The Ghost swirled rather than walked up the alleyway. He was fast for a big man, and heavy-footed for someone who could walk through walls. And that’s exactly what he did: vanish through the side of a building, only to emerge seconds later a dozen yards farther along.
Shadrak watched him from behind a chimney stack atop a precariously tilting turret, glad his survival instinct remained so strong, despite the rest of him going soft at the edges. And he could still run like the clappers, not to mention shimmy up drainpipes even easier than he’d done in his youth. It wasn’t just fear that lent him speed and strength, it was years of disciplined training, a lifetime of practice. Muscle, it seemed, had a perfect memory all of its own.
For all his spooky ability to be both solid and not, the Ghost conducted his hunt like a blind dog with no sense of smell. Not once had he looked to the rooftops. The only shame was, Magwitch had said the Ghost was invulnerable to weapons, presumably because they would pass through him the same as he passed through walls. Even from so high up, Shadrak had no doubt he could have hit the scut with a flintlock. Time and again, the Ancient-tech guns had surpassed his expectations, both in range and power. Pity was, one was out of bullets, and the other wasn’t far behind. The thought of one day discarding them as useless brought a sour taste to his mouth. Maybe he’d find more ammunition somewhere, or maybe he’d look up a collector and sell them. At least that might tide him over for a month or so, should he fail to salvage the Witch Queen’s ring and collect his pay.
The Ghost made his way to where the alley met the street, looked both left and right, then sank through the cobblestones as if they were water.
Shadrak gritted his teeth and tried not to think about it—about a dangerous enemy stalking him through the sewers that ran beneath the city. One thing he’d learned over the years was not to waste time and energy worrying about things he couldn’t control. If the Ghost were suddenly to pounce out of nowhere, he had to trust his reflexes. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t rack his brains for ways to kill an opponent who was impervious to physical attack.
First things first, though: he had to find the ring, and that meant finding Ilesa. Magwitch might have been able to tell him where the Dybbuks had their headquarters, but Shadrak was starting to suspect the mage’s house was magically rigged to alert the Maresmen and shog knows who else. And besides, Magwitch always said all the right things when confronted, but he was a shifty opportunist every bit as much as Nils Fargin.
And speaking of Fargin, Shadrak suspected the lad had some kind of device—a bracelet most likely—that enabled him to turn invisible. And just like you’d expect from a Fargin, he’d made good use of it when the Ghost appeared. Like they always said, no honor among thieves. It didn’t matter that Nils said he’d turned his life around by joining the Academy. Deep down, people didn’t really change. It was in the blood, the true measure of your character, and Nils had inherited his from the scuttiest most cowardly toe-rag of them all, his father, Buck.
Still, Nils wouldn’t go far. It ran contrary to the law of self-preservation for him to return to the Academy empty-handed. Master Arecagen would turn him into a toad. Not that it would make much difference. No, Nils would show up when he sensed an opportunity. He was still in the game, only now his usefulness to Shadrak was even less apparent. Chances were, Nils was still hoping to get his hands on the ring. If he had balls, he’d be going after Ilesa, but the sad fact of the matter was, a eunuch had bigger fruits than Nils Fargin. You had to be realistic about these things. Nils would leave the hard work to Shadrak then try to slink off with the prize when no one was looking. Only, it would be different this time. A stab in the eye and a gash across the throat different.
Shadrak gave it a few minutes, just in case the Ghost re-emerged, then climbed down to street level and headed for the nearest tavern. Not to drink. He seldom did that. And it wasn’t his stomach he was thinking of either. Now he was in the thick of things, he probably wouldn’t eat again till it was all over, at least not till nightfall. There were some less than salubrious taverns in the city that were little more than information exchanges, or places you could go to hire a cutthroat who’d fallen foul of the guilds. Some lowlife scumbag was bound to have a grudge against the new queen of the underworld, maybe even someone Shadrak knew from his days as king. If not, he’d twist a few arms, threaten and intimidate till he had the location of Ilesa’s base. What else could he do? With an empty purse, he could hardly resort to bribery.
The first two taverns he tried were dead-ends, both in terms of the moral lives of the punters he found there, lost in their cups or squabbling over whose round it was, and in terms of the information he sought. By the time he reached the third, the streets were starting to fill up with traders and workers, early-bird sells-loves desperate for customers, and kids on their way to the district schoolhouse. He spotted a patrol of legionaries decked out in their bronze galeas and leather kilts, stopping passersby and questioning them. This wasn’t just the regular City Watch; their scarlet cloaks marked them out as veterans of the Senatorial Cohort: troubleshooters, riot control, rooters out of sedition.
They’d got the news, finally, Shadrak assumed, as he slipped into the shelter of the tavern’s porch. The Senate had received its magical communication from Magwitch’s wizard eye. They knew he was back in town, and they’d no doubt already shut down the city tighter than a banker’s rectum.
Either that, or he was a paranoid twat, jumping at his own shadow. But he’d learnt from bitter experience it was always better to trust his instincts. He’d rather act like a tosser than be taken into custody. The Senate didn’t take kindly to one of their own being murdered, even a man with as many political enemies as Vatès. In a case like Shadrak’s, they’d throw away the rule book before they threw away the key.
It didn’t take a genius to realize a midget in a cloak would stand out from the crowd. He could tell from the animated gestures of a laborer the soldiers were questioning that he’d already been recognized. When the soldier enquiring pointed down the road the way Shadrak had come, and the man nodded, it was time to leave.
Shadrak slipped through the tavern’s swing doors. Instantly, he was in another world, one filled with weedstick smoke, the stench of sweat and stale beer. It was heaving inside, yet no one was there for breakfast by the looks of it. It was mostly men—hard men, drinking men, the kind he was looking for—but on a stool by the bar he caught sight of a woman sipping at a steaming mug of kaffa. If not for the size of her breasts, he’d have taken her for a child, she was so small. She glanced up from her drink, as if she sensed him looking. Pale of face. Lips moist from the kaffa, parted slightly, a flash of white teeth. But it was her eyes that were most arresting. They were pink, same as his were. An albino and a homunculus? Because that’s what it looked like to him. And if the former, she was an outcast, lucky to be alive, lucky to have survived the loathing of her people for being anything less than perfect.
He started toward her, but she looked away, raising her drink to her lips. A group of men filled the space between, ribbing one another, laughing at their own jokes, jeering and toasting. Shadrak was already backing toward the entrance. It was all a bit too staged.
A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder. He spun round, fingers clutching the hilt of a punch dagger.
“Bolos?”
A broad face grinned down at him. A face more scar than skin. One-eyed, with a nose that had been broken any number of times. He’d changed a lot in the years since Shadrak had last seen him, but it was definitely Bolos Rancy, the nastiest, most brutal, conniving, murdering, rapist scumbag this side of Malfen. And a very useful man to know, if you needed a job done outside of the guilds, and if you had the small fortune necessary to pay him.
“Nice patch,” Shadrak said, relaxing his grip on the dagger, but reminding himself of the thundershot tucked into the back of his belt. It was a silver eye-patch, somehow stuck to his flesh and looking very much as if it had grown there, like a scab.
“Magwitch done it,” Bolos said. “Told him you sent me, that you’d be back if he didn’t fix my eye right. Scutting bounty hunter skewered it.” He tapped the patch. “Said he was hired by the Senate, but I reckon it was the guilds. Never did like me pissing on their territory, save for you.”
“A bounty hunter told you that? That he was working for the Senate?”
“Took some persuasion to loosen his tongue,” Bolos said with a brown-toothed grin. “Between you and me, I don’t think he’ll ever work again. Know what I mean? Likely won’t have babies, neither. So, me ol’ mate, who else knows you’re in town?”
He might just as well have asked who didn’t know; who would pay for the information.
Shadrak cast a nervous look toward the swing doors. “There somewhere we can talk?”
“Got me a nice little snug over by the fire.” Bolos nodded across the room. “Like to think of it as my office.”
He led the way through the punters to a partitioned alcove on one side of the hearth. It even had a door, which Bolos pulled shut as he gestured for Shadrak to take one of the two chairs at a pedestal table. Dirty light spilled down from a grime-covered clerestory window. The air within was musty, pungent with old weedstick smoke. There were little piles of burnt tobacco one side of the table—the side Bolos moved to and sat down at—where someone had tapped out a pipe and not bothered to clean up after.
Bolos pulled a clay pipe from the pocket of his patched leather jerkin and stuffed it with some rum-smelling shag, tamped it down and lit it with a match, which was a rare commodity, another remnant of the Ancients’ civilization on Urddynoor that had made the trip with the first settlers. Looked to be a new box, as well. Too new. Someone in New Londdyr must have worked out the secret of making matches and started producing a line of their own.
“You seen the posters around town?” Bolos said, striking a second match and running it around the bowl as he drew on the stem three times. He shook the match out and flicked it to the floor. “Been there since you left. Doubt anyone notices them now, but…”
He didn’t need to say the reward was probably still good.
“I’ve seen them.”
“All I mean is, you want to be careful, Shadrak. Now your image is out there, you ain’t exactly hard to spot. You and me, we’re old friends, but I bet there’s a ton of scumbags who don’t feel the same way I do.”
“Thanks for the warning.” It was more of a threat.
“Those Ancient-tech weapons still good?” Bolos jabbed the stem of his pipe toward the flintlocks. He didn’t waste any time. He’d named his price.
Shadrak set the empty pistol on the table. “This one’s yours.” There was no need to say more. They both knew what was being negotiated.
Bolos pulled it across the table, turned it over, inspected the gold filigree. He jammed his pipe in the corner of his mouth and lifted the flintlock, shook it, fiddled with the butt till he got the cartridge free. He raised an eyebrow.
“No bullets.”
“But still worth a fortune to any collector.”
Bolos shrugged. That seemed to satisfy him. He shoved the gun into his jacket pocket.
“The other’s yours, too,” Shadrak said. “If you can help me out with a bit of information.”
“If?” Bolos puffed out a cloud of smoke, coughed, and pulled his pipe from his mouth, using it to make elaborate gestures. “Ask, and I’ll tell.”
“Assuming it’s in your best interests,” Shadrak added.
Bolos didn’t look offended, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. “So, what do you want to know?”
“Ilesa Fana.”
Bolos stiffened, glanced at the door, then leaned across the table. “What about her?”
“Where’s her headquarters?”
Bolos sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and took a couple of long draws on his pipe. When he opened his eyes, he said, “That other weapon… it has bullets?”
“A few.”
Bolos nodded slowly. “The right craftsman could reproduce them, no?”
“I imagine.” If he’d had the money, Shadrak would have explored that avenue himself.
Bolos snapped his fingers, made a “give it me” gesture with his hand.
Shadrak passed him the second flintlock. Bolos sighted it across the table, took aim at Shadrak’s face. But he hadn’t cocked it. There was no need reaching for the thundershot.
After a long pause, Bolos twirled the flintlock on his finger and pocketed it. “The Dominion,” he said.
“The theater? The one Dame Consilia used to perform at?”
“The same. Now there was a trollop I’d have loved to have bent over and shogged in the—”
“Thanks,” Shadrak said.
“We done?”
“We’re done. As usual, Bolos, you’ve been more than helpful.”
Bolos chewed on the stem of his pipe, thinking something over. “Well, that’s good, then.”
Shadrak stood and opened the door.
“We all right, Shadrak?” There was no warmth in Bolos’s voice.
Shadrak met his eyes, careful not to blink, not to betray the slightest hesitation. “Yeah, we’re good.”
He slipped out into the tavern, but before he could shut the door, someone caught hold of it and held it open, and three thugs slipped inside. Not waiting to see what was going on, Shadrak wormed his way through the crowd. Before he reached the swing doors, someone screamed. Bolos? A second scream followed, then a gurgling cry of “Shadrak!”
And then he was out in the street, looking both ways and seeing no sign of the patrol. He ran over his mental map of the city till he was sure which way to go, and was about to set off for The Dominion when the homunculus woman appeared at his side. There was no way she could have snuck up on him. No way, unless he really was losing it.
“You trust the word of Bolos Rancy?” she said in a lilting voice that hinted at mischief and maybe something else.
Shadrak’s heart started trying to kick its way out of his ribcage. He found he couldn’t meet her gaze.
“There something you want to tell me?”
“Lots,” she said, stepping close, brushing her cheek against his. “If you are willing to listen.”
A commotion started from inside the tavern—tables being turned, angry protests, the ringing scrape of swords being drawn.
“Bolos is dead,” she said. “We should leave.”