Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) Read online

  “Nah, I’ll just kill you,” she decided. “Watch the Aduro Vera burn your mind out.”

  Aimsley produced the small glass marble, held it up. This got her attention.

  “If I break this,” he said, “here, inside the ward, the smoke in the glass will get inside me. It’ll kill me. It’ll break my bones and turn me inside out and I’m guessing,” he stressed, “the ghoul that’ll be left won’t be trapped by your wards. I’m guessing you made this ward to catch me. And the ghoul will tear you apart.”

  “I can handle a ghoul,” she said.

  “Let’s find out,” Aimsley said. Strangely, he found the threat easy to make. He didn’t mind the idea of oblivion. Didn’t mind it at all. Looked forward to it more and more. He just didn’t want to do it himself. Alone. This would be a good way to go, though. Dramatic. Memorable. Better than dying under the fire of truth. Fuck it.

  “I let you out and you give me the death smoke,” she asked, thinking.

  “They call it night dust. Yeah. Fair trade.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that if I drop that ward, you’ll make a break for it and screw our bargain.”

  Aimsley considered this. “Sure. But if you don’t let me out, even if you can handle a ghoul, then you’ve got nothing. No polder thief and no night dust.”

  Hapax Legomenon considered the offer. It was clear she wanted the dust. Of course she wanted the dust. Things like night dust was why the Orders employed the occultus quaesitoria.

  She stood up. Stood between the ward with the polder in it, and the door. “Just so you know,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “Once I drop that ward, I’m taking the dust from you.”

  “You think you can?” Aimsley asked, frowning sarcastically.

  “Let’s find out,” she said, and dropped the ward. Her eyes suddenly flared with green fire.

  Freed, Aimsley grinned furiously. Die fighting the Quill’s best agent, he thought as he leapt into the air, a dirk suddenly in each hand.

  Not bad way to go.

  Chapter Twenty

  People came and went from the inn. The Hammer & Tongs. He looked at the symbol over the door. Couldn’t remember how old he was the first time he saw it. Couldn’t remember his first time inside. Couldn’t remember when it became the place he went, the place they always went when they were done.

  The people coming and going seemed happy. As though whatever was going on inside were normal for a tavern. He ran his hand over the beard he’d grown in the last week. There was a knife in his pack he kept sharp for shaving, but he hadn’t felt like using it. Now he wished he had.

  He looked over his right shoulder at the spires of the cathedral that dominated the city. The journey south from the forest had dulled his anger, but proximity to its source sharpened it again. He resisted the urge to go to the church, resisted the urge to hate. There was time enough for that.

  He crossed the busy street and climbed the three steps that led to the doors of the inn.

  He didn’t know what he expected to see when he walked through the doors. He realized he expected to see Ghannt the demi-thyrs barkeep and owner, Parl and Stewart and Zaar and Reginam and everyone else.

  Instead what he found was a normal, if somewhat sparse, tavern common room. Nothing like the ratcatchers inn he’d known years ago. A dozen guests in a common room fit to serve five times that number. He noticed they were all being attended by girls. Young girls. He frowned.

  A man at a table near the door watched him. He wore light armor, a sword at his side, leaned back on two chair legs, balancing himself. Muscle to protect the girls. The man nodded at him, he didn’t react.

  He walked up to the man’s table and stood there, watching the people eating, drinking, being served. It seemed loud, unnaturally loud, compared to the last time he was here.

  He turned to the muscle.

  “How’s the nose?” he asked.

  The man stopped picking at his teeth. “What?” he asked blankly, then his eyes went wide and he momentarily lost his balance.

  Ignoring the flailing guard, he crossed the common room floor. Marveled at the business being done within, at the serving girls. There were about half a dozen of them. He did a quick mental calculation of the Rose Petal’s staff, wondered how many of them would be on their own time at any given moment.

  A serving girl exited the kitchen and glided toward a table with two men waiting.

  “What’s your name?” he asked the girl, stopping her.

  The girl curtseyed, skillfully he thought.

  “Martlyn” the girl said. She had long curly red hair, seemed dyed. Large brilliant green eyes and olive skin. A suspicion grew.

  “Martlyn” he repeated, “how long as this inn been open?”

  “Two days, your lordship,” she said, bowing her head deferentially. “Still working the kinks out,” she said.

  He looked at the ceiling. “Are there…rooms?”

  “Wol,” she said, and put a hand on her hip. Her posture subtly changed to produce a certain effect in men. “Not officially. Not for the night.” She smiled at him. It seemed a genuine smile. “But for some coin, an arrangement can be made for,” she surveyed him, “an hour? You seem tired.”

  “Coin,” he nodded, his suspicion confirmed.

  “You’re not bad-looking, you shave that beard,” Martlyn said.

  “Thank you,” he said, nodding. “How much for an hour?”

  “Two crowns,” she said without hesitation. The men at the table waiting for her were growing impatient.

  “Two…,” there were signs of surprise and alarm, but he restrained himself.

  “Worth every copper!” she said, feigning insult. He felt as though she should feel embarrassed or ashamed, but the opposite. The longer they talked the more she seemed to be enjoying herself. He considered himself a hard man to fool. This added to his already substantive confusion.

  “Where’s Vanor…Violet?” he asked.

  “Oh you fancy Violet?” Martlyn asked. How old was this girl? She looked nineteen but that didn’t mean anything. “She’s a bit busy,” Martlyn said skeptically. “Got lots to do, running the place. Don’t think she’s taken a customer since we opened, but if ah, you’re someone special to her I can let her know.”

  He nodded. “Do that,” he said, and started toward the stairs.

  “Hey!” Martlyn said. “No one’s allowed up there without paying!”

  “Good,” he said, climbing the stairs.

  “Wait,” Martlyn said, thinking. “You’re…,” she looked at his back disappearing up the stairs and snapped her fingers.

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  She threw the door to his room open. It slammed against the wall with a bang.

  He turned to face her. He’d stripped his shirt off. It lay on the bed covered in dried blood. His breastplate lay on the floor.

  Something about him, his realness, his presence, seemed increased since he left. Though his face was lined and haggard and his beard made him look like a prophet from a wode, his body was still lean and compact. There was a relaxed, slackness gone. He seemed ready. Poised. Like a cat on the prowl.

  She took all this in in an instant, and then ran across the room to him. Threw herself up and into him, wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Though it felt like running into a brick wall, he caught her. Wrapped his arms around her and held her.

  Something inside her, something she hadn’t realized had been clenched for…for years, forever? Relaxed, and she started crying. Though his skin was pale and he looked carved from cold stone, he radiated strength and warmth and he smelled like leather and oil and wet horse-hair.

  He was security. He was safety. It was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. She’d die before she gave it up again.

  “You didn’t leave,” he said.

  Vanora shook her head, still buried in the nape of his neck, not saying anything.

 
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Heden said. She could tell he was smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Eventually she pushed herself away, violently. Eyes still brimming with tears, she punched him. Hard.

  “You said a day!” she hit him again. “You said a day and then you left me here alone!”

  He took her abuse.

  “I know,” Heden said, smile gone. “I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to….” She looked at him, waiting. He didn’t know how to begin to explain to her the complex collection of obligations and burdens she had so recently slotted into. Near, but not at, the top.

  He decided to deflect.

  “I brought you a horse,” he said shyly.

  Her anger evaporated. She smiled. Her smile grew.

  “Really?” she asked, her voice small.

  Heden nodded.

  “He’s in a stable. You’ll like him. I’ll teach you how to ride him.”

  She gasped. He pressed his advantage.

  “He likes apples,” he said.

  Her hands clenched with eagerness. Then she frowned.

  “Are you going to leave again?” she asked. She had to ask it quick before fear of the answer made her run from it.

  Heden took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult.

  “Not like that. Not into the forest again. But there are things we need to talk about.”

  She remembered the abbot. She wanted to tell him what he said, but she couldn’t. It was like he put a spell on her. She deflected, sighing and rolling her eyes as she sat down on his bed with a flop.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “I opened the inn while you were gone and since then the girls have come and they…,” she waved her hand at the door behind him. “They enjoy…practice,” she said lamely. “But I needed the help.”

  “Uh-huh,” Heden said.

  “I did!” she objected. “I haven’t…had any customers. I thought you’d be…proud.”

  Heden looked at her, head tilted to one side. “I am. I’m…I’m amazed. If you’d asked permission, I’d have said no. But coming back to this…for some reason made me feel…,” made him feel like a younger man. Like the Hammer & Tongs was his home again, like it was with the Sunbringers, instead of a prison.

  “Feels like home,” he said, summing over all his thoughts neatly.

  She smiled again.

  “You’re not angry at me?”

  “Well,” Heden said. “No. No I guess I’m not, though…the girls.”

  Vanora shrugged. “Miss Elowen doesn’t mind.”

  Heden frowned at her.

  “I bet she does.”

  “Well, she doesn’t mind much,” Vanora said.

  “And you’ve talked to her about this,” Heden said skeptically.

  “Well,” Vanora said. “Look she obviously knows, right? And she hasn’t told any of the girls no. I mean they’re only here a few hours a day,” she said and it sounded like she was sulking now. “It’s been a problem the whole time; our hours are all messed up.”

  Heden looked at the girl, and marveled. He couldn’t say no to her.

  “I mean,” she continued, “we can afford to hire help but I don’t want to hire anyone I don’t know,” she said. The words came quickly; she enjoyed sharing her problems with Heden. She was eager for his approval.

  “Alright listen,” he said. “As long as they…,” he made a gesture with his hands like he was holding an invisible orb. “Constrain their activities to serving and cooking and cleaning?”

  Vanora looked at him sadly and took a deep breath.

  “Ok,” she said.

  He scratched his head, and looked around the room. Then looked back at her.

  “You just lied to me,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, crestfallen. She kicked her feet and looked at the floor. “I forgot about that.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Heden said.

  “Well, I mean I can tell them, but I have no way to make them…,”

  “Sure you do,” Heden said. “Tell them if they do it, they’re sacked.”

  Vanora looked at him. “I can’t tell them that, they’re my friends!”

  Heden shrugged. “Then I’ll tell them,” he said.

  “Alright, alright,” she said. “I’ll tell them. I’ll blame you, they’ll believe that,” she said darkly.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  She looked at him again and smiled. Incredibly happy he was back.

  “Well,” Heden said raising an eyebrow, “mostly good.”

  She laughed. Heden enjoyed that. Then for some reason, unbidden, came the thought of Taethan.

  He stopped smiling. He looked at the floor. The room grew cold. Vanora noticed something had changed.

  Heden scratched his chest and realized he was still shirtless. He went to his dresser. Pulled a clean shirt from it, smelled it.

  “You washed my clothes,” he said.

  Vanora shrugged. She noticed something in his voice.

  “What happened in the forest?” she asked.

  Heden ignored her. For the moment. He put a clean shirt on.

  “That’s what you meant when you said we had things to talk about,” she said. “You didn’t mean the inn.”

  He tucked the shirt into his breeches. He looked around the room. There wasn’t anywhere to sit but the bed.

  “You’re different,” Vanora said.

  Heden nodded.

  “There are things I have to do,” he said.

  “What things?” she asked. And it hurt him, the ignorance he heard there. He didn’t know how to explain it.

  “Before,” he started. “Before I met you, a long time ago, I took an oath.”

  She nodded. “To serve the church,” she said.

  “Well,” he said. “Not really. To serve…I thought I took an oath to serve Cavall,” he said. Vanora recognized the name. The patron god of Corwell. Religion was never high on her lists of interests. “But I met someone, an abbot at the church, and the more we talked the more I thought…that what Cavall wanted was for me to do the right thing.”

  Vanora looked at him blankly.

  “That I shouldn’t worry about what the gods wanted,” Heden explained, “I should just worry about what was right, and the gods would be happy.”

  Vanora nodded. That made sense.

  “That’s why I went into the forest,” Heden said with some relief. It felt like he’d found a way to explain things. “Not because the church asked me to, but because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Vanora nodded.

  “Well,” Heden said, “everything went wrong in the forest. I…I failed. I didn’t figure out what I was supposed to do until it was too late,” he said frowning.

  He seemed in pain, he stopped talking. Vanora decided to say something.

  “I think I met the abbot,” she ventured. How much could she tell him?

  Heden’s head jerked up. “What?”

  “A man came here,” she said, and explained everything except the conversation on the porch.

  Heden listened. “That was him,” he said. “I’m glad someone was looking out for you.”

  “He said something,” Vanora tried to remember exactly. “He said the list of your enemies was growing longer.”

  Heden nodded. “That’s true. And I have to do something about it. These people, the count, the bishop,” he said, “someone has to be punished for what happened in the forest.”

  “The bishop?” she asked. “The bishop of the church?”

  Heden nodded.

  “The man who lives in that great stone building with the tall pointy things?”

  “Spires,” Heden said. “Yeah.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s responsible for what happened. And someone has to confront him. Stop him.”

  “Who?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Me,” he said.

  Vanora stared at him. “How!?”

  “I don’t know,” he
said.

  “You can’t…,” she started. “Can’t he just,” she wasn’t clear on the power of the bishop, “can’t he just point at you and turn you to stone, or hit you with lightning from the sky or something?!”

  Heden cleared his throat, chose not to mention that she was describing things he himself had done, and the bishop was far more powerful. Or is he? Heden wondered. He held out hope that the bishop’s appointment might be purely political.

  “Basically,” he said.

  “You can’t!” Vanora cried out.

  Heden’s chest tightened.

  "I don't understand. Why do you have to do this? We have the inn. It's real, I made it work. It was dead when you were here, now it's alive. You can’t leave again! You can’t….” There were worse things than leaving.

  “I have to,” he said. “Because of what happened in the forest.” Things Vanora would never understand. Things Heden wasn’t sure he understood. “Because I’m the only one who knows. Because…,” because he manipulated me into doing his dirty work. “Because someone I cared about died, and it’s the bishop’s fault.”

  He looked at her. He was exhausted; he wished he could sit down. She was desperate and confused.

  "So it's up to me to do something about it."

  "What?"

  "I don't know. I'm going to...have a talk with Gwiddon. He sent me there. He picked me to do the bishop’s dirty work. On purpose. Because he knew I’d fail."

  She didn’t understand what he meant, but she recognized the look in his eyes. His voice was casual, but his whole posture framed rage barely contained.

  "You're going to kill him, aren't you?"

  Heden cast a dark look at her.

  "The man who was down here, that first day.” When she first woke up in Heden’s inn. “Your friend. That’s him. You're going to kill him."

  "I don't know," he said.

  "And then you're going to kill the bishop?!"

  Silence. Then, "I don’t know." But she heard it in his voice. He didn’t know if he could. But he knew he had to try.

  She broke the silence between them. "The polder said…,”

  “The who?” he snapped. She pulled back.

  “The polder who came and….”