Wicked as They Come (23 page)

“What do you think I am, your personal walking blood factory?” I whispered out the side of my mouth. “You could have at least warned me. Was that even sanitary?”

He put his arm around me, and I felt his breath on my ear as he whispered, “We needed information and collateral, and we got them both. And of course it’s sanitary. Didn’t you feel the alcool? It numbs and cleans at once. We’re not aboriginals.”

“Where are we going now? Are we off to sell my hair next?”

“Good heavens, why would anyone want your hair? Not that it isn’t lovely,” he said. “You heard the man. We’re
going to the Bludmen’s district to speak to an old associate of mine.”

“I just don’t want to be surprised again,” I said, feeling a bit prickly.

“You will be, no matter what,” he said. “Might as well expect it.”

Ignoring my reticence, he pulled me along at a clipped pace, my heels slipping in muck on the cobbles. From time to time, he hugged me to the wall as a horseless carriage went by, leaving only inches to spare between us and the jerky machine. Like the engine of the caravan’s train, the odd carriages had machinery and tubes and wires bursting from the place where horses should have stood. The drivers, perched on rickety benches above and pulling levers, all wore aviator’s hats and goggles and navigated the narrow roads with little regard for pedestrians.

No wonder the air was so smoggy—the engines puffed green steam out one side and gray smoke out the other. The lack of horse manure was a bonus, but there was also a certain level of disdain inferred by the machines. If a horse stepped on you, it was personal. But if a horseless carriage clipped you, it was indifferent and cruel, and the driver just kept on driving as the snobby faces behind the window turned away.

We were trotting along a broad avenue when we passed two expensively dressed ladies wearing high platform boots and strange rose-colored glasses. Their pink-tinged eyes shot daggers at me, and the older one hissed, “Bludhoney.” I felt Criminy tense and snarl, but I kept moving forward, pulling him with me before he tried to defend my honor.

At the next cross street larger than a drainage ditch, he took a right, murmuring, “That’s enough of High Street.”

We turned onto an alley specializing in foodstuffs. Butchers and bakers and wine shops stood open, while occasional carts offered lackluster fruits and vegetables. No wonder everyone looked either sickly or florid—even the green things weren’t green. The broccoli was gray, and the apples were the gold of old urine. The entire rainbow of plants ran from whitish yellow to yellowish brown.

But the bread smelled heavenly, I’ll admit that. And the coffee. And something wafting from a store labeled
Chocovanerie
. I slowed down to sniff.

“You don’t want to do that, pet,” Criminy said, dragging me along. “Wait until we get somewhere healthy. This stuff is all ersatz.”

“What’s ersatz?”

“Fake,” he said curtly. “No nutritive value. Made of ground-up meal and flavorings, sometimes even sawdust. It’s all the poor can afford. Those vegetables are half-rotten.”

And then I could smell it, the subtle sickness wafting from the baskets. I rubbed my nose along Criminy’s shoulder, trying to drown the stench with berries.

At the next big cross street, he started to take a left and then looped back when he saw a Copper on a bludmare standing sentinel. “Residential,” he said. “I’ll just make ’em nervous.”

So we went, past booksellers and weavers and pet shops crowded with droopy magpies and small, yappy dogs. We wove through poor streets and rich streets, past beggars and dukes and Coppers. I was getting a headache from hunger and thirst and overpowering smells, and my eyes were so full of new things that they were nearly crossed.

“Mr. Paisley,” I murmured, “don’t forget to feed your pet Pinky.”

He stopped to look at me tenderly and murmured, “Sorry, love. I was so busy trying to keep you safe that I forgot how your kind wilts without food and drink.”

He sniffed the air and made several turns until we were in a brighter, altogether richer part of town. When he stopped at a shiny green cart with delectable steam rising from a closed bin, I started drooling a little.

“Wrappy and a squeeze,” he said, flipping the man a coin.

“Gonner try some real food, eh, Bluddy?” the man said sourly, but he handed over a cup made of thick, waxed newspaper folded origami-style and brimming with golden liquid. With his other hand, he used tongs to select an oblong packet wrapped in the same greasy newspaper. He dropped it into Criminy’s hand with a smirk, and we left quickly without thanking him. I could tell that Criminy was furious. That seemed to happen a lot in the city.

“That
is
for me, right?” I said. Whatever it was, it smelled good. Like fast food.

“It’s for you, but it’s piping hot. Chappy bastard was hoping to burn one of us. I’ll hand it to you as soon as it’s cool enough to eat, I promise.”

He put the cup into my hand, saying, “Drink fast. These cups don’t last long.”

After a moment of examination, I turned the cup sideways and poured the golden stuff into the side of my mouth.

“Grape juice?”

“That’s why they call it a squeeze,” he said wryly. “But city grapes don’t grow purple or red—only yellow.”

I gulped the juice, and he threw my cup onto the ground and handed me the thing he’d called a wrappy. It
was a sort of burrito, filled with boiling-hot lava that tasted a lot like shepherd’s pie. It was gristly and heavy on the potatoes and beans, but it had a perfectly satisfying oil-to-salt ratio. I thanked him and licked the sauce off my gloves as we walked.

At last, he turned down a dark alley under a riveted sign reading
Darkside
. I could have sworn the temperature was ten degrees lower on the other side of that sign. The road was poorly kept, with missing cobbles and graffiti in white chalk.

Drain U,
one said.

Bluddy go home to the ground,
said another.

It was a residential area, but the windows were blacked out or covered with neatly nailed boards. The doors were all painted blood red. There were no window boxes or decorations. No one would live this way on purpose, not unless they were forced. The dismal streets and Criminy’s tense silence spoke volumes about the oppression of his species by mine.

The next cross street was more open, with wooden signs hanging just like those on High Street—but darker. I saw a jeweler, a pawn shop, an apothecary. Then, up ahead, a sign featuring a black dog on its back, feet in the air, with an X for an eye. That had to be the Inn of the Old Black Dog. Next door, a spool with a needle—Criminy’s friend, the tailor.

We ducked through the burgundy door into a bright room painted with harlequin diamonds in light blue and violet. It was just like Mrs. Cleavers’s wagon but neater, with mannequins and mirrors abounding and bolts of cloth stacked neatly on shelves. Directly facing us, head down over a tabletop sewing machine of brass and black iron, was the first Bludman I’d seen in the city.

He looked up at us with a mouthful of pins and grinned like a voodoo doll. His skin was light brown, which contrasted oddly with golden hair and ice-blue, piercing eyes. But his face was jolly, and he seemed glad to see us. That was really starting to mean something.

Stashing the pins in a jar, he stood to stretch his back with a series of pops. He locked the front door, then faced Criminy with open arms, saying, “Crim! How long’s it been?”

“Too long, Antonin. Too long. How goes it?”

They hugged and beat each other on the back. Apparently, that male gesture crosses world and species lines as the only acceptable way to show masculine friendship.

“Manchester’s not what it used to be,” Antonin said, running a hand through his curly gold hair and making it stand on end. “The Coppers get rougher every year. Did you ever think you’d see the day when I’d be stuck sewing in Darkside? But the Magistrate’s put up new restrictions, and here I am.”

“So I noticed,” Criminy said, taking in the room. “Nice spot, though. I guess the fine ladies and masters of High Street secretly send their footmen to you with measurements?”

“They do.” Antonin chuckled. “No Pinky can make a finer seam than I. Business is good, if society ain’t. And who’s this lovely creature?”

When his eyes turned on me, I could sense a latent but polite hunger underneath. Criminy’s arm snagged my waist, and he drew me close, saying, “My wife, actually. Letitia, this is Antonin Scabrous, formerly of Scarborough and the best tailor in Sang. We started out in the same caravan as lads and bunked together for our apprentice years.”

“Ah, yes. The tale of two tailors’ sons who ran off to join
the circus. You got the exciting end of the bargain, and I still ended up with a needle in my mouth,” Antonin said with a laugh. “How’s the caravan, anyway?”

“Good, in general,” Criminy said. “That is, until some rowdy bastard stole my lady’s wedding present, a fine ruby locket. We think he’s in the city.” His voice dropped. “And we think you might know of him.”

Antonin winked. “Won’t you come back to the sitting room, have a drop to drink? I might have a biscuit for your lady somewhere, too.”

We followed him through a curtain of jingling beads and down a narrow hallway cheerfully decorated with hundreds of painted thread spools mounted on nails. We sidled through the tall door at the end of the hall, and I had to blink. It was a narrow sitting room so bright and yellow that it was like sitting in a lemon. The velvet chaise was yellow, the chairs were white with yellow spots, and the walls were yellow and white damask. It was so bright that my teeth hurt.

Criminy swung Pemberly off his shoulder and muttered, “Pem, guard the hall.” She scampered to the center of the hallway and stood on her hind legs, and her head began slowly spinning, her eyes casting red lights on the walls, dancing over the rainbow of spools. She had become a copper disco ball. I had completely forgotten the sleeping snake on my own arm.

“Nice monkey,” Antonin said. “But don’t worry. Owlice is always watching in the rafters of the front room.”

“You can never be too careful,” Criminy murmured. “Not these days.”

Antonin pressed a button on a small, white-enameled cube that looked like a safe. The door popped open, and
a breath of warm air wafted out. Inside sat rows of blood vials in cartons, much like the containers that held eggs in my world. He picked up a vial, checked the date scrawled on the glass, and split the contents between two demitasse cups. He handed one to Criminy, who took a dainty sip and sighed.

“Refreshing,” he said. “Thanks.”

The two men sipped their blood, ignoring me. They started talking about eighteen-something-or-other and people with odd names who did odder things. I yawned. I read the spines of books on the yellow bookshelf and gazed at the paintings in yellow frames. Here I was, trapped in a fantasy world, worrying about my grandmother and my real world, tapping my toes as vicious blood drinkers enjoyed teatime.

“Criminy?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“What are we doing?”

“I’m having a meal with a friend while you squirm like a child,” he said serenely.

I glared.

Antonin laughed and said something in a slurry foreign tongue full of s’s and z’s.

Criminy laughed, too. In the yellow room, their red-stained teeth gave me the creeps.

“You’re laughing at me?” I said. “You bleed me and then laugh at me?”

“I’m sorry, love,” Criminy said, trying not to snicker. “It’s just an old saying.
Humans are like kittens, their teeth tickle when angry.
You do look so very much like an angry kitten.”

It was a horrible position to be in. I couldn’t storm out; I had nowhere else to go. In Sang, it was too dangerous to
risk even a moment out of their sight. But alone with two predators, I felt less like a kitten and more like an object lesson waiting to happen.

I hadn’t felt that way with Criminy before. Inferior, and silly. I hated it, having someone outside our little circle laughing at me. I fought tears. Fighting tears made me think about my other world, my fallen body, and my suffering grandmother. Would I ever see her again? And then I was snuffling into my sleeve.

Antonin looked embarrassed and studied the wall. Criminy set down his cup and moved close to put his arm around me.

“There, there, now,” he murmured. “Even angry kittens have their claws. We don’t mean to be unkind. Old friends sharing a joke, that’s all. We’ll get your locket back.”

“I’m not a joke.” I sniffled. “I miss my home. My grandmother.”

Antonin cleared his throat and was about to say something when a bell rang, followed by the unmistakable call of an owl. Antonin’s eyes went round, and he whispered, “Coppers,” and kicked back the yellow rag rug at our feet, revealing a trapdoor. Criminy grabbed the iron ring and pulled it open as Antonin rattled teacups and slammed cupboards, calling, “I’ll be there shortly.”

I held up my dress as I stumbled down the stone steps into an unlit cellar that smelled of earth and age. Criminy was at my heels. He closed the trapdoor, dousing us in darkness. I heard the shuffling sound of the rug overhead and sighed, pressing back against Criminy.