I can't believe you bit me on the nose, Loiosh.Carefully, I rubbed my nose with the back of my palm. Lady Teldra had healed it for the most part, but it would still bleed if I rubbed it too much. Jhereg poison made me itch like mad, despite my acquired immunity to it.
I told you I would, Boss. The city watch was getting closer to you, despite Lady Teldra.
You bit my nose. Why not my finger or arm?
It worked. Now I know you really don't like it.
I turned my head and stared at my familiar. His long neck coiled around and met my eyes.
I wasn't going to let you sleep. You could have woken up in cell - if someone wanted to ask you questions. If they preferred nice, neat resolutions, you're a lot easier to keep alive when you're awake.
I snorted mentally in his direction. He was right, but I wouldn't admit it. That's part of what makes us good partners.
I looked at the gigantic steel box, sitting on odd, black stone, against a wall of brick and mortar. This is one of the biggest pieces of steel I've ever seen, and its a garbage container.
Loiosh's head raised up slightly. Rozca says she can see six more of them from up top, Boss. Wherever we are, they have lots of steel.
A man's garbage will tell you a lot about them, unless, of course, they are very careful about how they dispose of things. I was hoping that a city's garbage could tell me about the city. What it was telling me was that this city was weird.
They certainly have plenty of food, too.
No pigs either, boss.
What?
If they had pigs, they would feed all this food to the pigs.
...
What, it could be important. Savn saved you because he learned how to inflate a pig's lung.
I rubbed the back of my nose again, carefully, not thinking anything at Loiosh.
After a couple seconds of mental silence, I carefully hauled out another strange object, avoiding the rotting food that seemed to be everywhere. The strangely-slick, off white thing was about the size of my palm. One side of it was made of an odd, opaque eggshell-white material, the other side seemed to be made of glass, which was broken. I scratched it with the tip of one of my knives, on both sides. The glass scratched too easily to be glass. The opaque material also scratched easily. I saw tiny bits of metal inside, under the broken not-glass.
Any ideas, Loiosh?
I'm not the one with thumbs, Boss.
I threw the thing back in the trash.
You aren't being much help, Loiosh.
I already told you my idea.
Jump out, threaten someone with a knife, and tell them to 'tell me everything!' ?
... Well, it could work.
I reached up with my left hand and scratched his head with a fingernail.
Stressed out a bit, Loiosh. Sorry.
I'm not at my best either, Boss.
A piece of paper with a great deal of writing on it fluttered in the trash container, and I grabbed it without thinking. Some sort of red sauce was on it. I carefully picked up the paper, and there were a lot of other papers connected to it, like a thin book.
I stared at the connected pages, and flipped through them.
A book? A book in the trash? Who throws books away, Loiosh?
Stupidly rich wizards?
I looked around, and smelled the air.
This doesn't smell like the sort of place wizards would want to live.
No Orb, Boss. Maybe rich wizards can't live in floating castles here.
We both laughed in each other's heads at the reference to Castle Black. Morrolan had once explained the very simple sewer system. Sewage fell out of the castle onto fallow fields. Every year, the castle moved over a new field.
Morrolan would have agreed with you about pulling a knife on a stranger for information.
Organ-guy did call me a dragon.
... He did, didn't he? Don't let it go to your head. It might find its way into my head.
Loiosh snickered in the back of my mind.
I found some mostly-dry paper and wiped the book off, and then started quickly paging through it.
The letters were not right, but I understood them. Lady Teldra again, certainly. I put my left hand on her hilt.
Thank you, Lady Teldra. Again.
I felt a tiny bit of amusement before I turned my attention to the study of the book: 'Vogue'
It turned out to be some sort of a reference guide to being female. Not very handy. The editorial pages mentioned prior months. The front page indicated a date of publication, the first of June, 2011.
Even though I could read the words, about half of the words with more than three letters were gibberish. A lot of them, I was pretty sure, were related to sex and fashion. That wasn't going to do me much good. The advertisements in the back had been handier. People bought and sold gold and silver in this world as coins and bullion. I had some gold and silver coins. Something called Wall Street apparently set money policy, but it was chaotic, and had crashed many times. People were trying to sell classes about how to make a living betting on the 'market' that was somehow controlled by Wall Street. Or something.
A dollar seemed to be the unit currency, but it didn't buy a lot. An ounce of gold was worth over a thousand dollars. I wasn't entirely certain how much an ounce was, but it was small. I was fairly confident that I had at least enough money to feed the three of us for a while.
Ads. Prior months. Date of publication. This is a broadsheet, Loiosh.
Well, paper is clearly cheap here. The art is pretty weird too. It's all dots. The art that is.
Art made of dots?
I don't think you can see it unless you get really close to it, Boss, in better light. Trust me. They didn't use a brush. They made the art out of lots of little dots of ink soaked into the paper.
I looked through the trash, hoping to find another broadsheet.
A shrill female voice echoed down the alley, from closer to the road. "Let me go!"
A low, angry male voice rasped down the alley. "Ya don't shut up, slut, I'll shut ya up. Just a bit of fun, we be on our way."
Loiosh?
Rozca found a cat, Boss.
Did it have a collar?
No collar, Boss.
Good.
I turned on my heel and walked towards the voices.
Well, Loiosh, I've reconsidered your plan.
I felt Loiosh backpedal mentally. Wait. What plan?
The plan with the knife.
Now?
Yes now.
The cat will get cold, Boss.
I'll build you a fire later.
OK, Rozca's in, after she stashes the cat on one of the rooftops.
I stepped up to a corner and slowly put my head around the corner just far enough to expose my left eye.
Three men, all young. All thin, but wiry.
Just three of them, Loiosh?
Only three here. There are a couple more around the corner.
"You tried to get away, now you gotta pay for our company, slut." The speaker was wearing a dirty red shirt with short sleeves, blue long pants with lots of holes, and heavy boots. He had a young woman pinned to the wall with one hand on her neck, and was groping her breasts with his other hand. "Get her purse. We'll sort it out later."
The woman was wearing a green blouse and blue trousers. She was short, young, and athletic, with few curves. Her hair was long and jet black, framing what would have been a pretty face if she hadn't been terrified.
One of the two other young men leaned forward and grabbed the girl's purse. She tried to hold onto it, but it was ripped away.
"Oh, are we resisting assault now?" All three of the men chuckled. They seemed to think that was funny somehow.
"My parents paid protection!" The girl was close to panic now. "Paid it to Hi. Please. No."
"Hi got a case of the deads earlier today, slut. We'll stop by your parent's soon enough so they can pay me."
Really? Street toughs running their own protection rackets, with no records, and double-charging for protection? The Council would have fits.
The three men and the girl were still visible from the street. They probably wouldn't rape her where she was. If she was near her home, her relatives might find out before it was over, and cause problems. There was a reason enforcement was generally not done in front of lots of people.
I slowly pulled my head back around the corner. They would almost certainly do the deed where I was standing. It was twenty feet farther from the road, around a little corner where the building changed shape.
Loiosh, tell me if they pull a weapon, or if they start to strip her there.
Gotcha, Boss.
I took several steps back, next to the nearest garbage container, folded my cloak around me, ducked my head down to hide my neck, and went still.
Hrm? Why did I emphasize the word 'still'? There's a difference between not moving and being still. Most people, when they think they stop moving, don't. They continue to make little movements that other people can see. I don't. Loiosh and I worked on that a lot when I was still shining people. He can see me breathing, and tell when my slitted eyes blink, but he can also tell you how many times a fly flaps it's wings from the time it leaves my arm until he nips it out of the air. Most people won't notice me when I'm still, not without magic. You have a habit of interrupting me when things get interesting.
Anyway, the three toughs rounded the corner and the one who seemed to be in charge was handling the girl roughly, but not hurting her yet, just playing with her. He pushed the girl up against the wall with one hand on her neck, and started groping her again, breasts and elsewhere. She was trying to fight him, but clearly had never been in a fight. She was more interested in trying to keep his hands off her private parts than ripping out his eyes.
One of the subordinate toughs pulled a folding knife out of a pocket. A folding knife. Complete crap in a fight. "Fuji, want me to peel her out?"
The leader sighed and his free hand stopped groping the girl, but his left hand held her pinned to the wall. "Why you always want to do that, Lo? I ever let you cut their clothes off?"
"No, but..."
"Don't ask again. You scare 'em bad enough, they no fun. You can cut 'em too if they panic. Dead girls are big problems. Raped girls are little problems. You want to maybe make a big problem for me, big enough that Lung isn't happy?"
The man with the folding knife put it back in his pocket. "No. No, Fuji."
"Good. You go last, Lo." He turned back to the girl and grabbed the top of her blouse with one hand, clearly about to start ripping off her clothes.
The third man just watched impassively. I hadn't heard him say a single word. I mentally marked him to watch a little more carefully. Toughs that didn't talk much were either complete idiots or smarter than normal, and I'd seen no sign that he was an idiot.
I needed to interrupt now.
Loiosh, Have Rozca follow the girl if she gets away.
She will, Boss.
I lifted my hat with my left hand. "Where I come from, you ask for protection money first."
All three men spun to face me, making startled noises.
"Who da fuck?" Lo grabbed his folding knife out of his pocket, and fumbled to unfold it.
I watched the three men carefully. They weren't ready to fight yet. "No money, no protection, and bad things might happen after. Usually, just posting the address on the unprotected list in the weekly broadsheet will do the job. People don't like it when they are open to unsanctioned thieves."
"Broadwhat?" Fuji said, cleverly.
The third man spoke. "Old word for newspaper, Fuji. He's wearing a lot of leather and wool, too. Bet he's from one of the primitive dimensions."
Dimensions. Like where the Jenoine were?
I guess so, Boss.
Fuji looked at the third man, then back to me. "You think we gonna print a fuckin' paper for the marks?"
The girl had been immobile with shock after I interrupted, but suddenly tried to run. Fuji casually kicked her legs out from under her. She went down, hard. The side of her head bounced on the ground. It didn't look like she'd fallen hard enough to do serious damage, but she was stunned.
"You better be ABB, and higher up, to talk shit to me. Show me yer tats." Fuji spat at me, angrily.
I looked from one man to the other.
Loiosh, you know what tats are?
No clue, Boss.
"Which tats?" I gave him a thin grin and narrowed my eyes.
"Fuji, careful. He ain't scared. Might be packing heat."
"Shut up, Fessor. He ain't ABB. Take 'im out."
I watched the one called Fessor, who was clearly of the smart-but-quiet-unless-it's-important type. He moved like he had a clue. His hands moved decently fast when he got the order. I'd been watching him move his hands slowly towards his short clubs as we were talking.
They were about ten feet from me, so I had plenty of time.
Lo was to the right, Fuji center, and Fessor left. None of them were wearing armor, so I cross-drew two long knives, and stepped out towards the three of them as Fuji pulled out a sheath knife and Fessor drew what looked to be two sticks held together with a small chain, instead of two short clubs.
Loiosh, I might need your help in a bit for the one with the thresher. I'd like him alive though.
Lo was at least holding his knife in a decent ready position, forearm extended, at waist height, a good stance for small blade work, but he had they crappy blade and was telegraphing everything with his eyes.
After I took a step forward, I stepped right, circling around Lo, which would force the other two to move faster to get around him, or force Lo to back away from me, if he had a clue. "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. You get one chance to leave."
"Ka-Bar says 'No' you stupid fuck. I don't bluff." Fuji waggled his knife in my general direction as he started crowding around Lo's right side, pushing Lo a little, which Lo was at least smart enough to be clearly upset about.
"Fuck, Fuji, don't be pushin' me in no fight, man."
These two are complete morons like the others, Loiosh, but watch the guy with the thresher.
On it, Boss.
Fuji's knife looked like a serious fighting blade. Leather hilt, single-edged, decent blade length, a blade that swept up to a point. It even had a small guard to the top and bottom. It wouldn't be as good against armor as a dirk, but I wasn't wearing armor.
I didn't want to kill them permanently, which meant I couldn't kill them at all.
Non-lethal, Loiosh. No poison, just bites and claws. No arteries.
That's going to be a serious pain, Boss.
The girl managed to stagger to her feet and stumble around the corner. Fuji noticed. "That's some primo 'tang running away, shithead. You die now."
"You said it, Fuji." Lo chimed in, like a little brother.
Then again, they might have kids. I'd be doing the future a favor.
If they've been doing this a while, they probably already have kids.
Thank you, Loiosh. I appreciate it when you make things easier.
No problem, Boss.
I gave Lo four good openings before he finally spotted the pattern I was faking. When his eyes started following my right elbow, I started the pattern again, and he lunged, trying to cut my right wrist. I stepped right, and drew back the right arm, instead of pushing it forward like he was expecting. As his little folding knife flashed past where he thought my wrist was going to be, my left blade struck him in his right eye. I felt the blade grind into the eye socket, and jerked the hilt of my blade, and his head, hard to my left so the corpse fell into Fuji. The blade was certainly jammed in the eye socket, so I let it fall with the corpse.
Lo bounced into Fuji, and fell like a puppet with strings cut. Fuji was pushed back a step, and looked down at Lo, briefly. "You stupid fuck."
When Fuji looked back up, he might have seen my right blade before it buried itself in his left eye. Then again, he was pretty slow. He might have died before he saw the blade. Brain shots through the eye are like that.
Fessor hadn't moved up close. Threshers needed more space than a knife, and the two idiots had been crowding me. His eyes were huge as Fuji fell. "Fuck me sideways. I'm not fighting no cape. You're the one that killed Hi, that Lung thought he killed" Fessor said as he took two steps back and started to turn and run.
Loiosh swooped past him and slapped him in the face with one wing as he took his second step after the turn.
Startled by the unexpected slap in the face, Fessor screamed "Shit!" and fell, his thresher falling out of his hand as he tumbled.
When he got to his knees, Loiosh had landed on the odd black stone, well out of arm's reach, his long neck coiled back to strike, teeth bared.
"Just so you know, he's very intelligent, and extremely poisonous. You've seen how fast I am. He's faster."
Fessor just stared at Loiosh, and didn't appear to be listening to me.
Gee, thanks, Boss, I didn't know that, and he's already on his knees.
"He's also asking me if he can kill you now."
I am? Oh, yeah.
Loiosh widened his jaws slightly, hissed, and I saw a droplet of green drip off one of his fangs.
Is that good, Boss?
Perfect.
Fessor was apparently paying attention to me now. His head stayed fixated on Loiosh. "Raising my hands. Don't kill me, please."
"You seem like a smart boy." I pulled my blades out of Lo and Fuji's eyes, watching Fessor grimace as the knives scraped out of the eye sockets, with not a little effort on my part. I had to put my foot on Fuji's forehead to get that blade out without bending it.
"You related to these two, Fessor?" I pointed at the bodies.
He shook his head. "No."
"You like hunting girls for sport?"
"Not... really. That was Fuji's thing, but if I didn't join in..."
I stared at him. "Finish the sentence."
He swallowed, and met my eyes. "If I didn't join in, then he started talking like I was going to turn against him in court if he ever got pulled in. Fuji was a paranoid fuck. I have brothers and sisters. My family gets left alone as long as I'm an ABB member. If I'm dead or chased out of town, my brothers are too young to be full members. My sisters are old enough, but the only job non-cape women get in the ABB is whore."
"So you did it to protect your family?"
"That's what I said."
"Then let's go see your family, Fessor."
"Fuck that, you killed two people in two seconds. I ain't letting you near my family. I'll die first."
"Really?" I smiled at him.
He tensed up, clearly about to try to scramble over to his thresher.
"Relax, Fessor. I'm not going to kill you, and I don't need to see your family."
He was silent, staring at me. After a few seconds, he asked, hopefully. "Then I can go?"
"No. I've got some questions to ask you. Then I'm going to hit you over the head with your thresher, and knock you out, so it won't look like you didn't fight. You will not remember who attacked you. That's very important to remember." I gave him my best threatening, cold look. "If you remember who attacked you, I won't be so nice the next time."
He tensed up again, and glanced towards where the thresher had fallen.
I tilted my head a bit. "Fessor, if you want to fight me for real, you won't last five seconds. Loiosh there will bite you, then I'll stab you as you're screaming in pain from the poison. If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already. Stand up, follow me. We won't go far, but I want to be away from the bodies."
The young man stood, slowly, never taking his eyes off Loiosh who was enjoying himself far too much.
"Don't forget your thresher."
"My what?"
"Your weapon."
"It's a Nunchuck"
"It's a thresher. Farmers use it to thresh grain. It also makes a decent weapon if you know how to use it. Farmers are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for."
He was silent for a few seconds after he slowly picked up the thresher, then he followed me deeper into the alley.
Loiosh flew up onto my shoulder and then turned around to watch Fessor, so I could leave my back open to him.
"What questions? I don't know shit about what top people do or where valuable stuff is stored."
I smiled. "What's a cape?"
**
I looked down at the unconscious young man.
How in the hell is the government of this place stupid enough to make almost everything people like illegal?
Maybe everyone here is stupid? We've only found one person so far that wasn't an idiot.
Two. Lung wasn't an idiot.
Fine. Two.
And some of the others in the first fight might have been intelligent, they just couldn't fight.
Boss, let's just say they were idiots, unless proven otherwise. It makes me feel smarter.
I chuckled and walked back deeper into the alleyway.
Was Rozca able to follow the girl home?
Sure, Boss. Watched outside the building too, till she saw her through a window.
Are there sills on the windows?
I'll ask.
Yes, Boss. Wide sills. With dirt in them, and plants.
Have Rozca take this, drop it on the sill of the window that she saw the girl through. I tossed the little white pouch into the air, caught it, and then handed it to Rozca, who gripped it with one claw.
Tap on the window when she sees a person, and then get away fast. Make sure she knows what guns are and that she will have to be very care-
Boss, I told her about guns when Fessor told you about guns. That whole 'shoots little pieces of lead really fast' bit was important.
I scratched his head.
She's asking about the cat, boss.
I'll look for wood to burn. I've seen a few pieces around. We'll need a place to start a fire though. Fessor said that the Undersiders didn't patrol their border areas very well.
**
I leaned back against the brick wall, and looked over the wreckage of several buildings. Huge buildings. Before Scion was killed, he destroyed things on a scale that was hard to imagine. The machines that these people had were nearly magic. A lot of the machines seemed better than magic.
Rozca's offering to share, Boss, since you cooked it.
No thanks, never really liked cat. Please thank her for offering though.
I scratched Rozca on her head, which she graciously allowed, before she bit another piece off the scrawny cat carcass.
Loiosh waited until Rozca had eaten several more bites before he moved in to start eating himself. Rozca could get a bit protective about food, especially if she killed it.
Getting into Undersider territory unchallenged had been absurdly easy. It was worse than Fessor had told me.
How did these people ever manage to gain control over the whole city, Loiosh?
Fessor said all the other cape gangs died, or got sent to prison.
I guess so. Still. Lung is going to eat them for lunch. They aren't patrolling well, they don't seem to be recruiting.
I stirred the fire. It was closing in on darkness, and I didn't have a lot of firewood left, but the weather wasn't cold here at this time of year, and I now had a bedroll.
They're also not charging a lot for their rackets, Boss, maybe they're broke?
I don't think so. The Undersider enforcers we did see all seemed well-fed. They are regulating prostitution, gambling, alcohol, and a few other drugs, so they are making money. People aren't complaining about costs going up for their vices.
Boss, what are you thinking?
There's no Jhereg House here, no Council. Lung runs his ABB how he wants, and Tattletale and the Undersiders run their operation how they want.
Seriously, Boss? You're not really thinking about-
Loiosh, what did Verra tell me?
I felt Loiosh rummaging around in my mind.
"Just be yourself, Vlad, and don't get killed. I'll bring you back when you're done." Boss, that's more stupid god tricks, playing with your mind. If the gods want you to do something, you won't get away from it.
"Just be myself." You know I can't deal with how House Jhereg runs their territories, especially where Easterners are involved. I can experiment here, try different things.
You could also say that you're being yourself when you do stupid things that almost get you killed. We can probably find something that's not quite this stupid and dangerous.
Like what, Loiosh? Half an hour talking with Fessor before we heard someone find the dead bodies didn't get us much information. It helped a lot, but I don't know enough to fit in here yet, and we've already killed quite a few people. Fessor says the 'cops' can do forensics to match a blade to a murder, or even a person to a murder, using the prints on our fingers and even our sweat and blood, so I can't go legit.
I made a mental note to try to find somewhere that sold witchcraft supplies. I'd sold one of my silver coins to an Undersider pawn shop for a substantial amount of the dollar currency, and then bought some of the blue pants everyone seemed to wear, as well as a few other things. There was still some money left over. If witchcraft supplies weren't terribly expensive, I might be able to do things about my blood and the prints from my fingers that I'd left behind.
Boss, Lung almost killed you once. The Undersiders have five capes that Fessor knew of. Who are you going to try to muscle in on?
I'll feed Lung to Lady Teldra if I see him again, especially after seeing how he runs his territory. I doubt Tattletale and the Undersiders would object too strongly if we were to set up shop in the no-man's land, and start raiding into ABB territory. They don't seem to care that much if they lose territory to the ABB, I can't imagine they would be annoyed if they stop losing territory.
You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you?
Sorry, Loiosh, yes. I've got a chance to run a territory the way I want to run it. The Undersiders have even given me a few good ideas. Maybe I can show them a few things too.
All by yourself.
I've got friends.
Flattery won't make you any less insane for trying this, Boss.
I know, Loiosh, but doing nothing is certainly not being myself.