Douglas Hulick - Among Thieves

I sat up a little straighter and worked the kinks from my shoulders. My mind was settled, my pulse was steady, and my eyes were sharp once more.

I shook the bag around my neck before slipping it back under my shirt. Only a few seeds left. I’d have to restock soon.

We settled back and waited. I thought I heard a few more screams, but the city was coming alive by then and the yells seemed softer than before, so it was hard to tell.

One of Shatters’s men came out to get me just as the ahrami was starting to wear off. By the time I made it back into the warehouse and stood at the Agonyman’s side, the rush had faded completely, leaving me in a less than charitable mood.

“Well?” I said.

Shatters was rinsing his hands and forearms in a large bucket of water that had been set atop a crate. “Gotcher name.”

“And?” I said.

“Amazing how good this feels after a long night,” he said, nodding toward the water. “Ya get warm, working on a man that long.” Shatters glanced at me sideways. “Makes you appreciate the simple things, you know?”

I stayed silent. I suspected I knew where this was going, but I wanted to let him get there on his own.

“Like hawks,” said Shatters. “Hawks are simple things.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “You want something, you give a person hawks and he gives it to ya. The more you want it, the more money you give him.”

I nodded. This was going where I had thought it would: Shatters was trying to shake me down.

“Pretty simple,” I said. “Except we already agreed on a price.”

Shatters paused as he leaned over the bucket. I noticed that the water had taken on a reddish tint. “This took longer than I expected,” he said flatly. “I figure if something takes that long to get, it’s worth a higher price. A man don’t hold out like Athel did for sheer stubbornness.” He ran a finger through the water. “You want to hear what he had to say, you’ll hatch some more hawks.”

“Or?”

“Or he won’t be telling no one nothing ever again, and the name walks with me.”

“I see.”

Shatters grinned. “Smart lad.” He bent down to rinse his face.

“Smart,” I agreed as I grabbed the back of his neck and shoved his head down into the water. I shifted my weight to keep him there, steadying the bucket with my other hand as he struggled.

As a rule, I don’t mind renegotiating-hell, it’s part of doing business with people like Shatters. Kin are always trying to line their pockets with a few extra hawks. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The right way involves respect and a little give and take from both sides; the wrong way usually involves demanding more money “or else.” Unless I’m the one offering it, I hate “or else.”

Even underwater, Shatters was loud. His assistants came running. I barely glanced up as they came into sight.

“First one of you raises a hand goes dustmans,” I said. They both skidded to a stop, torn between my threat to kill them and their duty to their master. They eyed me, Shatters, and each other in turn.

I knew I had them the moment they hesitated. “Fade,” I said. Still, they stood there. I looked up from Shatters’s flailing and met the larger man’s eyes. “What are you, a couple of Eriffs? Don’t you know who I am? I said, fade!”

The larger man ducked his head and turned away. The smaller one paused and eyed the distance between us, considering. I showed my teeth.

“Come on, pup. Try me.”

He left.

Shatters’s struggles had begun to weaken by then. I raised his head out of the water long enough for him to get half a breath, then shoved it back under. Pause, repeat, and again. Near the end of the fourth dunking, I let go and stepped away.

Shatters fell sideways with his head still in the bucket, spilling water over himself and the floor. He lay there, coughing violently, his body convulsing with the effort. I knelt down and relieved him of his dagger as he vomited up water and bile.

“The name,” I said when he was done.

Shatters spit. “Screw,” he said.

“That’s not a name,” I said. I stood and pushed his face into his own vomit with my foot, crushing his nose against the floor in the process. “Try again.”

Shatters gagged and tried to wrench his head up. I let him after a moment.

“Ioclaudia,” he gasped. “The name’s Ioclaudia.”

I arched an eyebrow. It was an old-fashioned name; certainly one I wasn’t familiar with on the street. “Who is…?” I asked.

Shatters started on another coughing fit. I nudged him with the toe of my boot.

“Who is?”

“Don’t know. Athel wouldn’t say.”

“What’s her connection with Athel? Was she his buyer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Where is she?”

Shatters shook his head.

“What about the reliquary?” I said. “Did you find out where it is?”

Shatters was rising to his hands and knees now, arms trembling but getting stronger every moment. “All he said was he needed to make some kind of swap. It sounded as if it came up suddenlike.”

“And he used my reliquary?”

Shatters nodded.

Bastard. “What did he swap it for?”

“How the hell should I know?” Anger had found its way back into his voice. “Shit,” he said, looking up at me. “You little shit. Do you know what my brothers will do to you for this?”

I reached out and put his own dagger against his cheek. Shatters froze, staring at the steel. It was sharp; a rivulet of blood appeared without any effort on my part.

“Don’t even think about making this personal,” I said. “You tried to shake me down, and I called you on it. It’s business. It’s over.” I moved the blade down, letting it linger beside his neck. “But if you insist on bringing in your fellow Agonymen, not only will I take it poorly, but Nicco probably won’t be too pleased, either. And I know you don’t want him mad at you.”

Shatters paled at the mention of Nicco’s name. Niccodemus Alludrus was well-known for his temper, especially when he thought he was being crossed. Trying to cheat me was not automatically the same as trying to cross Nicco, but there were times when the lines between his and my interests blurred. This wasn’t one of them, but I wasn’t about to let Shatters know that.

“Do we have an understanding?” I said. Shatters nodded his head as gently as he could, given the dagger at his throat.

“Good.” I withdrew the blade and turned away, leaving Shatters to gather himself while I went to see Athel the Grinner.

If I had had any second thoughts about treating Shatters roughly, they vanished as soon as I saw what was left of the Grinner. The Agonyman and his boys had moved on from Athel’s hands and feet after I’d left; now, there was precious little left on the smuggler that was not torn, cut, or mutilated in some way. Just seeing him hurt. Worst of all, he was still conscious… and looking at me.

I kept my bile down, not for Athel’s sake, but because I wasn’t about to give Shatters the satisfaction. I took a deep breath, ran a hand down my mustache and goatee, and stepped over to the barrel.

Athel’s breathing was ragged and wet sounding. One eye was swollen shut, but the other managed to keep me in sight as I came up beside him. I expected hatred there, or anger, or madness-anything but what I seemed to see: calm. Not the false serenity brought on by shock, or the stillness of exhaustion, but a quiet, almost-composed ease. I felt myself shudder beneath that placid gaze.

Athel the Grinner, I realized as I met his eye, was done. There was nothing more we could do to make him talk; nothing left he was willing to tell us before he died. Letting Ioclaudia’s name out had probably been an accident, or a gift, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again-his gaze told me as much.