“A PATRIARCH?”
“That’s what I’ve said. About ten times already.”
Eveen shouldered through a crowd of costumed Pirate Princesses, Clockwork Kings, and Golden Bounties, gathered about the small yellow and green wooden stall. They reeked of sweat, spirits, and desire, most of them fresh from following one of the many parades roaming Tal Abisi’s streets. Now they were hungry for food to chase the drink and provide energy to last the night. She needed the same. That tussle with the quads had left her hungrier than a hostage.
“A Patriarch,” Sky murmured again. “Have you ever … worked with them?” She followed behind, people unconsciously slipping around her—courtesy of the cloak.
“Higher up the food chain than I’m accustomed to dealing with.” She’d never even heard of Patriarchs hiring assassins. Their hands weren’t clean—far from it. They just floated so far above the muck, they had hirers to hire the hirers.
Eveen stopped at the front of the stall, where stepper birds rubbed in peppery spices sizzled on fiery drums amid torrents of smoke. A few, well charred in choice spots, were taken off the heat and quickly chopped up—bone and all.
She ordered four helpings. Then added a fifth. She was really hungry.
“What happened up there?” Sky asked, not for the first time.
“I told you, a hiccup.”
“I saw a woman fall out a window then get impaled on a fence. She didn’t die and cursed up a storm, so I’m assuming she’s like you. And your clothes have stab holes all through them.”
“Four hiccups. And handled.”
“Your guild boss set her other assassins on you? Your own colleagues?”
“Colleagues? We’re not barristers. And they won’t be the last.”
Sky started. “What do you mean?”
Eveen paid for the food and pushed her way from the crowd—unwrapping the smoky meat from waxed parchment and biting off pieces, sending hot juice dribbling down her chin.
“I asked you a question,” Sky said, hurrying to keep up. “Are people coming after me?”
Eveen took them beneath the empty stone archway of a bridge, crunching and sucking down a bit of marrow before answering. “Baseema gave me an ultimatum. Ship you. Or end up on the receiving end of my … colleagues.”
Sky tensed, taking a step back. “And you told her…?”
Eveen flung a bone into the river, watching black glistening canal eels ascend to the surface to fight over it. Her eyes swung back to the girl. “I told her to get bent. I’m not shipping myself.”
Sky visibly relaxed, easing her grip on a blue braid.
“That doesn’t fix our problem,” Eveen warned. “The other Dead Cat Tails are coming after us. You, they’ll kill. I’ll get sealed in a box and buried.”
“Then why are we out here?” Sky cast nervous glances about. “Shouldn’t we be hiding?”
“Relax.” Eveen tossed another bone. “The undead, we can … sense each other when close. And most assassins won’t strike in the open. Well, the old man might. He’s crafty.”
Sky’s eyebrows rose. “You have an old man in your murder guild?”
“Among others. Anyway, we’re out here because I’m hells hungry. And to meet him.”
Sky shook her head. “Him?”
Eveen jerked her chin to a man stepping under the bridge, his eyes darting. He might have walked right into them if she hadn’t put out a hand to pull him over. He yelped, fumbling for the small cutlery knife she knew he kept in a pocket of his overly big coat. She rolled her eyes. In the time it’d take him to retrieve the thing she could break his arms four times over.
“It’s me, Fennis.”
The small man stilled, eyes squinting on that baby face. “Oh! I didn’t see you.”
“It’s what I do.” She nodded to the satchel on his back. “Read anything good?”
“Books on contractual godling law, dealing with Aeril. I hoped—”
He paused, taking her in. “You look like you’ve been in a fight with someone.”
“Four someones,” she drawled. “A set of sadistic sisters you know?”
His eyes widened. “You went to see Baseema!”
“Guilty. But she’s the only one who might have information.”
He shook his head. “I told you that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I didn’t think so either,” Sky added.
Fennis yelped again, blinking as he just made her out.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling down the cloak’s hood.
“I didn’t leave empty-handed.” Eveen held up the folded paper.
Fennis took it, reading the name. “Pol Oranus? Is this…?”
“The one who contracted the job.”
The blood drained from the man’s face. “A Patriarch?”
“So you noticed?”
There was silence as the weight of it sank in.
“Pol Oranus,” Fennis said. “He was to run for Grand Patriarch—but stepped aside.”
“Yeah, well now he’s into assassinations,” Eveen quipped.
Sky looked befuddled. “Your guild boss tried to capture you. Then hands you a name. Whose side is she on?”
Eveen snorted. “Her own. Baseema may not like people screwing with her. But if it comes to me or her investment—she’ll put me in that box herself.”
“You’ve said that already,” Sky noted. “That this involves your entire guild. How?”
Eveen flung away another bone. “There are three unbreakable vows in our work.” She held up three fingers. “First, that a contract has to be just. Second, you can only ship the contracted. And third—”
“Once you take a contract you have to carry it out,” Sky finished. “I remember. You said if you didn’t, bad things would happen. What bad things?”
Eveen dropped her fingers and allowed Fennis to tell it.
“Hounds?” Sky stammered when he was done.
“Of the monstrously demoniacal variety,” Eveen added.
Sky hastily marked her forehead and chin, invoking Kori’s protection.
Eveen shook her head. “That won’t help. Aeril always takes her due.”
Sky swallowed. “Then we have to do something. Maybe go see this Patriarch?”
“Out of the question,” Fennis said, shooting Eveen a warning look.
“I know that!” Why did everyone think she was so reckless?
“The contractor is protected as long as the contract holds,” Fennis explained. “By the goddess’s own laws. Move against him…”
“And Aeril herself might come to collect,” Eveen finished, recalling Baseema’s warning. “There’s this one Asheel the Maniac Hunter story,” she went on, “where he’s framed by a maniac—and all the other maniac hunters come after him. Only way to clear his name is to figure out why he was framed, then work on undoing it. Wish I knew how I pissed off this Patriarch.”
Fennis’s baby face suddenly lit up. He dropped to his knees, searching through the satchel. Sky looked to Eveen, who shrugged. When the small man stood up again he held a leather-bound book. “What you said, about undoing. I remember—ah there!” His finger traced a sentence amid a page of legalese. “Should the commissioned be already in a state of death or otherwise lacking corporeality or material existence, the contract shall be nullified.”
“So…” Sky reasoned, “if I’m already dead I can’t have a contract placed on me.”
“Can’t kill the dead,” Eveen agreed.
“Only, I’m not dead.”
“Yes,” Fennis said. “But it’s the other part. The contract is valid because you exist, with us, in this time. But you don’t belong here. Should we return you to your own time, then you would be outside of our reach—otherwise lacking corporeality or material existence.”
“If she’s gone, there’s no one to ship,” Eveen murmured, catching on.
“Would that actually work?” Sky asked.
“I can’t say for certain,” Fennis admitted. “But Aeril’s contract is a living document. It could not be drawn up until you existed in our present. If you cease to exist in our time the contract would be placed into a paradox—and, theoretically, should nullify itself.”
“I just have to be sent back to my time!” Sky’s face brimmed with hope, then fell. “Only your brother said it was impossible.”
Eveen sucked her teeth. “You standing here says otherwise.”
“Someone managed the impossible once,” Fennis agreed. “And we have his name.”
“Pol Oranus,” Sky said. “But you said he’s untouchable.”
“He is,” Eveen answered. “But I doubt some pampered Patriarch who has his ass wiped ten times a day could pull off this kind of magic. He hired someone. I plan on finding whoever that is, and then cutting off pieces of them until they undo what they’ve done.”
“I imagined it less vividly,” Fennis said. “But yes.”
Sky nodded slow, warming to the idea. “Where do we start?”
“YOU SURE IT’S a good idea to go home?”
Eveen had taken them deeper into the heart of the Old City. Here the architecture was less ornate and more cramped: buildings of faded stone pushed close like blockish teeth. The streets were narrower, winding between residences and shops that competed for space.
“Home would be a bad idea,” she said. “I’m taking us to a safe house.”
Assassin rule #303: always have a safe house. Assassin rule #304: always have a second safe house. You just never know.
They passed revelers frolicking in the streets, their gold-flecked bodies illuminated by glow glass baubles strung along ropes between buildings. Most preferred local celebrations to the gallant costumery in other parts of the city. So they created outfits from garish cloths, beaded sashes, and coppery sequins, adorning their skin in vibrant metallic dust—holding small fetes to the sound of raucous music. Eveen avoided the blocks where young men doused outsiders in colorful powders, paint, even mud. All harmless fun, but she wasn’t in the mood.
“This reminds me of home,” Sky commented. She watched as two groups hurled powder bombs shaped like mechanical hearts at each other from the edges of their respective blocks—a scene of taunting chants and laughter as explosions of shimmering blues and reds rained down purple clouds upon their heads.
“You weren’t at some block fete when you got … taken,” Eveen observed. She remembered the girl talking about watching the Procession of the Patriarchs. Not to mention getting that coin. No Patriarch ever set a silk slipper on these plebian cobblestones.
“No,” Sky replied. “I went into town. Wanted to see the lavish side of Festival.”
“Alone?” Tal Abisi wasn’t precisely unsafe. But the carnivalesque always carried hints of danger. Best to bring a friend or two. Eveen led them down steps where the street sloped. Here a more mellow scene unfolded, with revelers dancing close under dim lights to sensuous rhythms.
“I was supposed to go with someone. Didn’t work out on account of him being an eel-fucked lying, cheating prick.”
Eveen’s eyebrows rose. Girl had a mouth on her. Impressive.
“Wasn’t letting that ruin my plans. So I went. Look where that got me.”
“What was going to happen was going to happen,” Eveen said. “I doubt you towing along ‘an eel-fucked lying, cheating prick’ would’ve prevented things.”
Sky managed a smile. “Sounds like something I’d say.”
Eveen chuckled. “Technically, you just did.”
Turning a corner, they skirted around a woman in a scandalously short Golden Bounty outfit who braced herself against a wall as a man dressed as some cross of the Pirate Princess and Clockwork King wound his waist in time to her gyrating backside. Seemed Shimmer Fever was going around.
Sky pulled her gaze from the couple just as she stepped onto another street—and stopped. She stared past the jumble of buildings to the end of the block, where a strangler tree grew around a steepled structure to tower into the air. The fat woody roots wrapped about the roof to fall down like twisting tresses of hair on either side of the edifice, snaking between crevices to pry apart moss-covered bricks decorated in worn motifs.
“What?” Eveen asked, her senses going sharp. “You see something?”
Sky was frowning, furrowing deep lines into her youthful face. “I know this place.” She started walking again, taking the lead as her eyes ran along the block. “There’s a family of glassblowers in one of these buildings. All immigrants.” Her chin nodded to the steepled structure. “They chose here because of that chapel. It was built centuries ago, but they rededicated it to a triumvirate of goddesses they brought with them.”
It was Eveen’s turn to frown. “Yeah. They take up most of these buildings now—whole generations of extended kin. How do you know that?”
“I used to live here,” Sky replied. “My family did. When I was younger. It looks almost the same.” Her gaze stopped again on the strangler tree. “Except for that. I could’ve sworn they cut it down, to stop the roots from tearing the chapel apart. I remember the family quarreled for weeks over whether to do it—until their goddesses provided a sign.”
“Not the story I got,” Eveen said. “The family did quarrel. And their goddesses did send a sign—but to keep the tree, as a part of the chapel.”
Sky squinted in confusion. “My memory must be wrong. But, I haven’t forgotten where we lived.” Her eyes went straight to a door fitted beneath a rounded stone archway on a three-story building. “Is that your safe house? Top floor?”
Eveen stared at the doorway. “That’s it. But the bottom floor.”
“Oh. That’s at least something different. Why did you choose here?”
“I don’t…” Eveen fumbled. “It just felt right.”
And it had. As soon as she’d seen the place. It just … fit. In all of Tal Abisi, she had chosen to locate a safe house in a place where she’d once lived. What were the chances? No gods-cursed chance at all. She tried to shake off the strangeness of this revelation (no luck there) and made for the building. Sky’s footsteps took a moment, but soon followed behind.
Past the russet brown door, they walked a hallway lit by flickering glow lamps that took them outside again. There, atop a veranda where clothes lay hung out to dry, Eveen located a groove in the tiles and pulled back a thick slab of stone to reveal winding steps. Sky bent to peer down into the dark.
“When you said bottom floor, didn’t think you were being literal.”
“It’s a safe house. Not trying to advertise out front.”
“Fair enough,” the girl said, beginning her descent.
Eveen quickly scanned the night before following, pulling the stone slab closed over them.
“Ayii!” Sky cried, bumping into something. “I can’t see!”
“Sorry,” Eveen mumbled. She wasn’t accustomed to visitors. Reaching the bottom, she grabbed a small gunpowder lighter she’d had converted from a pistol, moving about the small room to light several candles. Sky blinked as her eyes adjusted to the now-illuminated space.
“Cozy,” she remarked.
Eveen was already coming out of her clothes, flinging away the burgundy jacket and unfastening clasps on her leather top. Slipping it off, she examined the puncture holes, then her own body—where purplish bruises indicated healing wounds. A godsdamned shit fest of a night. She pulled off her breeches to run a hand over her legs, checking for damage, then turned to inspect her back in a mirror—only to find Sky gaping openly.
The girl ducked her head, abashed at being caught. There was nothing lecherous in her stare—that would have been too weird. It was that clinical look again. Along with curiosity, she supposed, at a chance to see what their body might look like in near twenty years. Still, it was awkward. And Eveen was relieved when the girl covered it with a question.
“Don’t suppose you have any?” She was holding a silver kaf grinder. “Only had a few hours of sleep. Could use the kick.”
Eveen nodded to a shelf lined with jars and bottles. Sky worked her way through an assortment of spices, fermented peppers, teas, and spirits until she found one with dark beans.
“There’s a pot on the table,” Eveen said, hefting a large ceramic jug and pouring out water into a gray stone tub lined with mosaic tiles. “I pay one of the glassblower’s boys upstairs to fill these for me each night. He leaves a small copper one with hot water that usually keeps till morning. Should be along that wall, by the divan.”
Finishing filling the tub, Eveen added a flask of oil, then hopped in, submerging beneath the cool liquid. This wasn’t a luxury. Not exactly. The oil was an alchemical solution that maintained her undead flesh’s healing properties. Plus, it kept her skin hydrated. Undead ashiness was the worst. Besides, she wasn’t idle with her time. Her mind was already formulating their next move. Find whoever this Patriarch had hired to bring the girl here. Bleed them until he sent her back. Keep her alive in the meanwhile. She could do this. She could survive this night. Her thoughts were interrupted by someone calling her name, muddled through the water but urgent. She shot up, each hand holding a knife—which she’d taken in with her, naturally. Sky stood there, eyes round, holding a small white cup.
“What is it?” Eveen asked, searching for the threat.
“Nothing! I just—you were down there a long time! I got worried.”
She sighed, relaxing to sit with her head tilted back. “I don’t breathe.”
“Oh.” Sky offered the cup of kaf, choking as she sipped her own. “That’s strong!”
Eveen downed hers in one gulp, beckoning for more.
“I guess the dead don’t feel the effects of kaf either,” Sky murmured, refilling the cup.
“We do. Just … dulled. So it takes a lot. Stronger the better. Same with food or drink.”
“Explains all the fiery peppers and bitter teas,” Sky noted. “I was going to put a shot of one of your liquors in here.” She hefted a dark bottle stoppered by a thick cork. “Maybe I should pass?”
“That stuff scrapes barnacles off ships—you’d probably combust.”
“Definitely a pass, then.” She put back the bottle and took to wandering the room, examining an empty brass container for a glow lamp and then a set of playing cards.
Eveen watched the girl rummage through her undead life with an uneasiness she couldn’t quite explain. Trying to ignore it, she emptied a third cup of kaf and stepped from the tub to wrap herself in a blue cloth stitched with yellow hummingbirds. Wringing dry the locs on the unshaven side of her scalp, she pushed them back and walked to squat in front of a large chest, carved of red-brown wood and covered in patterned gold studs. Turning the dial on a lock several times clockwise, then the reverse, she listened for the audible click before opening.
“You really like these Terribles.” Eveen looked up to find the girl at a shelf stacked with books, reading off the picturesque titles on their fronts. “Asheel the Maniac Hunter and the Mechanical Terror of Kons. Asheel the Maniac Hunter and the Murdering She-Devil. Asheel the Maniac Hunter and the Thief of Eyes in the Demon Lands.”
“That last one was a crossover,” Eveen remarked. She turned back to the chest, taking out a clean assassin’s outfit. “Asheel has to enter the Demon Lands to go after this killer who plucks the eyes of his victims, then magics them into his own body—so that his skin is full of eyes!”
Sky chuckled. “I used to read these, when I was younger.”
Eveen stilled, one hand on a fresh set of throwing daggers. “Oh?”
“Can’t believe they’re still around. My favorites were with the rogue Maniac Hunter.”
“Asheel’s nemesis. A Maniac Hunter gone bad. Mine too.” Eveen frowned. Why did this bother her so much?
“What are these!”
She turned to find Sky gazing in wonder at a shelf. Arranged in rows were near three dozen glass figurines. The girl picked up a golden lion before Eveen could give warning. There was a surprised yelp as it jumped from her hands, gliding on blue gossamer wings to land back on the shelf.
“Play nice, Bati!” Eveen chided, pulling on her breeches. “The rest of you too!”
The other figurines—a colorful menagerie of fantastic beasts—all began moving at once.
Sky, having lost her initial shock, now clapped with glee, watching a sinuous orange dragon come to life alongside a galloping green seahorse. “Where did you find them?”
“Made them.”
“No!”
“Really. Learned it from the glassblower. Lots of time to pass when you don’t sleep.”
The girl glanced around, as if searching for the bed she only now noticed was missing. Returning to the figurines, she extended a hand and the gossamer-winged lion alighted atop it.
“Bati was my first success. The glassblower added the animation magic. A family gift from their goddesses, he said. Does the same now each time I finish one.”
“They’re beautiful.” Sky walked over, admiring Bati who still rested on her fingers. The lion flew to land on Eveen’s shoulder, inspecting the Pirate Princess figurine tucked into a leather strap. The girl followed, her look of wonder turning curious as she glanced inside the chest. She knelt, reaching for a black bundle.
“Don’t—”
Eveen’s words cut off as Sky lifted out the cloth, unfolding it on the floor. She ran fingers along silver metal tools, some curved, spoon-like, jagged, or needle thin—others with wide saw-like blades.
“Surgical instruments,” the girl whispered. She lifted a dark gaze. “Eviscerator. It’s what they call you, right? You use these on people?”
Eveen slid her knives into their scabbards. “One person. One job.”
A moment of quiet lasted so long she wanted to stab it. Finally, Sky sat back and spoke.
“I’m studying to be a surgeon. At the Medicine College.”
And now, Eveen recalled the girl saying she was a student.
“Was getting these instruments like coming here? A feeling?” When Eveen didn’t answer, she nodded. “When I first saw you, I had the oddest thought—that you were a relative. But I dismissed it. Then you told me your name. Even when I found out who you were, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Eveen asked, unable to mask her apprehension.
Sky met her eyes, searching. “Eveen was my—our—mother’s first-name.”
That left Eveen speechless. First-names, shed upon reaching your twelfth year, were a dying tradition in Tal Abisi. But it would still have been around half a century ago.
“You take our mother’s first-name,” Sky went on. “You move in here, where we once lived. You read the same books I did. You even get yourself medical instruments. Only you don’t use them to heal. I want to take an oath to help people live. You kill them. When I look at you, I don’t understand how my life turns out like this. How it all goes so wrong.”
Eveen felt each word like a dart, and she tried not to flinch.
“You think it’s easy being around you?” she asked, unable to keep the heat from her voice. “Seeing who I was, who I could have been? Learning I’m some echo of what you left behind. All the decisions I think are mine … just lost memories. I always felt detached. Not knowing who I was, how I came to be. Now I feel like a ghost. A shadow.” That’s what had been bothering her this whole time. What she hadn’t been able to put it into words.
There was another long pause before Sky spoke. “At least we got that out in the open. They say talking helps you feel better.”
Eveen raised an eyebrow. “You feel better?”
“Fuck no!”
Eveen cracked an involuntary smile.
Sky smiled back. “I think we have the same sick sense of humor.”
“Got it from you,” Eveen reminded her.
The girl turned serious. “You haven’t asked much about me. Back on the boat, you said you didn’t want to know until you were sure we were the same. We’ve known now since the thaumaturgist. But you still haven’t asked.”
“We don’t have time…” Eveen began.
“We won’t have any other time. I don’t know anything about your life, what it’s like, when you picked up glassblowing!”
“Wait, that’s not a thing you did too?”
“No! Never crossed my mind.”
For some reason, that made Eveen feel better—more whole than shadow. A bit, anyway.
“We’re going back out and who knows what’s going to happen,” Sky pleaded. “Let’s talk while we can.” She gestured to her outfit. “And tell me you have something in that chest I can wear other than this godsdamned costume!”
Eveen smirked. “Fine. Hope you like leather.” And they talked.
“A HUNDRED-YEAR CONTRACT?”
Sky twisted her head about, a cascade of blue braids turning with her glare.
Eveen nodded from behind, where she was securing straps on the leather top she’d found for the girl. More assassin’s gear, complete with breeches and padded boots. Best spare clothes she had. And it managed to fit—sort of.
“Standard death indenture,” she related.
They’d had their talk while preparing. Eveen told about as much as she could about her undead life, minus graphic details on the murdering parts. In turn, the girl told her of growing up in Tal Abisi, of wanting to be a surgeon, and her dreams.
“What could we have been thinking to sign up for that?” Sky murmured. She slipped on a small satchel she’d procured from Eveen’s chest.
“Ask myself that a dozen times a day. People end up in Aeril’s employ for lots of reasons—a personal favor, to protect someone else, even a plea to spare a contracted life.”
Sky turned. “That can happen?”
Eveen shrugged. “Never actually seen it. But if someone offers their life for yours and Aeril accepts the plea—yeah.” She stepped back, scrutinizing the girl. “You look like my sidekick.”
“Or you look like my sidekick,” Sky said, admiring herself in a mirror. “Do I get a knife?”
“Can you use a knife?”
“I’ve used a knife before.”
“For other than eating? Or … surgeoning?”
“Oh. I don’t think so.”
“Then no. Just take the cloak.” Eveen pulled on the cobalt blue jacket she’d worn earlier—part of her Pirate Princess costume. “I’ll work on blending in.”
“How about a dagger? I bet I can—” Sky paused, squinting into the mirror. “Is that a string?”
Eveen barely had time to register the question before her skin prickled. A hand went reflexively to her knife, pulling it free and swinging. Just in time too, as she batted away the strand of silver streaking toward them. Small sparks flew as metal struck metal with a loud ka-ching! The string retreated through the air and back up to the hatch.
“What was that?” Sky asked in alarm.
“Down!” Eveen shouted, as half a dozen new strands shot from the hatch. She moved with both knives now, lashing out and throwing up sparks with each contact. One. Ka-ching! Two. Ka-ching! Three. Ka-ching! She spared a glance at Sky, who cowered behind her. Four. Ka-ching! Five. Ka-ching! Six. Snip! Damn. She missed. But it hadn’t. She looked down to find her knife on the floor, along with the three fingers the strand had cleanly sliced off.
“Shit. Aeril’s fiery—”
“I spy little flies,” a raspy voice broke in. “Hiding, hiding, hiding from me…”
Eveen grimaced. She’d known one of the undead was here from the prickle on her skin. The strands were enough to tell her who. She turned to Sky. “The cloak! Get into the cloak!”
The girl looked to where she’d left it—on a table feet away. Eveen groaned. Might as well be miles. She lurched for it. But the strands were faster. Flashes of silver slashed at the cloak in quick strikes. In moments it was in tatters. Gone. Just like that.
The raspy voice tsked. “Little flies mustn’t be tricksy. Mustn’t hide, from the Spider.”
There was a scraping as the stone to the hatch slid open. The first sight that appeared was two brown bare feet hovering in the air. They were followed by legs in dark trousers, then the torso of a man dressed in a long black robe. His slender body was wrapped in thin silver strands that wriggled about—holding him aloft as he lowered into the room. His head appeared last, cocked to the side and wearing a cat mask made of rough brown sackcloth, with two mismatched buttons for eyes and a lopsided slash of red for a mouth.
“Goody night, Eveen,” he rasped. “Naughty flies playing games?”
She sighed. “Rejik. How’d you find me?”
The Dead Cat Tail assassin descended fully into the room, bare feet never touching the floor. The silver strands spilled out in every direction. They spread across her books, slid between spice jars, even opened the pot of kaf—as if making an inspection.
“How does a spider catch a fly? Spin a web. Then wait for it to hum.”
She looked over the silver strands. Each was connected to the man somehow. He’d probably left them all over the city. And she’d tripped one without even knowing. He just had to follow it back. Ingenious, if he wasn’t such a weirdo. One of the strands encircled a candle, the tip probing until it touched the flame—before jerking back.
“This must be the job,” he said, looking Sky over.
Eveen pointed her knife. “Don’t remember inviting you in, Rej. So if you don’t mind leaving?”
Rejik laughed. He twisted his fingers, and reams of silver flew to wrap about Eveen. She struggled as her arms were pressed to her sides and she was hoisted off her feet. Turning, she found Sky much the same way. Well, this wasn’t good.
“Better,” Rejik said. His hand made a tugging motion, and the strands encircling Sky pulled her closer to him. Those button eyes seemed to study her curiously. “It is you, then. And I get to devour you both. How delicious. The Spider will enjoy these little flies.” The strands around the girl began to tighten.
“I thought you were all cats!” she cried out under the pressure. It stopped suddenly.
“That’s what the mask is,” Rejik said, losing the rasp.
“Oh,” Sky said. “It’s just … ambiguous.”
Rejik exhaled in disappointment. “I was going for abstract. So a cat, but not a literal cat.”
“But … you call yourself the Spider.”
“Yes, well. The Spider is a cat.”
Sky looked at him askance.
“It doesn’t make sense to the rest of us either,” Eveen put in.
“What I mean is,” Rejik explained, “I’m a cat, but I’m also a spider. A Spider-Cat.”
“Then why don’t you have eight legs?”
“No, I’m a Spider hyphen Cat. Both exist in duality but not necessarily in opposition, see?”
Sky nodded slow but ended with shaking her head. “Sorry, I never got into theory.”
Rejik sighed, mumbling something about his artistic talent being wasted. Not for the first time Eveen wondered what the heck he had been in his past life.
“Doesn’t matter,” he rasped, flowing back into character. “Soon, you’ll just be dead.”
Sky gasped as the strands tightened. And Eveen decided it was time to make a move.
“Bati! Now!”
Assassin rule #182: if your job draws you into long conversations, they’re biding time.
Rejik cursed as the winged lion whisked by him, sharp glass cutting his exposed neck. He swatted at it with an arm. But Bati was fast, diving in and out. At a frustrated grunt, a silver strand lashed out. It caught the figurine like the crack of a whip, shattering it into colorful pieces that fell in a glimmering rain.
Eveen felt a stab of loss, then anger. “All of you! Now!”
Rejik cried out as dozens of glass figurines flew at him at once—a swarm of sharp teeth, claws, and pincers biting and digging. A three-tailed purple scorpion got under his mask, going for his face—and from the gagging he made, it had latched onto his tongue. Rejik was as dead as she was. The magicked figurines couldn’t hurt him terribly. But they were extremely annoying, and even better, distracting.
Eveen felt the strands about her slacken, some slipping away to help their master deal with his miniature attackers. Getting her remaining good hand loose, she used her knife to slice through the rest, dropping to the ground, then made quick work of the ones holding Sky.
“Get into the chest!” she ordered.
“What? Why?”
“The bottom gives way—it’s a hatch!”
“To where?”
“Out! Go!”
Eveen pushed the girl forward as Rejik snarled. His mask was pulled up partially to show the scorpion with a claw latched onto his bottom lip, as if trying to rip it off. He closed a hand around the figurine, crushing it to purplish shards. The mismatched buttons glared at her, and the strands came again.
She leapt to meet them, wielding the knife with one hand. This time, though, she didn’t stay in one place, forcing the strands to give chase, sending them lashing at her divan, her table, chairs—tearing up the place. When they hit the shelves holding her jars and bottles, everything came down in a crash, shattering and spilling their contents. Just as she wanted. Diving for one of the candles, she knocked it to the floor—and the flames roared.
She wasn’t exaggerating about the liquors in those bottles being combustible. They were also a backup plan. Assassin rule #305: always be ready to torch your safe house; you just never knew about that either.
Rejik let out a scream not of pain, but terror—echoed by a multitude of simultaneous shrieks as his strands joined him. She’d noticed their dislike of fire. Turned out that was also their master’s phobia. He batted frantically at the flames, wrapping himself in strands like a silver cocoon. And she again wondered what fears he might have brought with him from the grave. With a farewell glance to her sanctuary she ran for the chest, scooping up her dropped knife—and her fingers—before jumping inside.
She dropped a ways before landing, and someone started in the thick gloom. Sky.
“You could have told me it was so far down! I fell and almost broke my leg!”
“Did you break it?”
“No, I—”
“Then you’ll be fine. Come on!”
From above, flames lit up the dark.
“Is your place on fire?”
“Yeah.” Eveen was already walking. Sky followed.
“Is he … dead?”
The stony roof above began to slope, causing them to hunch down.
“He’s already dead. I just bought us some time.”
Angry shouts echoed after them. She moved faster.
“Where are we? Some kind of tunnel?”
Eveen nodded. “Found them when I rented the place. An old smuggler’s route, maybe.”
The path grew lower and soon they were crawling.
“Where does it go?” Sky panted.
“I told you—out.”
A scratching sound came—like wires skittering on stone. The inevitable voice followed.
“Little flies!” it called bitterly. “You’ve made the Spider very, very, angry!”
The last words reverberated in the dark. Neither said a word, moving faster. They were on their stomachs now, crawling in a space so narrow their elbows were at their sides as they pulled themselves forward. The voice behind them grew closer, along with the scratching.
Eveen let Sky get ahead, pushing the girl on as she searched in the tight space of the tunnel. A sudden yank on her leg let her know she’d been caught. She clutched at the ground as the strand tightened.
“What’s happening?” Sky called back.
“Keep going!” Eveen shouted, trying to kick free. “Just up ahead! Keep going until you see a long red wire! You can’t miss it! No, wait!” She fumbled in her jacket for the converted gunpowder lighter, tossing it forward. “You have to light it!”
There was no reply, and she only hoped Sky had gotten that last part.
Behind her Rejik did his creepy thing. “Caught one little fly! Coming for you! Coming!”
The silver strand had wound itself up her thigh and was encircling her waist. It pulled hard and she slid back a bit, her fingers—her remaining fingers—grasping on stone for purchase. She managed to wedge herself at an odd angle and her outstretched arms braced against the tunnel, even as the strand pulled harder. If she kept this up, the thing might just rip her in two!
A flicker from ahead caught her eye. It came once, twice. Then a flame. And a hiss.
Eveen listened as the burning fuse died away—only to be followed by dozens more.
“Take cover!” she shouted, as the first set of detonations went off, growing with force. Skaboom! SkaBOOM. SKABOOM! A rush of air and dust washed over her, and through it all she thought she heard Rejik howl alongside a multitude of shrieks. Then silence.
“Hello?” a voice stammered. “Are you there?”
Eveen worked grit from her mouth, moving her legs to find the strand gone.
“Here.” She crawled forward. “Keep going.”
They continued on, the only sound Sky’s labored breathing. The tunnel began to grow, the roof sloping upward. Soon they could crawl, and then walk bent over, until Eveen called for a stop. Pushing up on a bit of stone above their heads, she lifted it and poked her head out into the night. They were behind a set of buildings. She pulled herself out first before helping the girl. Both were a sight.
“What did you have me light?” Sky asked, shaking dust from her braids.
“Munitions,” Eveen answered, sliding the stone back in place.
“You collapsed the tunnel on him! Is he…?”
“I told you, he’s already dead. Though he won’t dig out for days.”
From somewhere near came the clang of fire carts. Eveen sprinted to look around the corner, where she could make out men and women hauling water to douse the flames of her safe house. The place was ruined, for sure. But hopefully they could put it out before it spread. She had made it plain this was a hazard when she started renting. Still, she’d feel terrible if the entire building got gutted.
“I think they caught it in time,” Sky said softly, as if reading her thoughts.
Eveen nodded. Hopefully. “Let’s go,” she said.
Sky hurried to keep up, no longer cloaked. “Where?”
“To find out who pulled you here.”
“You have a place in mind?”
“The Wheelbarrow.”
“The Barrow? What do you expect to find in the slums?”
Eveen held up the hand missing three digits. “First a surgeon. Then information.”