DARTS (The Paladin's Thief Book 1)

by Benjamin K Hewett

  DARTS

  Benjamin K Hewett

  Copyright © 2015 by Benjamin K. Hewett

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1508669593

  To Dennis, who took time to teach a scrappy young program analyst how to play cricket.

  I duck my head just in time and scamper down the tavern’s center beam, flinching as a mug shatters against the rafter boards. I shake bits of beer-soaked ceramic out of my hair and stay light on my feet, ignoring the flying fists and spray of ale below me. You don’t live long in my profession by losing focus. All that matters for the moment are Lucinda’s wicked arm and balancing on this crossbeam. I hop a spinning plate and twist sideways too, reversing direction at the last second to avoid another mug, like a squirrel in a hailstorm.

  In retrospect, it wasn’t one of my better wagers. A game of darts can be a big deal, if you bet your last penny on it. And your kids are hungry. And all you’ve got to sell is a cursed ring that no one wants except the guy you stole it from.

  So things get a little messy, right?

  Right.

  My first mistake was not casing the players. I always check a dealer’s deck for nubbed edges. I always watch the prize-fighter take his chair. Does he scrape it across the floor, or slip into it with a cat-cloak’s whisper? Is he carrying dirty cash from throwing a match? Details are important. Even the best cons give themselves away—if you know what to look for.

  Take Lucinda. All beauty and no brains? Wrong. She always stands purse-side.

  Lucinda’s on staff here at The Black Cat. She serves tables when there’s nobody rich to loot. That means she serves tables in the evening, since the well-to-do rarely frequent lower Ector after dark. She’s quick-fingered, that’s for sure.

  But it’s not just Lucinda you have to watch out for. There isn’t a person in here who doesn’t have a vice or three. Petri’s a fence and bookie. Markel’s a drunk and occasional nudist. Barkus runs a ring of shifty beggars. And I prefer not to say what Pale Tom does in his spare time.

  But since I don’t have any valuables tonight, Lucinda’s more a friend than a liability. My bag’s down on Lantern Street, scattered across the third floor of the tall, black house. Let’s just say that the silver and the leatherbounds weren’t worth slowing down for—not once I’d realized Pale Tom had laid claim to the place. One hint of that bone-saw breath and I went out the third story window and up the stucco. My bag sure wasn’t going to do that, not in the nick of time, which is why it chose to stay.

  And I may have left a window open, which isn’t very professional.

  Anyways, I’m not here to eat, sleep, or talk about windows left open in the rain. I’m here to see Petri and to buy some bread for my kids, depending on what he says this ring is worth.

  He raps his knuckles on the polished bar as I walk up. When he’s not underground, Petri minds the tap and records the accounts. He’s good with numbers. His eyes slide right away from the black ring as soon as I put it on the counter, like soap on a stone floor. Fence code for “not interested.”

  I put it back in my pocket. It’s going to be another hungry night.

  “Hey, Tee,” he says, “Griphurk is coming in for darts. How much are you in for?”

  I smile before I remember how thin my pockets are. Only a fool would bet against Griphurk, but it sounds like someone has.

  Griphurk won’t admit it—he gets a really nasty look in his slanty eyes if he’s asked—but he’s half cave goblin. I can see him camped out by the dart board, waiting, buried in a drink, long claw-like hands flexing. He smiles at some comment from the next table over and shows incisors longer and pointier than a regular person’s. Then the smile recedes and his lips cover the teeth, puffing up ever so slightly where they hide. Goblin, and that means good at darts.

  He can put loop the infinity belt three-times-of-three in a game of Loops and Bumpers. In Cricket he’s got 150 points on me before I can even close four sets. Fact is: Grippy’s the king of darts in Ector. He can shred a hide in three throws, if that’s the game. When the smoke in the room gets so thick that Barkus has to ladle it out the window to make room for the fresh air, Griphurk still hits his mark. When the west wall gets blown open in an out-and-out brawl, Griphurk keeps his concentration. “Godda feenish the game,” he croaks, and a half-pint of sleeper juice barely slows him down.

  Only Pale Tom and Carmen can give him a run for his money. I’d wager Pale Tom does it just by scaring the darts into doing whatever he wants them to. He’s that creepy when he comes in at night, ghosting to his usual corner in his black-hooded cloak that sucks up light like the inner edge of a bat’s intestine.

  Carmen does it with the steady hand of a seamstress, a hand she’s earned from all the fancy needlework she sells to the ladies brave enough to patronize lower Ector. She keeps her shop next door ’cause the rent is cheaper and she can’t afford anything north of King’s Gate, but I think she might have other reasons. Nobody asks.

  Carmen has curly red hair that drops below her shoulders in shiny ringlets, and a beautiful face that I’d drown in all evening. Normally, I watch her like I watch everyone else—from the crossbeam above the center pillar—when she doesn’t beg me down from my perch to play a friendly round with her. That crossbeam is the safest seat in the house, minus the smoke, since I’m the only one who can get there without a ladder.

  Petri reaches across the counter and pokes me in the arm. “Hey . . . Teacup, I been talkin’ to ya!”

  “Ow.” I rub my arm. “Who’s the competition?”

  I know it isn’t Carmen. She’s been working late for commission the last few weeks and Pale Tom’s probably cleaning up the mess I left on the third floor of his new house. Or a mess he left on someone else’s floor.

  “Does it really matter, Tee? It’s Griphurk.”

  Griphurk would pick this night. I’ve sworn on Pan’s name not to waste this penny.

  “It matters,” I say.

  Petri points to the cellar door when he sees me hesitate. “Large cheerful fellow. Not from around here.” Petri rubs his hands on the bar in a dirty sort of way and leans toward me, winking. “Went down into the ale-cellar to help Lucinda.”

  “Wow.”

  Petri obviously thinks the stranger is two eggs short a clutch, and I’m not far behind him. There are several reasons why Lucinda might have asked a stranger to bring up ale casks from the cellar, and neither my puny size nor Petri’s gimp leg figure in. For one thing, it’s usually darker than Hell’s Gate down there. Anything could happen.

  Barkus could’ve fired her apples ages ago—you know, robbing the patrons blind mid-drink—but she’s one of the few that can hold her own against the clientele and lose no allure in the doing of it. Of course, there are other reasons to like Lucinda. If the pretty words and the beautiful curves don’t get you, her sentimental streak might: she’ll just as soon be slipping your pennies to the orphans and fatherless out back when no one’s looking. Nevermind that some of them actually work for Barkus. It’s the thought that counts, right? As a fellow acquisitioner—the nice word for what I do when I’m hungry—I can respect that.

  That doesn’t mean I respect a fellow who takes his purse into a dark cellar with her. I slide my last queenpence over the bar, liking the way it sings as it grates across the wood grain. (My stomach protests.) “Deal me in.”

  Petri looks me in the gut and smiles. “Should be over quick.” I can see his tongue peeking through the gap in his two front pearlies. “Then you can get some food and get home, unless you got some other business for me.”

  I shake my head. He’s already turned down the best I’ve got.

  Then he notices the s
ingle coin. “That’s it, Tee? Grippy Night, and all you got is a featherweight?” Disdain from his voice blankets the countertop.

  I shrug, embarrassed. “I left the rest back at the house.” I don’t specify which house.

  Petri shakes his head.

  “Okay . . . one queenpence on Griphurk.” He emphasizes both the quality and singularity of it as he marks me down. The coin disappears into his bookie box.

  “Maybe you’d better re-open your wife’s old shop,” he jokes. “You could haul in twice this by selling penny shoes to the paupers under Knight’s Bridge.” He laughs at the put down. “Now that would be funny.”

  My dead wife’s shop. I can feel the heat in my face now, but I don’t have the luxury of pissing him off. He’s the best fence in Ector.

  Thump.

  Lucinda emerges from the cellar, followed by a man with the truest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He climbs up the last two steps oblivious to Lucinda’s swaying hips, smiling like crazy even though he’s balancing two full ale-casks on one shoulder and a third on the other.

  Lucinda steps aside to let him go by. Her face is flushed and her teeth are set on edge. Golden tresses twist and wave, and she’s looking for all the world like she hasn’t gotten what she wanted, though he’s carrying half the wine cellar.

  He is tall, with tan skin and a strong jaw line, the kind that takes years of overeating to obscure. His chariot-wide shoulders taper to the waist. The floor creaks under the combined weight of man and drink. I hear soft, quiet breathing, like the sound of a bellows working slowly, and the swish of riding trousers ready for a long vacation. His light brown hair hangs in damp spirals halfway to his shoulders, framing an average nose and those luminous eyes.

  He has a grace to him that I hadn’t noticed at first—a man who knows his way around weapons. It’s not catlike, but I see control and power as he sets the casks on the counter for Lucinda.

  If Grippy lost to anyone on first glances, it would be Blue-Eyes. “Better spike his drink,” I whisper from the corner of my mouth. Petri pretends not to hear me.

  Blue-Eyes may not have noticed Lucinda’s hips, but he notices me peeking up from my splintered perch at the bar. He gives me a shallow nod.

  “Are you Griphurk?” He holds out his hand for introduction.

  “Teacup Steeps,” I say seriously. “Passive observer.”

  “Magnus Palaidus. Victim.”

  I’d like to say we shake hands, but it’s more like I’m following along.

  “You’re a writer?” I can’t help it. It slips out.

  Blue-Eyes’ smile gains intensity, “Just character sketches of interesting people I meet.” His eyebrow asks me how I knew.

  I shrug. “Callus on your third finger. Sort of rare around here.”

  There’s a pause as Blue-Eyes examines his finger and then chuckles. “I’ll be damned.”

  Lucinda pats me on the shoulder with a creamy hand. I cover my purse instinctively, forgetting it’s empty.

  “Tee’s The Black Cat’s best aquisitioner,” she says. “Hardly noticeable, but he can find the real deal in a roomful of fakes.”

  I smile, in spite of the fact that she’s got her hand in my empty purse. Both are nice compliments, both undeserved.

  Magnus’s face clouds over for a second. “I’d give a handful of coins to fit that description.” He gestures to the muscle lines in my forearms. “I bet you could scale a city wall in the time it takes a Nightshade to draw his dagger.”

  I flinch. His compliment hits a little close to home.

  Magnus is staring past me though, reliving some experience of his own. “Straight down the west wall of Byzantus, arrows snapping about us like hailstones.” Magnus doesn’t offer any more details and we don’t ask.

  Lucinda gives me a nervous look. Anyone who leaves Byzantus in this manner shouldn’t stop in Ector. They should keep running until they’re at least six major rivers away.

  “I’m surprised you bothered to stop here,” Lucinda teases, but her brows knit with worry.

  Magnus nods, admitting he’s stirred up the Nightshades. “I’m tired. My horse is tired.” He stretches his neck from side to side, glancing around. “I’d rather chat with them indoors than in a dark, muddy campsite.” His hand slides unconsciously to the pommel of an enormous sword on his hip, and then his face brightens. “But I’ve still got a twelve-hour lead.”

  Lucinda’s eyelids jump open as if she’s been slapped. We don’t mess with Nightshades. Nobody messes with Nightshades. And a twelve-hour lead isn’t nearly enough for a clean escape.

  I put my cup of water down carefully just as Magnus drains his mug. “What’s your occupation, Magnus?” I ask. “Mercenary? Lace maker? Tax collector?” The latter is my least favorite, and the only one stupid enough to tangle with the Nightshades.

  Magnus chuckles. “Soldier-Priest. Father Jeremiah said I needed a year’s practice judging character before he’d anoint me. ” He fingered his writing callus. “Hence the callus.”

  “Only one year?” Petri snorts to himself, but he’s at the other end of the bar now serving another customer and his disbelief passes unnoticed.

  “What will you write about me?” Lucinda teases.

  “I don’t know, yet.” Magnus shrugs. “Father Jeremiah wants me to find a villain, but so far I haven’t found any true villains. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  Magnus smiles. “I doubt it. Everyone has a scrap of goodness, Lucinda.”

  “I dare you to find mine,” she flirts. “I’m very wicked.”

  A fly circles above Lucinda’s bare shoulder. She reaches to swat it away, but Magnus barehands it first, leaning in close to snatch it out of the air. Lucinda’s lips catch, half-open, quirking confidently when she realizes how close he is.

  Magnus blushes and backs away. “Flies spread disease.”

  “Not from me,” she winks.

  “No, not from you,” he concedes with more embarrassment and blushing. “Other people. Other diseases.” He practically runs towards the door to release the fly into the rain, as if that’s going to do it any good after being in his meaty palm.

  I can hear my featherpence rattling around in Petri’s bookie box, trembling in fear. Even without fly-catching precision, a wingspan like Magnus’s is worth a handful of points.

  When the door opens and Magnus steps out, Pale Tom slips in and does a double-take on Magnus as he exits. Magnus is huge compared to Tom, as brilliant as Tom’s cloak is dark. Tom says nothing until he’s shaken the rain off and slipped up to where Petri once again minds his bookie box.

  His croaky tenor voice sets me on edge like a nail on slate, and I fancy that he nods at me too though he’s talking to Petri. “I hear there’s a game on tonight!”

  Petri nods.

  “Will fifty kings buy me in?”

  Petri nearly falls off his stool. Tom’s nonchalance about money is nearly as frightening as his fascination with death. And if he knows Magnus has been to Byzantus, there’s bound to be trouble.

  “Of c-c-course.” Petri’s face pales slightly. I’m betting he wants to pull his bet on Grippy, but once your money’s in, it’s in.

  When Pale Tom looks at me, I try to meet his gaze, but it isn’t easy. His eyes are glittering emeralds beneath his cowl. “Any luck tonight, Teacup?”

  “No. Someone more important got there first.” I keep my voice even. “Yours?”

  “Bleh.” He coughs expressively. “I’m tired of it all.”

  There are people that think a man who’ll lift your purse is no better than the man who takes pay to put a knife in your stomach. But I guarantee that Tom and I are nothing alike, and people who talk like that probably haven’t actually met a Nightshade. A Nightshade can open a kidney without the owner knowing it. They’ve got knives thinner than lock-picks that’ll swim through your eye and go clear into your brain without leaving a trace. Well, except you being dead and all . . .

  Last winter I had a patron in the upper
city who’d sent some embarrassing letters and wanted them retrieved and destroyed. I spent the evening working my way through a loose tile in the manor attic and had just made it to the study door, where I’d been told the letters were kept, when I heard a noise—a breath like saw on bone. I scuttled back behind a suit of armor just in time to see a cloaked figure dancing down the hall, almost merrily: Pale Tom, without a doubt. When I finally got up the courage to go look for my letters, I found them strewn across the corpses of two merchants and four armed guards.

  Pale Tom is a Nightshade’s Nightshade.

  Petri knows something about Nightshades, too—something that he doesn’t let on. I wonder if that’s why he’s so nervous. He takes Tom’s purse without a word, and Tom disappears into his favorite chair to wait for the game to start. Petri counts twice and marks the gold down in his ledger with a shaky hand. Nobody cheats Tom. “What a night,” he mutters.

  I let my own breath out slowly and turn back to interview Lucinda about her new friend. “What do you know about Magnus?” I ask.

  Lucinda grumbles about some crazy order of holy knights, but her save-face grimace is tainted by something akin to desire. It’s her high-carat look. She never looks at me that way.

  Petri notices it, too. He’s snooping, of course. Petri’s always snooping. He’s about to say something snarky when one of the ale casks inexplicably starts sliding off the counter. Both Petri and the cask end up on the floor, with Petri on bottom. What’s important is that the cask doesn’t break, and that Petri doesn’t see a smug grin on Lucinda’s face as she bounces off to wait her tables.

  I look away. It’s bad form to watch your gimp bookie gather himself up.

  Magnus rejoins me at the bar, shrugging off fat Madame Boucher’s invitation with a gesture towards me. Relief floods Magnus’s face as the widow lets him go, and light from the chandelier throws a glimmer from his shoulder on his third step. Metallic thread in the stitch. Interesting. Doubly interesting that he hasn’t taken a seat at Madame Boucher’s table. I’m told she can be quite . . . generous.