Transmuted (10 page)

Certainly, he’d made an art of ruffling them himself.

His grip tightened, holding me in place. “The market,” he said for me.

“Why?”

“Collector’s business,” I interjected tightly, and earned a cocked eyebrow from the stooped inquisitor. “I’ve questions to ask and a quarry to find. Every moment you detain me is another he flees.”

“Your quarry is not our problem,” the man returned. “Who are you?”

“Just a collector,” Hawke snapped, stealing the leader’s attention more fully. “You know me.”

“By reputation.” His eyes squinted, glinting like obsidian as he rocked back on iron- nailed boots. “The pasty one?”

“Inconsequential.”

I glanced at Ashmore to weigh his response to this. To my surprise, he betrayed not so much as a flicker of annoyance. In fact, he appeared remarkably serene.

The leader must have thought the same, for he spent an inordinate amount of time peering at Ashmore. Then, sharply, “What do you bring?”

“That remains to be seen,” I began.

“Coin and more for barter,” Hawke cut in. This time, he shot me a sideways glower that said I was to let it go.

I didn’t care to defer. Unfortunately, he gave me little opportunity to do otherwise.

“Length of stay?” the man demanded.

“No longer than dawn,” Hawke replied. The tips of his fingers curved into my palm. A message of some sort. Patience, no doubt. Or
obey me.

I looked at his swarthy hand wrapped around my glove and could not decide what part of this bothered me more. That I felt as though I was deferring, and that somehow this was wrong, or that it seemed appropriate for the moment that I allow Hawke to carry us through.

Delegation was not an unattractive ability.

The part of me sworn to opposing him, the same part who did not care to bend knee to a man, bristled at this.

Yet I
had
bent knee to Hawke. Willingly. And the rewards had been…agreeable.

Pride, thy name was as malleable as mine own.

Whatever conclusion the warden came to, it settled rather more knowingly on his thick features than was particularly pleasant to watch. “As I thought,” he said. A sharp nod punctuated the words. “All right. All’s in order. Welcome to the Underground, you lot.”

“Thank you,” I replied, stone cold courtesy delivered because it was all I had to give. Sarcasm would no doubt fly over his head.

His wide lips wobbled into a grin he couldn’t quite muffle.

A step behind us crunched on the rubble strewn over the ground.

My instincts, already on edge, snapped. I began to turn, a warning on my lips, but to no avail. Whatever bodies the Underground had cultivated—them of sharp mind and keen sense, agile as rats and silent as the stray cats that hunted them—I was not acclimated to their abilities.

The blow from a cosh I didn’t see coming shot sparks and stars through my head. Hawke’s hand tore from mine, but where I expected snarling and fury, there was only the heavy thud of his body as it folded to the cobble.

Ashmore was a smear of vibrant red, a strangled word caught behind his teeth as the cosh that took him traced blood in the air.

“Oops,” I heard, as though from a very long ways away.

In my swimming vision, the stocky warden bent over me. I was kneeling. I didn’t recall sinking to my knees.

Swaying, I thought to myself that I should raise my fists, that I should fight him—fight them all.

“Yeah,” he said, his face swirling like water. “Sorry ’bout this. Orders is orders.”

He drew back one large, hairy fist.

Had he swung a hammer, it wouldn’t have made much difference. There was a sharp white sheet of pain through my head, blinding me, and then only black.

So it came to pass that we did not enter the Underground dead, but snatched.

And quite possibly lured into a trap.

Chapter Ten

I awoke sputtering.

A woman’s face peered into mine, delicate of structure but mean of expression. She had a pretty bow mouth twisted into a sneer, and golden hair wrapped together into hanks drawn back from her face.

Water dripped down my cheeks, pooled into the cushion I found myself sprawled on as I blotted at my stinging eyes.

The bucket used to wake me ever so graciously thumped against the crown of my head. “You going to sleep forever, you lazy bint?”

Charming girl, this one.

I swiped at the bucket with my arm, shoving it off my head and back at her. It swung harmlessly to the side.

Her fist followed suit, delivering a second thud to my aching head. “None of that. We got orders to bring you up, but a little blood won’t make no diff’rence.”

The water clinging to my lips tasted metallic, as though I’d licked a ha’penny laced with salt. I spat the taste out, dragging my sleeve along my mouth. “Where’s my men?”

She reared up to her full height, taller than I but with less girth about her. The greased hanks of her hair fell over her shoulder in thick bands. “Maybe you’ll find out,” she said nastily. “Maybe you’ll join ’em. Getup, or you won’t neither.”

What a mean piece of work. I eyed her clothing, saw little of use there—no weapons or the like—but a flash of green pinned to her chest earned lifted eyebrows.

A badge.

As I clambered slowly to my feet, I found them hobbled by a length of loose rope doubled to ensure I could walk but with narrow stride.

“Stay still,” the girl ordered. She wrenched my hands behind me, none too gently for it, and bound them.

I couldn’t imagine Hawke submitting to such humiliation. Had they caged him? Hurt him? What of my tutor?

I’d bloody well tear it out of their hides, if so.

Poor girl minding me didn’t pay any note when I bent my wrists together, flexed in such a way as to make her think her bonds tighter than they were.

A badge she might wear, and I had no reason to consider that bit of verdigris to be anything but, however it pleased me that she wasn’t used to them what made something of an art out of escaping.

Well, I hadn’t rid myself of all my habits. Rightfully so.

I smiled most amicably at her as she rounded me once more. This earned a startled stare, a visible shake and a snarled, “Let’s go.” She grabbed me by the arm and thrust me out of the cramped chamber I’d been left to rest in.

I didn’t know how long I’d been out. An hour? More? The Underground did not see the light of day at any but the farthest reaches, where passages and caverns might give rise to cracks to the ground above. One’s sense of time skewed.

To make it worse, the whole of my head—my sight, my hearing—felt as though it had been gummed over. Sluggish and awkward, I struggled to focus beyond the pressure congealed between my ears.

What I could deduce was this: my escort was obviously the territorial sort, for she treated me with more swagger than necessary for a mere guard on the march. She clearly felt that she must make a mark upon me, declare herself more powerful by dint of rope and authority. However, the room I awoke in, while small, was not ill-appointed. A little gloomy, mostly made of cushions and pillows, but acceptable.

The wardens minding the border had obviously seen something in my company that warranted a runner to whatever Underground power guarded the Wapping entrance. Whether the runner returned with news or the wardens had made a decision alone, they had chosen to ensure we could not flee.

Hawke was still known enough that bringing harm to his person might not appeal to whosoever demanded us captured. Then again, it was a rare band of thieves that considered a coshing
harm
.

Of all of us, it was Ashmore I feared for the greatest. I could talk as low as any guttersnipe, and Hawke was never known to be a man of Society. My tutor, on the other hand, could barely say a word without giving rise to questions of breeding.

The girl caught the front of my coat in one twisted fist and dragged me at a brisk pace along halls that seemed dark but clean. Lanterns sparkled as we passed beneath them, stirred into dancing by the briskness of the gait she set.

That it pushed my hampered stride to the farthest only caused me to stumble, and this seemed rather her point.

I allowed it. Despite the abrasions formed beneath the knotty rope, I suffered through this small humiliation with my teeth set and a plan forming.

Clean interiors. Underlings with a badge.

Enough sway to force a border watcher to send a runner.

Power had shifted in the Underground. Someone, or a group of same, had risen to a place of authority. Like the gangs of the streets, this was usually done by a matter of wealth; not only in coin, but in information and men, as well.

Who, then, had claimed Wapping’s Underground as their territory?

The girl swung open a door, and without ceremony, shoved me through. I stumbled across the threshold, blinded by the sudden flare of searing light.

A sharper glint of it winked at my left.

A voice shouted, “Begin!”

Obeying instincts I had long since learned never to question, I allowed the girl’s momentum to force me to my knees, then threw myself backwards until my shoulders and hips lay nearly flush with the floor.

The air hissed over my face, a whisper of motion too fast for my eyes to trace.

Though it tore at the skin of my wrists, I bent my hands, worked them out from under my captor’s hasty knots, and was already moving when the same glint—a line of light caught on a steel edge—reversed momentum and came for me again.

My heart slammed as I pulled myself into a backwards walkover; energy fueled my reflexes, rode me as I completed a second turn. The flip would have done my circus days proud.

A sword sheared through the bonds tied at my ankles.

A man yelled in dismay.

The girl who’d thought me secure shrieked an uncivility, and in the corner of my sight, her features flushed.

I did not turn to face her. That would be a death sentence with the wielder of that agile sword at hand.

The figure that came for me was wrapped in black. Little enough could be seen otherwise, and it gave me no opportunity to try as my opponent harried me across a wide ring of floor. The sword flashed and gleamed, silvered edge caught in the lamplight. I ducked and dodged, sidestepped each meticulous swing.

I faced no common low pad with a knife. The sword master was skilled beyond average, more fluid than a fencer and much more refined than a simple shanker in the fog.

With every sense bent upon my assailant, I couldn’t spare any attentions for my surroundings. One sidelong glance might cost me a vital organ.

The figure in black leapt, the sword abruptly reversed in hand. Either a punch, bolstered by the hilt, was forthcoming, or a spin that would bring that blade along my unprotected side.

I had sensed no hesitation prior. There was nothing in the flat dark eyes framed by black wrappings to suggest anything of the sort would come now.

I had only a split second to decide.

The faintest flex of knees told me my opponent expected me to duck, as I had before. I feinted, bent mine in similar, but launched myself into a cartwheel without hands as my opponent slid towards me—sword edge slicing the air just under my face.

I snapped out a hand mid-turn, open-palm struck the flat of the blade at the height of my airborne spin. It was enough to push my assailant off-balance.

“Strike,” shouted a familiar voice. One that broke my focus. “End it!”

Ashmore?

I stumbled as I found my feet, braced myself when I realized the weakness I’d presented in so doing.

Another attack did not come again.

Silence reigned. Then, in the hush, a single sound.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

A pair of hands, palms striking in slow applause. All around me froze.

My heart, thrumming with barely leashed anticipation, stuttered.

As my vision swept back from the narrow focus of offense and defense, I realized that I stood in the midst of unusual signs of wealth. Chandeliers dripping with crystals, candles burning near strings of pearls hung like streamers from the walls, and rugs ornate enough to earn Society’s approval decorated the stone floor.

For all the air still stung my eyes, courtesy of sewage and smoke, the visual tableau was something I might have expected to see above the drift.

Although the people that occupied it would never pass muster.

I’d been baited into the center of a room ringed by men and women of similar garb—and similar expressions. Each wore whatever togs they’d come to suit, stained with the reminders of their lot in the Underground world they’d fled to.

A veritable band of merry thieves, this was.

And at its head, ensconced upon a wooden throne whose cushions had begun to fray, a single man in indolent repose applauded.

Ashmore leaned against the throne, one elbow propped upon the back as though he belonged there.

What nonsense had I been dragged into?

I glanced to my left. Four men and one woman watched me with deceptive lethargy. One worked the point of a blade under his fingernails.

To my right, three women and two men crouched, studying me as though I were a fine enough show to pass the time with. Two shared a flask among them. A dark-skinned woman with enormously stretched earlobes worked over a piece of string, a terribly complex game of Cat’s Cradle.

The man upon the throne looked like any one of them; a random character drawn from a hat, crowned king for the day and bid enjoy. He was round of belly and olive of skin, with eyes a deep brown that might have been mistaken for warm were I in a trusting mood.

As I’d already made that blunder once, I erred on the side of cautious anticipation.

Ashmore made no overt signals to me, but such was my faith in him that I reasoned there would be an answer as to why. Later. For now, aside from my own familiarity with him, he seemed like one of the lot that surrounded me.

I did not see Hawke.

That much, at least, worried me.

The man upon the throne did not rise, as a gentleman might, but he ceased his clapping to lace his hands behind his head. “So you’re the collector braving my door.”