I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, but Arlin would be found in either a Dockside bar or the palace, and I was betting on a bar.
“Tell me,” Droit continued as we walked, “how many cases do you solve in a year?”
I shrugged, pulling out a coffin nail. Droit shifted around to my other side to avoid the smoke. I felt a faint, stupid sense of satisfaction that I’d found something that got a rise out of him.
“Mostly you get two kinds of cases in Dockside,” I said, lighting up. “Theft and murder. Theft we hardly ever solve. Too many suspects and none of ’em want to talk. Frankly, we don’t bother much with it. Murder’s easier. Most the time the killer’s still hanging around, drunk off his ass. Mostly family, sometimes a friend or a business partner. Sometimes it’s a gang killing, and that’s a little iffier. Civilians won’t talk, but rivals do, sometimes. I’d say Dockside wraps up most its murders in a day or two. Not all of them, but most.”
“Do you get called in on every case, or do they save their sentinel for the important ones?”
I eyed him, but he didn’t seem to be taking the piss.
“If I’m on duty I’ll head out whenever a call comes in, but mostly I’m assigned the long-term cases the constables are too busy to tackle. Smuggling, gangs, slavers, spies. Anything involving the Line, of course.”
“Is there much adjuration-related crime in Cislunar?”
“Nope. Too hard to get away with. Most of us get identified as soon as we manifest, and once the Vigilance’s got your name on its list, it’s harder than hell to get away with anything. The Line ain’t the only thing the Vigilance keeps its eyes on.”
He was watching me, and it made me uncomfortable.
“Do you resent that?” he asked. “The oversight?”
“It’s a pain in the arse sometimes, but the thought of some of my peers running around without anyone to answer to….” I flicked ash on the street. “Working close to the Line ain’t conducive to long-term mental stability, and a sentinel off his nut is a threat. I wouldn’t complain if the Vigilance lightened up a little, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to get rid of it entirely.”
“How’s your mental stability?”
“Piss off.”
“It’s a fair question. I have to work with you, after all.”
“Let’s just say I’m crazy enough to work with you.”
He lifted his face to the sun and smiled, his eyes half-closed. “You sound nervous about something.”
“I ain’t nervous about nothing. But I don’t have to answer rude questions.”
“Do you agree with the Reverence, that the other side of the Line is Perdition?” he asked, abruptly.
“You’d know better than me,” I grunted. “You’re the one who used to work for the Sovereign of Hell.”
“Yzyrchye never invited me into its home.” His face twitched a little. “And I can’t discern the Line, or anything beyond it. What do you think?”
I rolled my eyes, but I’d seen that twitch, like a man remembering something particularly bad. First sign of a real emotion he’d given, so I gave him a more honest answer than I’d given Carel.
“I think it’s bullshit. Calling across the Line is dangerous, but so’s sailing. We don’t call the ocean a hell. Sharks ain’t demons, and neither are transients.”
“My sentinels all died. Most of them were killed by transients.” He looked reflective for a moment. “We saw a lot of transients on the battlefield. They’re strange, ruthless creatures. I ordered my soldiers to leave them alone; they never stayed for long. What is it you sentinels say? ‘Death dismisses’?”
I shuddered, both at the image of a battlefield covered with hungry transients and at the kind of general who’d let them eat until their dinners died.
“This story got a point?”
“My sentinels died in Line breaches, transient attacks, and fits of madness. Is that how you expect to die?”
“Probably get killed by someone I pissed off,” I said, not willing to go there. “How do you expect to die?”
“Assassination.”
I laughed.
“Then why’d you retire? You coulda kept an army around you, made yourself a harder target.”
Droit shrugged. “After a while, even violence and atrocity lose their thrill.”
“So just like that, you woke up and walked away from the Sovereign of Hell?”
“Just like that.”
“They say you dropped out of sight for a year before you showed up in Cislunar. Where’d you go?”
“Fishing.”
I stopped and turned to face him. He paused, giving me a neutral look. Passers-by looked annoyed as they were forced to walk around us. I guessed they didn’t know who we were.
“Some people say you chickened out,” I accused. It was a stupid thing to say, but I was tired of his calm, collected demeanor. I wanted to see him pissed off. “They say being Yzyrchye’s Hound got too scary for you.”
Droit shrugged, not taking the bait.
“No. I just decided to be my own dog, for a change.”
I gave up and spent the rest of the walk back to Dockside trying to remember the name of my university flatmate, the one I’d once called the most annoying bastard on the face of the earth. Droit was quickly stealing his title.
As it happens, I know Arlin the Knave pretty well. He drinks hard and he drinks long, and he does most of his drinking in my neighborhood. I’ve escorted him back to the palace a handful of times, not because I like him but because he’s choosy about who gets close to him when he’s on a bender. The people he doesn’t like, he tries to fillet. Luckily, he’s a lousy swordsman when he’s drunk. Plus, everyone in the city knows he’s one of the sovereign’s favorites.
The why of that is one of those stories that everyone’s heard before, even if nobody’s quite clear on the details. Domenico Lament went slumming back when he was young, before the opera fire that killed his sister, the sovereign before him. He got himself into some kind of trouble and Arlin helped him get back out of it again. Quid pro quo; the boozehound has enjoyed royal protection ever since.
I asked around his usual haunts and his path eventually led us into the Chifes, a neighborhood in Dockside so dangerous that even the rats walk in pairs. Droit was itching for a fight so bad I was afraid he might stain the front of his pants. Lament needed to let him off his leash more often, I thought. He’d probably be easier to get along with if he got to raid a few city-states each week to let off tension. As it was, I was in such a lousy mood that I half hoped Droit would start something I could help finish. With him or against him, I didn’t care which.
No such luck. Nobody was crazy enough to pick a fight with a Watch sentinel and the Red General, not even in the Chifes.
We finally found Arlin in a hole on some nameless alley off Experience Street. He was slumped in the back with a clay jug of swill in his hand, well past the point of bothering with the tankard in front of him.
“Arlin the Knave,” Droit mused, kicking a chair around and sitting arse-backwards in it. “He looks just like I remember.”
Arlin gave him a long look, his eyes bruised-looking beneath greasy strands of blond hair. Then he turned his head to inspect me.
“Go ’way,” he slurred. “M’not thrown out yet an’ I don’ wanna talk to a prentice madman.”
“I ain’t here to drag you off, Arlin.” I pulled up a chair next to Droit. I didn’t want to sit next to the Red General, but my only other choice was to sit next to Arlin, and he wasn’t known for his frequent baths. “I need you to tell me a story.”
“Huh?”
“About a dame who owned a gambling club and got killed by a razorbite.”
Arlin took a long slug from the bottle. Half of it dribbled down the stubble on his chin and dripped onto his filthy shirt.
“Got a better story’n’that.”
“Yeah?”
He leaned forward and tipped his bottle toward the bar. His voice rasped in a whiskey whisper. His breath would kill horseflies.
“See the skinny cove over there? Looks like a walkin’ corpse? Drinkin’. Used to have a daughter. Not a plugged pence for gin, but a nice little daughter, no more’n twelve, thirteen. Trouble in th’makin’, but ain’t they all? Now he’s got pence and no daughter. Very sad. But he don’ look so sad, does he?” Arlin steadied himself on the table, took another shot. Booze splattered on the table. The reek of cheap rotgut was welcome relief from the reek of unwashed Arlin.
“So?” Droit asked, laying his book on his lap, well away from spattering booze. “A parent sells a child to the highest bidder. The nobility do it all the time. The call it ‘marriage.’”
“Fuckin’ Hound.” Arlin curled a lip in a drunken sneer.”
“I saw plenty of children sold into slavery.” Droit shrugged. “In a war, children are less valuable than food. Except when they are food.”
“Well, we ain’t at war, and selling humans is against the law in Cislunar. As is eating them, just in case you need the heads-up.” I looked at Arlin. “You are talking about slavery, right? I’ve been looking into reports that there’s a new slaving ring working in the city.”
Arlin grinned, showing teeth that looked too clean for a man living with one foot in the gutter, and then belched with long and rich pleasure.
“Slavery, whoremastery, hard to say. She ain’ the first. Buy me another round, beck.”
“You’re getting more booze on the table than inside your mouth,” I objected. “Even rotgut deserves a little respect.”
“Then buy me somethin’ good an’ I’ll save it for later.”
I rolled my eyes.
“How about you talk now and I take you home to buy yourself a drink from Lament’s liquor cabinet.”
He laughed sharply and upturned the bottle. What didn’t go into his mouth thinned the greasy film on his face.
“Gimme outta here.”
“Should we pick up your pigeon, too?” I asked, looking at the man he’d indicated.
“G’head,” Arlin said with a generous wave of his hand.
“Which one do you want, Droit?”
“I’ll scrape up the scum by the bar,” he said, looking at Arlin with distaste.
“C’mon, then,” I said, holding out a hand. Arlin grabbed it and hauled himself up, staggering into me and then bracing himself on my shoulder. I breathed out my mouth and let him lean on me as we headed out of the bar and into the alley.
“Hey!” the bartender protested. I turned, pulled a half-farthing from my pocket, and tossed it at him. He snatched it out of the air. At the same time, Droit maneuvered his target up with a grip on the lower arm that looked like it could be painful.
“Gen’rous of you,” Arlin said as I walked a half-block away and then shoved him off. He leaned against a urine-stained brick wall and fumbled with his tattered jacket, trying to close it against the cold. “You’re m’ favorite beck. Which ain’ sayin’ much. Fuckin’ becks.”
“Great. Maybe you can put in a good word for me with the crown.” I turned to watch Droit force-march his captive ahead of him. Arlin scratched his neck with black-stained fingernails, following my gaze.
“He’s inna Watch now?”
“Nah. Just lending me a hand.”
“Careful he don’ walk off with it.”
“Actually, I’m starting to think his reputation’s a bunch of hot air.”
“We’re going to question this one ourselves, aren’t we?” Droit asked as he joined us, his smile wolfish. His captive winced.
“Depends.” I turned back to Arlin. “How many others are involved?”
“Wha’?” He gazed drunkenly at me. I jammed my hands in the pockets of my overcoat to keep from shaking him.
“How many other missing kids and parents with sudden spending money are there?” I clarified. Arlin squinted in thought, nodded, fumbled through his clothes, came up empty-handed.
“Buy me a drink,” he whined.
Droit stepped forward and shoved Arlin against the wall. The sot’s head hit the brick and a flash of anger crossed his scruffy face. He reached down, but Droit slapped his hand away before it could touch steel.
“Talk to her,” Droit hissed.
“Hey, easy — he’s just an old alky,” I said, alarmed. The last thing I needed was to be around while Droit roughed up one of the sovereign’s favorites. “He’ll get to the point eventually.”
“It sickens me, seeing a man abuse himself like this.”
“Sorry he offends your delicate nature. Leave him alone. Booze will oil his memory faster than blood.” I walked back to the bar, bought a pint jar of juice that didn’t seem too likely to eat through paint, and brought it back. Droit had given up on Arlin and was shaking his captive, instead, hitting him with questions like physical blows. I turned my back on them and handed Arlin the pint.
“Thanks, beck. Here’s t’you.”
He lifted the bottle, gazed at me as he drank, and leaned forward. I tried not to gag as a wave of body odor, bad booze, and foul breath swept over me. He dropped his voice.
“Keep the haircut,” he whispered, too loud. “Looks good on you.”
I took a step back so I could breathe. Swell. A vagrant thought I was all the crack.
“Look, the kids –” I started.
“Three of ‘em this summer. Two girls, one boy.” Arlin took another drink. “Twelve, eleven, thirteen. Vanished. Parents said they was at jobs, or visitin’, or ran off. But now Mom and Dad are payin’ off debts, eatin’, drinkin’, wearin’ better clothes. Sibs got no idea what happened.”
“Shit.” I lit a gasper to fight Arlin’s funk and listened to Droit shout at the man behind us. I hadn’t heard threats like that since my final run-in with Ankham’s Black Guard, right before I’d crossed the strait and come to Cislunar. You could tell the man was ex-military.
“How did Lily’s request to look for nix get you down into the Chifes, Arlin?”
He lowered the bottle. He was making some heavy inroads on it. His eyes were starting to glaze.
“If it’s drugs, it comes through Dockside. I c’n lurk and lissen better down here than in The Gilded Lily.” His grin was crooked, self-effacing. It was a good grin, the kind that acknowledges a weakness but don’t succumb to it. “Figgered she got her damn beck to keep an eye on things uptown.”
“He didn’t do such a good job.” I heard a yelp and turned around. Droit’s suspect was on the street, curled up over his stomach. “Droit, we can’t get answers from a dead man.”
“He sold his daughter to two men who came around asking for her in particular,” Droit reported, nudging the man with his shiny boot. “Their names are Wry Dick and Jack Rake. They paid him in silver, which is a hell of a lot more than most slavers would hand over for a poor man’s daughter, no matter how pretty she might have been.”
I curled my lip, looking down at Droit’s victim with a lot less sympathy than I’d had a moment before. He was crying, but it was booze and fear, not remorse, that washed tracks down his soot-covered face.
“I know those names,” I said. “Muscle-for-hire. Last I heard, they was working for Tom Fleet, but he’s in Hellsgate now. They must have found themselves a new boss.”
Next to me, Arlin nodded his agreement as he continued to hurt the bottle.
“Can I kill him?” Droit prodded the man’s cheek with his toe. “It’ll save you some paperwork.”
“Are you kidding? You kill him and I’ll be filling out forms all night. No, we hand him over to the Watch and put him on ice for a while.” I turned to Arlin. “Can you find your way home from here?”
“Why’d I wanna do that?” He grinned and sloshed the bottle back and forth. “Got the good stuff now.”
“Swell. Drop me a note at Bright Street station if you hear anything about nix or more missing kids. I’ll buy you something worth drinking next time.”
He made boozy promises, Droit yanked his captive back to his feet, and we left the Chifes, cutting back up Experience Street and through the maze of streets to the Dockside Watch headquarters.
Five constables jumped to their feet when Droit walked into headquarters behind me. He shoved our captive into a wall and dropped into a fighting stance, daggers materializing in both hands like magic.
“Thanks, pals,” I said, walking past the alarmed men to my desk. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I ain’t stupid enough to try to arrest the Butcher. That weepy stick next to him is another matter.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lt. DeWitt snapped. “That man is not —”
“Where’s Medley?” I asked, interrupting him. His face turned red and he threw his chair back, marching up to me.
“Lt. Medley is out sick,” he hissed, “so you won’t be able to rely on him to cover your lazy arse tonight. Now, I want to know what the hell you’re thinking, bringing that son of a bitch in here.”
“You got a rap to hang on him?” I asked with interest. “I didn’t see his name on any wanted posters.”
Droit snorted, the daggers vanishing up his sleeves again. He laid The Gilded Lily’s account book on my desk and took a seat by the door. His tall black boots gleamed in the dim light that filtered through the doorway.
DeWitt looked frustrated. He knew as well as I did that we couldn’t touch Droit without a good reason.
“Now, listen,” I said, pointing. “This gink we brought in, he confessed to selling his daughter to Wry Dick and Jack Rake. Might be related to that slaver ring I’ve been investigating — and our nix case.”
“I thought you’d been pulled by the Ministry,” DeWitt snapped. Ah, maybe that’s what was pissing him off.
“Sure, but could be they’re connected. Anyway, I made the arrest — I don’t need to work it. Put someone else on it. Sergeant Connas knows something about the investigation.” I figured the sergeant’s career could use a boost.
“She’s a beat cop, not a detective.”
“Then work it yourself. Get some fresh air, gladhand the locals. But keep the gink locked up in case we need to question him again.” I ignored his fuming, sat down at my desk, and picked up the stack of reports that had accumulated there. DeWitt looked like he wanted to slug me, but he couldn’t do it in front of witnesses. I flipped through the files. Droit seemed content to read his book, ignoring the nervous constables around him. The gink was escorted to the cells in back.
Most of the reports were routine, but I stopped at the one with Connas’ signature on the cover. Jim Hanks’ murder. She’d had her patrol do the required footwork, knocking at doors and asking questions and getting noplace fast. The i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed and she didn’t have anything left to work with. She’d quoted my speculations, though, and the file was flagged for follow-up.
I remembered those two girls I’d intended to question later and glanced out the door at the evening light.
“Wonder what time it is,” I mused. Droit pulled a leather-cased pocket watch from his coat pocket and glanced at it.
“Half past six.”
I eyed the watch, tried to resist, but couldn’t.
“Mind if I see that?”
He handed me the piece. Its leather case was scuffed and stained and covered small steel plates that gave the watch a little extra protection. The watch itself was simple enough, as those kinds of things go, surprisingly small, its gold case stamped by the Imperial Horologist’s Guild. Not worth more than a couple of good horses or a year or two of rent on my flat.
“It’s one of the few things that survived the wars with me,” Droit said as I handed it back. “I’ve had to get it fixed twice.”
“Use it a lot?”
“Not as much now. Synchronizing troop movements is important in the field, but there isn’t much use for punctuality in the city.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” I said, as if I could have bought myself an Imperial Horologist’s pocket watch any time but would rather spend my money on something more useful. “All right, my shift’s over. Might as well head home.”
He stood. “Will you need a bodyguard again tomorrow, Lorencz?”
The constables around us swapped startled looks. I ground my teeth together, but I couldn’t get mad at him — that’s exactly what he was. Hell, maybe they’d be impressed.
“Guess Arlin gave us a couple more names we can look up tomorrow,” I said, glancing down at the reports. “Not sure they’ve got anything to do with Lily’s case, though.”
He cast a dismissive gaze around the station, then gave me a curt nod and left. I had to stick around to answer Lt. DeWitt’s irritable questions about why the hell I was working with the Butcher of Donweyr and was he on the Watch payroll now, but he eventually gave up in disgust and let me go.
The temperature outside had dropped as fast as a boxer on the take. I fastened my coat buttons and pulled up my collar as I stepped back out into the street. My scalp was freezing under its new, short haircut. I stopped for a quick bowl of clam chowder at a place by the station, then went home and got a couple of hours of sleep before someone was pounding on the door.