Chương 20: Chapter 19 – A Stiff Drink - Part 1

"And you've got the noctar?" Bracken asked, running through the plan in his head for the hundredth time that evening.

"Yes, I've got the noctar. It's tucked inside my gown. In the same place it was the last time you asked me, and the time before that. I know the dose. I know the risks. I know the plan and the signal and the backup plan if it all goes wrong," Sable grabbed Bracken by the arm to stop his pacing. She stepped in front of him and grabbed his face, forced him to stop moving and look at her. She seemed older. Not a girl, but a young woman coming into the springtime of her life.

Ebony hair brushed and oiled to a silky shine, styled to fall over one shoulder. Her eyes were rimmed with dark kohl. They seemed a brighter shade of blue than he remembered. Larger. Harder to look away from. Her lips were painted a deep shade of red. There was probably a special name for the colour, but Bracken didn't know it. He just wondered what it would feel like to kiss them. His own eyes widened at that particular thought. Not the time to be distracted, no matter how gorgeous Sable looked.

Once Torvin and Bracken had regrouped with Sable after the market, it had been their turn to keep watch, dogging Cinder and Pike's heels throughout the day. Meanwhile, Sable had joined Ressa to be primmed, painted, and dressed until she gleamed. The results spoke for themselves. A gown, the deepest shade of red they could find, hung from pale shoulders. Her bodice was cinched tight with lacing down the sides and a plunging neckline.

It exaggerated the curves of her lithe and slender frame and made her seem older than her years. The dress was stolen, of course: Ressa's token act of petty crime in service to the plan. She had pilfered it from the laundry where she sometimes worked. It belonged to a girl from another brothel; one whose measurements were close enough to Sable's.

If that girl looked half as good in the dress as Sable did, and her madame was anything close to fair, she'd be able to buy herself a house on Glasshill to rival Bracken's father's. But then again, there was little fair about the Gutters. Bracken stepped back, brushing Sable's hands from his face, and hoped to never see her styled so beautifully again.

Standing there, in the alleyway behind Silk's Laundry, lit only by the moon and the soft pink glow of the windows above, she was gorgeous, and utterly devastating to look upon. She was a vision, plucked from a dream, or a prophecy. A rose, cut from the bush at the height of her beauty, to be posed for the highest bidder and enjoyed only until she began to wilt, to then be cast upon the garbage heap and forgotten. In that moment, he looked upon her and did not see his friend.

He saw the thing she might yet become, and it broke his heart. Bracken blinked hard, quieting his traitorous thoughts.

"I think we've overdone it. You should mess up your hair a bit. Smudge the makeup. You'll be too noticeable if you go in like that. How would you feel about blackening a tooth?"

"I'm dressed like a whore, Bracken. They're meant to look good. That's a large part of why people pay for them," Sable put her hands on her hips and stared him down.

"Ah, but you are dressed like an expensive whore in a poor and shitty part of town. No one in there could afford a girl like you." For some reason he couldn't quite look at her when he said it.

"Good, then you won't have to stress about people trying to hire me and getting in the way." He inhaled, ready to argue further. She cocked an eyebrow, ready to stand her ground. Shit, she'd been ready to get into a knife fight with a Caller just that morning. Of course she wasn't worried about working a shift as a waitress and spiking a single drink. In fact, getting Sable into position had been the easiest part of their entire plan. The Madame who ran the girls for Tallow had been after Sable for months already.

It didn't matter to her that Sable had no intention of taking any clientele upstairs. Her presence alone would stoke appetites and drum up business for others. That argument seemed to Bracken like a noctar dealer offering the first taste for free.

"Are you done worrying?" Sable asked.

"Or are you going to tell me we need to stick Torvin in the dress instead?" Bracken snorted, "Aldaryn, no. Are you mad? He'd be swarmed the second he got in the door." She offered him another smile, this one softer, without her usual teasing edge.

"I'll be careful, Bracken. See that you do the same. This is still just the easy part." She pressed one hand softly against the side of his face and gave him a nod that felt like a promise. He watched her go and wished he were half as fearless as she. As the rear door closed and Sable vanished into the kitchens of Silk's Laundry, Bracken shook out his nerves and jogged around to the front. He glanced at the shadowed alley across the canal and spotted Torvin, only visible because he knew to look for the man.

Torvin offered him a wave but stayed there, crouched beside the wall, waiting. Passage would be along soon to join him and afterwards the two would follow him towards Cinder and Pike's. In an ideal world, the pair would have headed into Silk's Laundry with him, but Passage was too noticeable and after Torvin's intervention at the market, they'd decided it would be best if he kept out of sight. Which left Bracken to go in alone in case Sable needed backup, or a distraction.

Music spilled into the night as Bracken pushed open the door. He slipped inside, head down and trying not to draw attention. He needn't have worried. Few noticed and fewer cared. He was neither intimidating nor important, and so deserved neither fear nor respect. He was easily ignored, just as he had hoped. The room was warm, the musicians skilled, and the atmosphere decidedly more cheerful than Bracken had expected.

The patrons laughed and sang and rolled dice, and only half of them looked like they killed people for money. Implements of Caleth hung from the ceiling, their light steady and constant. They alone were a decadent display of wealth by the standards of the lower city, the sort of thing an upmarket bar on Glasshill would pride itself on. And yet, they seemed the least of the furnishings, hung high and understated, a subtle reminder of the proprietor's status.

The fact that any in the Gutters could afford to drink there was further testament to Tallow's role as the apex predator within the lower city. So richly was he fed, so glutted on finer things, that he could allow scraps such as these to pass into the hands of his lessers for a pittance. Most of the men in there would work directly for Tallow, the coin he gave them flowing directly back into his pocket, the decadence and vice of this place their true reward.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. The realisation was mercenary and cold, born of years spent sitting at his father's side, listening to lessons on tradecraft and manipulation, albeit begrudgingly. It wasn't hard to understand the ecosystem that Tallow had created. There was precious little else to do of an evening in this part of the Gutters, and for all of Tallow's many sins, being miserly was not among them.

The crime lord ran a fine establishment and furnished his goons with the money to enjoy it. Like stray dogs fed from a fat man's table, their loyalty was all but assured. Bracken ducked to the side of the room, putting his back to the wall and taking stock. He glanced around the bar and counted at least four Stained. One, a man with hair like spun gold, resplendent and noble.

His corner of the bar was brighter, Caleth's light exuding from him as he pushed a pile of coins towards the centre of the table, cards face down before him. The bartender's skin was marbled with streaks of brilliant copper and dull iron. He stood a head taller than even Passage, and moved about behind the bar like a landslide, flowing weightily from place to place. One of the working girls sang and played a hurdy gurdy, crooning bawdy lyrics about a miller who like grinding more than just grain.

Bracken did a double take, both at her beauty and at the fact that she was clearly Twice-Stained. She seemed partway a phoenix, levitating a few feet above the stage, wings of purest white clad in pink and blue flames, like they'd been doused in strong spirits and set alight. Her skin had turned a faint shade of pink, and around her the room rippled strangely. It took Bracken a moment to understand what it was that looked so odd.

Everyone within almost ten feet of her breathed in perfect synchronicity, shoulders rising and falling in time with hers, faces masks of rapture. Torvin had told him that there were girls like her, though Bracken hadn't really believed it until that moment. Women – and men, he supposed – who cultivated Stains of Wodfyr and Aerwyn, passion and joy. Planetouched with the keys to the House of Lust. It was when he finally tore his eyes from the floating succubus that he spotted the fourth Stained. Cinder.

He held court at the far side of the room, Pike at his side, a half-witted jester. Arrogant and drunk on glory if not booze, on this the night of his ascension to the rank of Forged. The burned king lorded over a gang of lesser devils. He leaned back in his chair, boots on the table, and splashed coin like water. He waved for a barmaid and gestured lazily at the five goons, ordering for them all. The woman nodded and made to take payment.

Cinder tossed the coins on the floor, the leer on his face making clear it was no accident. His men crowed and laughed as the woman got on hands and knees to collect them. If she minded the indignity, or the way the men gestured, she was a better actress than most. She laughed and chittered and gathered the coin, and then she brought them their drinks. None for Cinder, it seemed, but Pike's mug, at least, was filled. Bracken dipped his chin, trying to avoid seeming like he was staring.

He didn't know the rules down here, and the people didn't know him. It was not a safe place to be a stranger. Angry voices rose from the other side of the bar. A table overturned, mugs and coins and cards scattering across the floor. The golden-haired Caleth Stained and his fellow gamblers all stood, knocking aside chairs and shouting over one another. Two men held a third back from the Stained, their friend drunk or dumb enough to take offence at being fleeced.

"You're a cheat!" He roared, in a room full of cheats and worse. The singer stopped singing, the music ceased playing. Attention turned to the almost brawl, jeers and encouragement shouted from around the room, tension and voices rising.

"I'm no cheat, you're just a piss poor liar," the Stained sneered, arrogance dripping from him like molten gold. Piss poor or world class, only a halfwit would lie to a Caleth-Stained, and you'd have to be dumber still to bet against one at cards.

"Bullshit, you're a fuckin' cheater using fuckin' Stained magic in an honest game! I'll not pay you a single fuckin' copper! Not one!"

"Oh, don't you worry yourself about the money. You'll see it again. I'll leave it in a little pile for you, stacked on your wife's nightstand." Golden-hair leaned forward, chin stuck out, daring the man to take a swing. It was a hook well baited. The drunk kicked the man to his right in the leg, and when his friend flinched, he pulled his arm free. He took a swing. The Stained, and everyone else in the bar, saw the punch coming like a storm on the horizon. Slow, ugly, and easily avoided.

Golden-hair caught the fist and placed his other hand flat against the man's face, right over his eyes. There was a flare of light so bright that Bracken flinched and looked away. The man screamed like an animal being slaughtered. The room quietened and when Bracken looked again the man was on his knees. Smoke rose from the ruins of his eyes; two wounds, black and burned and blistered. He screamed and kept on screaming. Shaking, their heads down, his friends dragged him from the room.

The crowd parted to make way for the broken creature and his friends with good cheer, like an audience waving off the losing boxer after a match. A few jeered and insulted him, but none seemed all that bothered by the display, or the stink of burning flesh. The door slammed shut behind the trio and the crowd turned back to Golden-hair. The Durnheim-Stained bartender stomped over, emerging from the crowd. The pair stared one another down. Golden-hair kept smiling, still arrogant, and the Mountain seemed unimpressed.

Tension began to creep into room for the first time, the crowd shifting uneasily. A Stained beating on a mortal was a spectacle. Two Stained fighting one another was a hazard from which to flee. Golden-hair faltered first, arrogant sneer ceding to an apologetic grin, like a child caught in mischief. He bent down and snatched up a handful of coins and looked around at the watching crowd.

"Barkeep," he nodded.

"A round for all my friends!" The bar cheered, the music resumed, and people returned to their drinks and conversations. Bracken swallowed hard and wondered whether everyone would watch so casually if Cinder spotted Sable pouring poison into Pike's mug. He doubted the bastard would stop at burning just her eyes. He swallowed his nausea and dismissed the mental image. It would not come to that. Keeping his head down, he weaved through the crowd and headed for the bar.

He'd planned to grab a table or a booth somewhere by the edge of the room, but none were empty and he doubted his company would be welcome among any of the groups. He slid onto a stool, close enough to Cinder's table that he could hear their conversation over the music. The bartender returned to the bar. He stopped in front of Bracken, a mountain of a man in every sense of the word. Up close it was clear the man was Forged, his skin not just marbled but marble, firm and dull as stone.

"Whiskey, please," Bracken croaked, mouth dry, and slid his second last copper across the bar. The barkeep grunted, shaking his head as if confirming that Bracken did not belong there. In hindsight, it didn't seem the sort of place to say 'please'. The man poured him a dram, served in a tumbler of actual glass, crystal clear and worth enough that Bracken held it with both hands. He still nearly dropped it when a woman sat down beside him and said, "You know, you look just like your brother."