Part 7 (1/2)

aYouave done so,a I reminded him, even if it was uncharitable of me. aAnd you promised to pay for the table.a aI lost my temper,a he said. aI shouldnat have.a aWell, you heard the chatelain. Mme has that effect on everyone.a At that the Margrave laughed, startled and hoa.r.s.e, so that I knew it had sounded quite as rude as Iad feared. I didnat care. At that moment, I felt as though I would say anything at all if it would keep him from retiring once more into depression.

aIndeed,a he said, with a rumble in his throat that sounded pleased. I felt a strange sort of swelling in my chesta”like pridea”to know that Iad caused it, that I could effect such a change.

It was, after all, what Iad been aiming for.

The Margrave stepped away from me as we reached the door, turned the k.n.o.b, and opened it halfway so that he might slip inside alone. He paused at the doorframe.

aI suppose,a he said, turning slowly to meet my gaze, athat if you have any questions about the details aired so publicly this evening, I should offer to answer them now.a I blinked, felt a momentary scramble in my mind as I sought for the right question, or even any question at all. I wanted to ask a great many things. I wondered what the prince of Arlemagne had been like, or whether head been anything like me, though that seemed a terribly inappropriate thing to ask, and not at all the sort of question I imagined Margrave Royston would feel up to answering.

aWould you,a I said at last, alike to finish telling me how they built the Basquiat?a He smiled again, and again I felt that peculiar flush of gladness.

aI would.a ROOK.

Our Lady of a Thousand Fans was nice enough, but there was way too much f.u.c.king ceremony involved for my tastes, too much hoopla for the end result. I mean, everywhere else you have to sign your name and such, so if you kill somebody theyave got your calling card if youare stupid enough to leave your real name, but in Our Lady they make you leave a suretya”that is, a piece of yourself they keep until youare done, the kind of personal item they can track you down with if you were smart enough to sign with an alias. But Our Lady, if you counted it all up and weighed it out, was just about the same as anywhere else, so far as I could tell. Sure, they taught a few of the girls some real exotic stuff, just so they could charge us extra, but underneath all that they werenat nothina special.

I had to go to Pantheon after Our Lady, get the sludgy taste of their sweet tea out of my mouth. That and some other things, acause Our Lady was all silk and softness, and I was too hacked off at everything to deal with any of that s.h.i.+t. Pantheon had gambling, and a man with one eye who was offering knife fights in the corner, even odds. Adamoad told me off more than once for knife-fighting in the city, acause I was betteran most and more than once wead had to have a little atalka about what was fair and what was murdering a man in broad daylight. I still say that if youave got a knife and the other manas got a knife, then itas a fair fight no matter what angle youare coming from. It just shakes down that what isnat fair in this world is some people being better than others at killing.

But I liked being allowed in the bars more than I liked stabbing men in the gut, and soon enough we came to a sort of compromise.

Didnat stop me from laughing fit to burst when the one-eyed man nearly lost his other eye, though.

I ended up on the road back to the Airman much quicker than Iadave liked, the whole night having const.i.tuted nothing so much as one giant disappointment. At least, I reasoned, Iad be getting a good nightas sleep and maybe tomorrow would be less of a complete f.u.c.k-up.

I lost sight of that notion the minute I walked in the door. Something in the air smelled different.

The people in the streetsa”laypeople as theyare called, in technical termsa”are always yammering on about the Dragon Corps and what we can or canat do. Iave heard stories so wrong that I was sure theyad mixed us up with magicians or the Ke-Han or worse. Anyway, we can smell fear-sweat, but itas not like itas some mystical power; it just smells different than anything else. Train any animal early enough, and there isnat much you canat teach it. In the end, people are animals too, no matter how they dress themselves up or teach themselves to speak proper, and weare the same as anything else when it comes to training. The airmen got trained up real special to smell the things most people donat, but it didnat mean we were some bogeymen with Talents like magicians.

Anyone with a nose could do it. Anyone with a brain and a nose could do it, which unfortunately cuts out a good portion of Thremedon since there are a whole lot more people with noses than with brains wandering around.

Merrittas boots were in the doorway, and Iadave tripped if I hadnat been expecting them. They were always in the doorway, no matter how many times I broke into his room to throw them at his head. I even tried jamming them down his throat once, but Magoughin and Ghislain had pulled me off. I kicked them out of the way, and cursed, loud as I pleased acause anyone awake wouldnat care and anyone asleep had thick steel doors between them and me, but it still hadnat made an impression.

But then: aOh,a said a voice, and worse it was a voice I recognized, acause there were only about fifteen voices I bothered to recognize in this world, Haveas included. The rest fell by the wayside unless it was someone I really hated.

The professor and all his hugging-kissing philosophies definitely qualified.

aBastion f.u.c.king c.u.n.t,a I said, soft this time, like I knew I didnat need to be loud to intimidate this one. No, the aVersity brat intimidated real nice and easy on his own. He had too much imagination for his own good.

From down the hall, something made a sc.r.a.ping noise against the ground. I thought it must have been that curtain thing Raphaelad dredged up from f.u.c.k knows where. Probably stole it from a wh.o.r.ehouse, seeing as how it had cranes and snowy mountaintops painted on it, and that sort of business had gone out of fas.h.i.+on about five years ago.

That didnat matter though. What mattered was: Theyad moved him in. Brought him right into the fold like he wasnat some outsider, which anyone with eyes could see perfectly well he was. I picked my way down the hall, neat and quiet like some big Ke-Han panther. Little-known fact was that I could be as quiet as I pleased when it suited me. Just so happened that it didnat suit me often enough.

Zeroing in on the source of the noise came easy enough, as the halls werenat exactly dark and there was only one body moving in them. Everyone elsea”due to another rule theyad instated a couple years backa”was doing their moving behind closed doors, shuttered and locked as was proper and decent. Head moved the screen aside, to find the source of the noise, I guessed, and was in the midst of moving right into his little corner, making everything all home-and-cozy-like.

Just looking at him got me so twisted around that I wanted to hit something. No, what I wanted to do was get up into the air again, only there was a strict policy against flying by night unless we heard the raid siren. Strict enough that I stuck by it, same as everyone else. Donat take your girls out for pleasure unless theyare tearing the place apart for a fly, and itas during the day.

aWhat do you want?a The professor didnat look up, just went on digging in his beat-up old trunk.

Theyad got him set up on the couch theyad had put in when Niall started complaining that the walk from one end of the building to the other was too long. It was almost appalling what a man could obtain if he implied to thaEsar that he was unhappy. aCourse it all counted for horses.h.i.+t if you couldnat convince Adamo first, but he picked his battles. Knew when giving in might be the better option.

It was, as he was often fond of saying, what made him so much smarter than me, though I couldnat see what he was going on about. I got on just fine.

aChief Sergeant said you were out tonight,a the professor added, which wasnat an answer to the question at all. Head made himself a fortressa”a stupid little wall with his two suitcases and the screena”like he thought it would actually stop anyone wanting to get in. The whole idea made me so mad I kicked one over, just to show him.

It landed on the floor with a satisfying smack. I showed all my teeth, but it wasnat a smile.

The professor made a noise in his throat that sounded like head thought the better of something, which ticked me off. I wanted him to say whatever it was he wanted to say. Iad been spoiling for a fight since the one-eyed man in Pantheon, and my nerves were humming with alcohol, thick and golden.

aHeas not my f.u.c.king nursemaid,a I said instead. aAnd neitherare you.a aYes, well, thank the bastion for that,a he muttered, unfolding a pathetic homespun blanket and throwing it over the couch.

aWhat was that, Cindy?a aMy namea”a he began, like he was doing me a favor by acting all patient.

aLetas get a few things straight,a I cut him off, marching over the suitcases and sitting square in the middle of the couch.

He turned to face me, gla.s.ses catching the glare from the low red emergency lights they kept on and burning in the hallways. He looked angry, which was funny, and more than that it was stupid. Rule number one: I could sit anywhere I liked, and head have to learn to get over that if he was going to survive any longer than a day.

Which he still probably wasnat.

aYouare not a guest. And youare sure as f.u.c.k not one of us, so you know what that means?a I leaned back easy on the couch and spread my arms across the back, in case there was any dispute as to whose couch it really was.

aI canat imagine,a he said, throwing on his professor look while he bit his words sharp, kept what he meant back there in his throat, all for himself.

The professor had a pinched look to his face, small and hard. Real stuck-up, like he belonged on the face of some coin instead of breathing and living around real people. Even in the red light, with nothing proper to alumin him, he looked younger than the boys running about with their nanny-nursemaids in the city. I wanted to spit in his face.

aMeans youare a waste of s.p.a.ce,a I said instead. aMeans you ainat never going to get done what you came here to do, and you might as well go back to the aVersity while theyall still take you back, all in one pretty piece.a aYour concern,a he said, dry as a Ke-Han desert, ais touching.a There was rage coming off him now, clear as a waving flaga”it had a different smell than fear, angera”and it stopped him saying whatever it was head been about to say. He turned his back to me, went back to arranging his suitcases, and picked up the one Iad kicked over.

aNot very many men whoad turn their backs on me,a I said as a point of interest.

He didnat say anything, but his shoulders twitched together like he was getting his hackles up about something. Then they evened out again and he answered flat and calm, aIam not afraid of you.a That was just about the stupidest thing Iad ever heard anyone say. I laughed to prove it, quiet and sweet and taking my time, because the longer I took, the more scared head be. Thatas the way to get someone to provoke youa”you just wait it out. Itas the only kind of game Iave got patience for.

aYeah?a I asked. aaCause it sure smells like you are.a He stiffened, his hands stilling on what mightave been a pair of socks. Real intimidating. Not scared of me at all; him and his socks were going to mess me up good and proper. aPerhaps youare imagining things,a he said at length. aI certainly donat smell anything.a aTry again,a I said. aBreathe in deep, get a good whiff of yourself.a I didnat lean forward; I didnat have to. aYou stink of it.a I saw him work his response around for just a moment; it was too split-second for him to do much thinking beforehand, and it was a big mistake he was about to make. I didnat even have proper time to relish the antic.i.p.ation of it.

aYou,a he said, asmell rather like a wh.o.r.e.a That was when I came off the couch, quick as a Ke-Han panther could be when he wasnat lounging back nice and easy and tracking every movement you made before the pounce, and grabbed him by the collar, threw him up against the wall. aSay it again,a I snapped. It was easy this way, to let the anger out piece by pretty piece. The blood was pounding between my ears and I loved the sound, the feel of it.

aYou smell rather like a wh.o.r.e,a the professor said, but there wasnat nearly the same venom in it as the first time. Maybe head finally figured out what a stupid thing it was to say, just him and me, and no one around to vouch for me having killed him. No witnesses: That was the fancy way the Provost wouldave said it, or one of his wolves.

aThatas acause Iave been with wh.o.r.es,a I said, drawing each word out sweet and mean, vowels like theyad p.r.o.nounce them in Molly, all long and hard-edged. aIave been with wh.o.r.es all night long and, you know, sometimes itas so good I donat even have to pay them.a aI sincerely doubt that,a said the professor. It seemed like he already knew he was going to die, like he felt it wouldnat make no difference if he went down swinging than if he went down meek and mild as a babe in arms. aIam rather well acquainted with the system of prost.i.tution and, if I recall, the frequenter is required to pay before the act. So unless one or two individual women who know you by name harbor a particularly soft spot for youa”But even then, itas the madam who takes the money, and not the woman herself, so you see thatas rather an empty and unnecessary boast. We both know better.a I tightened my fist in the front of his s.h.i.+rt and shoved him back against the wall so his head knocked against it and the fear rolled off him in waves.

aYeah?a I asked. aYouave been following me? You know how I get it done?a aWell,a said the professor, who by now was just babbling and waiting for death to come, and if headave been anybody else, I mightave grown to admire him a little for it, aitas just that unless you climb in through the windows and rape the madams, what youave said is rather impossible. But, considering your style, itas not all that unlikely you would do things that way, in which case certainly you might not have to pay at all. Except of course there are bars on the windows, for keeping both deranged rapists out and kept women in. So once again we find ourselves at a fork in the road of logica”a logistical impa.s.se, if you willa”wherein you say one thing and I counter it very effectively with, ah, the truth.a I was gearing up to hit him. aLike youave spent all your school trips getting used to the way they do it in Hapenny,a I snarled. Our faces were real close, and I could see his eyes get panicked, like he thought I was going to bite him.

Not likely. I donat put my mouth on just anybody.

aActually,a he said, in a squeezed voice, all reed-thin, aI have done much research on Tuesday Street, so you see I am rather well acquainted with the way things work in that particular business, Messire Rook.a If he thought he was so familiar with Tuesday Street just because of doing some research, I thoughta”all blind rage and preparing my fist to break his facea”then he didnat know anything at all.

I raised my fist and let him take a good look at it. I was still wearing my flying glovesa”it gets a man better service no matter where he goesa”and I watched him square himself against it, when of course the real way to let yourself get hit is to go soft and relaxed to try and keep any bones from breaking.

It was kind of like hitting a puppy.