The Assassins of Consequence, page 5
Benvin thumbed through Jensett’s file, and a good mess of it went over his head. “And the one we caught as the Thorn? Arno?”
“Erno Don,” Pollit said. “Turned out to be a mercenary for hire, as well as a wandering troubadour.”
“And he is the bastard who killed Mal,” Tripper said.
“Nearly me as well,” Benvin said. “And Enzin Hence, he was the one your brother brought in to us from campus. The Bird killer, the one who was selling Soldier’s Fist from Kyst?”
Jace nodded. “That’s the one. Which makes us wonder why he was working with two of the Deadly Birds.”
“Magadina Kend, called Magpie,” Pollit said, holding up a file. “We took her in when there was that dustup with the Thorn, the day the Trusted Friend collapsed.”
“Which was the same day Jensett tried to blow up the Uni,” Tripper said. “Maybe they were working together.”
“But also Kat’rick-Ra, otherwise known as Jackdaw. She was one of the ones you all caught in that botched attempt to get the Thorn.”
“All these folks seemed to have a grudge against the Thorn,” Jace said. “He tussled with Jensett when that stampede got started. He put down the Birds, as well as Hence. And Don was pretending to be him.”
“All of them except Higgs.” Juteron Higgs, a minor rat in the Rose Street Princes. He got arrested helping the Thorn, in that fight where Magpie was pinched. If anything, Higgs was an ally of the Thorn. “He doesn’t match the rest of him.”
“Maybe he got lucky?” Saitle asked. “The other five planned a breakout, and he was just in the right place when it happened?”
“Maybe,” Benvin said. “So, we’ve got six dangerous people out in the streets, and we have to guess they’re coming to our patch here.”
“Coming for the Thorn,” Jace said.
“Maybe we should let them get him,” Tripper said. He was still quite salty that they hadn’t gotten the real thing when they arrested Don. Benvin understood—he was mad as all blazes when he read that pamphlet telling the crazy story of the Thorn fighting in Seleth. But there had already been other reports, unconfirmed sightings. They knew they hadn’t gotten him. It ate at Benvin, but not like it did Tripper.
“Then who would stop them?” Wheth asked. Tripper and Pollit both scowled at him. “Hey, I don’t like the Thorn one damned jot, but let’s not pretend that those aren’t all very dangerous folks, and we likely never would have brought in any of them without him.”
“Not Jensett,” Tripper said. “It was someone on campus who took him down, right? Some woman on the staff?”
“Kaiana Nell,” Benvin said. “He might have a grudge on her as well. And we have to assume that Captain Holcomb and the rest of the house here aren’t going to be to engaged in this.” Somehow, the captain had grown even more complacent since autumn started. Plenty of the regulars were likely taking lookaway money from some of the gangs, too. Benvin couldn’t stand it.
“So what’s our play?” Pollit asked.
“We’re going to get on the street, talk to the people who will talk to us. We all have a few ins with some of the street captains, let’s use them.”
“Hence was in town for the Grand, living on campus,” Pollit said. “I know a few people in the cadet corps there, I might get some answers.”
“Good. Take Jace, and see if you can find that Nell woman. She might be in danger, least we could do is tell her to keep her head down. But be discreet, hmm? Uni doesn’t like it when constabulary comes on campus.”
Veranix really wished Minox Welling would not insist on wearing his uniform when coming to these trainings, but he already knew the man well enough to know Minox would not be dissuaded from it. “I am here in an official capacity,” he would say. “Even if I am on restricted duty.”
Minox was waiting for him in the classroom in Bolingwood Tower that had been set aside for these trainings. Veranix hadn’t even realized there were classrooms in the tower—he had gotten used to just climbing up to the top where Professor Alimen’s offices and apartments were. Apparently these rooms had been the original setting for magic classes—the tower was reinforced with steel when it was built, according to the story, so it could handle the magical energies being used within.
Veranix had realized one thing early on when he had volunteered for this: the professors, including the new militant ones, were terrified of Minox. He had initially thought this was some sort of bizarre prejudice against Uncircled mages—an attitude that Veranix had always found unfathomable—but after a couple weeks, the real source of their fear was clear.
They were terrified of Minox’s hand.
Veranix had to admit, there was good cause for that. He did not understand what had happened to Minox that transmuted his hand into something inhuman, but he had seen and felt the power that rested within it. It was that power, in part, that both fueled and resolved the horror the Brotherhood had unleashed out in Seleth. It wasn’t just teeming with numinic power, but somehow a pure source of it. The one time Delmin had come to these sessions, he said being too close to Minox, and his hand, was like staring at the sun.
Veranix could feel that power when he came into the room. It had grown stronger over the months, and today it was crackling and leaking all over the room.
“Bad day?” Veranix asked. Minox never looked actually happy, at least in Veranix’s presence, but today his face was a thundercloud.
“Not in any way that you need to concern yourself with, Mister Calbert.”
“I ask because your discipline has regressed,” Veranix said. “Your hand is particularly noisy today.”
“Hrm,” Minox said, turning his attention to his hand. In a moment, the roar of numinic energy hushed to a whisper. “That was unfortunate. My household was disrupted in the night, and that led to moments of heated tempers with my brother, Oren.”
Veranix chuckled. “I know a few things about heated tempers with brothers.”
“I wasn’t aware you had brothers.”
“Brother, one,” Veranix said. “I haven’t seen Soranix for years. He left the family, the whole circus, about a year before I came to the University. And he and I would—” He stopped, the sudden realization he hadn’t ever considered hitting his heart like a hammer.
“Mister Calbert?”
“Sorry, I . . . I just realized that Soranix probably has no idea that our father is dead, or that our mother is . . . where she is.” He had given so little thought to his brother in the last four years—when Soranix left the circus it had been so rancorous, so final that Veranix had long since resigned himself to the idea that they would never see each other again. “Blazes, I have no idea where he even is, how to reach him, anything.”
“I understand,” Minox said. He pursed his lips for a moment, and then said. “We were arguing about the fact that we don’t know what happened to my sister Corrie. He wants us to accept that she’s dead, and I am not ready to cross that bridge.”
“Nor should you be,” Veranix said.
“Thank you,” Minox said. “Also, I have news that should concern you.”
“Oh?” Veranix asked. “Something to put another nail in Fenmere’s coffin?”
“Sadly, no,” Minox said. “There was a breakout from Quarrygate Prison last night. Cuse Jensett, Erno Don, Enzin Hence, Magadina Kend, and Kat’rick-Ra.”
Veranix startled at that. The Alchemist, the Jester, and the Hunter, all escaped together. That didn’t sound good at all. “I don’t know the last two.”
“Deadly Birds known as Magpie and Jackdaw. You do recall we subdued the latter together.”
“The Ch’omik one with the weapon that looked like a rowing oar?”
“Her, yes.”
“This sounds like very bad news,” Veranix said. “Is Constabulary on it? Or should I . . .”
“I would never explicitly advise you to take vigilante action. But you should be on your guard. It’s not unlikely that any—or all—of them might seek to target you. Manage your risk.”
“Never my best skill,” Veranix said.
“I have noticed that,” Minox said. “I think we’ve dawdled as much as we can dare. I require as much proper practice and training as I can manage in these sessions.”
“Right,” Veranix said, going to one of the boxes in the corner of the room. “I’ve been thinking about what you need to achieve with this, in the time we have to work with. Which is how long?”
“My probational period ends in fifty-four days, at which time I will be assessed to determine if I can be allowed to resume my duties as an inspector, or cashiered from the Constabulary.”
“Fifty-four days,” Veranix said, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe how none of the professors were even interested in properly solving this problem, or anyone in Lord Preston’s Circle. Putting the box on the worktable, he said, “Here’s what I’m thinking. The main thing that they’re going to be looking at is making sure you’ve got that hand under control. You even move a finger right now, you make a mess of numinic noise that even I can sense, let alone those fellows. So rather than trying to cram an entire magical education into less a couple months, let’s focus on fine control.”
“So I have enough mastery to quell their fears,” Minox said. “Reasonable. How do you propose we do that?”
Veranix opened the box, taking out needles, thread, and cloth. “You’re going to sew.”
“I fail to see how that would be useful.”
Using barest hints of magic, Veranix raised one needle off the table, letting it float in the air in front of him. With another wisp of control, he brought up the thread. “Your hand is a like a mining sledge, and most of what you do is hammering. But threading the needle, controlling it through the cloth, that takes finesse and focus. You can’t do it slamming things around.”
Minox nodded, sitting down at the table. He held out his hand and a rush of numina came from it.
The needles, thread, and cloth all went flying across the room, slamming against the wall.
“Not ideal,” Minox said.
“That’s why we keep trying,” Veranix said, picking the mess up. Just like running repetitions. Veranix had to admit the militant discipline had its uses. “Again and again, until you get it.”
“I will endeavor,” Minox said. “Though I fear it will continue to be unsuccessful.”
“Just pretend you’re me,” Veranix said.
“In what manner?”
“Too stubborn and too stupid to quit.”
Minox laughed—in that dry, almost mirthless way of his. “I think I can definitely emulate the stubbornness, if nothing else.”
“It’s gotten me this far,” Veranix said. That was how he had learned archery, again and again, day after day, insisting he could trick shot as well as Dad and Soranix could. You had been a patient teacher, Dad. I’ll be damned if I don’t do the same thing now. I’ll be as good as you were.
Chapter Four
MILA KENDISH WAS NOT DOING what she was supposed to right now. She knew she had been fortunate that strings had been pulled to get her into the University of Maradaine, despite no proper schooling before this. She had been given a tremendous opportunity, and she should be focusing all her energy and time on her studies. She had a full docket of classes, she had two roommates who were far too curious about her comings and goings, she had a whole dorm floor with whom she was expected to engage socially. She had a part to play: the good, attentive first-year student, complete with the expected accent of a well-educated, stable-familied, central Maradaine girl who had never faced adversity greater than a social house boy who had forgotten his manners.
But that was not who Mila Kendish was. She was a westtown girl. She had spent plenty of nights sleeping in alleys or abandoned shops. She had lost her parents when she was young, and fled her uncle shortly after that. She had scraped and stolen and done whatever she needed to keep herself and her sister alive. And when she lost her sister, she fell under the wing of Asti Rynax, and learned a whole new set of skills from him.
The skills that let her fake her way into being the Mila Kendish she was supposed to be here.
But she was still the same Mila Kendish she had always been, and she didn’t shy away from a fight. Veranix and his friends had a blazes of an impossible fight on their hands, trying to stop Fenmere and his empire of drugs and other vices. Fenmere’s people had already tried to push into her old neighborhood, and Veranix had helped her out there, so she felt the obligation to help him now.
Plus, they had something going on which did involve regular kissing. She had no strong urge to further define that, but was definitely interested in continuing for the foreseeable future. That future was hard to foresee if he got killed by Fenmere’s goons, so she was going to help him.
That help, today, meant poring over the ledgers Veranix had snagged from the last crew he had busted up, and going over the neighborhood map and the Constabulary files he had somehow acquired.
What she had found fascinating was that Veranix had an absolute trove of useful information about the whole Fenmere operation—especially the aspects controlled by a lieutenant named Bash Jullick—but he was terrible at knowing how to use that information. At best, he only saw the next address or drop spot to hit. No sense of long plan or integrating that information for a larger purpose.
Thankfully, there was Kaiana.
“So,” Mila told Kaiana as they worked in the safehouse—Mila refused to call it a “lair”—over the map and slateboard. “We’ve got the drophouse beneath the Rosy Nan neutralized, at least for the moment, since he left them alive.”
“A room full of dead bodies gets Constabulary’s attention,” Kaiana said. “Especially if the bodies are Fenmere’s people. The constables in Dentonhill are fully in his pocket.”
“Hmm,” Mila said. “Still, you know this isn’t the sort of business where leaving people alive is good sense. You don’t want folks coming back for revenge.”
“And I suppose you know something about that?”
“Vengeance or killing?” Mila asked. The answer was yes either way, and her expression must have made that clear, as Kaiana turned away and went back to the slateboard.
“I think Vee tries to let people have a second chance, when he can.”
“Second chance to kill him back,” Mila said under her breath. “Anyway, with the Rosy Nan crew neutralized, that’s the main hub of effitte and efhân for these two blocks. Presuming that the demand is going to remain . . .”
“Someone needs to move in to the hole.”
“Right,” Mila said. “And based on these notes, that will be handled by these two: Avi and Bobba, who handle delivery of goods and collection of money. And both of them report right to Jullick.”
Kaiana looked over the logbook Mila was referencing. “Right. We have those two as his captains.”
“So today, they’ll need to be moving about, setting things up.”
“That’s probably true.”
“And from the Constabulary files, the work we’ve put together, we have a sense who else we need to keep an eye on.”
That stopped Kaiana. “We do?”
“Look,” Mila said, going to the map. “We’ve figured out that Jullick is the overboss for these seven blocks. He runs street captains and dens all throughout here. But from where?”
“That’s what we don’t know.”
“But we do know who his other captains are. Veranix has a list.” She put up a handful of charcoal sketches. “First Avi and Bobba. Then these two—Bryce and Gamm—who operate their storehouses somewhere here—” She pointed on the map. “They’re all going to have to shuffle to fill up that hole. Plus they’ll need to replace the product Vee destroyed. To do that, they’ll want to move product from the main storehouse in the Jullick blocks. We still don’t know where that is.”
“Right, and?”
“I would bet, given the bloody nose they took, those captains are on the streets now, or will be soon, either working through Jullick’s main storehouse, or going to him in wherever he makes his office. So this is the key time to put eyes on him, and so we’re able to plan for Vee to make a move against him.”
“Make a what?” Kaiana asked.
“Listen, I know Vee is supposed to be cautious, not going out as the Thorn and making another big hit right after going out last night, but . . .”
“But?”
The idea fully clicked. “Tonight might be a perfect opportunity to cut Jullick’s legs out.”
“How so?” Kai now looked very interested.
“I could be wrong,” Mila said. She went over to the trunk she had already set up down here with some of her gear and supplies, and a healthy amount of costumes, wigs and face paint that no one in the University Theatre School was likely to miss. “But the only way to find out is to get some feet into Dentonhill right now.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I want to find out if it is worth Vee risking another bout tonight. So I’m going to scout through these blocks. Be inconspicuous, eyes and ears open.”
“You aren’t worried that’s dangerous?”
“Of course I am,” Mila said. She picked out a few things that would make her look like a chicken factory girl. With the right makeup, she could easily look a little older, a little underfed, and maybe even hurting for a dose of the violet. That will be perfect. “But it shouldn’t be too dangerous for me. I can blend in.”
“And I can’t,” Kaiana said sharply.
That seemed to be something Mila had stepped in. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“You know Veranix and I were doing this, just the two of us, for some time.”
“You were. But we’re a bigger crew now. And we each do different things for the mission.”
