. I focused on the assassin’s hand, clapped mine into hers, and let her pull me out onto the sloping roof. My feet slipped out from under me, and I went down hard on my knees, dislodging half a dozen slate roof tiles and sending them raining onto the street below. And then I was up and running behind the cloaked woman, the both of us scrabbling and stumbling toward the ridge.
Heart thudding hard against my ribs, I swung a glance over my shoulder. The inhuman thing curled its bony fingers around the frame and hauled itself out at an angle, as if the rules of nature didn’t apply to it. It scurried low like a spider, spreading itself over the tiles, and scuttled forward.
“What is that?”
It burst forward with speed, and so did I. Ahead, the assassin swung around a chimneystack, as lithe and quick as her dancer frame suggested.
“A mage!” she called back.
I followed close, watching for loose tiles beneath my boots. Brea’s church bells chimed inside the Inner Circle ahead, where buildings rose ever higher, their gray stone walls clawing at the sky. We’d need to shake the creature before we hit the inner wall; there was no climbing over it.
The assassin skidded down a pitched roof and landed in a crouch on an outcropping of thatch. I landed with a solid oomph, and behind me that thing scampered, the screech of its nails on the tiles tugging on my nerves.
Straightening, head pounding and heart galloping, I scanned the ocean of rooftops surrounding us for a clear path. “There’s nowhere.”
She backed up, nudging into me, and then sprinted into a running leap for a roof an impossible distance away. She cleared the gap, landed awkwardly, and slipped. My breath hitched. She tumbled, rolled, and snagged a gutter at the last second. Clinging on with just her fingertips, she dangled there. I couldn’t reach her; there was no way I could make that jump. The wind whipped her cloak around her, bringing with it the bells still ringing out the midday. She heaved herself up over the gutter and climbed to her feet. “Thief! Look out!”
The mage slammed into me from behind. I fell forward, and my cheek smacked against the parapet. A blinding flash of pain cracked through my jaw and neck. The thing wrapped its clawed fingers around my ankle and yanked me closer. I kicked and struck its face with my boot—once, twice—but it didn’t even blink. And those horrid eyes burned through me, into me, seeing all my fears. A smile split across its dry face.
“Give usssss … the jewel, thief.” It slurred and hissed the words around a split black tongue.
“What jewel?” First a cup, now a jewel? I hadn’t stolen any jewels—recently. Did it mean the rubies?
It lifted its right hand and its nails scythed through the air. It would gut me, just like it had Daryn. It would spill my insides all over this rooftop for the crows to feast on. I’d die a coward; my sister had been right.
Sunlight glinted off the dagger as it punched into the mage’s right eye, flinging its head back. The thing let out an almighty howl and collapsed—dead—on my legs. Warm blood spilled over my boots.
“Thief!”
I dropped my head back onto the thatch and peered into the blue Brean sky. She really needed to use my name. I didn’t need the whole city knowing I was a thief. My heart beat double-time, trying to pound its way through my chest. Maybe I could just rest here a while?
“Thief! Hurry.”
I kicked the mage off and twisted onto my front. The assassin stood on the opposite rooftop, the wind tugging her cloak and hair to the side, her eyes fierce.
“My name is Vance,” I shouted back.
“I don’t care,” she growled. “Get up. There are more.”
Propping myself up on an elbow, I squinted into the sunlight and saw them. The mages spilled across the rooftops like oil over water.
Shit. I tugged the dagger from the dead creature’s eye and backed up to the roof’s edge.
“Jump,” her princessness ordered.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Jump, fool, or die.”
“I’m not jumping that.” A fool, was I? I spied a downpipe and straddled the top to begin my descent.
“Where are you going?” she snapped.
“Where does it look like I’m going? Down.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
Down pipes, guttering, rooftops, railings, scaffolding—these were my walkways and Brea was my playground. Her princessness could bitch all she liked, but I’d had enough of her and enough of the mages. I’d hit the street and get lost in the crowd. It would take a few years until I could show my face on this side of the Outer Circle again, but I could live with that, if it meant not getting thrown in the rich-folk dungeons for two murders I didn’t commit. Or getting sent back to the workhouse. I couldn’t go back there; I’d slit my own throat first.
I settled on the street, straightened my waistcoat and smoothed back my jaw-length hair. Tucking the dagger into my belt, I tracked the murmuring of the traders crowds and wove my way through the narrow streets to the market square. Whatever those mages were, they seemed to have given up their pursuit. Perhaps they were after the assassin, not me. Good riddance.
I meandered among the crowd, my thoughts turning to Daryn as I spied a few purses he could have pickpocketed with ease. Vendors shouted their wares, people haggled and jostled, and it all continued as though nothing had happened. But Daryn’s body lay cooling back at the coach house, and I’d left him there. Not my problem.
The whores would donate a few coins to pay for his burial. They’d look after him in death as they’d doted on him in life.
I should go back. It was the right thing to do, but doing the right thing had screwed me before.
I stopped beside a stall selling oil lamps and picked one up, pretending to admire the elaborately painted glass.
“I can do you a mighty offer, sir. How’s about one for your lady? A single ruby?”
I tapped my pocket; the pouch of rubies was still inside.
“I’ll think about it,” I lied. At least I had the rubies. How quickly everything changed. Yesterday, I’d been perched high up on a rooftop, watching the residence from which I’d been about to steal an arti
fact. Now my client and a kid I might have called friend were dead, and I was homeless.
A sudden shortness of breath gripped my chest. I sucked in air and slumped against the stall. The more I fought to breathe, the more the air escaped me. My head spun and vision blurred. I reached for the stall’s edge, missed, and fell forward. Several oil lamps went flying. They shattered against the cobbled street. A scream rose, rattling around my muddied thoughts. The scream wasn’t mine, was it? More screams. From men and women both. Slumped over the stall, I turned my head, ignoring the traders’ bellows to run. They—the mages—tore through the crowd as though those people were paper, slicing with their claws. I should have been among those fleeing for their lives, but I couldn’t stand, couldn’t move, and every breath shortened until it was all I could do to snatch a mouthful of air, stealing it from whatever force was taking it from me before I passed out. I curled my hand around the assassin’s dagger. I’d go down fighting, and I’d take a few of those bastard creatures with me.
“Show him the rubies …” The assassin’s whispers poured into my ear. I started and glanced left, but she wasn’t next to me. “Don’t look for me. Do as I command.”
“They’ll kill me …” I slurred.
“Have I been wrong yet, thief?”
I lifted my gaze and looked for the assassin. She had to be close, her voice was right there beside me, but through the dizzying fog, I couldn’t see her.
“You waste time. The rubies. Take some out and scatter them when they approach.”
This is insane. I should fight.
“You are in no condition to fight. I am coming, but until then, trust me and do as I command.”
Screams were volleyed around the market square.
“Hey!” I called out, digging my hand into the pouch and scooping out a generous handful of rubies. “Looking for these?”
I couldn’t focus on the mages; they were just darkness and nightmares closing in. I tried to swallow, but the action clogged my throat. I gripped the cool, hard rubies and focused on those instead. The mages circled in, tightening their net. Something heavy landed on the canvas tent above me.
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
