Low Town (16 page)

I grabbed the hilt and hefted the blade in my right hand. It still felt good, natural. I pulled a whetstone from inside the box and sharpened the edge until it was cruel enough to shave with. The steel caught my reflection, the vivid purple swelling merging comfortably with my previously acquired scars. It was an old face—I hoped it was up for what was coming.

Reaching back into the trunk I pulled out a pair of flat-handled daggers, too small to be used in a melee but balanced for throwing. I strapped the first against my shoulder and slipped the second into my boot. One final armament, a bronze knuckle with three cruel-looking spikes on the business end, went into my duster pocket for easy access.

The box was empty now, save a thick, square parcel that I had been saving since the war. I inspected it, making sure each item inside was in good condition, then put it back in the box and slid the whole thing under the bed. Feeling a bit self-conscious I pulled my coat tight over the hilt of my sword and headed downstairs.

“Where was the girl found?” I asked Adolphus.

“South of Light Street. Over by the canal. You planning a visit?”

There was no point in explaining to Adolphus the bargain I had struck with Special Operations, not while I still had some chance to make good on it, so I ignored him and turned to Wren.

“Get your coat. I’m going to need you for a while.”

Assuming this would involve something more interesting than carrying messages and getting me dinner, Wren complied with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Adolphus looked me over, recognizing the outline of metal beneath my clothing.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to visit an old friend of ours.”

Adolphus’s one eye worked to read something from my pair.

“Why?”

“I haven’t had enough excitement today.”

Wren came out wrapped in a hideous wool thing that Adeline had sewn together for him. “Have I told you before how ugly that is?” I asked.

He nodded.

“So long as we’re on the same page.” I turned back to Adolphus. “The boy’ll be back before sundown. Hold anything that comes for me.” Adolphus nodded, sufficiently familiar with my customs at this point to know I wouldn’t volunteer anything else. Wren and I left the Earl and started west.

When Grenwald finally entered I had been sitting in the dark for twenty minutes, reclining in the visitor’s chair, my feet perched on the stained oak desk that dominated the room. I was starting to worry that he had decided to skip whatever daily tasks required his attendance, and I’d be left waiting in his office like an asshole. But it was worth it to see his reaction as he swung open the door, his arrogant demeanor converting to one of abject horror in the span of a half second.

A decade had done much to raise my old superior’s position, although sadly damn little to improve his character or to stiffen the rodent-like set of his jaw. His coat was expensive but ill-fitting, and his once firm body was running to fat at a somewhat greater speed than middle age strictly demanded. I lit a match off the wood and held it to my cigarette. “Howdy, Colonel. What’s the good news?”

He shut the door, slammed it really, hoping to hide this interview from his staff. “How the hell did you get in here?”

I shook the match out with two fingers and imitated the motion with my head. “Colonel, Colonel. I confess I’m hurt. To be addressed in such a fashion by so dear a friend?” I clicked my tongue in disapproval. “Is this how two old comrades reminisce, united by the bonds of our noble crusade?”

“No, no. Of course not,” he said. “I was just surprised to see you. I’m sorry.” That was one of the fun things about Grenwald—he broke so damn easy.

“A drop of water beneath a bridge,” I said.

He set his coat and hat on a rack by the door, playing for time, trying to figure out why I had come and what he needed to do to see me leave. “Whiskey?” he asked as he moved toward a cabinet in the corner, pouring himself a tumbler full.

“I try not to imbibe hard liquor before noon, part of my new life as a burgeoning teetotaler. Knock yourself out, though.”

He did, throwing back his glass in one quick motion, then giving himself another few fingers and sliding past me to assume his chair behind the desk. “I thought, after last time …” He swallowed hard. “I thought we were through.”

“Did you?”

“I thought that you said we were even.”

“Did I?”

“Not, of course, that I’m unhappy to see you.”

I repulsed this concern with a theatrical wave of my hand.

“What is this about?”

“Maybe I just wanted to pop in and give a quick salute to my former commander,” I said. “Don’t you ever feel like reliving old times with your brother officers?”

“Of course I do, of course,” he said, willing to agree to anything I put in front of him.

“Then how come you never return the courtesy? Have you risen so high you’ve forgotten your old subordinate?”

He sputtered something halfway between an apology and an excuse before lapsing into silence.

I let that hang awkwardly between us for about fifteen seconds, trying hard not to laugh. “As it happens, though, and since you’ve so kindly offered, there is something you might be able to help
me with—though I hesitate to ask, given that you’ve done so much already.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said coldly.

“Remember that operation outside Donknacht, the day before the armistice?”

“Vaguely.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was only of trifling interest to one so far up the chain of command. Dealing with key strategic and logistical issues, it might be easy to forget the skirmishes that fill the memories of the lower ranks.”

He didn’t respond.

“I need to know the name of every sorcerer involved in that project—everyone who carried it out, and anyone who might have trained them. The Ministry of War will have kept a record.”

“Not for something like that,” he answered, immediately and without thinking. “It was off the books.”

“They have it.”

He scrambled for some excuse to avoid acting the pawn. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to access them. They wouldn’t be held in the general library with the rest of the documents from the war. If they’re anywhere, they’d be under lock and key in the restricted section.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem for an Undersecretary of the Army.”

“They’ve changed protocol,” he insisted. “It isn’t like the old days. I can’t just walk into the archives and walk out with the documents under my arm.”

“It’ll be as easy as it’ll be. Or as difficult. But either way, it’ll get done.”

“I … can’t guarantee anything.”

“There aren’t any guarantees in life,” I responded. “But you’ll try, won’t you, Colonel? You’ll try very, very hard.”

He drained the rest of the glass and set it on the table, then pushed
his weasel face toward mine. The liquor was kicking in, flooding him with courage he could never muster sober. “I’ll do what I can,” he said, and the tone of his voice did not fill me with confidence in the outcome of his errand. “And then we’re square. No more of these surprise visits. We’re done.”

“Funny—you said the same thing the last time I was here.” I stubbed my cigarette into his desk, grinding the ash into the finish, then stood and grabbed my coat. “Be seeing you soon, Colonel.”

The door shut on a man barely deserving of the title.

His secretary—a pretty, stupid young thing who had allowed me to talk my way into Grenwald’s office with a lie about the war—smiled up at me sweetly. “Was the colonel able to help with your pension problem?”

“It won’t be easy, but he’ll come through for me. You know the colonel—nothing’s more important than his men. He ever tell you about the time he carried me three miles across enemy lines, after I took a bolt in the thigh? Saved my life that night.”

“Really?” she asked, wide-eyed and bubbly.

“No, of course not—none of that was true,” I replied, leaving her more than usually befuddled as I walked out.

I left Grenwald’s office and the boy fell in alongside me without speaking. The meeting had been a waste—Grenwald was a spineless fool, and I couldn’t trust him to come through, not with something this important, not with the consequences I would suffer if it didn’t pan out. That meant I had to move on to plan B; and as far as plan B went, there was a reason it hadn’t taken priority.

Because plan B meant Crispin, he was the only contact I had left high enough to get the information and who I thought might have a chance in hell of saying yes. After our last meeting the thought of asking him for help was faintly nauseating, but pride comes second to survival, so I swallowed mine and started walking to where the child’s body had been found.

My reverie was broken by a voice that I only belatedly realized was Wren’s. I think it was the first time I had heard him speak without prompting.

“What happened when they took you to Black House?”

I thought about how to answer that question for a quarter of a block. “I rejoined the Crown’s service.”

“Why?”

“They made an appeal to my patriotism. I’d do anything for Queen and country.”

He swallowed this soberly, then spat out a response. “I don’t really care about the Queen.”

“Honesty is an overrated virtue. And we all love the Queen.”

Wren nodded sagely as we crossed the canal, the crime scene a bustle of motion a few dozen yards to the west.

The area was swarming with lawmen, and in contrast to their general tradition of incompetence, they seemed to be taking this one seriously. Crispin stood in the center of the chaos next to the child’s body, taking down observations and issuing instructions. Our eyes met, but he returned to his duties without giving any indication he had noticed me. I could see Guiscard canvassing witnesses at an intersection in the distance, and some of the boys who had given me a working over last time were milling about as well, more comfortable causing violence than investigating it.

“Stay here.”

Wren took a seat on the railing. I crossed into the maelstrom, ducking beneath the cordon and approaching my old partner.

“ ’Lo, agent.”

He responded without looking up, jotting down notes in a black leather-bound journal. “Why are you here?”

“Ain’t you up on the news? I missed you so damn much that I went to the Old Man and begged for my old job.”

“Yeah, I heard. Crowley sent a runner over an hour ago. I figured you’d use whatever time your bullshit bought you with Special Operations to get the hell out of town.”

“You never had enough faith in me.”

Suddenly the notebook was on the ground and Crispin had my lapel in his grip, the loss of temper striking in someone normally so self-possessed. “I don’t care what twisted agreement you made with the Old Man. This is my case, and I’m not letting your hatreds get dragged into it.”

My hand shot up and tore his paw off my shoulder. “I’ve had
enough of being manhandled by law enforcement officials for one day. And as gratifying as it is to watch the Crown discover they have a population south of the River Andel, in our last go-round your assistance proved less than efficacious. Far as I can tell, most of your job is to stand around corpses and look distraught.”

It seemed unfair after I said it, but it eased him back down a notch. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“For starters, why don’t you go ahead and run down the scene.”

“There’s little enough to run down. The body was found by a fish seller on his way to the docks. He reported it to the guard; they reported it to us. Judging by the state of the body, the girl was killed last night and dumped here early this morning.”

I knelt down beside the child and removed her wrapping. She was young, younger than the first one had been. Her hair looked very dark spread over her skin.

“Was the body … abused?”

“Clean, not like the last one. The only injury is the one that killed her, a straight line across the throat.”

I hid her corpse beneath the covering and stood back to my full height. “What does your scryer say?”

“Nothing yet. She wants some time to work with the body.”

“I’d like to speak with her.”