Jhereg (4 page)

"Great. So in addition to whatever he could have set up, he might be planning to do the job himself."

"I suppose he could."

"But I still can't figure out--look, Kragar, with someone like the Demon, something like this wouldn't happen by accident, would it?"

"Something like--?"

"Like carefully arranging a meeting in just such a way as to arouse my suspicions."

"No, I don't think he--What is it?"

I guess he caught the look on my face, which must have been simply precious. I shook my head. "That's it, of course."

"What," he asked, "is what?"

"Kragar, arrange for three bodyguards for me, okay?"

"Bodyguards? But--"

"Make them busboys or something. You won't have any trouble; I own half interest in the place. Which, I might add, I'm sure the Demon is aware of."

"Don't you think he'll catch on?"

"Of
course
he'll catch on. That's the point. He knows that I'm going to be nervous about meeting him, so he deliberately set up the meeting with an irregularity to make me suspicious, so I'll have an excuse to have protection there. He's going out of his way to say, 'Go ahead and do what you have to, to feel safe, I won't be offended.' " I shook my head again. I was starting to get dizzy. "I hope I don't ever have to go up against the son-of-a-bitch. He's devious."

"
You're
devious, boss," said Kragar. "I sometimes think you know Dragaerans better than other Dragaerans do."

"I do," I said flatly. "And that's because I'm not one." He nodded. "Okay, three bodyguards. Our own people, or free-lance?"

"Make one of them our own, and hire the other two. There isn't any need to rub his nose in it, in case he recognizes our people."

"Right."

"You know, Kragar," I said thoughtfully, "I'm not real happy about this. He must know me well enough to know that I'd figure out what he was doing, which means this could be a setup after all." I held up my hand as he started to speak. "No, I'm not saying that I think it
is,
just that it could be."

"Well, you could always tell him that you can't make it?"

"Sure. Then, if he isn't planning to kill me now, he'd be sure to after that."

"Probably," admitted Kragar. "But what else can you do?"

"I can bitch a lot and go meet with him. Okay, that's tomorrow. Anything else going on?"

"Yeah," he said. "Some Teckla got mugged the night before last, a couple of blocks from here."

I cursed. "Hurt bad?"

Kragar shook his head. "A fractured jaw and a couple of bruises. Nothing serious, but I thought you'd like to know."

"Right. Thanks. I take it you haven't found the guy who did it?"

"Not yet."

"Well, find him."

"It'll cost."

"Screw the cost. It'll cost more if all our customers get scared away. Find the guy and make an example of him."

Kragar raised an eyebrow.

"No," I said, "not that much of an example.... And find a healer for that Teckla--on us. I take it he was a customer?"

"Everyone around here is a customer, one way or another."

"Yeah. So pay for a healer and reimburse him. How much did the guy get, by the way?"

"Almost two Imperials. Which could have been the Dragon Treasury, to hear him tell it."

"I suppose so. Tell you what: Why don't you have the victim come up and see me, and I'll pay him back personally and give him a talk about crime in the streets and how bad I feel, as a fellow citizen, of course, about what happened to him. Then he can go home and tell all his friends what a nice guy Uncle Vlad the Easterner is, and maybe we'll even pull in some new business out of the deal."

"Sheer genius, boss," said Kragar.

I snorted. "Anything else?"

"Nothing important, I guess. I'll go arrange for your protection tomorrow."

"Fine. And make it good people. As I say, this has me worried."

"Paranoia, boss."

"Yep. Paranoid and proud."

He nodded and left. I wrapped Spellbreaker around my right wrist. The two-foot length of gold chain was the one weapon that I didn't change, since I had no intention of ever leaving it behind me. As its name implied, it broke spells. If I was going to be hit with a magical attack (unlikely, even if this
was
a setup), I'd want it ready. I flexed my arm and tested the weight. Good.

I turned to Loiosh, who was still resting comfortably on my right shoulder. He'd been strangely silent during the conversation.

"
What's the matter!
" I asked him psionically. "
Bad feelings about the meeting
tomorrow?
"

"
No, bad feelings about having a Teckla in the office. Can I eat him, boss? Can I? Huh?

Huh?
"

I laughed and went back to changing weapons with an all-new enthusiasm.

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"There is no substitute for good manners--except fast reflexes."
The Blue Flame is on a short street called Copper Lane just off Lower Kieron Road. I arrived fifteen minutes early and carefully selected a seat that put my back to the door. I'd decided that if Loiosh, working along with the people we had planted here, couldn't give me enough warning, the difference it would make if I were facing the door probably wouldn't matter. This way, in case the meeting was legitimate, which I strongly suspected it was, I was showing the Demon that I trusted him and negating any feelings of "disrespect" he might get from seeing that I had brought protection. Loiosh was perched on my left shoulder, watching the door.

I ordered a white wine and waited. I spotted one of my enforcers busing dishes, but couldn't identify either of the free-lancers. Good. If I couldn't spot them, there was a good chance that the Demon couldn't. I sipped my wine slowly, still chuckling slightly over the meeting I'd had earlier with the Teckla (what was his name?) who'd been mugged. It had gone well enough, though I had had to work to avoid bursting out laughing from my trusty jhereg familiar's constant psionic appeals of "Aw, c'mon, boss.
Please
can't I eat him?" I have a nasty familiar.

I kept a tight control on the amount of wine I was drinking--the last thing I needed right now was to be slowed down. I flexed my right ankle, feeling the hilt of one of my boot-knives press reassuringly against my calf. I nudged the table an inch or so away from me, since I was sitting in a booth and couldn't position my chair. I noted the locations of the spices on the table, as objects to throw, or things to get in the way. And I waited.

Five minutes after the hour, according to the Imperial Clock, I received a warning from Loiosh. I set my right arm crosswise on the table, so that my hand was two inches away from my left sleeve. That was as close as I wanted to come to holding a weapon. A rather large guard-type appeared in front of my table, nodded to me, and stepped back. A well-dressed Dragaeran in gray and black approached and sat down opposite me. I waited for him to speak. It was his meeting, so it was up to him to set the tone; also, my mouth was suddenly very dry.

"You are Vladimir Taltos?" he asked, pronouncing my name correctly. I nodded and took a sip of wine. "You are the Demon?"

He nodded. I offered wine and we drank to each other's health; I wouldn't swear to the sincerity of the toast. My hand was steady as I held the glass. Good. He sipped his wine delicately, watching me. All of his motions were slow and controlled. I thought I could see where a dagger was hidden up his right sleeve; I noticed a couple of bulges where other weapons might be in his cloak. He probably noticed the same in mine. He was, indeed, young for his position. He looked to be somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand, which is thirty-five or forty to a human. He had those eyes that never seemed capable of opening to more than slits. Like mine, say. Kragar was right; this was an assassin.

"We understand," he said, swirling the wine in his glass, "that you do 'work.' " I kept the surprise off my face. Was I about to be offered a contract? From the Demon?

Why? Perhaps this was just an effort to get me off my guard. I couldn't figure it. If he really wanted me for something, he should have gone through about half a dozen intermediaries.

"I'm afraid not," I told him, measuring my words. "I don't get involved with that kind of thing."

Then, "I have a friend who does."

He looked away for a moment, then nodded. "I see."

"Could you put me in touch with this 'friend?' "

"He doesn't get out much," I explained. "I can get a message to him, if you like." He nodded, still not looking at me. "I suppose your 'friend' is an Easterner, too?"

"As a matter of fact, he is. Does it matter?"

"It might. Tell him we'd like him to work for us, if he's available. I hope he has access to your information sources. I suspect this job will require all of them." Oh, ho! So that's why he'd come to me! He knew that my ways of obtaining information were good enough that even he would have trouble matching them. I allowed myself a little bit of cautious optimism. This just might be legitimate. On the other hand, I still couldn't see why he'd come personally.

There were several questions I very badly wanted to ask him, such as, "Why me?" and

"Why you?" But I couldn't approach them directly. The problem was, he wasn't going to give me any more information until he had a certain amount of commitment from me--and I didn't feel like giving him that commitment until I knew more.

"
Suggestions, Loiosh?
"

"
You could ask him who the target is.
"

"
That's exactly what I don't want to do. That commits me.
"

"
Only if he answers.
"

"
What makes you think he won't answer?
"

"
I'm a jhereg, remember?
" he said sarcastically. "
We get feelings about these things.
" One of Loiosh's great skills is throwing my own lines back at me. The damnable thing about it was that he might be simply telling the truth.

The Demon remained politely silent during the psionic conversation--either because he didn't notice it, or out of courtesy. I suspected the latter.

"Who?" I said aloud.

The Demon turned back to me, then, and looked at me for what seemed to be a long time. Then he turned his face to the side again.

"Someone who's worth sixty-five thousand gold to us," he said. This time I couldn't keep my expression from showing.

Sixty-five thousand! That was ... let me see ... over thirty,
no, forty
times the standard fee! For that kind of money I could build my wife the castle she'd been talking about!

Hell, I could build it twice! I could bloody well retire! I could--"Who are you after?" I asked again, forcing my voice to stay low and even. "The Empress?"

He smiled a little. "Is your friend interested?" He was no longer pronouncing the quotation marks, I noted.

"Not in taking out the Empress."

"Don't worry. We aren't expecting Mario." As it happened, that was the wrong thing for him to say just then. It started me thinking ... for the kind of gold he was talking about, he
could
hire Mario. Why wouldn't he?

I thought of one reason right away: The someone who had to be taken out was so big that whoever did the job would have to be eliminated himself, afterwards. They would know better than to try that on Mario; but with me, well, yes. I wasn't so well protected that I couldn't be disposed of by the resources the Demon had at his disposal. It fit in another way, too: It explained why the Demon had shown up personally. If he was, in fact, planning to have me take a fall after doing the job, he wouldn't care that I knew that he was behind it and wouldn't want a lot of other people in his organization to know. Hiring someone to do something and then killing him when he does it is not strictly honorable--but it's been done.

I pushed the thought aside for the moment. What I wanted was a clear idea of what was going on. I had a suspicion, yes; but I wasn't a Dzur. I needed more than a suspicion to take any action.

So the question remained, who was it that the Demon wanted me to nail for him?

Someone big enough that the man who did it had to go too... A high noble?

Possible--but why? Who had crossed the Demon?

The Demon was sharp, he was careful, he didn't make many enemies, he was on the council, he--wait! The council? Sure, that had to be it. Either someone on the council was trying to get rid of him, or he finally decided that being number two wasn't enough. If it was the latter, sixty-five thousand wasn't enough. I knew who I'd be going after, and he was as close to untouchable as it is possible to get. In either case, it didn't sound hopeful.

What else could it be? Someone high up in the Demon's organization suddenly deciding to open his mouth to the Empire? Damn unlikely! The Demon wouldn't make the kind of mistakes that led to that. No, it had to be someone on the council. And that, as I'd guessed, would mean that whoever did the job might have a lot of trouble staying alive after: he'd have too much information on the fellow who had given him the job and he'd know too much about internal squabbles on the council.

I started to shake my head, but the Demon held his hand up. "It isn't what you think," he said. "The only reason we aren't trying to get hold of Mario is because there have to be certain conditions attached to the job--conditions that Mario wouldn't accept. Nothing more than that."

I felt a brief flash of anger, but pushed it back down before it showed. What the hell made him think he could stick me with conditions that Mario wouldn't accept? (Sixty-five thousand gold, that's what.) I thought a little longer. The problem was, of course, that the Demon had a reputation for honesty. He wasn't known as the type who'd hire an assassin and then set him up. On the other hand, if they were talking about sixty-five thousand, things were desperate in some fashion already. He could be desperate enough to do a lot of things he otherwise wouldn't do.

The figure sixty-five thousand gold Imperials kept running through my head. However, one other figure kept meeting it: one hundred and fifty gold. That's the average cost of a funeral.