Rain on her coat, soaking through her sleeves and making the leather stick to her forearms. Sick rain. Damaging. Not refreshing, not life-giving like the rain that fell on the deserts of Lormian. This entire world was wet with infection and felt like it was dissolving under her feet. Therazine drew her hands into her sopping sleeves just to stay as free from the rain as she could.
Vexxer was running his hands under a drains-pout and splashing the filthy water into his face to wash the flecks of blood from his skin. He didn’t appear bothered by the rainwater.
Therazine was leaning against a stone wall, watching down the street. There were no people out now. Not this late. The neon signs were still switched on, blaring their pinks and yellows through the haze, but the lights of apartment were few and far between. A line of rats was running across the road.
Vexxer through his head back with an exhalation. He stared with his eyes closed up into the rain.
“That shit’s poisonous, you know,” Therazine said.
Vexxer turned to her. “What? The rain?”
“It falls from unclean clouds. Drags all of the venom and smoke out of the air and delivers it back down to this city. The sky refuses to accept the harm we do to it.”
“Awfully poetic, coming from you.”
“Don’t splash that shit into your face.”
“Don’t have a whole lot of options, Thera. This is the water we got. Not quite as fresh as Lormian rains, I take it?”
Therazine shot him a look. “What?”
Vexxer cocked his head. “What?”
“I never told you I relocated to Lormian.”
“Your wanted poster.”
“Right.” Therazine grimaced and looked back out into the street. The line of rats had disappeared back into the sewers, or had snuck into an apartment building and were traveling up out of the rain. “We need to get off the streets.”
Vexxer walked up and leaned against the wall next to her. “Maybe not another bar so soon.”
“No. Let’s go back to Maddy’s. Maybe she’s got a gun ready for me.”
Vexxer didn’t object, and when Therazine turned to look at her she saw his eyes were wide and watery, staring at her with concern.
Therazine inched away from him. “What?”
“Thera, you almost shot a man back there, and it broke you.”
“It didn’t break me,” she said. “It’s just been a while.”
“You didn’t look out of practice to me. You would have killed that guy if not for... you almost killed him. Skill wasn’t the issue. But then you broke.”
“I didn’t break.”
“You fell to your knees and started crying about your dead—”
Therazine stepped up to him, adrenaline suddenly up and heart pounding hard. Vexxer put up his hands defensively.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I know what I’m doing, Vexxer. I don’t need you to hold my hand through this. Do you think I’m not capable of killing anymore? Is that it?”
“No, not at all. That’s not what I’m saying. You seem just as comfortable as you always have.”
Therazine’s stomach turned. No, he was wrong. She’d changed in the last few years. She hated this world. Hated the people, hated the culture, hated what it reminded her of. She wasn’t a killer—not anymore. So why was she defending herself from his accusations? Why couldn’t she just admit to him that he was right, that she had a problem?
She wasn’t comfortable. Not with any of this. She shouldn’t be there standing in the rain with Vexxer Roz talking about killing. She should be at home, on her ranch. With Kohl and the boys.
“Let’s go,” she said, and turned from him.
“Thera. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
She marched onto the path, back down the alleyways that led to Ivy Street. She avoided the dark puddles in the depressions of the cobblestone and concrete, especially where no rain fell. Windows were barred. Doorways were barricaded, and occasionally marked with blue drawings indicating that they were warded by the Order of Prevalistics. The black waters that ran below the street trickled up from the sewers and infected people’s bodies, and the doctrine of the church bled down from the high towers and infected their minds. This city was being corrupted from above and below—just as it had been ten years ago. Therazine saw the signs of degredation and decadence as they consumed this world, and she tried to focus on them. Closed-down soup kitchens and newly established brothels. More shadowed foot-traffic and yet fewer faces and voices. Ancient statues slowly being devoured by the ever-present and ever-increasing acid rain. Laminated posters put up by the Order praising piety and decrying individual thought. The decrease in the presence of the Constabulary and the increase in the presence of government gangers. She needed to keep her attention her—on her rage, and not her sorrow.
They reached Madeline Rhines’ House of Clocks as the rain broke. It continued to come down, but it let up somewhat, letting Therazine’s thoughts return as the pounding of rain diminished. Maddy’s lights were out. Therazine walked up her stoup and knocked.
“Were you trying to keep Lormian from me?” Vexxer said behind her.
“I’m trying to keep as much as I can from you.”
Vexxer paused. “Why?”
Therazine ground her teeth. That had hurt him. She’d meant it to, but after the comment landed she regretted it immediately. Vexxer was only trying to help her, to be there for her. But he couldn’t. She couldn’t let him.
She knocked again. “Maddy,” she called. She tried the doorknob, and was surprised to find it open. She pushed the door and it slid open gently, creaking. Light from the street crept in, outlining the shelves and counters. A soft ticking came from within.
Vexxer stepped up closer, into the doorway. “Ms. Rhines?”
Therazine walked in, cautious. One hand stuck out before her to catch any onjects in the darkness, the other hovered above her hip in an instinctive gesture. After Vexxer crossed the threshold, a voice came from the darkness.
“Close it.”
Therazine turned towards Maddy’s voice. She saw, dimly, a person sitting behind the counter in the gloom. Therazine straightened. Vexxer closed the door.
“Just sitting around in the dark?” Therazine asked.
“Waiting for you.”
Therazine let out a breath. She didn’t like this. “I thought you were fixing up a gun for me?”
“The weapon’s done,” Maddy said. “It’s upstairs. I’ll get it.”
“Okay.”
“But first we need to talk, Husk.”
A shot of anger straight to her gut, of shame. Therazine bit her tongue. Part of her wondered if Maddy had a gun in her hand right now. “Turn on a light, then.”
She heard the sound of a chain switch being pulled, and the small desk lamp on the counter came on. Ruddy light flooded out from under its shade. Maddy sat behind the counter in an alluminum fold-out chair, leaning forward on the countertop. She was still in the clothes they had seen her in earlier, but no eyepatch. Maddy’s face was dominated by the reddish, shadowed depression under her broken brow ridge. It wasn’t the empty socket itself that drew the attention, though—it was the glossy patch of flesh that surrounded it. The scars threaded across her face like a poor weaving, like it had been burned off and she had frantically tried to pull undamaged skin back across the wound. Therazine remembered taking that eye. She’d had little choice in the matter, but she could still see the spray of bone and gore as Madeline Rhines’ eye exploded out of the side of her head.
“Did you find anything out there?” Maddy asked.
Therazine looked Maddy up and down. She was unarmed, but she was shaken by something. She hadn’t been down here all night. The tallycounter wasn’t anywhere nearby.
Maddy looked past Therazine at Vexxer, barely acknowledging him.
“Let’s get that gun,” she said.
Maddy locked the front door and then took them upstairs. The small room was the same as before. None of the trunks were opened, and Therazine could only assume their contents hadn’t been touched. The workbenches were still cluttered and unlit. She looked to the large rifle that was sitting under the window. Therazine had noticed a harmonica clip leaning against it precariously before she had left—the clip was still in that same spot. Nothing in the room had been obviously touched.
“What have you been doing for the last few hours?” Therazine asked.
Maddy stopped in front of the large steel door that led to what Therazine had assumed to be her firing range. Maddy produced a key and unlocked the door.
“I had visitors,” she said.
Therazine stopped. Vexxer stopped with her.
“Here?”
“Obviously,” Maddy said, throwing open the bolt.
“Who?” Therazine said.
“My landlord. And his friends.”
“Why?”
Maddy looked back as she slid open the door, glaring with one eye. “I took care of my rent.”
Therazine took a step back, touching Vexxer’s thigh right where his Darnull was holstered. She felt his hand come down and grab the butt of his gun.
“Maddy,” Therazine said. “What did you do?”
The room beyond Maddy was cold and dark. Therazine could smell gunpowder and lead. Maddy stepped in and pulled a chain that hung from the ceiling. A fluorescent lamp hummed to life, illuminating the firing range.
“I found you a lead, Husk.”
Therazine shook her head slowly. She tapped Vexxer’s leg again, and he unbuttoned his holster with a light snap.
“Tell me what you told them,” she demanded.
“Very little,” Maddy said. “But… enough. You can’t utilize your old resources within the Bloodletters Society. Not without letting them know you’re here. And you certainly don’t want that. So I’ve arranged for you to have a meeting with the local Deputy Administrator—”
Therazine went through her mental database. The Deputy Administrator was second in line for the position of Magistrate in the event of the Magistrate’s death or sudden resignation, after the Administrator. She dug up a name: Patrick Kettle. Deputy Administrator Patrick Kettle of West Celedin, if nothing had changed in the last ten years. Try as she might, she could not place a face to the name.
“—assuming you do something for him.”
“No.”
“Don’t be shitty,” Maddy said. “I haven’t told you what it is.”
“I know where this is going,” Therazine said, “and I won’t kill someone to pay for your bills.”
Maddy shook her head. “That’s already taken care of. You’re being obtuse. I only told them I’d pass on this offer to you—then my end of the deal is taken care of. Whether or not you actually do it is none of my concern.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that?”
Maddy frowned, and placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t give a shit what you believe. But I know that you didn’t find anything useful out in the streets. I know that you’re lost in a world you no longer recognize—”
“I know this city better than you do.”
“Do not interupt me again,” Maddy said. “Do not.”
Therazine stood tall, her shoulder blades pushing into Vexxer chest. She knew he had released his grip on the gun. He’d sensed that whatever danger might have been present was gone now. Therazine stared into Maddy’s eye and stayed quiet, waiting for the other woman to continue.
Maddy growled in the back of her throat. “You’re looking to murder someone big, and I found you a way to maybe get close to that big someone by murdering someone small. I’m fucking helping you, despite all of my soul telling me otherwise. Don’t you spit on me.”
“You’re only helping yourself. You’re selling me to get the local slumlord off your back.”
“Fuck you. If I came to you asking for help with finding materials for a new gun, and you told me that in order to get those materials that I first had to make a gun for someone else with the tools I already have? There’s no question there. It’s utilizing my talents to further my career. You’re a murderer. That’s what you do. Don’t act like I’ve done something reprehensible and you haven’t.”
Therazine shook her head. “I’m not a killer.”
Maddy laughed—a dry sound free of mirth. “That’s right. I forgot. You’re a housewife now. A mother bound to the kitchen and the house. Tell me: do you let your husband fuck you while you cook for him? Or do you make him rub your feet first?”
Therazine lunged at her, but Vexxer’s big hands grabbed her shoulders and drew her back. She struggled against him, but only for a second. Her fingers curled into fists and she forced her body to relax. Maddy was grinning.
“We’ll do it,” Vexxer said.
Therazine looked up at him. “No.”
“Yes, we will,” he said. “We don’t have any other leads. No connections, no resources. And Ms. Rhines is right: we have skills, Thera. Skills that people need. If we leverage those skills, we can get what we need and move on with this job. That’ll be the end of it. Done all the quicker.”
“I won’t kill a man for information.”
“But you’ll do it for money,” Maddy said.
Therazine thrashed in Vexxer grasp. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea why I’m doing this.”
“I’m sure your reasons for killing the Emperor are sublimely heroic.”
“Stop,” Vexxer said. He addressed the room, not either of the women in particular. “Please. Just stop. This is what’s best for all of us. Let’s accept that. Let’s move forward.”
Maddy nodded to Vexxer. “He understands. Listen to your man.”
Therazine wanted to shout at her, to rush her and tear out her other eye. She hated being constrained like this—both physically by Vexxer and in regards to her options. No one should decide her fate. Her life was her own, to ruin or to empower.
“Let go of me,” she said in a low voice.
Vexxer did so immediately, and Therazine felt her limbs slackened. Her blood cooled just a little bit, and she breathed in deep.
“Fine,” she said. “Tell us what this job is.”
Somehow in those last few minutes Maddy had scooped up her little silver tally counter again. She clicked it once. Therazine could feel that in her bones.
“It’s simple enough,” Maddy said. “Patrick Kettle is up for reelection this year. The polls show that his numbers are down, because he’s a piece of shit. He wants his competition eliminated. A man named Anton Carlaca.”
Therazine could feel her mind already running through plans, and it made her sick.
“Why is this other guy leading the polls?”
“Does that matter?”
“No.”
“He wants this Carlaca dead. That’s all you should care about. He wants him dead, and he wants it obvious he was killed. Wants a message to be sent to anyone else who might think about running against him in this cycle. Don’t give me that look. It’s not like you haven’t done this exact same thing before.”
Therazine looked away. That was true. Many, if not most, of the contracts that were offered to the Bloodletter Society were political killings. Assassins were just tools that men used to further gild their own crowns.
“I haven’t heard of Carlaca,” Vexxer said.
“He’s never run before,” Maddy said. “Local Ivy Street boy. Kettle’s son says he’s running on a platform of reformation and ‘hope.’ Whatever that means.”
It was suddenly cold. Therazine closed her eyes and held back a small whimper. Maddy had used the word ‘boy.’ It occurred to her that she might be agreeing to kill someone else’s Bren. Who was she fooling? Of course she was killing another woman’s son. All men are some mother’s son. How many cherished baby boys had she killed in the past? How many mothers had she left mortally childless? Even MonDozer’s sons, as wicked as they were, were the children of one or more of MonDozer’s dozens of wives.
That thought brought her back a little. Wallace MonDozer had been a child at one point, yes, but at the time she killed him he was a murdering bastard and nothing more. As people grow they are no longer pitiable children. As they commit evil they lose their innocence. For all she knew, this Anton Carlaca was just as rotten as Wallace had been.
And here she was—already justifying the murder of a man she did not even know. She bit the inside of her lip until it bled. She saw Vexxer reaching out to touch her shoulder in compassion, and she wriggled away. She stood up straight and stared at Maddy.
“The gun,” she said.
“Ah, yes,” Maddy said. “The surgeon needs her tools to work, doesn’t she?” Maddy stepped into the firing range. The sickly white glow from the fluorescent lamp made her clothes look dirtier, made the skin of her shaved scalp seem flaky and unwashed. It illuminated the fresh bruise under Maddy’s right eye.
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