The Hand That Takes Page 2

  Sal pushed through the door of the safe house and sighed with relief as the smell of rosemary and rushes wafted over him. The rushes were not woven into proper mats; rather, they’d been scattered about the floor like straw in a stable. A single candle burned atop the lone table, and the flame flickered, casting dancing shadows throughout the room until the door was closed.

  The back door was locked and barred. No one would be coming in through the cellar.

  Bartley moaned as Sal lowered him into a chair.

  Then Sal took a seat, propped his elbows on the table, and put his face in his hands.

  “First back?” Bartley asked.

  Sal lifted his head from his hands and had opened his mouth to speak when he heard a rustling noise behind him.

  Bartley cried out.

  Sal dropped from his chair to one knee and drew his pigsticker from his boot sheath. He squinted. His eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, but faintly he could make out a man sitting on a cot in the far corner. The man coughed, stood, and approached the table at a leisurely pace.

  “Sacrull’s balls,” said Bartley. “Luca, you trying to stop my heart?”

  “The fuck happened?” Luca asked. “Where’s the rest?”

  Luca wasn’t a big man, nor was he particularly fast or strong. To look at him, one might take him for an average nobody, just another Pairgu on the streets of Dijvois. But nobody crossed Luca Vrana.

  Luca was a made man. He ran his own crew, a legitimate, Commission-sanctioned crew, which answered to Don Moretti himself. Even without the patronage of the Moretti family, the name Luca Vrana carried a threat in its own right.

  “No one else came back?” Bartley asked, as Sal slipped the pigsticker back into his boot.

  Just then the safe house door swung open and a gust of humid air swept into the room. Three people staggered in. Valla and Dellan each had one of Anton’s arms over their shoulders. It looked as if they’d carried him all the way from High Hill.

  The toes of Anton’s boots dragged across the floorboards, plowing furrows through the scattered rushes.

  Sal put a hand over his pocket. His heart raced at the sight of Anton. “Is he dead?”

  “Move the fucking candle,” Valla snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. “Yahdrish, get out of the bloody way.”

  Sal snatched the candle from the table and Bartley toppled over in his chair as the big Vordin, Dellan, shoved him aside.

  “We need to get him stripped so we can put pressure on the fucking wound,” said Valla as she laid Anton on the table.

  Valla looked soaked as much with blood as with water. Sal could see she had taken a few cuts, but nothing that called for immediate attention. Most of the blood on Valla belonged to Anton.

  Anton lay on the table, silent and motionless, a wicked gash between his neck and shoulder that cleaved clean through the collarbone, deep into his chest. The wound bled profusely, although, from what Sal could tell, he was breathing, faint and raspy as it was.

  Bartley had been wrong. Anton had survived the blow from the poleaxe—thus far.

  With both hands, Valla was pressing a blood-sodden shirt into the wound.

  “Someone give me another shirt,” Valla said.

  Sal dropped his cloak to the floor. He hesitated for an instant, his hand going to his pocket before he slipped out of his jerkin and shirt. The shirt dripped rainwater as Sal pushed it into Valla’s hand. She tossed the blood-soaked linens over a shoulder, wrung out the clean shirt, and pressed it onto the wound .

  Sal slipped back into his jerkin and cloak, and looked up to see Dellan staring him down.

  Dellan was a Vordin. Tall and lean, he wore all black wool and boiled leather. He claimed to be Kalfi-born, though with his shaved head and face it was impossible to tell if he had the peppered blonde hair the clan was famous for. Dellan’s teeth were filed to sharp points, like a shark’s. His skin was not pale, but maggot white, and so heavily tattooed it looked to be marbled with veins of black. Still, neither the tattoos nor the filed teeth intimidated Sal nearly so much as the man’s eyes. They were not the dark eyes typical of the Kalfi clansmen, but piercing blue, cold and hollow. Predatory eyes—the eyes of a killer.

  “Where were you?” Dellan asked, his stare locked on Sal. His hands were at his sides, where Sal knew he kept his daggers, two ugly pieces of steel that had tasted enough blood to sate a river.

  “Steel caps,” Sal said, “cut me off in the courtyard. I had to run. I found Bartley, and when I saw he was shot, we went for the safe house.”

  “Shot, were you?” Valla said, turning on Bartley. “Is that why you left him up there to fucking die? Where were you shot, Yahdrish? The slit between your legs?”

  “I took a quarrel to the leg,” Bartley said, sullen as a spoiled maiden. “What in Sacrull’s hell was I supposed to do, crawl after Anton on all fours? I thought he was dead.”

  Without a word Dellan closed the distance to Bartley, and with one hand on Bartley’s back forced him facedown on the table next to Anton. Bartley thrashed and squealed as the big Vordin pulled the broken quarrel shaft from his leg. No matter how hard Bartley fought, he couldn’t squirm loose; Dellan was too strong. Corded muscles bulged beneath his pale, tattooed skin. Slowly the bloody remains of the quarrel came free.

  “Someone get a mender!” Bartley cried out, grasping at his lower leg where the quarrel had been, blood running between his fingers.

  Dellan examined the quarrel, spat, and threw the bloody haft to the rushes .

  “No one is fetching a mender,” Luca said. “No one is leaving this room.”

  “It missed the bone,” Dellan said with a sneer.

  “Weakling,” Valla spat. “Craven, and a fucking Yahdrish.”

  Bartley merely hunched lower and clutched his leg all the tighter.

  Valla snarled at Bartley. “Left him to die like—”

  “Enough!” said Luca. “I want to know what happened.”

  “Someone talked,” said Valla, still pressing on Anton’s wound. “They knew, the whole time they knew. They ambushed us. They were fucking waiting.”

  Luca’s eyes began to burn with a murderous fire.

  “Wasn’t the High Keep’s guards, either,” said Valla. “Steel caps—bloody steel caps, Luca.”

  Luca’s glare swept over all of them, resting momentarily on each in turn until it settled on Sal.

  “Why would someone have talked?” Sal asked, Luca’s stare unsettling him. “Look, we came back. Clearly, we didn’t rat—”

  “You saying it was the big man or that pretty flower Vincenzo?” Dellan said, baring his filed teeth.

  “What?” Sal said, taken aback. “No, I’m not suggesting anyone talked. I’m saying we’re here, and that should be good enough. Now, did anyone see Vinny or Odie?”

  “They would have been on the far side—”

  Luca slammed a fist on the table, and everyone went quiet.

  Anton spluttered, his limbs flailing.

  “Fuck’s sake,” said Valla through gritted teeth. “Someone help me hold him down. Yahdrish, give me your jerkin!”

  Sal and Dellan moved to help, while Bartley stripped out of his jerkin and doublet.

  “Dammit,” Valla cursed, “I can’t get the bleeding to slow. Luca, if we don’t—”

  “We need a mender,” said Bartley, handing Valla his jerkin. “The bleeding isn’t going to stop if we don’t get him a mender, and if he doesn’t bleed out, I will.”

  “You’re not getting no bloody mender in here, you understand me?” Luca said, a vein in his neck bulging. “If he dies, he dies. I want to know what the fuck happened out there. Where’s the parchment, where’s the ring?”

  “We never got the ring,” Dellan said, still staring at Sal, his filed teeth bared as though he might take a bite out of Sal at any moment. “This tunnel rat never met me at the door.”

  Luca’s attention turned back to Sal.

  “Like I said, the steel caps cut me off in the cou
rtyard,” Sal said. “When I jumped into a hedge to hide, I found Bartley was already there. We waited for the steel caps to go by, and we got out of there. I don’t know what else you expected of me.”

  “You ran,” said Dellan. “Tail tucked between your legs, you ran and left the rest of us to die.”

  “Were we going to fight off the whole City Watch?” asked Bartley.

  “And the parchment?” Luca said, turning to face Bartley. “What did you do with the parchment?”

  “We were ambushed on the bailey wall,” said Bartley. “Vinny and the big man never showed up, and when Anton took that poleaxe—he had the letter, they must have taken—”

  “Anton has it,” said Valla. “Told me as we carried him out of there.”

  “Where?” said Luca, crowding in on the group around the table.

  “Dammit, Luca,” Valla spat, “give me your shirt and back off.”

  The door swung open with a bang. A gust of wind scattered the rushes and set the candle flame to dancing.

  The big man stepped in, followed by Vinny. They dripped rainwater on the floorboards. Neither looked particularly pleased, and yet they were alive.

  The big man was named Odie, and he was, in fact, the biggest man Sal had ever seen. He was at least half Norsic, the other half only the gods knew what. Odie had a war hammer slung on his back, the iron head forged in the shape of a man’s fist.

  The other half-Norsic, Vinny, looked ragged at best. His long hair was matted down on his face like wet straw. His eyes widened when he saw Anton lying on the table, bleeding and writhing under the combined restraint of Valla, Dellan, and Sal.

  “What happened to him?” Vinny asked.

  “Poleaxe,” said Sal. “Steel caps caught them on the bailey wall.”

  Vinny shook his head. “They stopped us in the gatehouse. We couldn’t have gotten there. Odie had to take two of them out just to get us free of the outer wall.”

  That caught Luca’s attention. “Told you, I didn’t want any guards killed, City Watch or otherwise. This was supposed to be a clean job.”

  “Killed two on the bailey wall when we came on Anton. Two more on South Bridge,” said Dellan with a shrug. “Don’t know how else we could have gotten back.”

  “We took the ferry,” Sal said in an offhand manner.

  Dellan and Valla shared a look as though they’d not even considered the ferryman’s way.

  “Thought it was too late in the season for that,” said Vinny.

  “This was meant to be a clean job,” said Luca. “That means no dead steel caps.”

  The big man stepped forward, crossing his thickly muscled arms over his chest. “Couldn’t be avoided.” Had it been anyone else in the party that dared contradict him, Luca might have ripped into them, berated them mercilessly, but no one chided the big man.

  Odie wasn’t officially a made man, as Luca was, but he was an acting enforcer, a leg-breaker that collected overdue debts on behalf of Alonzo Amato, which made him virtually untouchable without the express permission of Don Moretti or one of the other four bosses of the Commission.

  “We need to get out of here,” said Luca, his voice flat. “Dead steel caps means the magistrate is going to be out for blood. We need to get out and separate.”

  “If we try and move him, he’ll die,” said Valla. “We need to get the bleeding stopped so we can bandage the wound.”

  Luca looked down at Anton without a trace of pity in his eyes. “If the bleeding hasn’t stopped by now, he’s dead already. Drop him in the Tamber, or the bay, or throw him in the fucking gutter. Just make sure he doesn’t die here.”

  With that said, Luca shoved Sal out of the way and began rifling through Anton’s blood-soaked pockets. By the time he’d found what he was looking for, Luca’s arms were red to the elbows. In his bloody hand he held a crumpled piece of parchment.

  Luca swept his gaze over the seven. “Get gone. We’re done here. You’ll have your shares on the morrow.”

  Sal and Vinny exchanged a look, then wordlessly helped Bartley to his feet. Each of them shouldered one of Bartley’s arms and helped him walk. Bartley whimpered with every step but managed not to cry out. Odie scooped Anton into his arms as though the injured man were a child. Dellan and Valla fell into the big man’s wake, with Luca in the rear. Sal pushed open the door and once again found himself out in the rain.

  2

  A Ride on Lightning

  B artley’s limp had only worsened since Dellan had removed the quarrel. He seemed to wince more, and whimper louder, than he had on the walk down from High Hill.

  Vinny was a head taller than Sal and outweighed him by a good three stone. To Sal’s relief, Vinny shouldered most of Bartley’s weight.

  The others separated from the trio along the way. Dellan slipped into the shadows of the first alleyway off Vixen Road, alone and without warning. Odie stumbled off down Patcher’s Way, cradling Anton in his arms and muttering something about finding a mender. Valla had followed at the big man’s heels, a concerned look on her usually coquettish face. Sal considered going with them to help, but what could he do for Anton that Odie and Valla could not?

  Sal still had the locket. If Anton lived, Sal would be rid of the thing. If he didn’t—well, Sal could worry about what to do with it then. He wished Valla and Odie well and called on the Lady White to keep Anton breathing, though there was only a slip of a chance Valla and the big man would even find someone capable of treating Anton in his state. He had been a step away from death’s door when they had dragged him into Luca’s safe house .

  When Luca finally went his own way, Sal breathed a sigh of relief and felt as though a hand had unclenched from his throat.

  “I’m just glad we’re still alive,” Sal said, once he felt they were far enough out of earshot that Luca wouldn’t hear. “When everyone split off but Luca, I thought he might make three new corpses out of us.”

  Vinny sighed. “You’re telling me. I didn’t think he’d let anyone leave the safe house alive after he decided one of us was a rat.”

  “Hold on, you—the both of you thought we were going to die,” Bartley said, “and neither of you said a bloody word?”

  “And when should I have voiced this concern? asked Vinny. “When Luca had us cornered in the safe house, or when he was following behind us through the quiet, empty street?”

  “Anytime before the knife was in my back would have been good,” said Bartley.

  “You learned nothing after what happened to Fabian?” Vinny asked. “You never really know what Luca is going to do.”

  “What ever happened to Fabian?” said Bartley.

  “Strange though, wasn’t it?” Sal said, ignoring Bartley’s question. “Someone must have talked. Elsewise, how did the City Watch know we would be at the High Keep?”

  “No one would have talked,” said Vinny. “You said that yourself.”

  “No one that went to the High Keep,” Sal said. “But there were others who could have put together what we were planning—blast powder, flash oil, wards, counter-wards, grappling irons, masked cloaks. That’s a lot of gear. If I had to guess, I’d say it was someone involved on the supply end.”

  “Makes sense,” said Vinny.

  “And what if it was someone who worked the job?” asked Bartley. “What if it was one of Luca’s crew that set all of us up?”

  “Doubtful,” said Sal. “What would they have to gain by botching the job?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Bartley.

  “Who would have set us up?” asked Vinny. “It doesn’t make sense. ”

  “Doesn’t it?” said Bartley.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Sal. “What was there for any of us to gain by telling the steel caps we would be hitting the High Keep?”

  “The score,” said Bartley, arms wide, palms up, as though what he said was the only possible answer. “Someone wanted the score.”

  “And so they told the steel caps to stop us from stealing it?” said Sal.
“What sense does that make?”

  “I’m with Salvatori,” said Vinny. “Besides, what score are you referring to? We left the High Keep with nothing to show but a bloody piece of parchment. Have to say, I don’t see the upside in anyone telling the steel caps about the job unless they are on the City Watch’s payroll.”

  Bartley shrugged, signaling he was finished arguing for the time being. They had reached the Hog Snout, the inn where Bartley kept a room. The Hog Snout was far from the city’s most reputable inn, as the beer was flat and the wine was oily, the tables were less than clean, and the privy stank of—of an unwashed privy.

  Despite its faults, the Hog Snout was always warm, dry, and welcoming. Morning or night the Hog always had a fire burning in the hearth and a gaggle of fun-loving patrons more than willing to play a hand of cards, roll the knuckles, or start a song around the taproom.

  “Either of you gents want to come up for a cap or two?” Bartley asked with a wicked smile. “I could really use one after the night I’ve had.”

  Vinny shook his head. “I think I’ll be heading home. My da’ has to be drunk enough to need help into bed by now.”

  “Sure you don’t want to warm yourself by the fire?” asked Sal. “You could dry out some before heading home.”

  “I’d only get wet again,” said Vinny, looking up at the black-clouded sky. “No sense waiting it out, I don’t think it’ll be letting up anytime soon.”

  “Be safe,” said Sal.

  “See any steel caps, you’d best go the other way,” said Bartley.

  Vinny winked, brushed long, wet hair from his face, and went on down the road .

  Sal followed Bartley inside and was hit with the scent of meadowsweet. The smell was one thing he loved about the Hog Snout.

  The pair passed by the taproom, going directly for the stairs. A singer was some ways into “When Pigs Don Armor,” and it seemed half the patrons in the taproom had joined in the singing.