Текст книги "The Mister Trophy"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Frank Tuttle
The Mister Trophy

Chapter One

Eddie the barkeep stared at the Troll and then at the “Dead Troll Tavern” emblem carved into the bar-top and then back at the Troll. The Troll grinned. Forty-eight finger-long incisors popped out, sharper and shinier than anything Eddie might have hidden behind the bar and dripping with poisonous Troll saliva to boot.

Eddie deftly dropped his drying rag on the Dead Troll carving, wiped his grubby hands on his equally grubby apron and donned a shaky tough-guy scowl. “Yeah?” he said to the Troll. “You want something?”

The Troll boomed something back. A second later, Kingdom words rang out in a flat male human voice. “I come for the finder Markhat.”

I choked on my beer. The Troll’s neckless head swiveled, owl-fashion, to face me. It gargled more words in Troll, and its translator spell spoke again. “You are the finder named Markhat.”

“Nope,” I said quickly. “Not me. Not Markhat. Never met the gent.”

The Troll glided over, flashing me that mouthful of nightmares smile. “I was told you would deny your name,” it said. “Shameful. I am-” The Troll spoke its name, and the translator gave up, leaving me with the sound of dishwater gurgling down a sink-drain.

“Honored to meet you, Walking Stone,” I said, as the Troll reached my table. “May your shadow fall tall and your soul grow to meet it.” I rose, my knowledge of Troll etiquette nearly exhausted. “I am not he that you seek, though, and anyway I hear he married a centaur and retired to the Fiti Coast. Why don’t you finish my ale and-”

The Troll’s grin split wider. It made a very human gesture for silence, finger at lips, and then it pulled back its greatcloak just far enough to reveal three fist-sized chunks of shiny solid gold on a fat wrought silver chain. Trolls don’t value gold themselves, but they do use it to barter with the other races. Word is that Trolls don’t haggle; they just stack money in big piles until someone says “yes”.

I sat down. Hard. The Troll shoved a rickety chair aside and squatted on the floor across from me.

“I walked fifty sunsets to see you, Finder,” it said. “I wade wide swamps, swim deep rivers, sleep on brother stones.”

“I live three blocks from here,” I replied. “So, I suppose, I walked fifteen minutes and drank two beers and sat on cousin chair.”

The Troll’s translator choked my words slowly out. The bar cleared, except Eddie, whose right eye-the blue one-hovered unsteadily behind a wide crack in the storeroom door.

The Troll barked and gurgled. My hackles rose, though I recognized booming Trollish laughter. “You jest with me, Finder Markhat,” it said. “You are brave. I admire bravery.” It leaned closer, yellow slitted owl-eyes narrowing. “I pay well for bravery.”

I shook my head. “Someone usually does, Walking Stone,” I said. “Just how much bravery are you wanting to buy?”

“You will go to a place I shall name,” said the Troll. “You will contrive to be admitted therein, and you shall determine if a certain object is displayed there. If so, you shall communicate my message to the masters of the place.”

Boots scuffed at the door, but hushed voices warned them off and Eddie lost another customer.

“This isn’t very private, Walking Stone,” I said. “And before I say yes or no, I need names. What place, what masters and what object?”

The Troll leaned close. My hair tried to stand on end. I’d been that close to a Troll only once before, twenty years ago. If a fat Marine sergeant hadn’t put a harpoon through its skull, I’d be laid out with the other war heroes up on the Hill.

“The place is called Haverlock, Finder,” whispered the Troll’s translator. “Its masters bear the same name. The object is a trophy taken during the War. A head, stuffed and mounted. A Walking Stone head.”

I finished my beer. “What’s the message, Walking Stone?”

The Troll grinned again. “You have what is ours,” he said. “Return it. With apologies. At once.”

“And you think they’ll just pry it off the wall and hand it to me?”

The Troll’s toothy grin got wider. “Most assuredly yes.”

I shook my head. “Do you know who and what the Haverlocks are, Walking Stone?”

“I know they are rich. And powerful.”

“There’s only one way to be rich and powerful in Rannit these days,” I said. “The Haverlocks are night people. Half-dead. Vampires.”

The Troll’s eyes narrowed. “You know this as fact, Finder?”

“I haven’t been bitten by a Haverlock personally, no,” I said. “But they own a mansion in the Heights and they wear a lot of black and they don’t get much sun. Also, old man Haverlock showed up as a hero right after the War and he hasn’t gotten any older.”

The Troll made grumbles. “I thought your people hated and feared such creatures.”

“We did. Then they won the War for us and promised to behave.”

“And have they?” asked the Troll. “Behaved?”

“They stay in their houses from sunup to sundown. We stay in ours after curfew. They don’t break into our bedrooms at night and we don’t spend our lunch breaks putting stakes between their ribs. It’s worked so far.”

“And after sundown-on what do they feed?”

“The brave,” I said, rising. “The brave, the stupid and maybe the occasional wandering Troll.”

“Will you accept my offer?” said the Troll.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not just go yourself? The Haverlocks are a lot more likely to play nice with a mighty Troll warrior than a third-rate Finder from the wrong side of the river.”

“If I were to go to Haverlock and see the bones of my kin decorating a wall, Finder,” said the Troll, “I would be honor-bound to slay all of the Haverlocks and a certain number of their kin. That would be-” the translator halted, struggling for words “-time consuming.”

Then it erupted in Trollish laughter, which sounds like thunder with a head cold. Eddie hastily took his peeking blue eye elsewhere. I pulled out a pair of jerks-more than I owed Eddie for my drinks, but my presence had cost the man business-and slammed them down on the table. “All right,” I said, rising. “It’s still daylight. I’ll go to Haverlock and contrive to poke around. You won’t owe me if I come up empty.”

The Troll blinked, which is the Troll way of nodding in agreement.

“And I’ll need another name for you, Walking Stone,” I said. “Melodious though yours is, I can’t pronounce it without a tight boot and a mud-hole.”

The Troll rose, knees bending in that backwards flex that looks awkward until you see one make a thirty-foot leap. “You may call me Mister Smith,” said the Troll, to a deep bass rumble I took to be chuckling. “Mister Bill Smith.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mister Smith,” I said. I even threw in courtly bow, just to dispel those rumors about Markhats and bad manners. The Troll responded with another chuckle. I dodged tables, grabbed my coat and opened the door. “After you.”

A pair of Watchmen trotted through the open door. They saw Mister Smith, executed a pair of perfectly timed about-faces, and were back out on the street before the Troll could grace them with a toothy Troll smile.

“Thanks for stopping by, boys,” I said to their rapidly vanishing backs. “Where would we be without law and order?”

Mister Smith ducked under the door and I followed in his wake. Artifice Street-nobody calls it the Street of the Artificers anymore but old folks and the Historic Preservation Society-was empty. No nibble vendors, no ladies of the afternoon, no dark-eyed bands of teenage vampire wannabees out to break the Curfew and maybe get just dead enough to live forever. I frowned and froze.

Mister Smith’s head swiveled my way. “Is something amiss, Finder?” he said.

“Something cleared the street, Mister Smith,” I said. “Could it be you brought friends along?”

The Troll chuckled. “Only two,” he said. “Three is customary number for quests, even among the folk of your legends, is it not?”

I sighed. “I can’t go marching around the Heights with a Troll army at my heels. Why don’t you boys wait in my office while I visit the rich folks?”

“Agreed,” said Mister Smith. Then he burped out something short and loud in Troll. I didn’t need any magic translator to catch the bark of a sergeant behind the words.

One Army is rather like any other, I suppose.

A pair of Walking Stones trundled out of the alleys flanking us. “Mister Jones will stroll on ahead,” said Mister Smith. “Mister Chin will follow, to deter mischief.”

I shrugged. “Why not? We haven’t had a parade in this neighborhood since the Truce. Wish I had a tuba.”

Mister Smith laughed and did a little skip over a pile of horse flop. Doors and street level windows banged shut as we passed; higher up, wide-eyed faces shone and gaped.

We turned the corner at Holt; it, too, was empty, except for trash scampering by on the wind and crows picking at sweetmeats dropped by people in a sudden hurry.

If you look down Holt Street, over the factories and the smokestacks that line the Brown River, you can just see the top stories and slate rooftops of the manor houses that huddle together on the Heights. I wondered if this is what all of Rannit will look like, in a hundred years-deserted and dead during the day, while those withered, pale forms in the Heights sleep and dream thirsty dreams of sunset.

Mister Smith chuckled. “Penny for your thoughts,” said his translator, a hint of mischief in its tone.

I shook off the chill and picked up the pace.

It’s a tight fit, but three full-grown Trolls will fit in my office. I shoved all the furniture against the walls, opened my single barred window and told the Misters I’d be back before dark.

I didn’t even bother locking the door. I just waved to the suddenly nonchalant crowd of gawkers that were beginning to gather at the corner and stepped next door to Mama Hog’s card-and-potion shop.

I raised my hand to knock; she opened the door before my hand could fall. It’s her best trick, and it probably sets the rubes to oohing and aahing, but it saddens me to think she stands there all day peeking through tattered curtains just so she can pull off that one little shred of mystery.

Sunlight barged past her open door, fell on shelves crammed with dusty, foul-smelling glassware, a moldy stuffed owl on a wobbly three-legged table and, of course, Mama Hog herself. The sunlight stopped there, and I didn’t blame it. Mama Hog isn’t pretty like Trolls aren’t petite.

“Somebody sicced a Troll army on me, Mama,” I said. “I’m betting it was you.” No one but Mama knew my haunts that well.

Mama Hog grinned. “The Walking Stone found you, did he?”

“He did,” I said. “And his friends.” Mama motioned me inside. I went, and she shut the door.

“Smells like you’re brewing up something special, Mama,” I said, while she settled her stooped old bones into a chair and motioned for me to be seated as well. “Wouldn’t be Troll after-shave, would it?”

“Might be a drought to shut smart mouths,” said Mama, brushing a tangle of matted grey hair out of her face. “Then where would you be, boy?”

“Out of work.” I shoved the owl aside and picked up a worn deck of fortune cards. “What’s in my future, Mama?” I asked. “Trolls? Gold? Angry vampire hordes?”

The old lady snorted. “The half-dead are no joke, boy,” she said. Her eyes might be old, but they’re sharp as knifepoints, and they glittered. “No joke.”

I plopped down a card. “Neither are Trolls, Mama,” I said. “This bunch might wind up losing their tempers. Soon.”

“They might,” said Mama Hog, her voice softening, losing some of the old-hag put-on rasp. “Certainly so, if they find that which they seek.”

I threw down another card. “So you know?”

“I know.”

“They tell you?”

“They told me.”

I shuffled, cut, tossed down a card. “So who else knows? Eddie? The Watch? Who?”

Mama Hog smiled and scooped up the three cards I’d tossed out. “No one else knows,” she said. “I told them to trust you, and only you.”

“You told them that? Mama, why in the Nine High Heavens did you tell them that?”

“Your fate and their task meet now, Finder,” she said, her eyes bright and hard in the candlelight. “Meet, and mingle, and merge.”

“Drop the carnival soothsayer act, Mama,” I said. “It won’t wash with me.”

She slammed a card-one of my three cards-down on the table, face up in the flickering light.

I could just make out the worn, faded image of a man running away, a sack slung over his shoulder. Coins dribbled out of a tear in the sack.

“Greed,” said Mama Hog. “Flight. Abandonment. How much can they pay you for your soul, Finder?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” I said. “How much do you charge for fate?”

The second card went down. Crossed daggers glinted against a half-full moon. “Vengeance,” hissed Mama Hog. “How many lives will you waste to avenge a single death?”

“Six,” I snapped. “Maybe five, if it’s wash day.”

The third card hit the table. On it a skeletal hand beckoned, bony forefinger crooked in invitation.

“Death,” I said, standing. “Even I know that one. Death, the Final Dancer, the Last Guy You’ll Ever See and Boy Will You Hope There’s Been a Mistake.”

Mama Hog stood as well. “Jest if you will, Finder,” she said. “But take care. You stand at a crossroads. One way leads to the dark.”

“How much do I owe you, Mama?”

Mama Hog went stiff. All four feet of her puffed up and for a moment I honest to gods thought she was going to slap me. Then she let out her breath in a whoosh and broke into chuckles.

“No charge to neighbors,” she said. “Even disrespectful unbelieving smart-mouthed jackanapes who don’t know their friends from their boot-heels.”

“My friends don’t usually send feuding Trolls to my door, Mama.”

“This one did,” she replied. “Now get out. I’ve got an appointment.”

I stomped blinking into the street, telling myself that Mama’s cards were just so much tattered pasteboard and third-rate flummery.

The street stank, and in the absence of my Troll friends, it bustled. Wagons creaked, carriage drivers cussed, horses snorted, and everywhere people rushed back and forth, hurrying against the daylight so the night people could have the city by night.

A man passed in front of me, a sack slung over his shoulder, just like on Mama’s card.

I fell in step behind him all the way to Haverlock.

“And you have no appointment, sir?”

“No. None. Nada.”

The doorman shook his head and doddered away. He’d already asked twice about my appointment; I’d told him twice I had none. He’d checked with the other doorman anyway; both had retreated to the far side of the foyer and were consulting a leather-bound appointment book amid a blizzard of hushed words and furtive glances.

“Look, gents,” I said. “I really don’t have an appointment. I wouldn’t even know who to have an appointment with, unless you’ve got a man in charge of antiquities, decorations and ornamental taxidermy.”

The doormen exchanged suspicious glances. “Taxidermy? Are you a tradesman, sir?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s right. I’m Wiggle, of Wiggle, Stiff and Waxed, Taxidermists. I’m here to polish the eyes of the Troll head His Honor Haverlock hung in the trophy room right after the War-”

The younger doorman snorted and stalked off, but I wasn’t watching him. My eyes were all for the older man, whose expression had gone from bored indifference to full-blown terror at the mere mention of the Troll’s head.

He shut his jaw and took a breath, but he couldn’t hide the sudden flush on his face or the sweat popping out on his brow.

“Relax,” I said. “I’m joking. My name is Markhat. I run a Finder’s outfit down on Cambrit. I’m here to inquire about the Troll’s head, that’s all.”

He licked his lips. His eyes darted right and left. I could see he had things to tell, and reasons not to tell them, and he was weighing the “what ifs” against the “if thens”.

“I’m not here to start any trouble,” I said, softly. I put on the same kind of smile I’d flash at a fussy baby and hoped I had better luck than I usually did. “I’ve been hired to find out if a Troll’s head is here. That’s all. Yes or no.”

I widened my smile. “My clients will of course be happy to pay for information,” I said. “I believe they’d be most generous.”

He was about to speak. He knew better, but something that looked like an uneven combination of guilt and greed had tipped the scales, just like I’d hoped it would.

The doors on the far side of the foyer suddenly banged open and a small, well-dressed army of cooks, gardeners and coachmen marched inside, a tall cadaverous butler at the fore. “Get out,” he said, addressing me with the boldness that comes with knowing you’ve got the other guy hopelessly outnumbered. “Leave this House at once.”

The doorman with things to tell joined his comrades, his eyes downcast, his jaw set and grim. Whatever he’d wanted to say was gone, and I doubted I’d ever tempt it forth again.

But I didn’t need specifics to know I’d found at least part of what I’d come for.

I fixed the skinny butler in a steely glare. “Your shoes could use a shine, Reeves,” I told him. “I won’t have you besmirching the House with your sloth again.”

Then I hung my nose in the air and beat it out of there. I was sure they’d throw me out anyway-I just wasn’t sure they’d open the door first.

I put the tall dark houses and the big green lawns to my back and set a brisk pace. The wind in my face was off the Brown River; it stank of dead fish and cattle-barges and, always, something burning, but I sucked down lungfuls of it anyway. House Haverlock had smelled of undertaker’s flowers, and mortuary perfumes, but even the combination of both couldn’t quite erase the odor of death that rode the air in every ornate hall or well-appointed room.

But I’d stomped on a memory in the old doorman, and that caused me to remember something as well-stories about a big dust-up in the Heights about ten years back. Half-dead in-fighting is hardly unusual-they kill each other much more often than they kill us day folk-but this clash had been unusual in that most of a five-House common hall was demolished and half-dead were actually spotted fleeing the scene, cloaks flapping, shiny shoes a blur.

What if Mister Smith wasn’t the first Troll to come calling in the Heights?

Somebody bumped into me and cussed because I’d stopped dead in my tracks. I muttered an apology and took off.

Even Trolls, it seems, like to edit their truths.

Chapter Two

I sat in my office and watched the sun sink. Nine bells rang and curfew fell across Rannit like the ragged cloak it is, which meant that the brave, the foolish and the felonious were still very much out and about. The Watch would stop a few curfew-breakers, send a few home and make “Well, what do you expect?” faces at missing persons reports tomorrow.

I stowed the Trolls out of sight but in easy reach. Mister Smith was in my room behind the office. Mister Jones was in Mama Hog’s, next door. Mister Chin was squeezed in the alley two Troll-strides down the street.

There’s a street-lamp right across from my door, and every shadow it cast at my office was that of a half-dead, slinking my way with murder on its lips and mayhem on its mind. I got out my old Army field knife and laid into the long steel blade with a whetstone, pausing to admire its edge only when a shadow bobbed toward my door.

Two hours after Curfew, he came.

I never saw a shadow.

I looked up and my door was opening and there it was, tall and thin and pale. Filmy eyes that looked like dirty marbles met mine.

I put down the knife.

Blue lips pulled back from wet white teeth. “You are the finder Markhat?”

I nodded. The Trolls might as well have been a million miles away.

“I am Liam. I come on behalf of Haverlock.”

I found my voice. “Nice to meet you. Pull up a chair. I’ll have the butler bring us drinks.”

Liam sat, dead eyes boring into mine like he could see secret things written on my bones. “No wise-cracks, Finder,” he said. “I was sent here to kill you. Rip you apart, specifically. I’m trying to do this another way. You aren’t helping. So again I ask-why did you come to Haverlock today?”

I gave up trying to keep up with his unblinking half-dead stare. “I came on behalf of a client,” I said. “A Troll client. He wants to know if a dead relative wound up decorating your master’s trophy room. I came to Haverlock to see. I believe I explained all that to your domestic staff, before they cited a dress code and showed me to the curb.”

“What did you see,” it said, leaning a hair’s breadth closer. “And what did you tell?”

“I told my Troll friend I was tossed out,” I said, adding a little emphasis to the word “friend”. “I told him I saw no Troll heads. I also told him I think it’s there, somewhere.”

It lifted a pale eyebrow. “You told the Troll that?”

“I did.” I forced my eyes back toward his. “And I was right. It’s there, or you’d be out grabbing breakfast instead of sitting here making spooky eyes at me.”

It grinned. Just for a heartbeat, but it grinned a crooked grin and I saw the ghost of the man it once was.

“You got a mouth, Markhat,” it said. “Reminds me of me, once upon.”

I guess I ogled. It shook its head. “Surprised I’m still human?” it asked. “I’m full of surprises tonight. First, I’m not going to kill you, so that Troll next door can put down his axe and relax.”

“He likes holding his axe,” I said. “Keeps him from getting fidgety.”

Liam grinned again. “We wouldn’t want that. In fact, we don’t want any trouble at all. So what if-and this is just a what if-what if I gave you a certain Troll artifact that may have mistakenly wound up here after the War? What if I apologized, and handed it over, and walked away? What then?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Is this you talking, or old man Haverlock?”

“Doesn’t matter to you. Answer the question.”

“It does matter, and you answer mine. You or Haverlock?”

He ground his teeth. “Do you know what happens to us when we get old?”

“Fancy dentures?”

His fist hit my desk, and the mask of humanity fell away. “Some go insane. Haverlock is insane. He wants you dead and your Troll friend dead and he’ll risk the whole House over a moth-eaten curio nobody has seen for ten years. Some of us don’t share his mania. Now answer my question.”

I shrugged. “I just don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the Troll will walk. I doubt it-Trolls don’t work that way. The honor of the clan has been besmirched. One of their cousins spent twenty years wandering around the Happy Hunting Ground without a head to whistle with.”

“What about wereguild? We could pay.”

“Trolls don’t want your money.”

It ground its teeth again. “I’ll ask my Troll,” I said. “But not with you sitting here. You’re a Haverlock-he’s honor-bound to start the War again if you two wind up in the same room.”

“I’ll be back.” Liam rose, and a man with a proper skeleton never moved like that. “I hope you have good news.”

“Sit back down,” I said. “You’ve left out a few things.”

He kept standing, but cocked an eyebrow and stood still.

“You haven’t told me how I stay alive after I wave goodbye to my Troll pal, if he takes your offer,” I said. “Say Haverlock goes to cuddle his favorite War trophy, finds it gone. Say Haverlock finds out that the finder Markhat is still walking around with his head and all his limbs attached. Won’t the Haverlock fly into a snit and send less contemplative boys back around my door, late one night?”

Liam’s dry eyes narrowed. “Haverlock will no longer be a threat to you, Finder,” he said. “Or to anyone else.”

“Time for a change in top-level management?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And we all live happily ever after.”

Liam hesitated, mulling that one over. “Yes. We live.”

I stood. “I’ll ask my Troll. We’ll see. When will you be back?”

“Later,” it said, turning and grasping the doorknob.

“Watch your step out there,” I said. “Gets rough in the neighborhood, after Curfew.”

It turned in the doorway and grinned.

“Especially tonight,” it said.

The door shut.

I hit the chair seat and fought back the first case of the shakes I’d had since the War.

Mister Smith’s heavy treads sounded at my door. “Come on in,” I yelled. “We’re always open.”

The Troll squeezed inside.

“I heard all,” said Mister Smith. He loomed over my desk, a mountain of fangs and fur, but he blinked and breathed and looked downright friendly compared to the Liam-thing. “You were brave in the presence of death,” said the Troll. “Your spirit is strong.”

“My spirit is scared,” I replied. “My spirit hopes and prays you can just take your cousin’s head and let bygones be bygones.”

“He said he would apologize, did he not?”

“He said so.”

“And does he speak for the clan Haverlock?”

I hesitated. “He speaks for those among clan Haverlock who think their master insane. He speaks for those who would remove the eldest Haverlock as leader, and put another in his place. Will that do?”

Mister Smith crouched down and got comfortable while his translator gargled and barked. He grumbled back at it a few times-asking, I suppose, for clarifications of weird human concepts like removing and replacing clan leaders.

“If we receive the head of our cousin and an apology from clan Haverlock,” he said at last, “We will be satisfied.”

“Who must give you the apology?” I asked.

“Clan Haverlock,” said his translator. “He who speaks for the clan,” it added, before I could ask again.

“That won’t be the same guy that actually stole the head,” I said. “I want to make sure you understand that.”

Mister Smith blinked and burped. “Naturally not,” spoke the translator. “It will no longer be possible for him to do so.”

I took in a deep breath. “I knew this was going too well,” I muttered. “Too easy.”

The translator started sloshing that out. “What I meant,” I said, “was that I’ve missed something here. Tell me-why don’t you expect old man Haverlock to apologize?”

Mister Smith chuckled. “Because,” he said, “part of the apology is the balance of insults. Haverlock kept the bones of my cousin these twenty summers. We will keep his bones for the same span. Honor will be restored, both to our clan and his. Is this not the way of all thinking beings?”

“So I have to give you old man Haverlock’s bones.”

“We’ll go and fetch them, if necessary.”

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. “I bet you would.” I said. “But they’ll be waiting and even the three of you wouldn’t make it off the Hill tonight.”

“We might.”

“You’d die,” I said. “And that would be my fault and who would balance my honor?”

Mister Smith’s brow furrowed. “You have no clan?”

“Nope,” I said. “Clanless Markhat, that’s what they call me. No one to wash my socks.” I stood and stretched.

Something heavy hit the wall outside. Plaster cracked by my doorframe. There was a muffled thud, a squeal like a stepped-on puppy, and a wet tearing sound.

A Troll voice came from the street. Mister Smith growled back.

“One of what you call the half-dead approached,” said Mister Smith. “Not the one called Liam of the House Haverlock. This new half-dead withdrew a weapon and approached your door.”

“What was the ruckus?” I croaked.

“Mister Jones,” said Mister Smith. “He is sorry. He meant to leave the half-dead creature able to answer to you for the insult to your house, but he fears he squashed it. Shall we see?”

Something thin and dark was beginning to seep in under the door.

“Bring me its clothes,” I said. “Toss the rest in a garbage box, if you please.”

Mister Smith rumbled. There was a shuffling outside, and more liquid tearing noises. Mister Jones was having trouble deciding where clothes ended and half-dead began.

If it was one of the Haverlocks, I probably wouldn’t live to see Liam’s coup begin. If it belonged to another House, that meant word had spread and someone had decided a Troll vendetta might do to Haverlock what a dozen Families couldn’t. And what better way to touch things off than by bopping off that meddlesome Markhat?

Mister Jones shoved a wad of clothes through the door. They were wet, and it wasn’t raining.

I stuck my Army knife in the bundle, plopped it down on my desk, and spread things out with the blade.

Black pants, black shirt, black coat, black cloak. And one black shoe, foot still comfortably ensconced.

The shirt-buttons bore tiny dragon heads.

“He was of House Lathe,” I said. “Not one of Haverlock’s boys.”

I bundled things back up. “These can go with the rest,” I said. “And thank Mister Jones for me.”

Mister Smith made rumbles. Mister Jones bowed-I’d never seen a Troll do that before. Then he took the bundle and faded away.

“Will there be more?” asked Mister Smith.

“Could be,” I said. “But we’ve got to wait here for Liam.”

“We will be vigilant,” said Mister Smith. “Fear not.”

I settled back and grabbed my useless whetstone.

We waited, my Trolls and I. Mister Smith crouched in the corner and used my desk as an armrest. Mister Jones leaned against the wall outside my door and cleaned his foot-long claws. We kept Mister Chin hidden inside Mama Hog’s, and from the gurgling and choking I guessed that he and Mama Hog were gabbing away like spinster aunts. I’d told Mama Hog to stay with a friend until this mess was over. She’d pretended not to hear.

Mister Jones growled a couple times between dusk and the tenth hour, but nothing and no one came closer than the corner. I got sleepy despite the steady whirlwind wheeze of Mister Smith’s breathing and the knowledge that dozens of night people might be licking pale lips and heading my way.

The Watch sounded the eleventh hour. The bell wasn’t yet still when Mister Chin rumbled something long and nasty and Mister Smith unfolded and stood.

“One comes,” said Mister Smith. “Mister Jones thinks it is he who came before.”

“Let him in,” I said, standing and slipping my Marine knife in a pocket. “Squash him if he makes rude comments.” I added that in a loud, clear voice I was sure our visitor heard.

The door opened. It was Liam. He stepped inside, and his face in my lamplight looked pink around the edges.

“Have a nice supper?” I asked.

He grinned. His mouth was red and wet.

“I suppose we have a deal,” he said quietly. “Or is this an ambush?”

“We have a deal,” I said. “And us Trolls don’t do ambushes. Besmirches our honor.”

Liam nodded. He hadn’t looked at Mister Smith directly, and he wisely refrained from an eye-to-eye now. “You may retrieve your parcel tomorrow. At a time and a place that will be communicated to you later, via messenger.”