Deadly Games (28 page)

“Ms. Setjareth,” Maldynado drawled. “I’ll
wager you’ve got the prettiest smile this side of Wharf Street. Why
don’t you give me a demonstration so I can more properly
judge?”

“If I tried a line like that, I’d get stabbed
in the eye with a pen,” Books muttered.

“Ssh,” Amaranthe whispered. “Let the master
work.”

“Master?” Books said. “Please.”

“There are less than ten females this side of
Wharf Street,” Setjareth growled. “Not much of a competition.”

Amaranthe grinned. Though it wasn’t exactly
an instant melting, the woman didn’t order Maldynado to go away or
leave her alone, so it was promising. There was no talk of stabbing
eyeballs with pens either.

“Ah, but some of your stevedores might have
attractive smiles,” Maldynado said.

Setjareth snorted.

“Also my own employer stands a mere five feet
away.” Maldynado waved at Amaranthe. “Do you understand the risk I
take to my livelihood by suggesting your smile might be prettier
than hers?”

Setjareth’s snort was mellower this time with
a slight upward curl of her lips. Amaranthe eased a few steps
backward to let Maldynado ooze his charms in private. She should
have started with that.

“What are you doing?” Setjareth shouted.

The bellow startled Amaranthe, and at first
she thought Maldynado had offended the woman, but that wasn’t it.
Setjareth was pointing into a corner of the warehouse where Akstyr
stood, a trapdoor in the floor lifted.

He offered a blank look in response to the
question.

“Don’t worry about him.” Maldynado slung an
arm over Setjareth’s shoulder and attempted to turn her about.
“He’s a dull lad. Got run over by a steam carriage as a boy and
hasn’t been strong in the head since. Harmless though. If—”

Setjareth shoved Maldynado’s arm from her
shoulders and stalked toward Akstyr. “What’re you doing poking
around my warehouse?”

Akstyr looked at Amaranthe. “Uhm.”

“Are you spying on our inventory?” Setjareth
asked, voice rising. “Are you reporting to Lady Devirk or
Bucktooth?”

Several of the stevedores who had been on
their way out the door to pick up more cargo stopped and turned
around. Chests out, arms flexed and wide at their sides, the
muscled men strode toward their boss.

“No, no, nothing like that.” Amaranthe
grabbed Akstyr’s arm and tugged him away from the trapdoor. She
caught a glimpse of a ladder and water less than a foot below.
There was no way a boat could have waited down there. “I see you’re
not interested in easy sales, and that’s your loss. We’ll leave
now.”

“Not until you answer some questions.”
Setjareth snapped her fingers, and the stevedores loomed
closer.

Amaranthe’s instinct was to flee rather than
risking injury to these people or her team, but Akstyr gave her a
minute nod. He was onto something. Besides, it would be nice if
Books realized he was capable of more than he gave himself credit
for. She counted the men. Eight of them against her four. Thanks to
their work, the stevedores were large and brawny, but they had the
cultivated swagger of street bravos rather than the cool,
competence of soldiers, and she doubted there were many
distinguished veterans among the bunch.

“You wish us to stay?” Amaranthe asked. “Very
well.” She gave her men a single nod.

Books blanched, but he did not object.
Maldynado grinned. Akstyr gave his “whatever” shrug.

“Wants me to grab ‘em, boss?” One of the
stevedores stretched a meaty hand toward Amaranthe.

She caught it by the wrist, twisted it over,
and smashed the palm of her free hand into the back of the man’s
locked elbow. He blurted a surprised yelp. She forced him to the
ground with a kick to the inside of his knee, and something popped
in his arm.

“My shoulder!” he bellowed.

Amaranthe yanked the knife at his belt free
and spun on a second man advancing upon her.

A few feet away, Maldynado had already thrown
himself into three others and gone down with them in a tangle.
Despite the chaos of flailing arms and scissor-kicking legs, he was
on top, seemingly in control. Akstyr, his dagger out, was trading
opening swipes with another man. Books had a blade in hand as well,
though he crouched in a defensive stance, waiting for an opponent
to advance on him, rather than jumping into the fray.

The man nearest Amaranthe lunged for her. He
had chosen fists over blades, and he grabbed at her arm with his
right hand while drawing his left arm back for a blow. She blocked
the grasp, ducked the punch, and slammed the heel of her hand into
his solar plexus, twisting her hips to throw her entire body into
the move.

His hard sheath of muscle provided some armor
for his torso, but she hit her spot. He hunched over, clutching his
chest. His mouth gaped open, but his stunned muscles denied him
air.

Eyes huge with concern, he did not see
Amaranthe’s knee coming. She rammed it into his groin. His nose
scraped his knees as his hunch turned into a collapse. The big man
hit the ground and rolled into a protective ball next to the first
stevedore Amaranthe had dropped.

That fellow lay on his back, eyes watering,
his hand clutching a dislocated shoulder. He glowered at her and
seemed to be considering whether to hurl himself back into the
fight.

“I wouldn’t,” Amaranthe said. “I know how to
dislocate other body parts as well.”

He eyed his comrade who was still hunched on
the floor, grabbing at his groin and moaning. “I don’t doubt it,”
the stevedore muttered.

Amaranthe checked on her men. Maldynado stood
next to three bodies stacked on each other like Strat Tiles. He had
one foot atop the pile, as if to keep them pinned down, but none so
much as twitched in an escape attempt.

Nearby, blood trickled out of Akstyr’s nose,
but he had dropped one man and was boxing with another. Akstyr
dodged a swift series of punches, but barely. Though layers of
blubber sheathed the towering stevedore’s broad torso, he moved
with the speed and precision of someone who had been the recipient
of training at one time.

“Need help?” Amaranthe asked.

The big man glanced in her direction.

Akstyr’s eyes narrowed in concentration. He
clenched a fist and flung it open again when his opponent turned
back.

Flesh never touched flesh, but the man
staggered back, arms wide, face stunned. With flexibility that had
greatly improved over the last few months of training, Akstyr
launched a straight kick that smashed the stevedore beneath the
chin. The big man toppled backward, felled like an oak.

“That was good,” Akstyr told Amaranthe.

She did not know if he referred to the
timeliness of her brief distraction or his ability to employ the
mental sciences during a fight. The latter probably. He wasn’t the
sort to praise anyone.

“Yes,” Amaranthe said, agreeing either
way.

“Look out.” Akstyr pointed over her
shoulder.

She ducked and slid to the side, avoiding a
stevedore’s attempt at a grasp. A knife glinted in his hand.

Books stalked after the man. Surprising
intensity burned in his eyes, and Amaranthe danced further away
from the confrontation, figuring this was the middle of something
between the two men.

“You think you can grab her and use her
against us?” Books growled as the stevedore spun back to face him.
“I don’t think so.”

The man limped backward, hands raised, and
Amaranthe wondered what Books had done to him.

Movement to the side distracted her from the
rest of the fight. Ms. Setjareth had discarded her clipboard and
was scurrying toward the door, steps short and awkward thanks to
those sandals.

Amaranthe ran over to cut her off. They did
not need the woman calling for reinforcements—many more stevedores
still labored on the dock.

Setjareth tried to evade Amaranthe but
tripped, sprawling face first onto the hard floor. Amaranthe
gripped the woman by the triceps and hauled her upright.

“One who has a personality that grates like
glass paper should probably choose footwear sufficient for fleeing
from irritated people,” Amaranthe said.

“You’re no business woman,” Setjareth
growled.

“Not true. I run a mercenary business.”

“What do you want?” Setjareth tried to yank
her arm away.

Amaranthe did not let go. After skirmishing
with the brawny stevedores, restraining another woman was easy.
“Tell the workers out there to take a ten-minute break, then close
the door.”

The woman leaned outside and filled her
lungs. Recognizing the nascent scream for what it was, Amaranthe
gripped the back of Setjareth’s neck and dug her thumb into one of
Sicarius’s favorite pressure points. The would-be scream came out
as a soft whimper.

“Listen,” Amaranthe said. “Nobody’s planning
to harm you or your business. We just need a few minutes to look
around to make sure you’re not harboring fugitives.” She decided
not to point out that she was a fugitive herself.

“What?” Genuine bewilderment blossomed on
Setjareth’s face.

“A couple of suspicious folks took refuge in
your warehouse last night.”

With the sounds of fighting fading, Amaranthe
checked on her men. They had routed the impromptu security team and
were forcing the stevedores to sit against the wall in a neat row.
Akstyr had returned to peering into corners and prodding at
crates.

“Maybe that’s why the lock was destroyed,”
Setjareth muttered.

“What?” Amaranthe asked.

“When I came in this morning, the padlock on
the door was dangling open. It didn’t look like it’d been forced,
and it still works.”

Amaranthe removed her hand from Setjareth’s
neck. Akstyr knew a few atypical methods of bypassing locks; maybe
the red-headed woman was a practitioner herself.

“First time this happened?” Amaranthe
asked.

“Yes,” Setjareth said. “I spent two hours
running inventory this morning.” That might account for some of her
dourness. “Nothing was missing, and I didn’t find anyone
inside.”

“I’m sorry. Checking through all your
inventory must have made for a tedious morning.”

“Ancestors know that’s true.”

“And we must have fueled your suspicions,”
Amaranthe said, thinking she might yet win the woman’s cooperation
if she commiserated.

“You’re mercenaries, you say?” Setjareth
asked.

Books, who had been supervising the disarming
and lining up of the men, looked in the women’s direction at the
question. A grin played across his lips. Pleased with himself, was
he? He
had
done well. No falling apart as he had done in the
past. Amaranthe smiled and nodded at him.

“More or less,” she told Setjareth.

“Do you have a card?”

“A what?”

“A business card. My partner and I
occasionally have problems the enforcers are lax about solving.
They’re professional and thorough when it comes to protecting
citizens, but much less enthusiastic when they’re tasked with
protecting a business’s interests.”

As illogical as it was, Amaranthe still
bristled at slights toward enforcers, but she had to admit that
members of the predominantly male force did sometimes show
resentment toward the growing power women in the city wielded.
Maybe she should tailor her services to fill that gap. As the
men—especially Akstyr—were quick to remind her, charity work done
in the name of the emperor didn’t pay well. Especially when the
emperor never learned of that work....

Setjareth, waiting for an answer, lifted her
eyebrows.

“Sorry, no card,” Amaranthe said. “We find it
prudent to move our base of operations often, but...” She retrieved
the woman’s clipboard, scribbled the name and address of one of
their contacts on a page, and tore it off. “Either one of these
fellows usually knows how to contact us. Uhm, take some of your
stevedores—the big ones—if you go to that neighborhood. And don’t
go at night. Or without some alcohol to bribe your way out of...”
Amaranthe leaned over and scribbled the name out. “Actually, just
go to that fellow. It’s usually safer. And if you get there before
noon, he’s usually sober.”

“You might want to think your contact chain
through a little, dear,” Setjareth said.

“Yes, thank you.”

Since the woman no longer seemed inclined to
scream for help, Amaranthe joined Akstyr to see what he had found.
He had returned to the trapdoor and was peering down the ladder
again.

“Think they swam away?” she asked, though it
seemed unlikely. Why go through the effort of breaking in when one
could simply dive off the end of the dock?

“There’s a residue here.” Akstyr swiped a
finger along the edge of the square hole.

“Something physically visible?” Amaranthe
squinted but saw nothing more interesting than algae sliming the
two ladder rungs visible above the water’s surface.

“No, just a sensation. Someone used the—” he
glanced about and lowered his voice, “—mental sciences. Remember
when that Mangdorian shaman flew out of the lake with Books and
there was a glimmering globe wrapped around them?”

“I was unconscious at the time, but Maldynado
told me the story, yes. You think this practitioner lady enveloped
herself and Taloncrest in magic?” She almost choked at the idea of
a Turgonian army officer agreeing to such a mode of transportation,
especially when the man had sneered at the idea of magic when he’d
explained his medical experiments in the Imperial Barracks dungeon.
“If so, where did they go? For a flight? Or into the lake?”

“I didn’t see anyone fly away in a glowy
sphere,” Akstyr said.

“Glowing,” Books said.

“What?”

“Glowy isn’t a word.”

“Books...” Maldynado groaned. “I was getting
ready to compliment you on doing a decent job in that fight and
being less of a pedantic know-it-all, but you’re ruining my
enthusiasm for the idea.”