Back in the gambling parlor, I roamed around, watching and thinking. It was a nice place to watch and think, all things considered, nicer than riding a balesteed through the cold fog in Dockside. I wasn’t in any rush to leave. I moved around the tables until I found the one where Tegeus Droit was playing poker.
He didn’t look much like a monster, despite all his colorful nicknames: the Butcher of Donweyr, the Red General, the Tyrant of Ankham, Nailer, Yzyrchye’s Hound. He was older than me, I guessed, probably in his late forties, with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail that might have looked cute if his green eyes hadn’t been so steady and cold. He was medium-sized and didn’t have too many bulgy muscles, but if you tried to poke him you’d probably hurt your finger right before he hurt your face. He’d swapped his military armor and helm for a toff’s broadcloth suit, but I saw hilts peering out from the tops of his shiny boots and extra bulges on the inside of his jacket arms and behind his back. He might not be carrying around his legendary balesword Might anymore, but he was clearly keeping plenty of sharp edges close to hand, just in case he needed them.
And from what I’d heard, he often did. Sovereign Domenico Lament had granted him political asylum in exchange for an impressive donation to the city treasury and a promise to train Cislunar’s army in battlefield tactics, but there were plenty of people out there who wanted him dead —the men and women whose cities he’d razed, whose families he’d slaughtered, and whose brothers and sons he’d raped. Every other government in the empire had sworn that if Droit ever set foot outside of Cislunar, they’d drag him away in chains for a summary trial and gruesome execution. He’d been stuck in the city for the last five years, now, and it seemed like someone came after him every few months. So far none of his would-be assassins had succeeded, though; he just killed them and left the bodies where they fell. Apparently the Ministry of Justice cleaned up after him — as far as the Cislunar Watch was concerned, he was untouchable.
Except there was someone touching him tonight, a sweet-faced young cully standing behind him with one hand on his shoulder, his eyes bright with excitement as Droit threw another handful of chips into the pot.
I lit a fresh smoke and watched them. Guy-on-guy action’s fine with me, and besides, I was curious to see a living legend in action.
Droit was having a good night. The chips were piling up in front of him, although nothing in his face indicated that he might be having fun or appreciated the growing piles. In fact, he looked like he’d rather be doing something else. Burning down a sanctum and buggering its communicants, maybe.
The pretty boy shifted, bets were placed, cards fell, chips changed hands. As I observed the game, the same uneasy fascination grew on me that I’d felt watching Axton grope around a corpse’s guts. The five other players at the table were good; no doubt about it, and so was his little boyfriend. They were being careful and taking their time. I might not have detected the signals, either, except that I’d seen the grift before, in Ankham, back when I ran in a street gang and wasted my evenings in much seedier gambling halls than this one. It seemed like a hell of a dangerous game to play with a man who’d had three brand-new atrocities named after him back in his glory days.
Sure enough, the stakes went higher and Droit started to lose more than he won. I wondered if Lily knew a handful of rip-off artists were shaking down her club’s financial savior. I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t put it past her to screw her friends, but only in ways that left ’em smiling.
Droit’s indifferent expression never changed, not even when the stack of chips in front of him started shrinking. People around the table began to drift away. Nobody wanted to be standing too close if the Butcher got tired of losing.
Pretty soon me and the pretty boy were the only witnesses left. Droit’s eyes fell on me as he drew the next hand. I didn’t shake too much. The three scotches helped.
“What are you staring at?” the boy sneered.
“Just enjoying the performance.” I drained the third drink for luck while I let my gaze slide across the faces at the table. “I’ve seen this scam before, but you six really got it polished to a high shine.”
The youth paled as Droit cast a cold, baleful look around the table at the five other players. Then, as quick as a striking snake, he reached up over his shoulder, grabbing the pretty boy’s lapel. In a moment the boy was flat on his back on top of a pile of chips and discarded cards, and Droit loomed over him. Glasses toppled and drinks began to run across the felt tabletop.
The other shysters knocked over their chairs in their rush to get out. Droit’s free arm rose and I called up a balewall to stop his throwing knife before it could bury itself in a grifter’s heart.
The rest of Lily’s guests gaped as the con men hit the door running.
Droit’s cold gaze hit me again. This time it packed more punch.
“Lily wouldn’t like it if someone got murdered in her club,” I explained, carefully, the way you talk to a madman. “You got one of ’em. Go kill the rest where it won’t scare off her guests.”
He considered my words for a long moment. I held my breath. Then he nodded and looked down at the trembling young man beneath him.
He lifted him, kissed him, and shoved him aside.
“Run.”
The kid ran.
“Are you going to kill him, too?” I asked, setting down my glass and trying to keep my hands from shaking. “I’m just wondering, ’cause it’ll save me time if I fill out the reports now.”
“I’ll make sure the bodies aren’t found.” He sat down and began stacking the chips. “As a favor.”
“Thanks, pal.” I picked up one of the abandoned chairs and sat down across from him, relieved. He was angry, but he wasn’t angry at me. “For what it’s worth, they were damn good at what they were doing.”
“You aren’t the house detective.” He shoved a stack of chips at me. “What’s your name?”
“Arcady Lorencz. But don’t shout it around — I ain’t ready to get the bum’s rush just yet.”
“The Dockside arsonist. I saw you talking to Liselle earlier.”
“It was an accident, not arson. And she said I could stay as long as I didn’t blow my nose on the napkins.”
He nodded. I waited for him to ask what I wanted, but all he did was move the rest of chips to a tray and wave over a hostess. She approached with caution, avoiding any sudden moves.
“Cash this in.” He waved to the table. “That stack is hers.”
“Not a chance,” I objected. “I can’t afford to be seen taking money from you.”
He didn’t look impressed.
“Your reputation is safe. Everybody knows I don’t chase women; even women dressed like men.”
I shook my head, imagining what Lt. Medley would say if heard I was taking cash from the Butcher of Donweyr. He shrugged. The hostess took the chips away, stepping around fallen chairs and scattered cards.
I ran a finger in the colorless liquid that ran from his fallen glass and lifted it to my nose. Nothing. I tasted it. Water. I raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t drink,” he said, watching me. “You’re surprised. Everybody’s surprised.”
“I guess if I was always on the lookout for assassins, I wouldn’t drink much, either.”
He nodded, his green eyes flickering to the empty scotch glass I’d set down and the tobacco stains on my fingers.
The Red General disapproved of my lifestyle. That made me laugh. I stood.
“Nice meeting you, pal. Remember your promise about the bodies.”
He was about to reply when a lady’s high-pitched scream silenced the whole gambling hall.
I was already on my feet, but Droit was faster anyway, his chair spinning backward and hitting the floor as he dashed for Lily’s office door. I came in a poor second, but I at least managed to beat the middle-aged man I figured for the club’s peeper.
Hell, maybe I should cut back on the cigs and booze.
Droit had plunged two daggers into the transient’s body by the time I got there, kneeling on it to hold it in place. The hostess who’d screamed was backed against a wall. Droit’s chips were scattered all over the expensive rug in a pool of blood that leaked from the ugly tear in Lily Liselle’s throat.
I called a sharp, spearlike shard of bale and plunged it into the creature’s head. The transient collapsed, melting into a pale ooze that seeped back across the Line.
“Razorbite,” Droit said, as if I couldn’t identify it myself. “Any more coming?”
I discerned, then shook my head. “We’re safe.”
“Aw, shite,” muttered the wagemage in the doorway.
Droit stepped over her body and pushed the balcony doors. They swung open. He walked out, daggers at the ready.
“See if she’s alive,” I snapped, turning. The house dick pulled himself together and knelt. His hands shook as he touched her chest and felt for a heartbeat.
Swearing to myself, I called up a balewall and set it around the room and balcony. The sickly glowing shield kept the gaping crowd at the open door from seeing anything more.
“Dead,” the watchmage said, backing away from the corpse. “She’s dead.”
“Do you know who was here before us?”
“I … I was just talking to her. Minutes ago.” His face was white. I turned to the hostess.
“What did you see when you came in?”
“She —” the girl jerked her head toward Lily’s body, face white. “There. With that thing attacking her”
Back to the wagemage.
“What’s your name?”
“Shaze.” He swallowed. “Rank two.”
“Okay. Get out there and send for the constables. Then start bracing pates. I want to know who came in here after me.” I hesitated. “And send in Axton — little guy, all in black, looks like Death’s kid brother. Tell him to come to the door and shout.”
“Who —”
“Captain Lorencz, Watch Sentinel, rank three.” I hunted in Lt. Medley’s coat for my Watch badge and Vigilance pin and finally found them. I fixed them on my lapel to make everything official. “When the constables get here, tell ’em where I am.”
“Yes, sen.” Shaze stumbled out and I let him pass through the balewall, resealing it behind him.
“Can I go?” the hostess asked. I ran over the scene with her again, got her name, and released her. The constables would pick her up again outside.
By the time she left, Droit had returned. He stood by the balcony doors with a dark look on his face.
“I warned her to keep her damn doors locked.”
“Wouldn’t have helped against a transient.”
“Somebody called it through.” He gave me a hard look. “That requires line of sight.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Although murder-by-transient was unpredictable at best. I stepped outside and lit the balcony with a balelight. It faced a narrow, unlit side street. Crappy security, although it might have been useful if she really did throw people off of it. I straightened up and headed back into the warmer office. “She shoulda hired a whistling op who could keep up a decent ward.”
“She said it was too expensive.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
“You got keys to the safe?”
“No. Liselle kept a set with her, and her banker has another set.”
We both looked at Lily. I couldn’t tell what Droit was thinking, but I was thinking that I would have liked to know her longer.
She’d died fast; I didn’t need Axton here to tell me that. There was a lot of blood, but the razorbite must have been fast or there would have been more pressure on the Line.
“You bailed her out of some financial trouble a few years ago. Why?”
“Because I could.” Droit shrugged when I glanced at him. “I was doing her favor. There wasn’t anything more to it than that.”
“You get braced by the Watch a lot?”
“Ban Jaspin questions me about every unsolved murder in the city.”
I wasn’t surprised. The chief of investigations for the Ministry of Justice had to have been one of the ones required to clean up Droit’s messes. I let it go.
“Since when does the Butcher of Donweyr help out a dame in distress?”
“I like this club.” He looked at the body. “I liked her, too.”
“Captain Lorencz?”
It was Axton, sounding uncertain. I opened the barrier for him. He walked in, looking even more like an undertaker than before in his ill-fitting suit. His eyes immediately fastened on Lily’s body.
“Did you know her?” I asked.
“No.” He crouched, not needing to be told what to do.
“Treat her with respect,” I growled, remembering the way he’d manhandled the corpse in Dockside. He gave a meek nod.
“Who’s he?” Droit demanded.
“Axton, Droit. Droit, Axton.” Introductions over, I picked up a sheet of paper from Lily’s desk, examined it to make sure it wasn’t evidence, and got ready to take notes. People outside the barrier shouted; the constables, letting me know they were on the scene. I kept the wall up. They’d be busy out there, and there was always a chance the murderer was still hiding in here.
“Axton … are you the Axton who wrote that treatise about me?” Droit asked. Axton flinched, his fingers smearing the blood he’d been touching.
“Y — yes.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
Droit crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t agree with your conclusions.”
The gutslinger was silent. I looked over my shoulder and saw that his hands were shaking as he probed at Lily’s neck wound.
“Well?” Droit demanded.
“Of course you don’t,” Axton whispered, so softly I could hardly hear him. “Were the balcony doors open when you came in, General Droit?”
“Ajar. Why?”
“The air temperature might have affected the body.” Axton touched Lily’s face with his clean hand. “Scratches on her face, shoulder, and arms.” He pushed a finger past her lips, into her mouth. I looked down at my paper and sketched her position on the rug, to avoid watching. “She hasn’t been dead long. She’s warm and her blood’s tacky.”
“We know that,” Droit said, impatiently. “She was killed by a razorbite.”
Axton froze, then gave a cautious look around before turning his pale gray gaze on me.
“Then what do you need me for, Captain?”
“Make sure there’s nothing we missed.”
He took another moment to inspect the body, more careful about his hands this time than he’d been last night in Dockside, and then stood.
“All of her injuries are consistent with a razorbite attack,” he confirmed.
“Good enough. The medical examiner will do the rest. Thanks.” I ushered him back out of the room and turned to Droit. “I need your statement, and then you can go, too.”
“The Vigilance will look into this?”
“Probably.”
“I want to be kept updated.”
“Ask your friend Jaspin, then.”
Droit walked around the pool of blood and wrapped his fist in my collar, shoving me backward against the wet bar.
“Just because I’ve been nice to you so far,” he murmured, his lips close to my face, “doesn’t mean I won’t kill you if you annoy me.”
“Threaten me when I ain’t working, pal,” I said, trying not to squirm too much. “And take it easy on the suit. It’s a loaner.”
He stared at me, then gave a sharp laugh and let me go. I took down his statement and ushered him through the barrier. Then I began the painstaking business of searching Lily’s office while her cooling eyes stared across the floor. But first I fixed myself a strong drink.
Processing the scene took a little over an hour. At last I dropped the barrier, handed several pages of notes to the sergeant in charge, and fell asleep — alone — in one of the beds on the third floor while the constables wrapped up their end of the investigation. Two hours later they woke me up and sent me home in the foggy dawn.
When I got back to my flat I hung up Lt. Medley’s wrinkled suit, poured myself another drink, and collapsed into bed again.