“Didn’t see that coming, did y—”
Before Ilesa could get the words out, a cracking thud rocked her head to one side and sent her toppling off of Shadrak. She fell face down on the bed, drawl trickling from her mouth, a vicious lump already forming on her temple.
“Shog!” Shadrak said, rolling off the bed the other way and struggling to get his britches on.
“Yeah, well I bet you didn’t see that coming,” Nils Fargin said, appearing out of thin air, brandishing a length of wood, which he then tossed aside.
“Fargin!” Shadrak said, fastening his belt. “What the shog are you doing?”
“Saving your neck, that’s what,” Nils said. His face bloomed red. “More to the point, what did you think you were doing shogging a shifter?”
“Mmmpf,” Ilesa moaned into the sheets.
“I didn’t know it was her,” Shadrak said. He snatched up his shirt and pulled it over his head. “I thought…” He stopped himself. Had he really been so dumb? A female homunculus? An albino just like him? Practically begging for it? Right. Because that happened all the time. He put on his baldrics, tugged on his boots, and fastened his cloak around his neck.
“One word out of you, Fargin, and you’re dead.”
“Oh, that’s nice! If it weren’t for—”
Ilesa rolled onto the floor the other side of the bed. Shadrak pushed roughly past Nils and pulled the thundershot from the back of his belt. He caught a glimpse of a black boot sticking out from the end of the bed, but even as he cocked the pistol and came round the side, it shimmered and started to change.
Shadrak leapt on top of Ilesa and shoved the barrel of the thundershot into her… maw. She was scaled head to foot. A sinuous tail whiplashed up and knocked the gun from his hand. He punched her in the face, winced as he cut his knuckles on a fang.
“Nils, the tail!” he yelled. He caught her with a sharp elbow to the snout, eliciting a grunt.
She tried to sweep him, even as Nils grabbed hold of the tail. Shadrak forced her head down with his shoulder. Nils cried out, then went corkscrewing into the air with the tail wrapped around his waist. Shadrak slipped a razor star from his baldric, slashed it across the scales just beneath Ilesa’s eye. That got her attention, and she ceased struggling. Nils hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Now, bitch,” Shadrak said, leaning down on her, holding the tip of the razor star a hair’s breadth from her eye, “where’s my shogging ring?”
“I don’t have it,” Ilesa said.
He cut her again, this time on the cheek.
“One of my sorcerers has it. Says she should be able to work out what it is.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“I know what it’s worth to those scuts at the Academy.”
“Then you’ll know what they’ll do to you when they find out you stole it from me,” Nils said.
“Shog you, Fargin, you sad little wanker. Still having wet dreams about me, are you?”
“Shut up.”
“Did he tell you that?” she said to Shadrak, “how he thinks of me when he’s—”
Shadrak cut her again, on the forehead this time, just because he could.
“So, that’s what the flushed face was about,” he said to Nils. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Or were you just jealous?”
Blood welled in each of Ilesa’s cuts, started to paint her face red. “So, what now? It’s your move, midget.”
“A sorcerer of yours, you say? What’s his name?”
“Her. Bekra. Bekra Cy.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s new,” Ilesa said. “Been with us a few months, but she’s good. Really knows her magic.”
“And this…” Shadrak nodded at the bed. “Your way of getting my guard down? Too scared to face me in a fair fight?”
“Like you did with Plaguewind?” Ilesa’s voice cracked as she said her former master’s name.
“I knew it,” Shadrak said to Nils. “The bitch wants revenge.” He touched the razor star to her throat. “Then you leave me no—”
A crash sounded from the other side of the room. Shadrak jumped up, slamming a foot into Ilesa’s throat to hold her down. Under his weight, she shimmered and changed back into her human form, fully clothed in leather boots and britches and a black satin blouse. Oddly, the discarded clothes the homunculus woman had been wearing had all disappeared.
A panel on the far wall had slammed open—a concealed door—and in the space it left stood a man, aiming a gun at Shadrak. A hefty gun, much like the flintlocks, only bigger, and a lot nastier looking. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and a long black coat, and his face was covered with a piebald mask, patches of black on white. What could be seen of his eyes were yellow and veined with red. Flies surrounded him in a cloud, and the stench of rot rolled off him into the room.
All Shadrak needed: another scutting Maresman.
“Sorry to interrupt your fun,” the Maresman drawled. His diseased eyes flicked from Shadrak to Ilesa to Nils. “Ooh, a threesome. Honey, you remind me of my of mother more and more each day.”
“What is it, Jeb?” Ilesa said, climbing to her feet and dabbing at the blood beneath her eye. It was a superficial cut, but it would scar her for life. “Couldn’t you get off just watching? Had to come and join in? Well, I’ve got news for you, pus boy.”
Jeb made a wanking motion with the hand not holding the gun. “Oh, my eyes were popping out of my head: couple of pale-skinned midgets going at it…” He shot Shadrak a nod of respect. “For a little guy, you sure have a—”
“So?” Ilesa said. “Why’d you burst in. I can handle these twats.”
“Yeah, right,” Nils said.
“Trouble,” Jeb said. “Heading our way.”
“Militia?”
“There’s a Maresman outside. Big scut, too.”
“They’re not still after you?”
Jeb shrugged. “It’s been a while. I kinda thought they’d given up.”
“Maresmen hunting Maresmen?” Nils said. He glanced at Shadrak.
“You’d be surprised.” Jeb shot a knowing look at Ilesa.
“Yeah, well this one’s after me,” Shadrak said.
“Oh? And why’s—”
Before Jeb could say more, a black hat rose up through the center of the bed, followed by a head and body.
“Go!” Jeb shouted, gun bucking in his hand and a deafening boom filling the room. The bullet passed straight through the emerging Ghost and put a hole in the wall opposite.
Ilesa vanished. Where she’d been standing, a hornet took to the air and shot out the way Jeb had come in.
Nils touched his wrist, and he was gone, too.
The Ghost came all the way up through the bed till he stood on it.
“Bollocks,” Shadrak said. The Ghost blocked all the exits. For all the good it it would do, he flung his razor star. It skimmed straight through the Ghost and only missed Jeb because he swayed out of the way so fast Shadrak almost didn’t see him move.
“Shadrak the Unseen,” the Ghost said, a cold smile breaking out on his pallid face. “You are charged with smuggling husks across the border from Qlippoth.”
“That was a long time ago,” Shadrak said, backing toward where the thundershot had fallen, even though he knew it would do no good.
“Don’t waste your breath,” Jeb said. “Crime’s a crime, no matter when it was committed, and yours is about as bad as it gets as far as the Maresmen are concerned.”
The Ghost turned to face Jeb. “And Jebediah Skayne, renegade Maresman. You know the penalty for failing to do your duty.”
“She was my mother,” Jeb said. “Did you really think I could kill her?”
“A husk is a husk,” the Ghost said. “It’s no different for the rest of us.”
“And a scut’s a scut,” Shadrak said, diving for the thundershot and coming up blasting.
The boom startled the Ghost, giving Shadrak the distraction he was looking for. He tumbled past the end of the bed and kept rolling till he reached the ladder.
Last thing he saw was the Ghost leaping toward him, Jebediah Skayne stepping in the way, fumes the color of bruises spilling from the mouthpiece of his mask and stinking like the Abyss.
Shadrak leapt from the top of the ladder, cloak splaying out behind him, and rolled as he landed. He came up in a crouch, cursing the jolt of pain in his knee. A couple of years ago, he wouldn’t have felt a thing.
Up above, a roiling brume of filthy muck obscured Jeb and the Ghost from view. Just looking at the smog made Shadrak want to puke, and the thought of it touching him set his skin crawling.
Without waiting to see the result of whatever sick battle was taking place between the Maresmen, Shadrak raced past the stacked crates in the warehouse and back out onto the street.
And there, leaning against the wall outside was Nils shogging Fargin.
“Knew you didn’t need my help,” Nils said with a smug grin.
And Shadrak couldn’t help but punch him.