Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

Jennifer realised she was panting, barely sucking in enough air to keep her vision in focus. Steven interrupted with a whisper. ‘Praga.’

‘Prague? Did you say Prague?’ She needed him conscious now, and shook him roughly. ‘Shitty guess; her passport is upstairs.’

‘Not Prague.’ Steven looked like a cadaver, his cheeks sunk in and his eyes staring at points in the distance. ‘Praga – I have been trying for two months to get to her – I need your help.’

Jennifer began to soften as the hope, locked in her mind in an iron strongbox, began clawing its way out. Her hands shaking with adrenalin, she gripped Steven’s collar and heaved the young man’s face up until it was inches from her own. Shaking all over now, she warned him, ‘If you are lying to me, I promise you months of unholy agony before you die, Steven Taylor.’

‘We have three hours,’ Steven said, his eyes finally focusing on hers with surprising clarity.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Three hours and I’ll go get her.’

Brexan stumbled, toppling a stack of wooden crates with a clatter she was certain could be heard over the Blackstones. ‘Mother of a cloven-hoofed whore-’ Her curses would have embarrassed a docker, but she cut herself short as she lost sight of Jacrys. She was tired, dehydrated, and quite unable to keep up with the indefatigable Malakasian spy. ‘Drank too rutting much last night, you fool,’ she said softly. ‘What were you thinking?’

Brexan had been chiding herself all day for the embarrassing lack of control, not just the drinking, but the casual, if unmemorable, sex. She was still dehydrated after vomiting up her breakfast, and it was making her joints ache and her head feel as though it had been cracked by a passing blacksmith. Several times she had been convinced the spy had detected her as she tracked his circuitous path through the city, but Jacrys had continued on his way, talking with locals and peering into windows. He had eaten some fruit and a piece of dried meat with another small loaf of bread during the midday aven. Brexan, still unable to eat, had taken advantage of the break to guzzle a beer and a mug of water in a tavern across the street.

An aven later, that had been a mistake. The alcohol had made her sleepy and nearly bursting with a need to relieve herself. When Jacrys had stopped to engage in an animated discussion with a stevedore, Brexan had sneaked behind a row of juniper bushes, hastily hiked her new skirt above her thighs and pissed. She ignored the puddle of acrid fluid with a sigh and an embarrassed shake of her head.

She needed rest, food and then more rest, and unless Jacrys stopped soon for the night, she would be forced to abandon her surveillance and attempt to find the traitorous murderer the following day. ‘Why don’t you go back to your inn?’ she muttered. ‘Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you want to take a break for food? It’s well past the dinner aven now. Don’t you want to sit for a while? Maybe a day or two?’

Two small boys with dirty faces, soiled tunics and irretrievably black fingernails passed her, carrying an old chainball between them, but they stopped long enough to take a wide-eyed look at the odd woman talking aloud to no one.

‘There’s nobody there, lady,’ one of the youngsters said in a small but amused voice.

Brexan whirled on them. ‘Yes, you wretched little rutters. I am a full-gone lunatic with a cracking nasty headache and a tendency to talk out loud to phantoms right before I kidnap, kill, cook and eat annoying little boys!’

The two children screamed and ran, their chainball forgotten, as fast as they could to get away from the homicidal woman with the drawn face and the deathly-pale skin.

Brexan winced at their cries, whispering, ‘Yes. That’s grand. Alert the entire city.’

Hustling along the side street, she was careful not to make any additional noise but assumed, for the fourth or fifth time that day, that she had already created such a clamour that Jacrys would be waiting for her at the next corner, knife drawn and ready to pierce her ribs – but when she reached the main thoroughfare, the well-dressed man was working his way along the river towards a tavern near the waterfront, apparently oblivious to the racket. Jacrys paused at the tavern door and looked left then right, as though the person or people for whom he had been searching all day would somehow appear, then gave up and entered the inn with a dismissive shrug.

‘Thank the gods,’ Brexan said. ‘Have five courses, six if you want them. I’ll pay. Just give me a few moments to catch my breath and get some water.’ There was an alehouse conveniently across the way; with any luck she could get a table near the window so she could keep a close watch on the main boulevard while choking down a hasty dinner and drinking an ocean of cold water.

She crossed the street, pausing to allow a mule-drawn wagon to pass, then fell in behind the cart before stepping onto the plank walkway lining the muddy road that wound its way to the northern wharf. She stopped long enough to stomp the mud from her boots and checked angles of sight from the various windows in the alehouse; she didn’t want to lose Jacrys if he were only visiting the tavern to ask more questions. Worried he might slip past her in the darkness, Brexan decided to look around for a better place to sit, one without an obstructed view of the waterfront.

She rounded the corner and disappeared into the darkness of the alley, but she had not taken five steps before she sensed another presence: someone backed against the wall to her left. Something was wrong. She took one or two awkward, lunging steps back towards the main street before feeling a hand clamp down on her shoulder and then around her throat. Brexan strained against the grip until she lost her balance and then the stranger heaved her off her feet and slammed her into the alehouse wall.

The force of the blow knocked the air from her lungs and Brexan, too weak to fight back now, gasped for air and looked longingly towards the relative safety of the waterfront boulevard. The grip on her throat made regaining her breath all the more difficult. Light streaming through the alehouse windows was only a few paces away, but it might as well have been a Moon’s ride, for the alley darkness had swallowed them.

‘Tell me who you are and do not lie. I have some respect for spies, even hideously inadequate spies like you, but I have no patience for liars. So be quick about it and don’t lie, because I will know.’ The man’s voice was difficult to hear over the rushing blood and raspy inhalations echoing in Brexan’s head, but she knew who it was. Well, you knew you had been too rutting noisy, you stupid fool, she thought, disgusted with herself.

Her vision tunnelled as consciousness closed in, then she regained control. Her vision was blurry, but she could see the cut of his cloak, the broad shoulders, the frilly edge sewn onto his hood and the white lace collar. He was a good dresser. ‘I’m-’ Brexan coughed and spat in an effort to draw breath, but the spy didn’t seem to care that her spittle dribbled across her chin and dripped onto his wrist.

‘You’re…?’ he prompted, loosening his grip just enough for Brexan to wheeze audibly.

‘My name-’ She took quick breaths; they were coming somewhat easier now. She forced herself to make eye contact with the Malakasian killer, knowing if she looked him in the face, he would be prone to believe what she said. ‘My name is Brexan. I was sent here by General Oaklen to-’

‘To what?’ Jacrys asked, his dirk drawn now and pressed against her ribs. Brexan could feel its tip against the bruise where the scarred Seron had elbowed her.

To what? To what? To what, you idiot, a Malakasian general sent you here to do what?