Bounty Page 16

  “High tide and hogwash,” Godren recited.

  “That's a ridiculous code,” Seth put in his two cents.

  The gypsy spared him a glance. “Ah, but what is life without some amusement. We keep our sense of humor around here.” Turning, he led them into the camp, to a green tent with tassels strung about the entrance. “A moment, please.” He disappeared inside, and when he opened the flap again, he held it aside to indicate the chest that sat just within. It was large, rusty red, adorned with tarnished gold detailing.

  Godren could imagine Seth weighing the options, doing the measurements, trying to guess at its contents. “This all?” he asked, not interested in analyzing.

  “Indeed it is,” confirmed the gypsy.

  Nodding, Godren stepped into the tent, and Seth wasted no more time with his calculations. He helped Godren hoist the thing off the ground, and they carried it back to the wagon. The transport rattled considerably less as they climbed onto it now, weighted down by the package. From his seat, Godren inclined his head toward the man who had been of service.

  “High tide and hogwash!” the man bade, a laughing twinkle in his eyes.

  “High tide and hogwash,” Seth returned dryly.

  And they were off, as swiftly as they had come. Godren did not necessarily appreciate the nature of the business, but it was nice when business ran smoothly.

  They squeezed back into the alley they had come from, and prattled at a leisurely pace over the cobblestones, Godren manning the reins and Seth getting comfortable beside him. Seth seemed grumpy still, but it was hard to say if he was brooding over the package or the ridiculous code. Godren gave him some time, figuring he would voice his thoughts when he was good and ready.

  “Can we stop for more pie on the way?” Seth asked when he spoke. Grumpily.

  “Did you bring your allowance?”

  “A bit of it. Enough.”

  “Pie ease your conscience?”

  “It makes it taste better, that's for sure.”

  “I thought cleaning up that mess in the eastern alleys ruined your appetite last time.”

  “Well all that gypsy food smelled good.”

  “Could have gone for a nice roast of hogwash?” Godren teased.

  “Gods,” Seth breathed in agitation, running a hand through his hair. “Who comes up with these codes anyway?”

  “All the failed scholars, turned to shady business for a living.”

  “Do you suppose they get paid?”

  “I wouldn't know. I'd really rather never be that privy to all the quirks of the business.”

  “Do you think–”

  “Ssh.” Godren held up a hand, his eyes drawn over his shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Um...”

  It came again, and Godren pulled on the reins. As the wagon slowed, Seth picked up on what his friend was getting at. He cursed, turning in his seat.

  Something thumped inside the chest. There was a muffled sound, like a voice. A faint moan, or whimper.

  Godren and Seth exchanged a glance.

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” Seth murmured, upset.

  A wave of dread rode through Godren. Surely not... Gods, don't let it be that. He remained in his seat, expressionless, thinking that if no more sounds came from the chest, he could ignore the implications and pretend he'd imagined it.

  But another sound did come. A wordless sound, but one that comes from a human throat.

  Dismayed to his core, Godren swung down from the wagon at last, his cowl falling to his shoulders. Seth jumped down, too, but hovered decidedly warily next to the wagon, while Godren strode to the back.

  He threw off the cloth that covered the package, and eyed it a moment, dread written in his eyes. Then he put his fingers to the latches, flicked them into release, and cast open the lid.

  It creaked as it was lifted, and then all was quiet.

  “Ren...?” Seth piped up tentatively.

  Godren's eyes swam over the contents of the chest, but Seth could not read them. Slowly, he came to stand abreast of his friend, and peered in for himself, and they both stood there staring at the bemusing spectacle inside.

  It was empty.

  A feeling even more uncanny swept through them.

  Seth opened his mouth, and said nothing. He swallowed it instead.

  The urge to close the lid was overwhelming. But bemusement stayed Godren's hand, paralyzing him with ill wonder. He did not want to know, but it was the kind of thing that would never rest if left alone.

  Yet – there was nothing there.

  “What is this...” Seth managed in a flat tone, sounding guarded to his core. It was safe to say that his mood had darkened still.

  “You heard it,” Godren wanted to confirm.

  “Yes. I heard it.”

  They eyed it a moment longer, conclusions scarce.

  “It was heavy,” Godren sought to confirm again.

  “Yes. It was.”

  It was Godren's turn to swallow the implications.

  “This is a sick joke,” Seth declared after another moment. The muscles in his face had soured to a dangerous point. He had not signed up for this.

  Godren's mind raced for a rational explanation, but the only thing he could come up with was Gods, it's a ghost in a box.

  He slammed the lid shut, abruptly, and Seth eyed him as he fastened all the latches again, very precisely. He met his friend's eyes as he turned, and it was safe for Seth to conclude that the incident was one that had already started to haunt him – whether in conclusion or confusion, it was too soon to tell. Godren shifted subtly away, putting space between himself and the devilry aboard the transport. Seth shifted where he stood, looking restless and lost.

  The chest was silent, now, but there was no denying its mischief. Even if it hadn't made a sound, its empty status was mischief enough.

  Godren took a moment to regard the thing from a small distance, compose himself, and step forward once more to throw the drop cloth back over it. Then he turned away for good.

  “Back in the wagon,” he bade stonily.

  “You can't like this...”

  “Let's get your pie, Seth,” he maintained, completely moot.

  Seth, appalled, would perhaps have liked to object, but he knew that his friend was internally no less distressed than he. And: they were surely both at a complete loss.

  “We should dump it,” he tried, uneasy about transporting it any further.

  “I'm not going to dump it,” Godren denied. “You heard it, Seth. I don't know what it is, but I'm not going to dump that.”

  “Its fate seems decidedly bleak either way. I don't know what it is either, but it can't have a promising future. Not trapped up like this, en route to its new Mastress.”

  It was eerie, talking about it. Conspiratorially discussing the well-being of a possessed package discovered in their care. The tortured, respective 'nothing' that may have rights.

  “I didn't sign on to dabble in devilry,” Seth protested.

  “You only helped carry it.”

  “I don't want to ride with that.”

  “You'd have me release it into the city?” Godren challenged in a clipped whisper.

  “I don't know, Godren,” Seth murmured fiercely, exasperated. “But it's bloody freakish. This is turning into a circus.”

  “Then don't watch the show. You're only here to clean up the stables, Seth.”

  Seth gritted his teeth. Not because the reminder was insulting, but because there was nothing else to use in his case. They couldn't show up in the Underworld without the package. Simple as pie.

  Pie. Just think about pie.

  But he had now lost his appetite for a second time, and didn't suppose he would regain it any time soon.

  Steering wide of the back of the wagon, he grudgingly resigned himself to it and returned to his seat, glowering and on edge. Godren joined him with more measured composure, but a ripe wagon-load of
wariness that hummed at high-tide in his veins.

  High tide and hogwash, he could hear the gypsies whispering.

  High tide and devilry, was more like it.

  And for the first time he realized that this perhaps went deeper than blood – that he had gotten mixed up in something darker than dishonesty and crime.

  Darker, even, perhaps, than murder.

  But he was mixed up in it up to his very neck. Mixed up as surely as someone could mix his blood with a spoon, in a cauldron. There was no separating it from these other poisons.

  Redemption, he realized, might be a far cry from easing his conscience by serving soup.

  Redemption from this, he thought, very likely went soul-deep.

  20: A Piece of the Wind

  My heart belongs to the wind. I was told I would learn to cut it out and bury it in the street if I did not want it destroyed. Perhaps I’m a rebel, or maybe it’s merely that my heart belongs to a rebel. Or, there is always the possibility that it is simply too late. But I cannot find it in me to cut it out – with a sour twist of irony, I realize I don’t have the heart to.

  But for safekeeping, I pour my soul out onto the wind. The pieces of my heart are scattered everywhere now, and only if someone finds them all and puts them together can they truly then break it. For how can you break something that is already kept in pieces?

  This piece belongs to the rebel in my life – though, bless her blissfully ignorant heart, she may never know. I will not write her name, for the wind knows it. But I will say this: it would be wise to end this here, to do her proud and be a rebel in my own way – a rebel against my feelings. So I’m signing these sentiments over to the wind, that the wind would tear out my heart as I open myself to it, and carry it far, far away, where these sacred things can live wild and free – or, if fallen into someone’s fateful hands, may they live sheltered and protected.

  21: Fate’s Edge

  A noise woke Godren in the night, where he lay beneath the sky on the ledges of the Ruins. Avoiding the edges that dropped away to either side of him, he rolled to his feet on the wall. Poised in a watchful crouch, he peered down through the dark. Finding nothing in the immediate alley, he tracked swiftly to the nearest cross-bridge and went to explore across the way. Over the next wall, he found the source of the disturbance.

  Thrashing in a tangle of net on the alley floor was the wolf they had been trying to snare since Godren’s assault. It was thoroughly caught up in the web-like tangle that it had triggered to fall from above, but Godren knew the net would quickly go to tatters at the mercy of tearing claws and ripping teeth.

  Descending quickly to the ground, Godren approached with caution. His scarring hand throbbed with the memory of the last time they had met, and he had no wish to risk any repetition of the assault.

  Watching for an opening, Godren stood poised to pounce. When his opportunity presented itself, he launched onto the wolf’s back. There was a snarl of objection, but the net hampered down the animal’s defenses and blinded its keen sight. Godren quickly had the animal effectively wrapped up and tied off, pairing off and stilling its feet and tying shut its snout. Then, gathering the animal net and all in his arms, he took it to Mastodon.

  “Well, well,” the corrupt woman drawled, pleased. The cat on her desk flattened its ears and issued a highly uncomfortable, keening growl. With dagger-like raised hackles, it moaned and spat at the intruding predator, wide pupils glaring and glinting and rimmed with evil color. “Look what we have here.”

  The wolf struggled, and the cat screamed.

  “Do you want it caged?” Godren asked, muscles tensing to keep the struggling animal contained.

  “My, my, I’m developing quite a zoo in my dungeon, aren’t I? Yes, I would very much like it contained. That fish-net of a shackle does not look like it will hold suitably.”

  “Might it respond better to all this if we fed it?” Godren asked in suggestion.

  Yowling and hissing, the cat on Mastodon’s desk abruptly dashed off like a streak of black lightning.

  “Poonty did not like your suggestion,” Mastodon commented, watching after the cat. “But yes, you can use some of the bait from the raven cages.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’ll have to think of some way to use this fellow,” Mastodon answered, considering the wolf.

  “Angel. That’s his name.”

  “Angel. Hm.”

  Just then Bastin burst through the doors. “What’s bloody, flaming wrong with all the bloody, flaming cats?” he demanded before the sight of Godren and the wolf could register.

  “Hello, Bastin. This is our new guest,” Mastodon said to him. “Angel.”

  Bastin blinked, then drew on his composure. “Well that explains it,” he remarked. Scratching his head, he looked suddenly at a loss, as if the explanation had been decidedly anticlimactic after bursting dramatically through the doors ready to shoot something; namely all the cats, or whatever had had the nerve to set them all off – probably whichever he got to first.

  “We were just discussing Angel’s future,” Mastodon continued. “You don’t happen to have any suggestions as to how we might employ his services, do you?”

  Blinking again, Bastin went and plopped down in the chair before Mastodon’s desk. “Take him to the edge of the Ruins and turn him loose, see if he tracks down his master and leads us to him.”

  Glancing at Godren, Mastodon raised her eyebrows to ask what he thought.

  “Have him lead us to his master and follow indifferently along as he slaughters everyone in his path?” We can’t just turn a wolf loose on the city.

  Bastin shrugged. “It’s not like there are scads of well-to-do figures that would be missed between here and the equally shadowy haven Wolf is surely hiding in. Who are you going to miss?”

  “It could get out of control,” Godren pressed, intent on getting his point across yet cautious of appearing too condemningly compassionate.

  “Not our wolf – not our problem,” Bastin dismissed. It would be just like Mastodon’s men to see the risk of blame as the only possible factor Godren could be suggesting.

  Realizing he couldn’t say anything else without harming the image he was struggling to uphold, Godren held his tongue. Seeing he had no further objection, Mastodon turned back to Bastin.

  “It’s settled, then,” she announced. “But, gods save you, feed him first. That way you might have a chance of getting away unscathed yourselves when you unleash him. I don’t envy you the close range experience you’ll get when you remove his restraining bonds.”

  Godren wondered how they would draw straws for that job.

  “You should take multiple men,” Mastodon elaborated. “Everyone. Have them ready to follow at every angle so you don’t lose this fellow.” She nodded toward the wolf. “I realize we’ve had a shortage of men these past months, but Rand is due back tomorrow, so you can take Seth, Kane, and Ossen and leave us to catch up.”

  “Who’s Rand?” Godren asked.

  “One of my bruisers that you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting. He runs errands abroad for me when I need them done.”

  Hearing of Rand, Godren had to wonder how many significant associates Mastodon had that he didn’t know about. He had always thought Kane and Bastin were it for her main force, because they were all he ever saw. But that was a silly assumption, he realized. After all, he didn’t see the ghosts. There could be countless others he was unaware of.

  “Tomorrow, then?” Bastin asked. “That’s when we’ll execute this?”

  “Yes,” Mastodon confirmed. “We want to ensure Angel feels like he has a full stomach.”

  *

  When Rand arrived, the rest of the company prepared to set out. Godren received a brief introduction, which basically consisted of Rand encountering him in the hall and appraising him with intense, knowing eyes and stating, “Godren.”, evidently unsurprised to see him here – to which Godren said, “Rand.”, and Rand was equally unsurprised
to see that Godren had heard of him. Then they continued past each other and went about their personal business.

  Equipped with dart guns, the five assigned to loosing the wolf snared the animal in the dungeon and took him out into the alleys. It was late evening. They made a quick trip through the Ruins, and then paused just without to get into position. Mounting nearby structures and perching safely above the potential routes Angel might take, the men waited for the wolf’s release.

  It was Godren who had ended up the designated freer. It seemed only logical to the rest of them that, since he had brought the thing in, it was his responsibility. The classic scenario of Finders-Keepers. Not keen toward the task, but resigning himself to it, he collected himself and slowly approached it. The wolf trembled under his touch, rigid and poised to lunge like lightning if it got the chance. Full of respect for the animal’s instinctive bloodlust and savage ability, Godren moved slowly and calmly, trying to reduce the threat he posed. He would never trust the animal to restrain itself in honor of his endeavors, though, and knew simply releasing the wolf and hoping freedom would tempt it more than his throat was stupid. He only went as far as undoing the knots of the wolf’s bonds, and left them snugly tangled so he could retreat while the animal was working them loose.

  Rising to his own post, he waited for the wolf to struggle loose. It swiftly did away with the ropes and heaved to its feet, eyes untrusting and full of warning still as it sensed the men surrounding it, but it couldn’t resist a good shake. Then, with shifty eyes and a flinching gait, it caught a whiff of something on the ground and slunk off in pursuit of it.

  It went Seth’s direction. Wasting no time, the others caught up and closed in.

  Like spiders, they followed the wolf as it tracked what they hoped would turn out to be its master. Over walls and rooftops, they kept the animal in sight and stayed out of range. Only once did they pass a potential victim for a casualty, but Angel steered clear of him, and Mastodon’s company swarmed by the alarmed man without a word, sticking close to their quarry.

  Angel blazed a fairly steady, confident path until suddenly he acted torn between every direction at once.