Guilty Blood

The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline
edited by James L. Sutter
Hell's Pawns
by Dave Gross
Dark Tapestry
by Elaine Cunnningham
Prodigal Sons
edited by James L. Sutter
Plague of Light
by Robin D. Laws
Guilty Blood
by F. Wesley Schneider

"Lord of Penance"
by Richard Lee Byers
"The Ghosts of Broken Blades"
by Monte Cook
"The Illusionist"
by Elaine Cunningham
"Noble Sacrifice"
by Richard Ford
"Guns of Alkenstar"
by Ed Greenwod
"The Lost Pathfinder"
by Dave Gross
"A Lesson in Taxonomy"
by Dave Gross
"A Passage to Absalom"
by Dave Gross
"Blood Crimes"
by J. C. Hay
"The Walkers from the Crypt"
by Howard Andrew Jones
"The Ironroot Deception"
by Robin D. Laws
"Certainty"
by Liane Merciel
"Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver
by Erik Mona
"The Secret of the Rose and Glove
by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Blood and Money
by Steven Savile
"The Swamp Warden"
by Amber E. Scott
"The Seventh Execution"
by Amber E. Scott
"Plow and Sword"
by Robert E. Vardeman
"The Box"
by Bill Ward

I'm starting this after the matter, as that's what they say we're supposed to do. I used to think these little diaries were all about fame and letting us insignificant folk know there were bigger things in the world beyond our gray streets and propped-up walls. I suppose I know better now. At some point I realized they're warnings. So if some night the blasted thing takes me, I'll still be able to explain how I met my end and maybe prevent it from happening again.

It's here as I write this, the red glint betraying its hunger. Not for food, or drink, or blood, or anything half-sane like that—it's far beyond those things. You might need to know that first, especially if I'm past giving warnings.

∗ ∗ ∗

It didn't start like one of her novels, no matter what she might say now that it's all over. The evening had brought me around to the Old Horn, the oldest public house in Ardis, a mangy den the owner claimed was constructed in an age when all men were kings and all geese shat gold. How the wreck of sagging beams and cracked mortar looked mangy was something of a wonder, but a wonder the taproom brought off nightly with its threadbare wall hangings, tattered hawthorn wreathes, and dusty bear pelt splayed above its narrow fireplace. The thick decor, along with a years-old haze of cheap spice cigar smoke, unintentionally but effectively baffled noise in the narrow pub, making it a favorite den for those with the contradictory needs to converse and not be heard.

I hadn't thought of it then, but the setting did seem like something she'd come up with; a heroine, daring the city's underbelly to track a moon-mad rake, vengeful corpse, or some such. But while Kindler's heroes always had a pack full of tricks and talismans suited to their noble intentions, my evening's agenda seemed to match what little rattled in my tired satchel: a few coins pinched earlier that day, a few useful splinters of metal, a chipped wharfman's knife, and a battered book—its embossed cover still holding a bit of color upon the words Her Wounds Never Bled and Ailson Kindler. I remember nabbing the book from my mother's library the night I made my escape—it being one of those everyday ironies that seem all the more prophetic in retrospect. Regardless, it was nothing to me at that moment, and my thoughts were on more pressing and less romantic topics.

You had to buy at least one drink or else the hatchet-faced barkeep would get wise and have you tossed out in the street. Sidling up to the bar, I ignored his scrutiny of my freshly pinched coins and took in the night's crowd.

Slim pickings.

Nothing but a pair of clerks in patched coats, a pesh dealer trying to hide his own shakes, some over-painted wharf wives with bleary-eyed beaus, and a conclave of students leaning so close they might be trying to read each others thoughts—two fellows and a sliver of a girl. The sure coin was with the clerks, who were practically flashing their coppers with a second round of drinks. But the easy coin hung off the scruffiest student's belt in an old-fashioned hip pouch. The purse looked malnourished, but there was easily enough to cover the price of my drink and, Desna willing, a meal before the last peddler closed up for the night.

Suspiciously accepting my under-filled mug of water and ale suds, I sought out a bench with its back to the students and took a seat. No reason to rush my drink, as they didn't look to be headed anywhere anytime soon.

Through the smoke and lazy murmur of the room's muffled conversations, I could just make out the whispers behind me. Chalk it up to what my father always called my "elf ears," harking to some probably imaginary ancestor in our family tree.

"—and bowled him right over, just in front of him. If he'd left the counting house a moment earlier, he said it'd been him lying face down in the street instead of ol' Parrigd," said the biggest of the students— likely some laborer's apprentice, judging from his anvil-like frame.

"I'd heard it was the countess's daughter… the one with the piggy eyes. Opaline, I think. That half-heifer, looking out the coach window and laughing behind them fat, pie-poking fingers." The sharp-nosed girl needled every vowel sound to a whine. "It'd be just like them, too. Don't care who they roll over so long as their coffers are full and they can waddle out of this cesspit whenever they please."

There was a moment's silence, as if they waited for the third to chime in with his volley of news and curses, but it didn't come.

"You're taking this well, Garmand," the anvil rumbled. "He was your boss." Only a pointed silence answered.

"If he'd been anything to me, I'd do something," the girl boasted with a shrill arrogance, inviting challenge. "You wouldn't see me in here dripping tears in my—"

"Is that what I'm doing?" The scruffy student interrupted with surprising steel in his voice. "And would it unman me if I did shed a tear or two? I worked alongside that old man for nearly eight years, fed both of us with coin from his purse, and have nearly enough hidden away to get out of this place thanks to him. Doesn't his death—his murder—maybe warrant a tear or two? Or, in all your experience, are you past regret?"

I could hear the girl bristle and sniff loudly, probably unused to holding her tongue, but doing so all the same.

"Anyway," Garmand continued, his voice taking on a thoughtful distance, "you're not wrong. Something like this calls for more than tears and words. I was there when the guard peeled Mr. Parrigd off the street—even saw where the coach's wheels rolled out his blood for five paces before fading off. They all said it was one of the countess's coaches. Even the watchmen did, as if that ended the matter. He might as well have been a crow picking in the gutter, just a bump and not worth a moment of guilt. Parrigd didn't have any people either. So who knows what'll happen to his body. The Watch is more likely to just roll him into the river than give him over to the church for a proper burn."

"So what's for it, then?" the girl accused after a space, trying to recover pride from his slight.

"Not much, sadly. Less than Mr. Parrigd deserves, but I think I might have something in mind. I need to talk to some fellows if there's any chance of making it work. And we might need Sayn's boat."

"This is going to be simple: corpses for a corpse."

"I'll take you anywhere you need, long as it's after dusk," said the big one, apparently the boatman Sayn. "But I can't say it's much for getting out of town. I can't take it off the Tears and side streams."

"We won't need to wait long or go far, I hope," Garmand said. "I want to take care of this tonight, while my nerve's up. I'm just waiting for the right sort to come in. There's a ratty guy I've heard about, and I've seen him in here before. I think we could make a deal with him. But I still need to think it out."

The students' little drama devolved into mumbles of plots, what-ifs, and curses against the Venacdahlia name. It seemed like the three had been though a bad patch today, and I thought about turning my eye toward the clerks across the taproom ordering up their third round. But their talk of making deals made me imagine silver instead of copper weighing down Garmand's exposed pouch. Though I had sympathy for their hard times, their story wasn't anything novel in Ardis these days. If I wasn't the one who made their day worse, it would just be someone else. So why deny myself a meal? I made my move.

Feigning checking my boots and coughing to mask the sound, my dagger flashed, and the coins were in my hands with hardly a rustle. My fingers had danced this dance often enough that it was an easily rushed routine, sliding the coppers—damn—into the lip of my boot, replacing my blade, and straightening nonchalantly as though nothing had happened, all in that half a moment. I casually finished my drink, and after another moment, stood to leave, careful to keep any hint of a smirk off my face, wearing instead the typical downtrodden stare the pub's patrons would expect and ignore. Stepping lightly to avoid jostling the coins sliding beneath my heel, I reflected on what a fine stop this had been and considered adding it to my weekly rounds.