Release: Davlova: Book One (16 page)

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

He tried to shake his hand free, although he didn’t try too hard. If he’d really wanted to get away, he would have kicked me in the stones. “Nothin’ sir. Just bumped you is all. I shoulda looked, right, but I ain’t so bright. No harm done, right, sir?”

His eyes were huge, his voice whiny and desperate. Anzhéla hated the street cant, but it played well. He was a good actor.

“You took my wallet,” I said. “Give it back, and we’ll pretend it never happened.”

“I didn’t do nothin’! I ain’t got—”

I began looking around the plaza. “Where are the police when you need them?”

“A’right! A’right!” He pulled a wallet from his jacket with his free hand. With any luck, whoever was spying on me wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t the one he’d lifted off of me. The real one was tucked away in some other pocket. “Here’s your stinkin’ purse! Ain’t nothin’ worth stealin’ from a bitch like you anyway!”

I took the wallet and pulled him close, hoping that anybody watching might think I was threatening him. Instead, I hissed at him, “Straight to Anzhéla. Nobody else.”

I pushed him away and he ran, stumbling a bit as he did, but I knew it was all an act. I’d have to tell Anzhéla how well he’d done, if I ever got to talk to her again.

“Trouble sir?” the vendor asked me. A bit late, I thought, but what did I care?

“No problem,” I assured him. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

***

After breakfast the next morning, I dressed a bit more practically—regular boots, and only my vest instead of a coat. I’d made a big show of asking around Talia’s about where to buy a hat, and once I had their suggestions, I picked the one farthest away.

Outside the front door, a pedalcab driver was slowly cycling by. He smiled when he saw me and stopped, although he still stood on his pedals. “Ride, sir?”

“I’m going all the way to the hat shop on Brookshire, in the third quadrant.”

“I’ll get you there in half the time.”

The pedalcabs were one of Anzhéla’s more lucrative ventures, not because of the money she made, but because of the information she was able to collect. Nobody minded cabdrivers. Whether actually taking customers from one point to another, or simply lounging on their bikes at the busiest centers of the city, they were invisible, and trained to listen. A few well-placed cabs, and Anzhéla could gather information from nearly anywhere in Davlova. Using one of her drivers had seemed an obvious solution to our problem.

I waited until we’d gone a block, and then I leaned forward in my seat. “You work for Anzhéla?”

His pedaling slowed. He sat up a bit straighter on his bicycle seat, which allowed him to lean back toward me by a mere inch or so. “I don’t know Anzhéla, sir. My boss is Caldone.”

That made sense. Anzhéla had her hands in a lot of businesses and, through it all, her fingertips on the pulse of the trenches, but she obviously didn’t reveal her connections to everybody. To most of the clan, she was the marm, and nothing more. I knew better because I was older. I’d been around for thirteen years without ever being pinched or snagged in a raid. I’d known for years she was grooming me for more. To someday take over one of her enterprises. Little by little, she’d let me know about other pieces of her puzzle, although I was sure there was plenty more she’d kept to herself. It didn’t surprise me that this boy didn’t know about her specifically.

“What exactly is Caldone paying you to do?”

He pedaled slower, thinking. “To drive by once a week, right after the first bell. Pick you up if you’re there. Then go past the justice building and pick up some other bloke. After that, I go where I’m told. Keep my ears and my mouth shut. Most days, I’m paid to listen to my fares, but not this time. ‘Ignorance is bliss, Leb,’ Caldone told me. ‘Don’t be tryin’ to make yourself smart by hearin’ things what don’t pertain to you. Many a man’s found himself floatin’ cold in the waves for hearin’ the wrong thing.’”

I shuddered, wondering if I’d already doomed him to that fate.

A block later, I heard a man call out, “Cab! Here please!”

The pedaler slowed. “Got a fare already, sir.”

“Where to?” the man called back. I couldn’t see him, and it wasn’t a voice I recognized.

“Third quadrant, sir. Brookshire.”

“Perfect! You can drop me on the corner of Edgeware.”

The boy braked to a stop. He looked back at me with the barest of a wink. “Fancy to split your fare, sir? Save you a penny or two.”

“Why not? A bit of company might be nice.”

I wasn’t sure what I expected. I’d known neither Anzhéla nor Frey could come. I thought maybe they’d send somebody else from the clan, but the man who climbed in to sit next to me wasn’t anybody I’d met before, and he certainly wasn’t anybody who’d spent a day of his life in the trenches. He was dressed too well for that, wearing a velvet jacket with gold buttons and a silk neckerchief peeking from his collar. He looked to be in his mid-forties, and although there was no sign that he was injured or lame, he carried a silver-handled cane.

He settled in beside me, and Anzhéla’s pedalcab driver began to take us down the road.

“Who are you?” I asked the man next to me.

“My name is Aleksey. What do you have for me?”

“Who
are
you?” I asked again. “Are you the client?”

“I’m the man your employer sent to collect your report. Is that not enough for you?”

I debated that, but in the end, there was nothing I could do but trust that the system Anzhéla had set up would get the information safely back to her.

“Donato left town on some kind of business trip last night. He said he’d be gone several days.”

“What kind of business would he have out of town? His job is judging criminals here in Davlova.”

“I don’t know. The only thing he told me was that it was a foul business. And I got the impression it wasn’t the first time.”
When I return, the beast is always tugging at his leash.
I shuddered a bit at the memory. “And I know it’s in Deliphine.” I hadn’t realized it at the time, but as I’d lain in bed the night before, I’d figured that bit out.
I bet the sheets still smell like your hair and your sex.
Which meant he was traveling on his yacht. “I know he’s taking his boat, and it can’t be anyplace else across the sea, because he’ll be there and back in a few days.”

“Interesting.” The man sat for a while, twirling his cane on the floor of the cab, thinking. We’d passed the plaza and were heading into the third quadrant.

“It reminds me of something else,” I told him. “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when he took me to his yacht, we saw Elias again and afterward, Donato said, ‘I despise dealing with him, but he’s important. A necessary evil.’””

The man raised his eyebrows at me, obviously missing my point.

“Think about it—why would Donato have to deal with Elias at all? Just because he’s the harbor master? He could ignore him like he does every other servant in the world. He could probably have the man replaced with a snap of his fingers.”

“So whatever he’s doing in Deliphine, it requires Elias’ cooperation.”

“I think so, yes. That, or his silence.”

A slow smile of approval spread across his face. “Anzhéla said you’d be good at this. Is there anything else?”

“Yes and no. This isn’t really about him specifically, but he was talking to me about a drug. I don’t know the name, but it’s an aphrodisiac. Almost a hallucinogen. He said it was highly addictive and obscenely expensive.”

“Ah. You probably mean dew.”

“Dew?”

“That’s the street name, at any rate. It’s a derivative from a plant called inseldew.”

“He told me that he knows a man who gives it to his female slaves until he tires of them, and then he cuts them off.”

“But he didn’t tell you who it was?”

“No.”

He sat back and stared out of the cab, pinching his lips with long, manicured fingers. “The simple answer would be that he’s bringing in drugs. Maybe dew.”

“He doesn’t use it himself.”

“That doesn’t matter. In fact, the smart ones never do partake of their own wares. The thing is, it’s easy enough to get for men like him. On this side of the wall, we have to deal with the black market, but there’s very little to keep those tattooed bastards in check. Everybody knows they can get anything they want. Especially somebody like Donato, who was born into it, rather than buying his way through the wall like the rest of us.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, but we were coming up to Brookshire Street. The cab would have to turn left and go down several blocks to take me to the hat shop. Aleksey suddenly sat up and called out, “Here driver! Drop me here.”

He paid the driver and I watched him cross the street to the white district, swinging his cane and whistling as he went.

Buying his way through the wall like the rest of us.

No matter what Aleksey chose to admit, I felt sure I’d finally met Anzhéla’s client.

CHAPTER NINE

Seven days later, I found myself back at Donato’s house.

“He’s in a rage,” the butler mumbled to me as I went past. “Be ready.”

My heart sank a bit at his words. Despite Donato’s warning to me, I’d secretly harbored hopes that he’d be tender when he saw me again. That maybe he would have actually missed me.

I should have known better.

As soon as I was in the bedroom, I took the ildenaaf. I also stashed a few of them in places throughout the room—one wedged into the corner of the windowsill, one tucked into a decorative swirl in the carved wooden headboard, another on the floor by the foot of the bed. I’d also brought a packet of the sedatives with me. I didn’t use them often anymore, but I took one now. The rest I slid between the mattresses.

Then I waited.

The door finally opened, but it wasn’t Donato who came in. It was the boy. I’d been lounging on the bed, but I stood to face him. I’d thought about him often. I’d wondered how often Donato used him, if he lived in the house, if he had any kind of freedom at all. I had a hundred questions I wanted to ask him. And now here we were, alone, for the moment at least.

I stepped closer to him. His regarded me with his huge, spooky eyes. “I need to see your tattoo.”

My request confused him, but he pulled his drape aside to reveal the twin lines of spidery blue text running down the right side of his chest. I wished I had a pencil and paper, but I hadn’t dared risk it. Instead, I’d have to rely on my memory.

“Can you read it?” the boy asked.

“No. But somebody will be able to.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I don’t know that it does, but it’s the only thing I have to go on.” I looked up into his pale eyes. They were filled with a weariness that bordered on exhaustion. It broke my heart. “Tell me your name.”

“No.” His gaze darted wildly around the room, as if fearing a trap. Apparently, not finding one, he looked back at me, practically begging me to rescind the question.

I didn’t. “I’m Misha.”

“We don’t have names.”

“Just because he chooses to ignore them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

His eyes filled with tears. “I’m Slave, and you’re Whore.”

I shook my head. I reached out to take his hand. He stood completely still, as if unaware of my touch. “Maybe we can help each other.”

“Nobody can help me.”

“I can’t free you. I can’t change what he does, but I’m not your enemy. Would it be so bad to enjoy each other?”

He closed his eyes, his breathing slow and labored as if he was in pain. “He never lets me come.”

“Is that what you want? I can give you that.”

“You don’t understand. It’s a word. A command he has to give.”

“Then tell me the word—”

“I can’t!”

“He doesn’t have to know.”

He jerked his hand away from me, glaring at me with so much anguish, I took a step back. “You don’t understand. It’s them!” He pointed toward the wall, toward the sea. “The Dollhouse. It’s what they did to me.” He clenched his eyes shut, reaching up to touch a spot behind his right ear, near the nape of his neck. “It’s here. The programming. This black spot where the word should be. I don’t even know what it is.”

“Somebody must know.”

“He’s the only one. And even if he said it, which he never does, I wouldn’t hear it. That black spot would swallow it up.”

“So... Never?”

He put his face in his hands. “Not that I can remember.”

It was a horrifying thought, to be driven to feel pleasure, to be forced to enjoy something so horrible, and yet to not even be granted the simple reward of release.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, because what else could I say?

“It would be better if I didn’t enjoy it, but I do. Goddess help me, I do. No matter how much I hate him, the programming is stronger. My body betrays me.”

“I want to help,” I said weakly.

He looked up at me, his eyes suddenly sharp and intense with hope. “Will you kill me?”