I woke up to a foul smell. Not as foul as Axton or Arlin, but foul enough. I pushed myself up and blinked. Dim light filtering through the shutters illuminated Droit wiping off one of my two glasses and filling it with a thick, greenish liquid from a ceramic bottle. The sluggish concoction steamed and I deduced that it was the source of the stench. Investigations, that’s me.
I groaned. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s after dawn.”
“I was up all night!”
He handed me the glass. “Drink.”
“Hell, no. I’m too young and pretty to die.” I shoved his hand away and tried to wake up enough to get irate. It was slow coming, but eventually I worked my way up to it. “What the hell are you doing in my flat?”
“Entertaining myself.” He walked over to the window and opened the shutters, letting in more light and a cold gust of air. “You invited me.”
“Not to my apartment.” I wrapped my threadbare blanket around myself and glared at him. “Close the damn shutters.”
“Drink.” He offered the glass again. “While it’s still warm.”
If I dropped balefire on him I’d burn up my flat and get in trouble again, so I took the hot glass and sniffed it.
“What is this?”
“Tea, wheat grass, and boiled vegetables. It’ll clean out some of those toxins you’ve been pouring into yourself.” He cast a pointed look at the empty bottles near the door.
“Do you drink this shit?”
“Every morning.”
“No wonder you’re evil.” I debated a moment and then shot it back as fast as I could. Might as well humor the psychopath, at least while I was still in my nightshirt.
The warm sludge almost missed my taste buds, but not quite. It tasted as wretched as it smelled. I gagged.
“And again,” I said a moment later, after the spasms subsided, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see how my new partner lived.” He looked around. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Huh?”
“Clothes all over the floor. Empty bottles on the table. Cigar ash everyplace. No food worth speaking of. Three dirty dishes and one chair. Water stains on the walls. Everything you own is broken, tattered, or chipped. Don’t you have any self-respect?”
“I’ve got all the self-respect I can afford. We can’t all retire on our ill-gotten gains.” Maybe a little balefire wouldn’t be too dangerous if I called it down right on top of him and he didn’t roll around much.
“You can be poor and still live in a neat and clean environment. If you stopped wasting your paycheck on alcohol and cigars, you’d be able to afford decent clothing and real food.”
My annoyance was getting stronger, which was good. It warmed me up.
“Look, I invited you along ‘cause I needed a thug, not a mother. How I decide to spend my paycheck is up to me.”
Droit sat on the edge of my bed and patted my cheek. His hand was cold.
“But I’m growing so fond of you,” he said, with mock sweetness. “Like a scruffy little pet.”
“Get the hell off my bed.”
“What will you do if I don’t?” he asked, his face too damn close to mine. I called up a baleblade and pressed its edge against his throat.
“You don’t like women, remember?”
He didn’t even have the decency to flinch, but he did give me a wink and stand up. I let the baleknife slip back across the Line as he sat down in my only chair and propped his boots up on the edge of my bed. The shiny leather had been cleaned and polished again. I was starting to think he had a fetish.
Although, if he were any other man making himself at home in my flat, I might not have been complaining. He looked all dapper and fresh, his blond hair pulled back into another neat ponytail, his face clean-shaven, and his green eyes bright and sarcastic. Awful nice-looking, for a mass murderer. But way too pulled together for this early in the morning.
“Boots off the bed, too,” I griped.
“There’s only so far you can push me, Lorencz. Especially in your nightie. And the direction I push best isn’t off a bed.” He smirked.
I rubbed my face and deduced that he wasn’t going to let me go back to sleep. I wished he’d brought coffee instead of warm green sludge.
“What time is it?”
“Seven.” He pulled out his watch, checked it. “Quarter after.”
I groaned, wrapped the blanket around my shoulders, and rolled out of bed to close the shutters. Droit sat back, chatting while I got dressed — he flatly rejected the suggestion that he turn his back on me, so I turned my back on him, which probably isn’t the smartest thing to do in front of a known murderer, but I was starting to think he was more bark than bite.
“You’re too thin,” he observed as I pulled on one of my brightly patched shirts. “You don’t have any muscle tone. You need to eat better.”
“Your concern warms my heart, Droit.” I splashed icy water on my face and scowled at myself in the mirror. My face had too many hard angles to be good-looking, and my hair was several inches too short in front. The roots were starting to show beneath its in-your-face bright red and yellow dye. “If I’d been living in Donweyr back when you conquered it, would you have given a damn about my health?”
“Probably not, unless I thought you were a boy.”
I gave him a disgusted look in the mirror. “You’re sick.”
“I liked them in their teens, back then. Pretty faces, wide eyes, tight asses. No brains worth speaking of.”
I grunted. Teens, huh? I’d heard worse rumors.
“Now that I’m older,” he continued, “I find my tastes have matured. I’ve had enough of pretty faces. Now I’m looking for brains and balls — someone who can hold my interest out of bed as well as in it.”
“Your pretty boy at Lily’s was short on at least one of ’em.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment.” I turned. “How’d you break in here, anyway?”
“’Breaking in’ implies making an effort. For a Watch sentinel, you should have better security.”
“There’s kids in this building. I can’t afford to catch one in a bear trap. Besides, most people aren’t stupid enough to break into a sentinel’s flat.” I pulled on an old fisherman’s sweater and boots. “Present company excluded.”
He smiled, unfazed. It was dispiriting, really — like he didn’t consider me enough of a threat to bother getting annoyed. I blew out a breath.
“Fine. I got questions for you, anyway. After I get some coffee.”
“Are we going after the slavers Arlin told you about? Wry Dick and Jack Rake?”
“Maybe. Something new came up last night, though, and I gotta check in with the Vigilance.”
“Does this something new promise any possibility of violence?” If a stone killer could sound wistful, he did.
“Tell you about it over coffee.”
We settled on a place close to Northgate that satisfied my price range and his cleanliness standards, and he made disapproving comments as I smoked while we waited to be served. I told him about the orphanage murder over coffee with cream and a plate of eggs, bread, and thick slabs of ham. I hadn’t eaten a big breakfast in ages, but his critique had stung. No muscle tone? Bastard.
To make it worse, all he had was a cup of tea.
“It’s not Yzyrchye,” he said, when I’d finished. “Yzyrchye — no. It’s not human in any way, and it would never be so compliant.”
“It responds to ritual, though, right?”
“Yes, when it feels like it.” He made a face, then leaned back, setting his teacup down. “To amuse itself and satisfy its sense of curiosity.”
“So it’s kinda like you.”
He gave me a flat look, then a begrudging nod.
“I suppose that’s fair.”
I filed away his reaction for future consideration and stood.
“All right, then. Let’s go see what the arch-sentinel has to say, then.”
The Vigilance was just opening up when we got there. An elderly woman was sweeping the walk and the gardener was raking leaves. The main lobby smelled like beeswax and lemon oil. Mazarin Saint-Cloud, at the front desk, looked crisp and forbidding in a black Vigilance uniform.
“Lorencz. I’m surprised to see you before noon.” Saint-Cloud’s eyes shifted to Droit with no change of expression. If Yzyrchye itself were to walk in with all the retinues of Hell behind it, I’m pretty sure Saint-Cloud would simply ask if it had an appointment. “Good morning, General Droit.”
“I need to talk to Magister Carel,” I said.
“She’s otherwise occupied.”
“It’s Watch business, and she’ll want to know.”
“What kind of Watch business?”
“The private sentinel kind.”
“Do you have an appointment?” As if Saint-Cloud didn’t already know.
“Just tell her I’m here, okay?”
The secretary stood up, in no particular hurry, and sauntered across the lobby and up the stairs. Droit leaned over the desk.
“Uh-uh,” I cautioned him. “Don’t mess with that. It’s old and it’s dangerous.”
“The desk?”
“It’s a bale artifact. Saint-Cloud’s job is to screen visitors and protect the Orderhouse from attack, and that desk is one of the first lines of defense.”
“Not just a secretary, then?”
“As in ‘keeper of secrets,’ sure. Saint-Cloud’sthe second most powerful sentinel in the Cislunar Vigilance.”
“Which are you?”
“Hell, I don’t keep track anymore. Probably thirty-fifth or something.”
“Secretaries are dangerous. I never kept any.” Droit walked around the lobby, studying the portraits of Vigilance arch-sentinels past. “How many of these went mad?”
“No more than half, if you believe the official histories.”
“And how many were eaten by transients?”
“About a third,” I said, “but they’re overlapping categories.”
Saint-Cloud reappeared, looking less than pleased.
“Carel will see you.”
I grinned and brushed past, enjoying the moment. Droit followed, his eyes moving as he silently studied the Orderhouse’s layout like he might need to lay siege to it someday.
A short corridor with two doors on either end led to Carel’s office. I gave it a quick discernment and saw tendrils of bale running from each door to the Line. Anyone stupid enough to barge into the office without an invitation would get an unpleasant surprise. I knocked.
“Enter.” Carel waved to the chairs in front of her desk as we walked in. The chairs were big, comfortable leather behemoths, the kind that tried to swallow you when you sat down. Carel’s desk was neater than Jaspin’s but not quite as big. The statues and weapons and books that lined her shelves all glowed with fixed bale, though. Sovereign Lament would have paid a bundle to get his hands on most of them. They were the kind of artifacts legends were made of, and Carel liked to keep them right beside her, under her steely gaze.
She turned that gaze on us now, her hands folded, her expression expectant.
“Magister Carel.” Droit gave her a precise military bow. I swear I heard his heels click.
“General Droit. I knew Skylar Ferrau, years ago.”
“She was a good commander. I couldn’t have won Broken Cross without her.”
“But she went mad.”
“Yes. She lasted three years. More than most.”
“Did you ever meet her mother?”
“No, but I had Ferrau’s effects sent home to her.”
“I know. Generous of you. Do you still have Might?”
“Yes.”
“If you ever get tired of it, I’m willing to take over its custodianship.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She smiled thinly.
“Sit down, General.”
Droit sat, and I followed, feeling left out.
“How is it that you’re here with Sentinel Lorencz?”
“I’m assisting her investigation in an advisory position.”
“I’m surprised.” She turned to me. “Since when have you allowed someone else to destroy things for you, Lorencz?”
“Since I got my salary docked for doing it on my own,” I grumbled.
“You did hear my warning about carrying out a respectable investigation, didn’t you?”
“I heard the part about being your sacrificial lamb, too.”
“So, you decided to provide your own butcher?”
I groaned.
“It’s too damn early in the morning for metaphors. Look, I’ve got to talk to you about transients.” I unbuttoned my coat as I filled her in. She looked intrigued.
“Fascinating.” She glanced at Droit. “And you’re certain this couldn’t be Yzyrchye trying something new?”
“Positive.” He didn’t elaborate.
“Well, I think I’ll have to go to Bright Street to talk to this girl myself,” she said. “If this is something new from the Line, the Vigilance needs to know.”
“Do you want me along?” I asked.
“No, not now. There wasn’t any sign of a hopscotch board under Miss Liselle’s body, was there?”
I thought back and shook my head.
“She was lying on top of a thick rug,” Droit said. “It was covered in blood, but I don’t think anyone could have written anything on it.”
“If what the girl says is right,” I added, “it wouldn’t do any good to write on the floor under a rug — not if you’ve got to actually play the game to call this thing.”
“And there was no hopscotch board next to … our nixed subject.”
“He knows about Jaspin.” I flicked a hand at Droit. “No, and that was nix, anyway.”
“Then it seems we have two cases involving sentinels, different enough to suggest different perpetrators. You stay on the nix case, Lorencz; find out who killed Miss Liselle and Investigator Jaspin. I’ll look into this hopscotch killer.”
“But I’m the one who’s been doing the work on the hopscotch case,” I protested. “Shouldn’t the arch-sentinel handle the high-profile murders and leave Dockside murder to the Dockside sentinel?”
“Not if we’re talking about some kind of balemad sentinel who’s crossing the Line to commit murder,” she said, fastening me with a sharp look. “Do you have any idea of how impossible that should be? Or what kind of scandal it would cause if the Reverence heard about this? I’m sorry, Lorencz, but this is above your skill level. I want our very highest-ranking sentinels on the case.”
“Fine,” I growled, getting to my feet. “Then I’ll get back to work.”
“Lorencz —” Droit started. I wasn’t in the mood to wait for him. I strode through the Orderhouse grounds toward the gate, my hands buried in my pockets, fuming.
Droit caught up with me about a block later, hand falling on my shoulder and yanking me around. His fist met my chin, cracked my head back, and knocked me to the street.
I rolled away from his shiny boots and got back to my feet, swinging. A right caught him in the shoulder and didn’t impress him much. A left connected with his cheek and got a reaction. Then I grunted and folded over his fist, trying to cough it out of my gut. I swung wildly and managed to force him back long enough to catch my breath. Dammit, maybe he was right about my health.
We stared at each other from across bloodied knuckles, our breath visible in the cold morning air. Blood trickled down his cheekbone. My jaw and gut hurt like hell.
“What was that for?” I demanded.
“Do you feel any better now?”
I moved my jaw back and forth and decided no teeth were loose. Then I slowly lowered my fists. His came down, too.
“That was supposed to cheer me up?”
“Fighting’s a good remedy for self-pity. Where are we going next?”
I shook my head in disgust, then turned.
“Let’s just go make sure there really isn’t a hopscotch board in the Gilded Lily.”
There wasn’t, as it turned out, and there wasn’t any Shaze there, either — the staff told me he’d given his resignation and cleared out the night before. I got his address without even needing Droit to rough someone up and we went walking.
“No, he moved out about two weeks ago,” said Shaze’s landlady, shaking her head when we showed up. She addressed me, so I figured she didn’t have the faintest idea who Droit was. Must be nice. “Didn’t leave a forwarding address, not that anyone’s come for him until you.”
“No idea where he was going?” I asked. Two weeks ago — didn’t make sense, not if he was running away from Lily’s murder.
“No. He had a young lady with him — very young.” She heaved a sign. “Might have been his daughter, might not. I couldn’t tell from the way they acted. She helped him carry some boxes, though.”
“Did you get a name?”
She thought a moment, then shrugged. “Not that I can remember.”
“Was he in a rush? Did he seem nervous?”
“He left sudden, that’s all I know. I told him I wasn’t refunding any rent, and he didn’t argue.”
I thanked the lady and we left.
After that it was pavement-pounding, checking back at the Vigilance to see if he’d left another address, talking to his acquaintances and coworkers to see if they knew anything about his move or relationship with a girl. Droit was openly bored and wandered off during lunch to buy a military history to read while I questioned people. By the end of the day I had the distinct feeling nobody much liked Shaze and didn’t bother keeping tabs on him, and that he’d made a point of ensuring that he couldn’t be easily found.
“Well, shit.” I walked away from my last interview and found Droit leaning against a wall, reading. “That was a waste of time.”
“It was very dull,” he agreed, looking up. “The first day I met you gave me higher expectations for your company than you’ve managed to fulfill, Lorencz.”
“Sorry, it ain’t all gore and mayhem in the Watch.”
“I’m not sure I’m interested in continuing this partnership.” He closed his book.
“No? What happened to being your entertaining pet?” I asked, only half-facetiously.
“I hit you this morning, and you didn’t even drop balefire on me.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told I gotta be more careful about that in town.” I gestured to the book. “At least you got to catch up on your reading.”
He closed it with a shrug. “I wanted to know what the author had to say about me. I don’t think I was as brilliant as he thinks. Most of the maneuvers he considers decisive weren’t a matter of strategy so much as intuition.”
“What — really? You’re in that book?”
“Of course.”
I tried not to show that I was impressed. I mean, I suppose if I’d thought about, I could have guessed that Droit’s name would be in books, but … I hadn’t thought about it. I wondered if the author had actually called him ‘brilliant’ or if Droit was exaggerating.
“At any rate….” Droit stood. “If things look up, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll leave you to it.”
“Sure. Swell. See you around, then.” I waved, trying to look like I didn’t care, but I felt a little disappointed. I mean, how are you supposed to feel when a famous lunatic tells you you’re too boring for him?
It stung a little, to be honest.