by Conrad Mason
Sergeant Culpepper was scrambling to his feet while Private Sprunt cast around for a weapon. Private Rudge was chasing the fairy with a bottle, swiping wildly as it shrieked obscenities at him and darted under tables, behind chairs, and up among the rafters. The militiaman would have had no hope of hitting it, even without ten mugs of grog under his belt. The bottle shattered against a chair leg, and Rudge let out a surprised yelp, his hand cut by a stray shard of glass. The fairy cackled and made a rude noise.
Private Waters, who had pulled Grubb out of the shark pit, was drawing a dagger from his breeches and fixing him with a look that was half murderous and half drunken.
Stay calm. Stay calm. Grubb shrugged off his blanket, put the wooden spoon down, and pulled the knife from the table, his hands trembling. It was lighter than he’d expected. His body flooded with adrenaline. He stood, and his knees felt weak.
Private Waters brought his blade hand back, and in the instant before he struck, Grubb saw that it was going high. He ducked. The man’s swing was so hard it twisted him round, exposing his side. Grubb barged forward with his full weight, aiming to shove the militiaman off-balance.
Unfortunately, Private Waters was a lot more solid than he’d expected. Grubb bounced back and collapsed in a heap, his shoulder aching from the impact, his knife clattering onto the floor. The militiaman looked down at him blankly, as if he was a little confused about what had just happened. Then his eyes refocused, and he grinned and lifted the dagger again.
The girl with the blue hair appeared from nowhere and kicked at his feet, tripping him and sending him crashing onto the flagstones.
“Word of advice,” she said, grabbing Grubb’s hand and hauling him to his feet. “When you’re in a fight, you’re supposed to knock your opponent out. Get it? Not yourself.”
Grubb didn’t even have time to be embarrassed before she was flinging him sideways. A broken-off table leg came slicing down in the space he’d just been standing in. As he reeled away, Grubb saw the girl hold the table leg down with her foot and punch its owner once, very hard, on the nose. Private Sprunt dropped the weapon and spun away, holding his face and wailing like a baby. The girl turned and snatched the wooden spoon from the table.
“Look out!” yelled Grubb.
Waters, Rudge, and Culpepper were converging on her, brandishing a toasting fork, a broken bottle, and a large stale loaf of bread.
The girl froze for an instant, then, without warning, threw the spoon at him.
Somehow he managed to catch it.
“Hold that for a minute,” she said, as if she just needed to stop and tie her shoelaces. She picked up a chair, raised it over one shoulder, and turned on the militiamen.
Grubb bolted through the door and out into the rain-lashed street, the wooden spoon clenched tightly in one fist.
He had no clue which direction he should run in, but he ran all the same, pounding through the downpour, his feet soaked within seconds as they splashed through the puddles. His lungs were burning. He turned a corner, then another. Just keep running. And then, to his horror, he heard boots hammering on the paving stones behind him. He lengthened his stride, pushing as hard and as fast as he could.
“Wait! Stop!”
But Grubb wasn’t stopping for anyone.
The sound of the boots drew nearer, and nearer, and then it was gone. Grubb came tumbling down, and his jaw smacked onto a paving stone.
“OUCH!”
“Now will you stop?” It was the girl with the blue hair. She was sprawled on top of him, pinning him to the ground. “I said hold it for a minute, not rush off with it like a mad fairy.”
Grubb spat out dirt and rainwater.
“Who are you?”
He’d meant it to sound tough and defiant, but it came out as an exhausted whimper.
“I could ask you the same question. I’m Tabitha. Demon’s Watch, remember?”
“Tabitha, right. That’s great. I’m Grubb. Could you get off me now?”
“No. Oh, well, all right.”
She rolled off him, and he stood, straightening out his shirt and coat. They were soaked through all over again and covered in filth from the road. He rubbed his jaw.
“We’ll be safe now,” said Tabitha, glancing back down the road. “Those idiots are in no state to come after us. It was a pretty good fight, wasn’t it?”
“Er …” said Grubb.
“What kind of a name is Grubb, anyway?” said the fairy. He was back on Tabitha’s shoulder, huddling under her ear to get out of the rain.
“Shut up, Slik,” said Tabitha.
“I’m just saying it’s a funny name, that’s all.”
“It’s my second name,” said Grubb. “My real name’s Joseph.”
“Joseph then,” said the girl, holding out a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Um, likewise,” said Grubb, not sure if he really meant it. He shook her hand.
“Can we go now?” said Slik.
“Fine. Go on ahead, you can tell Newton the good news.”
“Which good news? That you got into a fight with the militia, or that you’ve adopted a pet mongrel?”
“Hey,” said Grubb.
“Ignore him,” said Tabitha. “Slik, you just tell Newton I’ve found the cargo we’ve been looking for. Unless that’s too difficult for you?”
The fairy gave an exaggerated sigh and darted off down the street, his wings shimmering in the rain.
Grubb watched the girl watching Slik.
“Are you really in the Demon’s Watch?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Huh.”
He thought for a moment. He could give her the wooden spoon that all these crazy people were so desperate for. He could go back to the Legless Mermaid, and say he was sorry for running away, and take his punishment. Then maybe Mr. Lightly would forgive him, and he could go back to waiting tables and cleaning up at the end of the day, and sleeping alone on the cold inn floor. He’d nearly died three times in the last two days. He was wet to the skin and every part of him ached. It was time to give up the adventure and go home. Give her the wooden spoon, walk away, and forget all about it. That was the sensible thing to do. Wasn’t it?
“Can I … Can I come with you?” he asked.
Tabitha smiled.
“Of course you can. In fact, I insist.”
As he flew, Slik entertained himself by repeating everything Tabitha had said in a range of silly voices. Unless that’s too difficult for you … A child, telling him what to do. He’d show her.
He turned down an alleyway, in the opposite direction from the pie shop. There was someone he needed to see. A secret someone. Someone who paid more sugar than Newton did.
A few streets later, he was knocking on a thick wooden door, and a red-coated bullyboy opened it. Down a corridor, round a corner, and up to another door. A second bullyboy ushered him in.
“Slik,” snapped Jeb the Snitch. “Where in all the blue sea’ve you been?”
The goblin was pacing the carpet in front of a large mahogany desk with a gray shark-hide surface. Harry was at the sideboard, his own fairy on his shoulder, pouring tumblers of a dark red liquid. Without the usual tricorne hat, his gray hair clung to his skull, matted and greasy, with the odd curl bouncing off at strange angles.
“Hello, sunshine,” he said.
Slik headed straight for the squashy leather armchair on the far side of the desk and settled down on one of the arms, keeping an eye on the creepy elf. He never felt completely comfortable here at Harry’s Shark Pit, and it was mainly because of Harry himself. The pit pulled in a tidy haul of ducats, but weirdly, Harry wasn’t interested in the money. All he cared about was his sharks. It was bad enough that he named them after a long succession of ex-wives. But, even stranger, there were rumors that he went down to the cages every night to chat to them, for hours on end. Port Fayt had its fair share of idiots. No one knew that better than Slik. But Harry was something else—plain mad.
�
��Come on then,” said Jeb. “Let’s hear it. What’s the news, Slik? What’s Newton up to? Any sign of that stinking mongrel?”
“You need to relax, my lovely,” said Harry cheerily. “Look at you, all tense.”
“Of course I’m tense,” said Jeb. “I’m upset. I’m angry. Why shouldn’t I be tense?”
“Won’t do you no good, Jebedee.”
He handed a goblin-size tumbler to Jeb and a fairy-size one to Slik, and they knocked the drinks back. Slik coughed as the bitter liquid scorched his throat.
“What in all the stinking sea is this stuff?”
“Just a little cocktail I came up with.”
“It’s disgusting. What’s in it?”
Harry’s brow creased as he tried to remember.
“Now, let me see. A measure of firewater, a dash of trout essence, a sprinkling of hot herbs from the New World, and three fingers of griffin blood.”
Jeb and Slik both spat the liquid out, spattering the carpet and the sharkskin desk with red.
Harry and his fairy burst out giggling.
“Only joking, my ducks. No griffin blood.”
“That’s not funny, Harry,” growled Jeb.
It wouldn’t be so hard to believe that the elf would feed them griffin blood. The stuff was poisonous, but a crackpot like Harry was capable of anything.
“Like I say, my lovely, you need to relax. So you lost this time. Don’t matter, you’ll win another time. Let this mongrel boy go. He beat you, fair and square.”
Jeb’s ears twitched with rage.
“Stow it, Harry. You really think I’m going to let this go? That package is likely worth thousands of ducats. Maybe tens of thousands. And when I get it back, I’m going to sell it and make a flaming fortune.”
“Here we go again, always ducats this, ducats that.”
“Better than skulking around here with a load of big bleeding fish.”
Slik held his breath. Harry’s fairy squawked, took off from his master’s shoulder, and settled behind the decanter of cocktail, peering out from behind it.
Harry looked at Jeb, long and hard.
“Careful, my lovely,” he said finally. “Careful what you say about my sharkies.”
“All I’m saying is, if you spent as much time on business as you do on mollycoddling those sea vermin, yer’d be a lot richer, I can tell yer that. I mean, look at this place.”
He threw an arm out, indicating the walls of the office. They were covered in elegantly framed oil paintings—portraits of sharks.
“It’s not right, Harry, that’s all.”
Harry crossed the room in two long strides and gripped Jeb by the collar, knocking his tumbler of cocktail to smash on the wooden floor. The goblin went limp, terror written on his face. The red liquid trickled around his polished leather shoe.
“Gaaaaaagh!” said Harry’s fairy.
“Now see here, rat guts,” breathed Harry. “You say another word against my sharkies, and so help me I’ll …”
Slik cleared his throat.
“ ’Scuse me, but do you want this stinking news or not?”
Harry released his grip. Jeb staggered upright, straightened his coat, and coughed, trying to regain his usual smug demeanor.
“All right, all right. Come on then. What’ve you got to report?”
“What about the sugar you promised?”
“Let’s hear it first.”
Slik gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Fine. About that package you’re after. Bad news is, the Demon’s Watch have got it now.”
“What’s the good news?”
“Didn’t say there was any, did I?”
Jeb thought for a moment, then sauntered over to Harry, who was busy uncorking another decanter of firewater. He reached up and patted the elf on the back.
“So, Harry, me old mate … You’ve got a whole crew of bullyboys lying idle, and I was wondering if—”
“Forget it, dearie,” said Harry, brushing off the goblin and pouring firewater into a glass. “I ain’t sending my boys to fight the Demon’s Watch, if that’s your plan. If Newton’s crew have got your package, the game’s over. You lost. Time to move on.”
“That’s what you think,” sniffed Jeb. He hoisted himself up onto the desk. “And I don’t need you, anyway, come to think of it. The Snitch has got another trick up his sleeve.”
“Meaning?”
The goblin grinned, baring his pointed teeth until he looked like one of Harry’s sharks.
“Meaning, the Demon’s Watch have got hold of a certain someone as well as that package—a certain someone that a certain very dangerous friend of mine is after. So I reckon a little partnership is in order. We can take the Watch together, see, easy as drowning an imp in a barrel. This friend of mine will get what he wants, and I’ll get what I want.”
Slik nodded. It was his favorite sort of plan—devious and violent, and everybody won. Except the Demon’s Watch, of course.
Harry sighed and shook his head.
“Your problem is you want too much, duck. It’ll be the death of you, mark my words. Give it a rest, is my advice.”
“Give it a rest,” echoed Harry’s fairy, from his master’s shoulder.
“I’ll give it a rest,” said Jeb, “when I’m so rich I’m eating diamonds for breakfast.”
“Well, just be careful,” said Harry, and he knocked back his firewater. “Them diamonds might give you terrible indigestion.”
The Bootle brothers had been questioning Clagg for more than an hour, and the man still couldn’t remember which tavern he’d lost the mysterious package in. Newton reckoned it was hopeless, but the twins wouldn’t give up.
“Can you remember anything special about this place?” tried Paddy.
Clagg frowned, gazing off into the middle distance. He’d finally been given some food and was treating his interrogation as an annoying distraction from dinner.
“It had grog,” he said at last, and went back to gnawing on a raw, lumpy brown patata.
“Perfect. So that narrows it down to—oh yes. Every single tavern in the whole of Port Fayt.”
“… And eels. Wonderful eels.”
“Well,” said Frank, rolling his eyes. “It’s a start.”
“Here, ain’t you got any pies left?” said Clagg. “This patata thing tastes like soil.”
“You can have a pie when you tell us something useful,” said Paddy. “And watch what you say about those patatas. Ma just got them fresh off a boat from the New World.”
“Well now, matey, seems I’m not much use to you gents, and I’d hate to be wasting any more of yer precious time. So how about I head back to me ship?”
Hal shot him a dark look.
“No? All right then, fair enough.”
Newton had moved to the corner beside Old Jon and was loading up his pipe again. The elf’s silence kept him calm and helped him think.
Ten thousand ducats, just for a smuggling run.
Newton had a strong feeling that whatever was in the witch’s package was bad news. It wasn’t just the massive sum of money she’d paid for it. It was the timing too. According to Clagg, she’d insisted the cargo be brought in on the first day of the festival. Now there was just a day until the Pageant of the Sea, which would be held tomorrow evening. Why was this happening now, at the most important time of the year for Fayters? So far, he had no idea. But he was sure that he didn’t like it.
The door flew open, and Tabitha swaggered in. She threw herself into an empty chair beside Frank and swung her feet up on the table, looking extremely pleased with herself.
“Evening, you lot,” she said.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” said Frank, reaching out to ruffle her hair. Tabitha tried to brush him off and didn’t quite manage it.
“Ha-ha,” she said, not at all amused. “So have you got anything out of this smuggler?”
“Nah,” said Paddy. “He’s got the memory of a cuttlefish.”
“A cutt
lefish that drinks too much,” added Frank. “And not even a particularly smart cuttlefish that drinks too much neither.”
“All right, all right,” grumbled Clagg. “I’m still here, yer know.”
The twins ignored him.
“Slik back?” asked Tabitha.
“Not yet. I thought he was with you. Where’s the grog? Don’t tell us you forgot it.”
“Of course I didn’t forget it. I just brought back something a lot better.”
She nodded at the doorway.
A small boy had edged into the serving room without anyone noticing. Newton sized him up. A mongrel—goblin-human, with pointed ears and mottled skin—scrawny and hollow-eyed, dressed in a filthy white shirt, filthy breeches, and a filthy red satin coat. He looked very unsure of himself, and very damp.
“Er, hello,” said the boy.
“You!” said Phineus Clagg suddenly. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He was frowning at the mongrel, a half-eaten patata poised halfway between plate and mouth.
“Who is this, Tabs?” asked Newton.
“This,” said Tabitha, proudly, “is exactly what we’ve been looking for. Show them, Joseph.”
Hot gravy dribbled down Grubb’s chin. He took another big bite and sighed happily.
“You could close your mouth when you chew,” said Tabitha, not quite managing to hide her disgust.
“Sorry,” said Grubb. He blushed and gulped down the mouthful. “I don’t normally eat with other people.”
“I can see why.”
Grubb chuckled, but Tabitha didn’t join in.
“Just hurry up, all right? Newt and the others will want to hear about how you found that wooden spoon.”
The pair sat together in the pie shop’s kitchen, with the kindly old troll lady called Mrs. Bootle bustling around them. Grubb was glad Tabitha was the only watchman here, even though she seemed to be sulking. The others had been friendly enough, but he wasn’t ready to answer all their questions yet. And, to his relief, the big man called Newton had suggested that he have a rest and a bite to eat. Apparently, Phineus Clagg’s wooden spoon was important in some way, though he had absolutely no idea why.
