Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (31 page)

And yet.

Your job is to catch the killer. But is it not also to protect the weak?
His hand drifted toward the butt of his gun, as if in answer. Cursing himself for a fool, he lurched forward.

The sudden movement saved his life.

Something brushed the back of his shoulder. Lenoir spun and found himself face-to-face with the man in the sketch. The sailor had been reaching for him with one hand, a knife clutched in the other, ready to ram the blade into Lenoir’s back.
A straight blade,
some part of him registered. The man lunged.

Lenoir leapt back and drew his gun, but his attacker was ready, dropping the knife and pulling a pistol of his
own in one fluid motion. Both hammers clicked back at the same moment. Lenoir and his attacker stood eye to eye, barrel to barrel.

The sun vanished behind the rooftops, plunging the street into shadow.
Another day dies,
Lenoir thought.
A bloody day.

And it seemed the blood was not yet done.

L
enoir had heard of standoffs like this, but he had never experienced one for himself. There was no way he would get the drop on this man. The sailor outweighed him by at least twenty pounds, and there was a wild glint in his eye, like that of an animal cornered. It was impossible to know which of them had better aim, which of them had taken more lives, but the odds did not tilt in Lenoir’s favor.

So what now?

Bereft of any better ideas, Lenoir started talking.

“You are a hard man to find.”

“So are you. Lately, anyway.” The hand holding the gun had a slight tremor. Fear or excitement? Lenoir could not tell.

“I did not realize you were looking for me. Worried I was getting too close?”

The man hitched a shoulder. The gesture was meant to look indifferent. It did not quite get there. “I wouldn’t call it worried, but it’s become inconvenient.
You’ve
become inconvenient.”

“The woman at the end of the street,” Lenoir said. “Your doing?”

“Your partner is a big bloke. Didn’t fancy taking you both at a time.” He flashed a thin smile. “Clever, right?”

“In a common sort of way, perhaps. But being clever is not really your role in all of this, is it? You are the muscle. The plague, the miracle tonic . . . those were not your ideas.”

“What do you know about it? Think I’m not smart enough?” The man flicked the barrel of his gun irritably. “You know nothing about me, hound.”

Are you trying to get yourself killed, Lenoir?
There was little to be gained in antagonizing the man. Yet Lenoir could not resist the opportunity to get some answers at last. “I know you serve on
Fly By Night
. I know you murdered your captain and most of your crew.”

“Not my fault Marsh was stupid. Didn’t have to be that way. He could’ve come in on it. There’s plenty to go around.”

“Oh? From what I have seen, those who were promised a cut of the wealth were lied to.” Lenoir held his breath, hoping. It was possible the man did not know his comrades had been murdered. If the sailor thought he was next, perhaps he might—

“They got a cut all right,” the man said with a smirk, “just not the kind they was counting on.”

Damn.
So much for that idea. “What makes you think you have not been cheated like the rest?”

“Ritter and me go back. Way back. He owes me.”

Ritter.
The name flared in Lenoir’s memory, but for a moment he could not place it. Then he remembered.
Duchess of the Deep.
The former purser of
Serendipity
. The last piece of the puzzle snapped into place. The picture was complete at last.

A pity about the gun in his face.

“So,” he said, “what now?”

“Would’ve thought that was obvious, mate.” The man’s arm leveled out. The tremor was gone.

“If I die, you die.”

“Maybe not. Maybe I’m the better shot.”

“Possible, but irrelevant. Even a blind man could not miss at this range.”

The sailor swallowed, but his arm did not waver. “And if I lower my gun, what then? You’ll shoot me.”

“I will not. You have my word.”

He snorted. “So, what—you’ll just let me go?”

Lenoir debated lying to him, but he sensed the sailor would not believe him anyway. “No, I will not just let you go. I will arrest you.”

“No, thanks.”

Lenoir took a long, steadying breath. If he let his frustration boil over, it would get him killed. “Listen . . . what is your name? Nash?”

The man blinked. “Who told you that?”

“I have an excellent memory when I need to. It comes with the job.”
What made you think of Nash, when I was asking about Ritter?
Lenoir had asked the question at the
Duchess
, moments before the gun went off. He remembered the scene with perfect clarity now that he understood its significance. “It does not matter that I know your name. None of it matters, because it’s over. Surely you can see that.”

“It’s not over.” Nash’s knuckles went white against the butt of his gun.

“Of course it is. Even if you manage to kill me, you gain nothing. We have seized the cargo of
Fly By Night
.”

“Yeah, we know. Must’ve been real proud of yourselves, but it makes no difference to us. We got lots of product.”

“Product that will be worth far less in a matter of hours. We are making our own tonic, you see. Gallons of it, to be distributed for free. Soon, there will be no one to sell to, and no money to be made. It is over.”

“It’s
not
over.” There was a hint of desperation in Nash’s voice. “There’ll be plenty of buyers, more than anyone can satisfy. You think you’ve stopped us? All you’ve done is forced us to move faster.”

“Nash—”

“Shut up, hound. I’m done talking.” The tremor was
back in Nash’s arm. It no longer mattered whether it was fear or excitement; they were equally dangerous now.

Lenoir’s finger twitched on the trigger. If he pulled it, he was dead. If he did not, he was dead. There was no doubt in his mind that Nash was going to fire. Flintlocks were inaccurate and unreliable; there was a chance Lenoir might miss, or that his gun might misfire. Nash obviously preferred to take his chances with the flintlock than find himself in Fort Hald, and Lenoir could not blame him.

Something
clicked
.

For a split second, Lenoir thought it was the tumbler in Nash’s gun releasing. Then a familiar shape strode into his peripheral vision, and he nearly swooned in relief.

“I usually prefer a crossbow, but it doesn’t have that handy noise.” Kody cocked the second barrel of his pistol, illustrating the point. “I wanted to make sure you understood your situation.”

Nash opted for bluster. “Put it down, or he’s dead.”

“Let me help you out with the maths, mate. Between us, the inspector and I have four barrels on you. Unless you’re real talented with that one barrel of yours, you’ve got a problem.”

“It’s over,” Lenoir repeated.

“Put the gun on the ground, nice and gentle,” Kody said. “Then back away.”

Lenoir could see the whites of Nash’s eyes. His lips pressed together. He twitched.

Lenoir fired.

The ball took Nash in the skull, shattering it into a red mist. The body went down like a sack of flour.

“Shit,”
said Lenoir.

Kody frowned down at his boots. “Well that’s just great.”

“We have bigger problems than your boots, Sergeant.”

Kody ignored him; he was too busy wiping the toe of his boot on the underside of a windowsill.

Lenoir knelt beside the body, but he knew it was pointless. Nash was dead before he hit the ground. “We will not be getting anything more from him.”

“You did the right thing, Inspector. He was going to shoot. If you hadn’t pulled the trigger, I would have.” Kody let down the hammers of his pistol and shoved it back in its holster.

Lenoir put his own gun away. “The woman you went after?”

“Took me a minute to figure it out, but every time I got close, they’d round another corner. Seemed a little too convenient, like I was being led on. Then I remembered the shooting at the docks, how it was all a diversion.” Kody gave him a wry look. “It helped that I still had your voice ringing in my ear, telling me to question my instincts. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“No. Coincidence is not irony, though it is commonly mistaken for such.”

Kody rolled his eyes.

“Nash must have paid them.” Lenoir nudged the dead man’s knife with his boot. “He hoped to take me out quietly, then wait for you to come back.”

“Then I’d get a knife in my belly.”

“For you, Sergeant, I think he would have used the gun.”

Kody gave a wan smile. “Wouldn’t have needed to.” He sagged against the wall. “One of the reasons I got suspicious was that I wasn’t running nearly as fast as I wanted to. I couldn’t.”

Lenoir glanced at him. “Can you continue?”

“Are you kidding? When we’re this close? With this one gone, that leaves the Inataari and the man in charge, assuming they’re two different people.”

“They are. The man in charge is Ritter.”

Kody frowned. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“The ex-purser of the
Serendipity
.”

“That’s it. So we’ve been on the right track for a while now.”

“Perhaps, but that is not good enough. Even the name is not good enough, not anymore. We are running out of time.”

“We can get a sketch of him done pretty quickly.”

“It will be dark in an hour. A sketch will do us no good until morning, and besides—the odds of finding him that way are slim. He knows we are onto him.”

“You sure?”

“When I told Nash we had seized the cargo on
Fly By Night
, he said,
We know.
Presumably,
we
includes Ritter.”

Kody sighed. “He could be halfway to Berryvine by now.”

“I don’t think so. I think Ritter is making one last push before he goes into hiding.”

“Oh yeah?” Kody inclined his head at the dead man. “Something he said, I take it?”

“He was convinced there were still more than enough buyers for his product. More than anyone could satisfy, he said.” Lenoir closed his eyes, trying to dredge up every detail of the conversation.
“All you have done is forced us to move faster.”

“What do you suppose he meant by that?”

“
There will be plenty of buyers
, he said. There
will be
.”

“Future tense.” Kody sounded wary now. “That’s odd.”

“Indeed.”

It did not take long for Kody to draw the inevitable conclusion. “Oh, God . . . you don’t think . . .”

Lenoir opened his eyes. Something cold and heavy had settled at the bottom of his stomach. “Why not? He created a market for himself already. Why should he hesitate to expand it? It would be so easy.”

Ritter had been careful the first time. He had chosen the Camp because it would be easier to contain the spread of the disease. After all, it would not do to kill off too many of his prospective customers. Now that he had been discovered, and there was no longer any question of holding on to his monopoly, Ritter had no incentive to show restraint. On the contrary, the more panic he could create, the easier it would be to move his product. And the best way to sow panic is to sow death.

“He is going to seed the city with corpses. Just like he did in the Camp, but with more bodies in more places.”
So easy
 . . . And once it was done, there would be no undoing it. It would take weeks, maybe months, for another shipment of angel wort to arrive. By then, it would be too late. Kennian would fall to the plague, and the rest of the Five Villages with it.
And after that, the neighbors. Sevarra and Kirion, and then Arrènes . . .

Kody was upright now, eyes blazing. “We’ve got to find him. There’s got to be a way.”

Lenoir scanned the horizon, smudged with dusk and the lingering smoke of the great fire. Lights winked on in the distance, streetlamps and lanterns coming alive on hundreds of streets, in thousands of homes, as far as the eye could see, and beyond. Kennian had never seemed so vast.
We don’t even know what he looks like.

For a moment, Lenoir stood paralyzed, overwhelmed with despair. He had come so close to breaking this thing. So close to vindicating his life, to honoring the compact he had made, however unwittingly, with the Darkwalker on a cold autumn night. They had found a cure, had enough stock to keep the plague under control while another shipment made its way across the Grey. Cases outside the Camp were still relatively isolated, and Kennians were staying off the streets. The only people braving the outdoors were medicine salesmen and their desperate clients. That, and the corpse collectors . . .

Lenoir paused.

The corpse collectors.

Masked. Anonymous. And few.

“The station,” Lenoir said, “quickly. Let us hope the chief is back.”

“The chief? How’s he going to help?”

“I’m not sure he can, Sergeant, but we have no choice but to try.”

The fate of an entire city depended on it.

*   *   *

“I will take any spare capacity you have, Chief.”

Reck scowled. “See any
spare capacity
on your way in, Lenoir? Because when I
came in, all I saw was an empty kennel.”

“I need men. Urgently.”

“You and me both. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been having a spot of trouble out there.”

“I know who he is, Chief. The mastermind behind all of this. I can find him, if you just give me the manpower.”

Reck sighed impatiently. “Look, I want to see this bastard hang as much as you do, but I’ve got bigger worries at the moment. I would’ve thought you of all people would understand that.”

“No,
you
don’t understand.” Lenoir slammed his palms down on Reck’s desk, upsetting an ink bottle. “This is not just about catching him. This is about stopping him. If we do not, thousands will die. Tens of thousands.”

Reck stared at him as though he had lost his mind. “Kody, do you want to explain to me what in the flaming below has got into the inspector here?”

“He’s going to do it again, sir,” Kody said. He leaned over the desk too, shoulder to shoulder with Lenoir. “He’s going to spread plague all over the city, unless we find him first.”

“What do you mean,
going to
? Hasn’t he already?”

“No, not at all!” Lenoir could hear how desperate he sounded, how frantic. It did not help his cause, but he could not stop himself. He could feel the seconds
slipping through his fingers like fine grains of sand, each one as precious as a diamond. “What he did to the Camp was only the beginning. He wanted to keep the disease contained. It served his purpose to allow little pockets to spring up here and there, but that was all he needed to create demand. It’s different now.”

“Why? What’s changed?”

“What’s changed is that we know who he is,” Kody said. “His time is almost up and he knows it, so he’s doing everything he can to sell as much as possible before he makes a run for it.”

“The best way to sell quickly is to create panic,” Lenoir said, “and if you want to create panic—”