Deadly Games (8 page)

“Wait, don’t go down!”

“She started a cursed fire!”

Amaranthe hurled a deck chair into the water
under the bridge, hoping the enforcers would think the splash
resulted from her diving in. As she eased around another corner,
she silently apologized to the poor homeowner whose house she was
vandalizing. Maybe she could send money later.

“Did she go overboard?”

“I heard a splash. There!”

“Somebody get a bucket! This fire is—” The
order broke off in a round of coughing.

Hoping they were all peering into the water
under the bridge, Amaranthe slipped up a ladder leading to the
ledge along the canal. She skimmed through the shadows to the
grate. It remained unlocked. She eased over the side and alighted
in the tunnel.

When she leaned out to pull the grate shut,
she glimpsed the fire she had started, and she gaped. The flames
had spread to the wall and roof of the home. The intensity of the
light illuminated the canal and turned the water a burnished
orange. People on the street were gathering. If the enforcers did
not give up their search and send someone to alert the Imperial
Fire Brigade, the owners of that house would lose everything.

She pulled the grate shut, pausing to lean
her head against the cold bars. “Dumb move,” she whispered. Yes,
she had escaped, but at what cost? She didn’t have the kind of
money it would take to reimburse the homeowners.

Amaranthe straightened, and a wine bottle in
the bag clunked against the iron bars. How she had managed to keep
the silly groceries with her she did not know.

She turned her back on the canal, and the
devastation she had wrought, and ran up the tunnel.

In the alley behind the newspaper building,
she checked both directions before crawling out of the passage.
Careful to do it quietly, she eased the manhole cover back into
place. She stood, then jumped with surprise when she found a shadow
looming next to her.

“It’s me,” Sicarius said before she could
think of flinging a shopping bag at him.

“Thank the emperor,” she breathed. “We need
to go.” She trotted to the nearest street.

“Yes.” He fell into step beside her, and they
headed away from the canal. Shouts rang out behind them—people
yelling at others to help or run for the fire brigade. “I saw the
enforcers,” he said.

Great. Another witness to her arson, though
he would probably approve of such tactics. That didn’t make her
feel better.

They jogged past rows of factories, dormant
for the night, and crossed into a residential neighborhood. Several
blocks into it, on the edge of a park, Amaranthe dared to stop to
catch her breath and collect herself. She dropped the canvas bags,
hardly caring if she damaged something. The bottle of wine rolled
out and bumped to a stop against a tree root.

“What happened after I left?” she asked. “Did
you follow Mancrest?”

“Yes. An army lorry rolled into the alley and
picked up two squads of soldiers. The Mancrests left out the front.
They parted ways, and I followed the journalist to his house.”
Sicarius eyed the shopping bags. “You still wish to speak with
him?”

“Yes.” Amaranthe snorted. More than ever she
needed to make friends with Mancrest. “I need someone to squash the
front-page headline I foresee hitting the papers tomorrow:
Notorious Criminal Amaranthe Lokdon Commits Arson on the 17th
Street Canal.”

“That can be arranged,” Sicarius said, though
he hesitated before saying it, as if he was not certain they were
thinking of the same way that deed could be done. Good guess.

“Not with threats of pain,” Amaranthe said.
“Or actual pain.”

He said nothing.

She crouched, putting her back to an oak, and
looked up at him. Streetlights burned at both ends of the park, but
full night had fallen, and darkness hid Sicarius’s face. His black
clothing made it hard to pick him out, even a few feet away.

“Out of all the enforcers you’ve...killed...”
She had a hard time saying that. Whatever happened, she had still
been an enforcer for nearly seven years, and it was painful to
think of harm coming to her old colleagues. “Out of all of them,
did you ever start the fight? Or was it all just a matter of them
trying to kill you?”

“If I perceived them as a threat, I
eliminated them.”

“But you never saw a couple of patrollers
strolling down the street and decided, oh, yes, there need to be
fewer enforcers in the world, so I’m going to leave the shadows and
stick a knife in their backs?”

“You know I did not,” Sicarius said, a hint
of reproach in his normally emotionless voice.

“I know. Sorry. I’m just trying to figure
this out.” She dropped her head in her hands and dug her fingers
into her scalp. She liked to think she was bright, but maybe she
was just delusional. She ought to have been able to escape without
wreaking havoc. If she truly were smart, she would not have been
captured in the first place. But as long as they worked in the
city, and went out and about to pursue missions, it seemed unlikely
she could successfully avoid the enforcers every minute of every
day. She needed them to look the other way, but her stomach
clenched at the idea of blackmail or any strong-arming. “How can I
make them understand that I’m on their side and they don’t need to
try to capture me, no matter what the bounty says? I feel like we
made some progress with that water scheme, but again so few people
know we were involved. And every time something like this happens—”
she waved back toward the canal, “—it’s a step backward. I’m not
sure they’ll ever forgive me for what happened to Wholt and those
other enforcers.” She thought of her discussion with Basilard and
wondered if she was delusional for believing she could find a place
in the history books as a hero. “Maybe I should give up on heroics
and become a villain. The money’s better, I hear, and you’re a fine
example of how easy it is to become notorious.
You’re
probably guaranteed a place in the history books.”

She sighed and dropped to her knees to grab
the wine bottle and shove it back in the bag. “All right, I’m done
whining. Thank you for listening.”

In the dim lighting, she did not at first
notice when Sicarius grabbed one bag and extended a hand for the
second. She gave it to him. She was cursed tired of carrying the
things anyway. Maybe he knew that. He surprised her by offering his
hand again, this time to grip her arm and help her up.

“Hm,” she said. “If I’d known it would result
in you carrying things for me, I’d have moaned and complained to
you more often.”

“Easy?” he said as they headed off down the
tree-lined street.

“What?”

“You think it’s easy to become
notorious?”

“Well.” She managed a faint smile. “You make
it look easy.”

“Huh.”

“Top floor, eh?” Amaranthe followed Sicarius
to one of only two doors in a short hallway. The one they stopped
in front of was made of stout oak and featured a hand-carved image
of a spear-toting man hunting a bear alongside a tree-lined
river.

“Yes,” Sicarius said.

Since Mancrest was warrior caste, it made
sense that he would have the resources to own a flat that took up
half of the floor. What surprised her was that he lived in a
neighborhood full of university students and modest-income
families, in a building that lacked a doorman in the lobby to keep
out riffraff. Maybe as a journalist, he favored being in the heart
of the city.

Amaranthe took the grocery bags from
Sicarius. “Thank you. Do you want to wait outside while I—”

“No.”

“No?”

“He may have a limp, but he’s a former
officer. He’ll be a dangerous opponent.”

“No doubt,” Amaranthe said, “but I’m not
planning to fight him. Also, I find it difficult to...sway people
to my way of thinking when you’re holding knives to their throats.
That tends to render one unwilling to believe my entreaties of
friendship.”

Sicarius’s only response was to knock on the
door.

“You have an amazing knack for being almost
personable one moment and, er, yourself the next.”

He said nothing.

Uneven footsteps and the rhythmic thump of a
cane on a hard floor sounded on the other side of the door.
Sicarius took up a position against the wall. She wanted to tell
him not to jump out and put a knife to Mancrest’s throat, but the
door opened too soon.

Amaranthe had a glimpse of short, wavy brown
hair, a strong jaw, and spectacles before Mancrest realized who she
was and reacted.

He jumped back, whipping his cane up. A click
sounded, and the wood flew away from the handle. Amaranthe dropped
the groceries and flung an arm up to block the projectile, but
Sicarius blurred past her.

He caught the flying cane and tackled
Mancrest. Something—steel?—clattered to the floor.

In the half a second it took Amaranthe to
realize she could lower her arms, the skirmish was over. Mancrest
lay sprawled face-first on the floor with Sicarius on top, pinning
him. She cringed. At least knives were not involved. Yet.

“Good evening, Lord Mancrest.” Amaranthe
picked up her bags and the hollow husk of the cane. She spotted the
handle attached to a rapier on the floor inside the threshold.
Sword stick. “I thought we had a dinner date. Was my invitation
received in error?”

Having his face pressed into the floor
muffled his response.

“Pardon?” Amaranthe stepped inside, closing
the door behind her. “Sicarius, would you mind letting him up,
please?”

Sicarius yanked him to his feet, keeping
Mancrest’s arms pinned behind his back. A pained grimace twisted
Mancrest’s face, and his spectacles dangled from one ear.

Amaranthe waved for Sicarius to loosen the
hold. He did not.

“I apologize for being tardy at your proposed
meeting place,” Amaranthe said, “but there appeared to be a squad
of soldiers lurking inside. What do you suppose they were doing
there?”

Mancrest glowered and said nothing.

“Maldynado seems to think you’re an honorable
fellow,” Amaranthe said, “and even knowing that you arranged to
have me captured, or killed I suppose, he still thinks I should
talk to you.” Actually, according to Maldynado’s candle selection,
he thought they should do more than
talk
.

“I
am
honorable,” Mancrest said, voice
strained as he fought to stifle grimaces of pain that flashed
across his face. “That’s why I tried to arrange your capture.”

Sicarius stood a couple of inches shorter
than Mancrest, but Amaranthe had no trouble meeting his eyes over
the bigger man’s shoulder. “Let go,” she mouthed.

At first he did not, but she held his gaze
for a long moment, and he finally searched Mancrest for other
weapons and released him. Mancrest took a couple of careful steps
away from them, trying to hide his limp, but the stiffness of his
movements gave it away. He positioned himself so his back was no
longer to Sicarius.

Amaranthe assembled his sword stick and
extended it toward him. Mancrest considered it—and her—for several
long seconds before accepting it. He rested the tip on the floor,
though he did not lean on it.

Despite what must be a permanent injury, he
appeared fit. The rolled-up sleeves of his creamy shirt revealed
muscular forearms. As Maldynado had promised, Mancrest had a
handsome face, though what might have been pain lines creased his
eyes and the corners of his mouth, making him appear a few years
older than he probably was.

“I guess it’s good I didn’t dress up for you
then.” She hefted the bags. “Hungry? Mind if I find some
plates?”

“Depends.” Mancrest was spending more time
watching Sicarius than her. “Will three be dining or just two?”

“Ah, I believe my provisions were gathered
with a pair in mind.” She gave an apologetic shrug to Sicarius.
“Maldynado did the shopping.”

Sicarius wore his usual
guess-my-thoughts-if-you-can mask, though she sensed he did not
approve. Of dinner or the entire situation? She did not know.

“Where shall I set up?” she asked
Mancrest.

Masculine leather chairs and sofas, a desk,
and a gaming table occupied the main room, but nothing looked like
a dining area. A half a dozen doors marked the brick and wood
walls, none of them with any enlightening ornamentation that
proclaimed, “Kitchen this way.”

Mancrest jerked his head toward one in the
back. “In there.”

At least he was cooperating. That was a good
start, right?

Amaranthe headed for the door. As she passed
through, she noticed she had picked up a shadow.

“I don’t think he’s going to try anything
right now,” she whispered to Sicarius who was already taking up a
post against the wall beside a long dining table made from a single
thick slab of wood. “He must be curious about what I have to say.
He’s a journalist, after all.”

Mancrest stepped through the door, veering
the opposite direction from Sicarius.

“May I get you a drink?” he asked, pointedly
not looking at Sicarius or including him in the offer.

Amaranthe pulled out the wine bottle. “Just a
corkscrew.”

Mancrest examined the bottle. Checking the
label to see if it met with his refined warrior-caste palette? No,
she realized. He was seeing if the seal had been broken.

“Nothing’s poisoned. If we wanted you dead,
that would have happened by now.” She did not nod toward Sicarius;
she didn’t figure she had to.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure your assassin could have
arranged that,” Mancrest said, “but I figured you might have a
lesser punishment in mind and have arranged for some gut-wrenching
vomiting or emergency movements from the other end.”

“You must have courted some vindictive
women,” Amaranthe said.