Brown River Queen (6 page)

“I don’t think he likes you, Mr. Prestley,” I said. “You don’t, do you, Mr. Simmons?”

“Mr. Simmons,” it chanted. “Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons!”

I shall send it back whence it came, finder.
 

The imp shrieked and clung to my neck.

“Is it dangerous? Venomous? Does it drink blood, eat flesh, anything of that sort?”

It is a construct, formed from a malleable elemental substance which resides in a convenient parallel—

“Public school, remember? Dumb it down, please.”

It is probably harmless.

“Then forget it. Get us out of here instead. Mr. Simmons can stay as long as he behaves himself. You get that, Mr. Simmons?”

The imp snapped to faux attention and threw me a salute.

Evis chuckled and reached into his pocket for more cigars. Stitches mumbled spells behind her sewn, bloody lips.

Mr. Simmons reached out and lit our cigars with a flame he conjured at the tip of his barbed red tail.

All in all, it was an interesting night.

We rolled up in front of Avalante just after midnight, despite having fled the fall of the Corpsemaster’s home well after that hour. Which may be why common folk avoid the sorcerer’s district in droves. You never know what tricks Time is going to play once you cross Portend Street.

Stitches had been slumped over, uncommunicative and bleeding from eyes and lips since we left the magic part of town. I’d wanted to check for a pulse. Evis had suggested that even touching a wounded, friendly wand-waver was a good way to wind up being forever known as Markhat One Hand.

She’d lolled and hung like a rag doll when a half-dozen Avalante halfdead gently eased her out of the carriage and into a fancy copper box that whirred and clanked and exhaled gouts of steam once the lid was closed.

“Hell if I know,” replied Evis to the question I hadn’t spoken. “Let’s go have a beer.”

And so we did.

“Who was Mr. Simmons?”
 

We were seated in the dark confines of Evis’s sprawling office. The usual trinkets glowed and moved in the glass-covered display cases behind his desk.
 

I took a long drink of his good dark beer before answering.

“He was the landlord when I was a kid. Mom called him ‘that old devil.’ We used to draw pictures of him with horns and slip the paper under his door.” I chuckled at the memory of the old man bursting out into the hall, broom held high, cursing and swatting at us as we kids scattered.

He’d never managed to land a blow. Thinking back, I realized he’d never meant to.

The smaller, redder Mr. Simmons had leaped from my hat and vanished into the night the instant we’d reached the safety of Avalante’s curb. He’d not even waved goodbye.

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Corpsemaster again.” I emptied my glass and Evis refilled it. “Looks like she’d have put in an appearance, if she could—what with her House being looted and falling.”

“Looks like.” Evis pondered the shadows over my right shoulder. “Quite a blow for Avalante.”

“You’ll soon have the Regent in your pocket. That ought to more than make up for the loss.”

“I hope so. Speaking of which, Gertriss is making the trip to Bel Loit too.”

I’d suspected as much. Evis toyed with his glass and didn’t elaborate.
 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were nervous, Mr. Prestley. Worried I might raise some sort of objection to your choice of female company?”

He shrugged. “More worried you’d have something to say about her taste in men.”

Aha,
I said to myself. Confirmation at last.
 

“For what it’s worth, Evis, I think she’s got excellent taste. You have my blessing. I shall, of course, expect a sizable dowry.”

“I wasn’t joking, Markhat.”

I downed my beer. “Neither was I. If you just have to find something to worry about, there’s always Mama and her plainspoken country mouth. But not me. Never me.”

He let the breath he’d been holding escape. He might have spoken, but someone knocked, and a soft voice reminded him of a meeting in five minutes.

“You can stay,” said Evis, motioning toward the box of cigars on his right.

I stood. “I’m a married man now. Best be getting home. Darla will be worried.”

Evis stood and extended his bare hand to shake. He never does that.
 

“Thank you,” he said.

Yes. His hand was cold. Cold as a corpse. And maybe he has a mouthful of fangs, and maybe his eyes look like dirty marbles.
 

If Mama couldn’t see any further than that, then maybe she needed to put away her fortune cards and take up knitting.

Avalante supplied my ride home. The clocks might have pointed toward midnight, but by my own estimation we’d left just after Curfew, and we’d spent at least six hours getting into and out of the Corpsemaster’s doomed house. I spent a good two minutes pondering the philosophical and metaphysical ramifications of the lost time before nodding off to sleep myself.

I was awakened when my borrowed carriage rolled to an abrupt halt. Still groggy, I pushed up my hat and put my hand on the latch when I heard the driver shout and my door swung open on its own.

“You’re Markhat,” said a towering slab of a man, who leaned in and dared shove a lantern in my face. “Get out.”

Clever devil that I am, I nodded, put my hand on the door latch behind me, and sprang ass-first through it, away from the large man and his favorite lantern.

I whirled.
 

“Smart one,” said the man with the lantern, who rounded the rear of the carriage. The yellow lamp lit his face and rendered his grin demonic. “Knew you’d try that.”

The four stalwart Watchmen who ringed me in muttered and nodded, truncheons at the ready.

A fifth held an old Army issue Mauser crossbow on my driver, who sat wide-eyed and deadly still.

“You take that crossbow off my driver, bluecap, or I’m going to shove it so far up your ass you can use the bolt for a toothpick.”

“No need for that, Moris.” The big man spoke. Moris lowered the crossbow with the air of a man who was disappointed at being told he couldn’t shoot a law-abiding stranger.

“Let’s try this again,” said the giant, after giving Moris a good glare. “You’re Markhat. The finder from Cambrit. That right?”

“Nope. My name is Flocart. Of Flocart, Simmons, and Vault, attorneys at law. Which you’ll need, if pointing crossbows at innocent carriage drivers is becoming a habit.”

His face reddened a bit in the lamplight.
 

“I know who you are.”

“So why ask? You’re doing this all wrong. The Watch doesn’t ask. They accuse. So tell me, Watchman, what is it I’m accused of?”

“My name is Captain Holder. Watch Captain Holder.” He emphasized the
Watch
.

“What a coincidence. I’m a Captain too. Captain Markhat, they call me, hero of the Battle of Rannit. Still, you should probably salute me, because—”

I never got a chance to finish. Watch Captain Holder nodded to the four blue-capped Watchmen surrounding me, and I was hustled into a plain, none-too-clean Watch tallbox and whisked downtown while my velvet-covered Avalante carriage and furious driver were shooed away into the night.

Chapter Five

By the time my new friend at the Watch was done with me, the morning sun was peeping through the trees, the sidewalks were filling with yawning pedestrians, and my porch was occupied by worried wives.

Darla watched me haul my weary bones out of the cab. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. She was dressed and ready for work and I wondered if she’d slept at all.

I was opening the gate in our white picket fence before I noticed Buttercup. She was standing on our roof right above Darla, her tiny little banshee arms crossed over her chest and her right foot tapping in perfect imitation of my betrothed.

“Good morning, ladies,” I said, doffing my hat and hoping none of the neighbors was watching my roof. “Sorry I’m late.”

Darla catches on fast. “Shoo,” she said with a glance at the ceiling. “Run along home, honey. Before Mama comes looking.”

Buttercup lifted both hands to her mouth in mock terror before twirling and vanishing.
 

I reached the three steps that led up to our porch and collapsed on my butt. Darla sat beside me. She smelled of soap and perfume and a fancy new shampoo.

“How bad was it?”

I took off my hat and laid it beside me.
 

“Bad enough. No sign of you know who. The whole place fell in as we left.”

Darla was silent.
 

“That’s not even the worst part.”

“What could be worse than—well. That?”

“The Watch. I got picked up on the way home. New man, named Holder. Kept on and on about the woman who tried to stick me.”

Darla bristled.
 

“They took you downtown?”

“To the Old Ruth, no less. I think Holder was trying to shake me up.”

“You show him your Avalante pin?”

“He wasn’t impressed. That worries me. Need to talk to Evis.”

“You need a couple of hours of sleep, husband of mine. You can barely keep your eyes open.” She kissed me on my cheek and smoothed back my hair. “You look exhausted. I’ll leave breakfast in the oven. Scoot or I’ll have Buttercup fetch Mama and that black tea she calls her restorative.”

I groaned and found my feet. “Anything but that.”

She laughed and hugged me, brief but fierce. She walked across the porch and into our house, leaving our door open behind her.

I made it to the bedroom and wound up sleeping in my coat. I dreamed of riding in a carriage pulled by little red imps while phantasmal Watchmen shouted down rude questions from the trees.

Like any hard-working entrepreneur, I rose at the crack of noon. I gobbled down the breakfast Darla left, and was well on my way toward leaving my bathtub and perhaps selecting a dressing gown when a familiar knock sounded at my door.

“Boy, you in there?”

I cussed and scrambled out of the tub and sent soapy water sloshing all over Darla’s new floor tiles.
 

“Hold on, Mama, I’m coming.” I wasn’t sure she heard so I charged into the hall, dripping on everything, and shouted it again.

Mama heard and replied with something unintelligible. I watched her short fat shadow seat itself in one of our three rocking chairs, and I hurried back to the bathroom to get dried, combed, and dressed.

“It’s about damned time,” said Mama when I finally stuck my well-coiffed head out my door. She rose from the chair, scowling. “I don’t know what to think of folks sleepin’ away half the day when they got a fancy new house to pay for.”

“Good to see you too, Mama.”

She snorted and trundled inside.
 

Our house isn’t fancy, despite what certain busybody soothsayers claim. In the front room, there is a brown couch and a pair of comfy tan chairs, all aimed at the fireplace. There’s a low table situated so people have a place to put teacups or books. There’s a bookcase beneath the south window that opens to the porch, and doors to the kitchen and the hall on the east and north walls, respectively. The floors are dark-stained oak and a big red Balptist prayer-circle rug—a wedding present from a former client—keeps bare feet toasty warm in the winter.

Mama stopped just inside my doorway and took it all in. Then her hand darted in her battered black lace handbag and when it darted out again she held a woeful dried barn owl.

“Peace and contentment within these walls,” said Mama. “Let those who would enter and do mischief meet swift misfortune.”

Her owl shed dust and feathers but she hid it away again before I could voice a complaint.

“Brung you something, boy,” she said. Again, she fumbled in her bag.

“If it’s a mummified crow we’ve already got one.”

“Hush.” A shiny new horseshoe appeared in her hand. “I hexed it. Hexed it good. You set it right there on yonder mantel, open end up, you hear?”

She thrust it toward me. I shrugged, glad it wasn’t a ring of sun-dried snakes or some other homespun backwoods monstrosity, and placed it as she bade.

Mama nodded in approval before allowing herself a gap-toothed smile. “Well, are you goin’ to offer me a seat and some coffee or not, boy?”

I made a sweeping motion toward my many seating options. “Make yourself at home, Mama. I’ll go start the coffee.”

Mama sat, folded her hands in her lap, and promptly began to snore.

“I reckon you and the missus have got a right nice home,” said Mama after noisily draining her third cup of my coffee.

“Thank you.” I refilled her cup with the last of the pot. “Darla will be glad you came.”