Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (32 page)

“You make it look like the whole city has come down with plague,” the chief said. “I get it.”

“He’s going to do like he did in the Camp, with the corpses,” Kody said. “Only more of them, in more places. And there won’t be a river to separate them from the heart of the city.”

“My guess is that he will pose as a corpse collector,” Lenoir said. “That way, no one will take any notice of him.”

Reck swore and got to his feet. “So how do we find him?”

“If it were me,” Lenoir said, “I would start with the richer neighborhoods. Meadowsmead and Primrose Park.”

“Makes sense. Folk there won’t struggle to scrape together the coin. He’ll sell quicker.” Reck sighed again. “But even if we’re right, that’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

Lenoir sagged against the desk, the enormity of it weighing him down. “Yes, Chief, it is. If we had the men, we could cover the local apothecaries he sells to. We could tear the docks apart until we found the warehouse with the rest of his stock. We could arrest every corpse collector in Kennian.”

“But we don’t have the men, so let’s not waste time
with fantasies.” Reck rubbed his jaw roughly. “I might be able to scrape together enough to do one of those things, and do it well. No point in spreading ourselves too thin to do any good.”

“So which one?” Kody asked. “The docks are the surest bet.”

“And the slowest,” Lenoir said. “By the time he comes back for the angel wort, he will have done his work with the corpses, and we may never find out where he stashed them. If we truly want to stop him, we must go for the corpse collectors.”

Kody’s mouth pressed into a grim line, as though he had feared that answer. “It’ll be like finding a mouse in a barn.”

“That’s one hell of a gamble, Lenoir,” Reck said.

“Yes, it is, but I would rather take a chance on stopping him than be sure of catching him after it is too late.”

Reck’s gaze dropped to his desk, and for a moment he just stood there, head bowed in thought. Then he looked up and said, “Let’s get on it, then.”

They headed down the stairs to the kennel. “Where are we going to get the men?” Kody asked, glancing around at the empty desks of the sergeants and watchmen.

“I’ve got a few off shift, who should be getting a good night’s rest.” The chief made a sour face. “So much for that.”

“That will not get us very far, Chief,” Lenoir said.

“No, it won’t. So we’ll be using them as commanders, each one in charge of a unit.”

“A unit of what, exactly?” Kody asked.

Reck spread his arms wide. “Behold your army.”

Kody’s eyebrows flew up. “Scribes? But, Chief—”

“They are just boys,” Lenoir said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. At least a third of them are women.”

“Chief—”

“You got a better idea, Lenoir?” Reck asked impatiently. “You need eyes, and these fine people have ’em.”

“We also need muscle,” Kody said. “Ritter’s not going to come quietly. Even the real corpse collectors might put up a struggle.”

“That’s where the off-shift officers come in. Each scribe gets a whistle. They see a miasma mask and a handcart, and they give that whistle a blast. Their sergeant or watchman comes running. That’s it.”

Lenoir grunted. “That is . . . ingenious, actually.”

“So pleased you think so.” Turning, Reck addressed the kennel at large. “Listen up, hounds! Drop whatever you’re doing and gather round! You’ve all been temporarily promoted to watchmen!”

For a moment, no one moved; they just looked at one another, bewildered. A timid voice sounded from somewhere in the back. “What does that mean, Chief?”

“It means your night is about to get interesting.”

T
he shaft of light swung left to right, like the beam of a lighthouse, setting the cobbles aglow. The alley unfurled before them, a canyon of gloom flanked by rugged cliffs of stone. Above, dark windowpanes stared down, aloof and secretive. Lenoir paused, his lantern aloft, but nothing stirred. Apparently, the neighborhood was too rich even for rats.

“Shall I go take a look, Inspector?” The scribe hoisted his own lantern; its glare threw his angular face into sharp relief, giving him a ghoulish appearance.

“No. There is no one here. We move on.”

The young man nodded. “You just say the word, though. I’m here to help.”

“Yes, Riley, thank you.” Lenoir tried to keep the impatience from his voice. The scribe was overeager, but that was to be expected. He had never been out on patrol before, and though he could not possibly understand what was at stake, he took his role seriously. Lenoir was grateful for that, even if he found the young man’s presence more than a little irritating.

They moved back into the wan glow of the streetlamps. Still nothing stirred. It was barely past the supper hour, but it might as well have been thin of the clock, so quiet
was the street. A growing sense of panic thrummed at Lenoir’s nerves. He could not help imagining how many corpses Ritter might have collected by now, how many he might have distributed. Would he dump them into wells? God forbid, into the river? He shuddered, though the night was uncomfortably warm.

Something moved at the edge of Lenoir’s vision. He whirled.

“Oh!” The figure threw her hands in the air, sending her lantern tumbling to the street with a mighty
clank
. “It’s just me, Inspector!”

Lenoir was surprised to find his gun in his hand, trained on the startled scribe. He muttered out an apology and slipped the weapon back in its holster. Shaken, the young woman stooped to retrieve her lantern.

Get yourself together, Lenoir.

He continued up the street, Riley striding faithfully at his side, as though oblivious to the fact that Lenoir had nearly killed one of his colleagues a moment ago. “We’ll get him, Inspector,” the young man said stoutly. Lenoir’s teeth ground together.

A shrill sound pierced the darkness. A whistle. In an instant, Lenoir was running. He dove through the shadows, pistol back in hand, blood roaring in his ears. The whistle blasted again. Shouts sounded from just ahead.
Please,
Lenoir prayed,
let it be him.

No such luck. Lenoir knew it the moment he rounded the corner and saw them: the scribe, shining his lantern full upon his quarry; the corpse collector, arm thrown up to ward off the glare; the handcart, hearteningly, heartbreakingly empty.

“What’s going on?” The corpse collector’s voice was strangely muffled behind the mask. “Who are you?”

“Metropolitan Police,” Lenoir said, without much conviction. “Remove your mask, please.”

The man complied. He had silver hair and deep lines on his face, sixty if he was a day. As though Lenoir
needed more proof that this was not the man he sought. “We need you to come with us. This young man will accompany you to the station.”

“Why? What have I done?”

“Nothing, sir. It is a precaution.”

“But I don’t understand. What’s this all about? Why, I’m a
priest
, you can’t just—” The man protested all the way down the street, but he offered no resistance. Lenoir sent him off with only a single scribe. The priest was no threat, and Lenoir needed to keep as many of his team together as he could. He had already lost two scribes to escort duty; he could not afford to lose more.

“Just a few blocks left, Inspector,” Riley said, “and then we’ve done Hollybrook.”

“Yes, Riley, thank you.”

“Where shall we go after that?”

Lenoir opened his mouth to respond, but found he had nothing to say.

*   *   *

“Well, if you do see anything, give a shout,” Kody said.

The woman nodded and clipped the door shut, only too happy to get his swollen face out of her sight. He stood there on the stoop, momentarily lost in indecision, listening absently as the chain rattled and the bolt slid to.

What now?

His team had combed Primrose Park from end to end, and they hadn’t found so much as a stray cat.
Maybe we should’ve started with the poor district.
Guaranteed, they’d find corpse collectors there, and plenty of them.
Too many,
the more sensible part of him put in.
You’d be hauling them in all night. Not nearly enough manpower for that.
No, Lenoir was right to start with the posh neighborhoods. Kody might have come up empty, but one of the others was bound to find something. “Bound to,” he whispered, as if saying the words aloud could make it so.

“What’s that, Sarge?”

“Nothing. Let’s keep moving.” He rejoined Patton at the bottom of the stoop. “We’ll work our way back north, in case we missed something.”

“Oh. Okay.” The scribe shifted. “I just thought . . .”

“What?”

“Well, since we’ve already done our bit, maybe we should head over a few blocks, help out Sergeant Keane and the others?”

“We stick with the grid, Patton. That’s how it works.” Kody raised his lantern so the other scribes could see his face. “All right, hounds, that’s enough loitering. We turn around and work our way back. Same pattern. Stay focused. I catch two of you on the same street, skulls are gonna crack. Got it?”

His team dispersed, melting into the side streets and alleyways. Kody started back up the avenue, and this time around, he was even more meticulous. The beam of his lantern scoured every stoop, every courtyard, every hollow. Not that he expected to find anything. If Ritter had spotted them, he would already have made tracks, and if he hadn’t, he would be out in the open, not crouched in the lee of a town house stoop. After all, wasn’t the whole point to dump the bodies where everyone could see them?
We should head back to the park,
Kody thought.
I’ll bet that’s where he’d do it. Or maybe Dressley Square. That would get plenty of attention come morning. Or . . . wait . . . the cathedral? Tomorrow’s prayer day. For that matter, any church . . .

He growled, grinding the heel of his palm into his eyes. There were just too many options. If they’d had every man on the force out there, maybe. But with a handful of watchmen and a few dozen scribes . . . It was worse than a mouse in a barn. It was a fly in a forest.
We’ll never find him. We’re sunk.
He couldn’t even feel angry about it. Instead, he just felt sick.

Kody had just made up his mind to scrap the pattern and head straight for the park when he heard the whistle.
It was too distant to be one of his. Keane’s, by the sounds of it.

“That came from Blackpoint,” Patton said into his thoughts.

“Sounds like.”

“Should we go?”

The whistle sounded again, shrill and insistent. Kody pursed his lips.
It’s not ours. Keane will take care of it.
Then he heard something else.

KaPOW.

It lingered, drifting on the wind like a wisp of smoke.

Patton froze. “Was that . . . ?”

“Yeah,” Kody said, “it was.” He started running.

The whistle had gone silent. For several agonizing seconds, the only sound was the pounding of footfalls as Kody headed toward the river. He didn’t even glance behind to see if Patton was following.

It’s got to be Ritter.
By the sounds of things, he’d killed the scribe who found him.
If he gets away . . .
Kody pushed himself harder. The bridge was just ahead. The Minnow marked the boundary between Primrose Park and Blackpoint, between Kody’s territory and Keane’s. He couldn’t be far now. Good thing too, because Kody wasn’t going to be able to keep up this pace for long. As it was, Merden’s injunction against running echoed in his ears.

Another whistle sounded. It came from the same spot, but had a slightly different pitch. A different scribe. Again and again it blasted, unmistakably urgent. The gun was silent, but that didn’t mean the scribe was safe. Ritter might have spent his flintlock, but he was a sailor, and sailors always
had knives.
Damn it, Keane, I hope you’re on this.

Kody could hear shouting now. It guided him around corners, through narrow alleys connecting wider streets. The voices were getting louder, but he could tell he was still at least a block away. He couldn’t hear the whistle
anymore. He tried not to think about what that meant. His blood roared in his ears, and his head felt like it could float away like a balloon at a fair, but he kept running.

He was nearly on top of the shouting now. He recognized Keane’s voice, though he couldn’t make out the words. There were at least two other voices, youthful and afraid. Scribes. If he kept on straight ahead, he would find them.

Kody veered left.

He couldn’t have said why he did it. Maybe it was because the voices up ahead sounded so disorganized, so frantic. Maybe it was just instinct. Regardless, Kody found himself making a flanking maneuver, like a man trying to head someone off.

Which is exactly what he did.

The man almost barreled into him, all three hundred pounds of him. Kody spun his shoulders to avoid the tackle, and still had the presence of mind to stick his knee out. The impact sent a blaze of pain up his leg, but the fugitive caught the worse end of it, tumbling headfirst to the pavement. Somehow, he managed to roll out of it, ending up in a wary crouch. Kody reached for his crossbow, some part of his brain registering surprise that a purser would be so agile. And meaty.

The figure snapped his arm out. Kody staggered. At first, it felt like he’d been stung by an insect, so small and burning was the pain. But when he reached up, he felt something buried in his neck, too cold to be anything but metal. He gripped it, ready to tear it out, but his attacker was back on his feet and there wasn’t time. Kody leveled his crossbow. His attacker drew a knife, a big curved blade that gleamed wickedly in the glow of the streetlamp.
The Inataari.
He was at least six and a half feet tall, with long, narrow mustaches and the fiercest eyes Kody had ever seen. He took a step closer. Kody fired.

Somehow—Kody would never understand how—the
Inataari spun out of the quarrel’s path. He whirled again, arms wide, and now the blade was coming at Kody in a flashing arc. He nearly fell on his arse trying to get out of the way. He grabbed for his gun, but the Inataari was on him again—how in the below did he move
that fast
?—and Kody had to throw himself against the wall just to keep his balance. He fumbled again for his gun. He’d just managed to pull back the hammer when his attacker blasted into him, grabbing his wrist and pinning him up against the wall. They struggled. It was like trying to wrestle a grizzly bear. Kody grunted and swore, but the Inataari was strong enough to best him on a good day, and this wasn’t a good day. Kody felt himself being slowly overwhelmed. His vision swam with spots, and his knees weren’t as sturdy as they should be. He was vaguely aware of a warm stickiness at his throat.

It is your blood, Sergeant.

For some reason, the voice in his head was Lenoir’s.

There is a very small knife embedded in your neck.

Did the Inataari poison their knives? Or was that the Mirrhanese? Kody couldn’t remember. His arm burned from trying to keep the blade away from his throat.

“Hey!”

The shout came from Kody’s right. He knew the voice, but he couldn’t place it.

Frantic footfalls against the pavement. An inarticulate cry, followed by a grunt as something crashed into the Inataari, hard enough to throw him off balance. Kody drove a knee into his attacker’s groin, twisted out of his grasp, and fired. Something warm and wet spattered against his face.

The world swam. A gunshot sounded, as if from a distance.

Kody dropped into darkness.