Shadow's Son (27 page)

They left the mansion by the back door and crossed the yard. Every
step jarred Calm's side. Scaling the wall was a brutal experience, but he
survived it. As they stole away, a jarring crash from the mouth of an
alleyway caused him to raise his knives, until a small, furry shape darted
away. He squeezed his fingers around the hilts. He was getting jumpy. It
was Josey's fault. He had been a successful, self-possessed professional
before he met her. Now, he was a mess.

Perhaps guessing his mood, Josey asked, "What do we do now?"

The foggy street stretched before them into the gloom. "Back to Low
Town."

"The brothel again?"

The note of indignation in her voice made him smile despite the fierce
throbbing in his side.
Already acting the part of a princess.

"Not yet. I want to stop by my place first and pick up some things, a
change of clothes."

"Wait." She stopped, which forced him to halt as well or leave her
behind, something he wasn't willing to do.

"I need your help." She straightened her shoulders and faced him. "I
want you to help me track down those responsible for the death of my
father ... and my real family. I need you to help me punish them."

Determination burned in her gaze. So much like his own, it gave him
pause.

"You mean kill them."

"I mean do whatever it takes. Whoever is behind this has taken everything from me. My father. My home. My whole life. I want them dead.
Help me, and all I have is yours."

He forced a laugh, although it came out as more of a croak. "You're
wearing borrowed clothes under a borrowed jacket. Any wealth your
father possessed has probably been seized by the city. You're poorer than
me."

"What do you want?"

He stepped closer. A look of uncertainty crept into her highborn features, but she held her ground. His mouth remembered the taste of her
kiss. "How about a full pardon?"

Her smile returned. "We can negotiate that."

"It's negotiable?"

She took his arm as he steered her toward Low Town. "Everything's
negotiable, Caim. But you know what this means, right?"

"What?" he asked, suddenly wary.

"It means you're fighting for a cause."

Caim didn't reply, but let those words drift inside his skull for a
while. Neither of them spoke on the long walk out of High Town. He figured they both had enough to occupy their minds. Gods knew he did. The
thing in the cellar prowled through his mind like a bad dream. What the
hell was it, and why did it keep appearing to him? More important, how
could he get rid of it? The questions dogged him all the way back across
the Processional.

Caim smelled trouble before they reached the Gutters. It smelled like
smoke, and blood. A commotion stirred in the streets ahead. He pushed
ahead of Josey as a throng of men poured out of a side street. Brandishing
lanterns and makeshift weapons, they vanished down another lane. Their
shouts echoed off the house fronts and rose into the night.

"Death to the prelate!"

"Swords rise for freedom!"

The crowd took up the chant as they marched off into the night. Caim
started forward, but Josey dragged him to a stop. "What if we went to the
palace instead?"

"Are you crazy?"

"If I announce myself, who I am, the people may rally behind my
claim. A lot of bloodshed could be avoided."

"Or you might be seized and bundled away before anyone hears your
claim. It's suicide. Look, you said it yourself. The ones in power don't play by any rules but their own. We've got to be smart about this. I don't know
much about politics, but even if the prelate and the Elector Council
vanish overnight, someone else will seize the reins. And they aren't likely
to hand them over to anyone without a fight."

She tapped her chin with a chipped fingernail, but didn't argue. For
that, he was infinitely thankful. He didn't have the energy for any more
fighting tonight. He just wanted to get home and crash in his own bed
for a few hours. Everything would look different in the morning.

They turned off Hooper Street and halted in their tracks. The end of
the block was engulfed in an inferno. Towering flames licked at the night
sky and cast off swarms of burning cinders. Maybe they had come down
the wrong street. He searched for landmarks. No, this was it.

"Is that ... ?" Josey asked.

"Yes."

His apartment building was burning down.

A crowd of people milled about in front and watched the conflagration. Some sobbed; others stood enraptured as the towering flames licked
at the underbelly of the night sky. A firefighting brigade was on the scene,
but their efforts, though valiant, were useless. Unable to stop the blaze,
they concentrated on keeping the fire contained.

Calm's fists quivered. This wasn't an accident. Even though the
rickety building had been a disaster waiting to happen, the timing was
too convenient. This was a message aimed at him.
We know where you live,
and we can reach you any time we want.

He wanted to stab someone, to fight something tangible. Instead, he
stood with the rest and watched the immolation of the place he had called
home for the past three years. He glanced at the faces reflected in the firelight. It had been a mistake to come here. Just like the mansion. Their
enemies were a step ahead of them, looming at the end of every path they
took. He had to do something unexpected, change his patterns. Otherwise, sooner or later, he was going to get them both killed.

Then he saw her.

The little girl sat at the edge of the crowd, her thin legs drawn up
under her tattered smock of a dress. Tears carved pale lines down the mask
of soot and grime plastering her delicate features. By her feet, a heap of
charred corpses were stacked under a grubby tarp like so much cordwood.

A man stumbled out of the crowd. Unshaven, bloated, bleary-eyed, he
staggered over to the girl. With a snarl, he grabbed her by the arm and
yanked her upright. Her father, her uncle, her mother's pimp-it didn't
matter. Something unhinged inside Caim. He crossed the distance in
three strides. An open-handed blow to the wrist broke the man's grip on
the child; a clout above the ear with a knife pommel put him down. Some
people in the crowd turned to watch, but Caim didn't care. Ignoring the
pain in his side, he bent over the fallen man and put the point of the blade
to his throat.

The hand holding the knife quivered, just a little, but to
Caim it was
like the tremor of an earthquake. His emotions were raging out of control. He wanted to kill so badly he could do it without thinking, without
caring.

A pair of small arms tugged at his leg. Caim looked down into a pair
of wide brown eyes, and he remembered the night, long ago, when he had
watched his father die.

Go ahead, hero. Destroy her world, too.

He put away his knives and picked her up. She squirmed for a
moment, but then buried her face into his shoulder with a shudder.

"Shhhh," he whispered. "It's over."

Josey waited for him at the end of the lot. She didn't say anything as
he carried the child away from the burning building. Together they
walked the narrow streets of Low Town, three ghosts alone in the night.

aim drew the
suete
blade across the smooth river stone. Steel
whispered along the grains of the stone, turned over, and came
back in the opposite direction. When the edge shimmered like foxfire
over the moors on a cool summer evening, he put it away and started on
the other knife.

The girl's name was Angela. She sat at a table in Madam Sanya's
kitchen, fast asleep beside a half-empty bowl of apple slices and clotted
cream. Cleaned up and wearing a fresh smock, she looked a damned sight
better than the waif they had found outside his ruined apartment
building.

Madam Sanya crossed the kitchen in her nightgown to hand him a
cup of warm tea. "Sure, she's welcome to stay here, Caim. It's no bother.
I've had a gaggle of little ones running through this house before, and our
business being what it is, I gather I'll see more before they put me in the
ground. That is, if I can stay in business."

Caim accept the cup with a nod. "Getting bad?"

"As bad as I've ever seen. Parnipos came by today with news. Seems
some citizens tried to stop a band of Flagellants from burning down a tavern
on Rye Street. Just everyday folk, but they had the Beaters hemmed in tight
until the Brotherhood arrived. Fourteen dead, all told. The bells on Septon's
Chapel have been ringing all afternoon, and now there's talk that the holy
prelate has died, God rest his soul." She drew a circle over her breast. "We've
gotten more people at the door looking for a safe place to hide than actual
customers these past few days, but things will look up."

Caim reached into his tunic and took out a leather purse. It was the
last of his money. The rest had been hidden in the floors and walls of his
apartment.

"This is for taking in the girl. See that she gets some learning. And I
don't want her working a room here, Sanya. Not ever. I'll have your word
on that or I'll take her somewhere else."

Madam Sanya made the purse disappear inside the folds of her gown.
"I promise. She can fetch and cook until she's old enough for schooling. I
know just the right teacher. He's retired from the university, a real scholar
and a gentleman. No, she'll be fine as a spring rain, but what about you
two? Need to borrow Kira's room for a while longer?"

Caim looked over at Josey, sitting across from Angela with her head
nestled in her arms. She looked almost like a child herself, despite the
blood and soot marring her borrowed clothes.

"No," he said. "It isn't safe here, for us or you. We'll be moving on."

Madam Sanya observed him over the rim of her cup. "By the way you
speak, doesn't sound like you intend to be back."

"You never can tell, can you?"

Caim went over to Josey and woke her with a gentle nudge. She
looked up with squinty eyes. "Hmm?"

"It's time to go."

Madam Sanya gave them each a hearty embrace before they shuffled
out the back door. Outside, the deep purple of night's final hour lightened
into the faint glow of dawn. Umber streaks etched the sky, forecasting
poor weather ahead.

Caim led Josey out the fence door and down the narrow alley behind
the brothel. Their situation was bleak, to say the least. They couldn't trust
anyone now, couldn't go anyplace he normally frequented. Not even his
secret bolt holes in dives across the city were safe. He was known
throughout the underworld, and his passage would go noticed. Disguises
wouldn't hide them forever, not as long as they stayed in the city. The
only thing left was to leave.

It wasn't an easy decision. Josey opposed it, of course.
Caim put himself in her position and understood why. This was her home, all she had
known since she was a little girl. But he had to rely on his instincts, and
they screamed that as long as Josey remained in Othir, she was sitting in
the jaws of a bear trap, just one ill-fated moment away from being
snapped up. So he was taking her to the only place in the world he
thought she'd be safe.

Josey started to shake off her drowsiness as they paused outside a
chandlery on Fafstall Lane. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

Caim peered down the street. Folks would be rising soon. He didn't
want anyone remarking on two people seen hurrying through the
predawn streets.

"No," he said. "But it's what your fathers would have wanted. Both of
them."

"We'll return as soon as it's safe, right?"

"Sure." He let it go at that. Would it ever be safe in this city again?
"Come on."

They stole across the street and down another alley. As they came
around the next corner, they almost walked into a desperate melee. The
ancient walls and cul-de-sacs of Low Town sometimes played tricks with
noises. Caim didn't hear the fighting until they were upon it. In the
middle of a crowded street, a score of militiamen, rural conscripts by their
mismatched brown coats and crude wooden pikes, struggled to hold off a
mob. Angry cries on both sides were punctuated by the clash of arms.
Blue scarves dotted the crowd, but Caim didn't see anyone he knew. He
drew Josey away.

Four blocks eastward, she grasped his wrist as the cemetery's dingy
walls appeared from the night fog. The stonework was cracked and pitted
like old cheese, caked with clumps of moss and climbing vines. Fallen
chunks of masonry were scattered about. Wrought-iron spikes, now
rusted and bent, lined the top. Once, there had been a contingent of
watchmen assigned to protect the final resting spot of Othir's citizenry,
but it had been deemed a waste of resources.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

He nodded to the gate, slouched in its crumbling hinges. "This is our
way out. Trust me?"

She pulled herself up straight and nodded.
Caim opened the corroded
lock with a quick twist of a knife point, and grimaced as he heard a snap.
The hinges squeaked as he shoved it open. He ushered Josey inside, then
shut the gate behind them. There was nothing for the lock; it was busted
well and good. How long before someone noticed that?
Maybe were the
only ones out here tonight. Sure.