Shadow's Son (13 page)

Smiling to himself, he took the scroll from his desk drawer and read
its contents again.

he feeling of being watched followed Caim through Low Town
as dawn's first rays painted the city in shades of purple and
orange. He glanced over his shoulder from time to time, mixed up his
pace, and took wrong turns on purpose, but never caught sight of a tail.
Meanwhile, the events of the previous night played over and again in his
head. Questions piled up, but they lent no answers.

He emerged between two brownstones and hooked a right onto Fulcrum Close. It was a bit of backtracking to get to his destination, but the
habits that had kept him alive all these years were ingrained into his
bones. When the hairs on the back of his neck tingled, he knew better
than to ignore it.

He turned down a street and skipped to a halt as the iron gray walls
of the city workhouse emerged from the morning mist. Strands of pearlescent fog snaked through the hollow window sockets of its squat towers
and clung to shadowed doorways where the sunlight could not penetrate.

Caim huddled within his cloak as he continued on his way. He made
several more turns before he reached the Three Maids. A soft knock at the
back door summoned a plump scullion girl who gave him entrance with
a smile. The cooks paid him no mind as he slipped through the kitchen.
The common hall was empty except for the dregs of last night's carousing,
sleeping off their hangovers on the floor. The morning bartender, a lanky
six-footer with a floppy crop of orange hair, nodded to him.

Caim placed a silver coin on the bar. "I need to speak to Mathias."

"He hasn't come down yet. He had company last night. Might not be
a good idea to disturb them."

This whole night's been a bad idea.
"I'll risk it."

The bartender made no move to stop him as he headed for the back stairs.
Caim thought back to his last visit, when he met Ral on the stairs.
How would Ral have handled last night? Probably would have slit the girl's
throat and been gone before the law arrived.
That's what I should have done.
But he couldn't muster any real enthusiasm for the idea. Killing innocents
never appealed to him. Then again, it seemed like the whole world was
going to hell these days. Maybe innocence didn't exist anymore.

The upstairs hall was dark. Caim paused at the door. Mathias was a
friend, as much a friend as he had in the world, besides Kit. He might not
take kindly to someone barging into his abode at this hour. Then Caim
remembered the imbroglio on Esquiline Hill and his anger returned. He
was a marked man. With the city already cracking down on illegal activities, it was the worst time for such a catastrophe. Maybe Kit was right.
Maybe he should leave Othir and start a new life someplace else.

No. He'd been running all his life. It had to stop somewhere.

Caim turned the knob, pushed open the door, and froze with one foot
over the threshold as an icy finger of caution slipped down his backbone.
Everything appeared ordinary at first glance; the furniture was laid out
just as it had been on his last visit. The scent of the exotic incense Mathias
favored lingered in the air. Heavy window shades shut out the morning
light, but there was nothing sinister about that; Mat was a notoriously
late riser. Still, something wasn't right.

Caim drew one of his knives. "Mathias?"

He crossed the room on quiet steps. The suite consisted of several
interconnected chambers. Caim parted a curtain of blue silk dividing the
front room from the living areas. A short corridor gave entrance to three
archways. The doorway at the end was blocked by another curtain.

Caim went down the corridor on the balls of his feet, knees bent. The
floorboards flexed under his weight, but did not squeak. He peeked into
the side archways as he passed. The left led to a spacious kitchen. Everything appeared in order, from the pristine marble countertops to the
copper pans and utensils lined up over a big iron stove. The right arch
opened into a private salon. There was a small desk shoved into a corner,
its surface piled with loose papers, pens, ink jars, and ledger books.

Caim moved to the last doorway and pushed aside the curtain. He
paused a moment for his eyes to adjust. This room was the darkest of all,
the windows not only shaded but covered by heavy curtains. A massive canopy bed, large enough for three adults, rested on the far side of the
room. Two shapes nestled under the diaphanous awning.

"Mat." He let his voice rise from a whisper. "It's Caim. I need to talk
to you."

The shapes on the bed did not stir. Caim eased the other suete from its
sheath and circled around to the side of the bed. He watched the dark corners of the room for movement. His ears strained, but there was only the
whisper of his own footsteps as he stepped across the carpet.

He stopped at the bedside. Two bodies stared up at the ceiling with
dull, blank eyes. Lyell had been one of Mat's favorite pretties. He looked
like a doll, pale, with long blond hair fanned around his head like waves
of beaten gold. Someone had opened a second smile across his throat with
a narrow blade, very sharp. Dark lines of blood were encrusted on his
chest. Caim doubted the youth had wakened until the last throes of death
were upon him.

Mathias lay beside his paramour. Even in death his bulk was impressive. His slick hair was mussed in disarray. His throat was uncut. Instead,
a bloody hole gaped between his breasts. The edges of the wound were
tinged with black discolorations. Caim didn't need to check to know
Mat's heart had been removed. It was just like the Esquiline Hill job.

Caim stood motionless. Death was an old companion to him, but his
hands shook as he looked down on the man he had known and worked
with for six years. He gripped the hilts of his knives until his palms hurt.
Stay in control.
He took a deep breath as he catalogued every detail of the
scene. The boy had likely been killed first, and quietly. Mathias hadn't
awakened until he was already dead. That gave the killer as much time as
he needed to do his grisly work. The sheets were drenched in blood, but
there wasn't a drop on the carpet.

Caim went to a window and peered through the curtains. A grille of
stout iron bars secured the entry. There were no signs of forcing. The
killer must have entered from the front. He was good, a professional. That
shortened the list of suspects considerably. Most hired killers were elevated street thugs with more muscles than brains. Only a handful
achieved the level of skill it took to enter a locked room and kill without
rousing the neighbors. There were a few who could have done this, and
most of them worked for Mathias. Sadly, this sort of thing had probably been overdue. Men who murdered for a living came in two categories.
One type killed for the money; it was a job for them, the same as hauling
crates on the docks or sweeping out stables. The other type was a completely different animal. They took pleasure in their work, deriving some
sort of twisted satisfaction that Caim had never been able to fathom; but
he had ridden with men in his early days out west who would take their
time with a kill, making it last while they watched with sick smiles.

In Mat's line of work, he dealt with both types of killers.
Had
dealt with
them. It had only been a matter of time before one of them came after him,
because of a perceived slight or a disagreement over money, but Caim didn't
believe this was a coincidence. It wasn't a random murder. It was meant for
someone to see, and Caim had a suspicion that someone was him.

A footstep from the hall shook Caim from his thoughts. He cocked
his arm for an underhand throw even before he finished turning. He held
the action as the outline of a tall, mop-haired man filled the doorway. The
bartender stood stock-still with a wooden platter in his hand. The smells
of fried eggs and bacon cut through the stale air.

"Mr. Finneus?"

"Dead." Caim lowered his knife. "Sometime in the night. Did anyone
come up here last night except Mathias and the boy?"

The bartender shrugged. The tray rose and fell with his shoulders. "I
don't know. Olaf was working last night. He went home."

"Go back downstairs and send someone to fetch the law. Don't mention I was here. Understand?"

After a long look at the bed, the bartender turned and shuffled back
down the hallway. Caim waited until the apartment door closed. He
looked down at his dead friend.
You were a good man, Mat, and a good friend.
You never did me wrong.

Not the most elegant of eulogies, but those were the best words Caim
could come up with. Hell, they were the best words he could say about
anyone.

He left via the back stairs and ducked out the kitchen. The streets
were filling up as the denizens of Low Town left their homes to begin
another day, none of them realizing that one of their own had been lost
during the night. Most wouldn't care if they knew. That was the sad truth
of it. Like him, Mathias had been a product of society's underbelly, a crea ture both loathed and feared even though he served a necessary function.
Caim had come to terms with that realization a long time ago. He hoped
Mathias had as well.

Despite the rising warmth of the day, he pulled his cloak tighter
around his body. The hood hid his face from view. A mix of emotions
roiled inside him over Mat's murder: sadness, regret, perhaps a touch of
guilt, but anger burned hotter than all else. Anger at whoever had killed
his friend, at himself, at Mathias for leaving him when he needed answers.
The game continued, and he was falling farther behind. Worse, he was
running out of sources of information. The girl was the key. He only
hoped she knew something worthwhile.

Otherwise, he might have to take Kit's advice.

From the rooftop across the alleyway from the Three Maids, Levictus
worked his knife as he watched his target depart. White-gray wings fluttered in his hands.

With the fat man's blood still wet on his blade, he had waited here
while the city awoke to the new day. He had taken no joy in extinguishing
the death merchant's life, nor that of the elder on Esquiline Hill. They
were simply tasks consigned to him by his master. Ordinary tasks, as
mundane as cleaning a pair of boots or beating a mattress. Over the past
decade and a half he had given up on the idea of finding a challenge
worthy of his talents.

Until now.

He tightened his grip, and tiny talons scrabbled inside his fist as he
considered the man below. This one might prove entertaining. Vassili was
growing more arrogant and demanding by the day; treachery dripped
from his every word. If not for the power he wielded through the Elector
Council, Levictus would have left him long ago. But his family's souls
cried out for vengeance. Through the long years, he had utilized his sorcery to track down those who had tortured and murdered them. He had
dragged Inquestor agents by the dozens out to the forgotten sanctuaries
beyond the city walls and given them over to the dark powers of the
nether realms. Yet his thirst for vengeance would not be slaked while the initiator of the pogroms, the man who had devised the doctrine of bigotry
that had resulted in the death of thousands of innocents and then ridden
the tide of bloodshed and torture to the very pinnacle of his order, yet
lived. The prelate of the True Church. Until Benevolence himself lay dead
at his feet, Levictus would not stop. All that he had done, it meant
nothing if he did not accomplish that.

He flicked the blade of his knife and wished he could eliminate the
prelate now and be done with it, but Vassili preached patience and Levictus waited. Yet he would not wait much longer. The archpriest's plan
had brought certain opportunities to light. The assassin with the lazy
smile and eyes like blue crystal was an interesting prospect. Headstrong
and ambitious, that one would be easier to manipulate. Perhaps it was
time to make a change, or he could do as Vassili wanted and kill the man
in the street below.