Burn Me Deadly

FIFTEEN

I raised my hands immediately. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, I’m really sorry,” I said, and let my voice get high and shaky. “I was just looking for a way upstairs that wasn’t so crowded and got turned around. Please don’t hurt me.” I practically whimpered when I added, “Praise the flame?”

“Right,” the voice whispered, deliberately obscuring its identity. “Now start backing up. Slowly.”

“Please, I can explain; it’s not what it looks like,” I whined.

“You’re making me cry,” the voice croaked drily. “Move.”

I did as ordered. When we emerged back into the ceremonial chamber, the sword jabbed me again. “Stop. Turn around. Put your back against the wall. And keep your hands where I can see them, or you’ll find your guts warming your feet.”

“My guts warming my feet?” I repeated in my normal voice as I turned. “That’s good; can I borrow it?” Then I faced my attacker.

Prince Frederick’s distracted dancing girl stood there in her red cloak, my Shadow Slasher III in her right hand. She held it with ease, the tip touching my navel. “You again,” I said.

She raised the point to the center of my chest. I tensed; this model Shadow Slasher had a safety catch that you had to press with your thumb; otherwise when the blade was turned upright, spring-loaded spikes shot out of the hilt and made a thorough mess of your sword hand. It was a handy thing if you’d been disarmed by the bad guys, less so when a girl you wanted to question might set it off. “What do you mean, ‘again’?” she said.

“I saw you looking around before, and then keeping the other girls away from the prince.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I nodded toward the gap in her cloak. “I never forget a pair of boobs. Especially when they’re attached to a lizard.”

“They’re all attached to lizards here. So who are you?”

“Just here for the show.” I bowed my head solemnly. “Praise the flame.”

“Praise my ass. You’re too old to be with Marantz’s group, and you’re too clean to be with the…” She unconsciously waved the sword as she sought the word. “Natives.”

When the sword momentarily pointed away from me, I jumped forward. I grabbed her wrists, careful to keep the one with my sword pointed down, and spun her back against the wall. I head-butted her, which dazed her enough that she dropped the sword. I grabbed her slender neck and, when she tried to claw my face, slammed her head into the rock hard enough to get her attention. “I’ll smash your brains out the next time,” I warned. “Understand?”

She stared at me, her face shiny with panic sweat. Her hands clutched my arm. Hell, she was really young; maybe my earlier guess of sixteen had been optimistic.

For good measure I lifted her by the neck until she stood on tiptoes. This made the red cloak fall to the floor. Rather than sexy, her nakedness now made her seem achingly vulnerable, a child-woman in a situation way over her head. Still, sympathy was a luxury I had no time for. “If you try anything,” I said, “I’ll still have time to crush your windpipe, and you’ll die before you can leave this room. So mind your manners.”

She nodded. Her eyes blazed both intelligence and anger. “Now what?” she hissed.

“Why are you sneaking around down here? Girls aren’t allowed.” That was a guess, of course, but it seemed reasonable.

“Yeah, well, neither are spies,” she snapped. Her bare feet scuffed on the rock floor as she tried to keep the weight off her neck.

I frowned. Suddenly something was familiar about her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Not likely,” she snorted. “My tastes don’t normally run to crazy jerk-off dragon worshippers.”

“And mine don’t run to whores in lizard masks, but sometimes we can’t be picky. I’m guessing you’re not supposed to be here any more than I am. Who are you?”

“Just a girl trying not to get choked to death,” she gasped.

“If I let you go, do you promise to behave?”

“I’m not misbehaving; you are.”

I smiled. Her defiance was endearing. “Okay,” I said, and withdrew my hand. She coughed and leaned on the wall while she caught her breath. I handed her the cloak, and she draped it around her body. I said, “So neither of us is supposed to be here. Your story first.”

She wiped spittle from her mouth. “I needed a job. Dancing naked for a bunch of men who won’t touch you isn’t a bad gig, considering some of the alternatives. If it means I have to pretend to believe in magical dragon gods, hey, no problem. I’m used to pretending.”

“The men aren’t interested?”

“Oh, they’re interested. Part of our job is to keep them that way. But they’re saving it all for Lumina. We dance, perform, do whatever their particular quirk requires; then they take their passion and spend it for Lumina. That’s what the other women are upstairs doing right now.”

This place was getting weirder and weirder. “So if you’re happy with your job, why are you poking around down here?”

She shrugged. “I’m curious.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“Hey, whores in lizard masks can also be curious, you know.”

I picked up my sword and held it carefully in front of her. Her eyes opened wide when I raised the blade and the spikes shot out of the hilt. “Shouldn’t play with swords you find in closets. Were you hiding in there while everyone else went upstairs?”

She nodded.

I reset the spikes and put the sword tip under her chin. She gasped, but although the fear in her eyes was plain, she did not waver. “So what do you plan to do with me? Take me back in the tunnel and show me your other sword?”

“I should just slit your throat and hide you behind one of these stalactites. You’d be less trouble that way. But I’ll make a deal with you: I’ll keep your secret if you’ll keep mine, and help me blend in here.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I haven’t cut your throat yet. Why should I trust you?”

“Because all I have to do is scream and people will come running, and I haven’t done that yet.”

“True. Of course, you wouldn’t live to tell them what you were yelling about.”

I let her think that over. Her face was strong, with a dimpled chin and full lips, while her eyes were blue behind dark lashes. Where did I know her from? Not from Neceda certainly, and she wasn’t old enough that I could’ve encountered her before I settled here. Did she just look like someone I’d once known? Had I crossed paths with her older sister, or even her mother? That thought almost made me laugh, because of the subsequent absurd notion that she might therefore be my own daughter. Man, had I read too many cheap vellum broadsheets in my life.

Finally she bit her lip, cut her eyes at me and said, “All right. You clearly have an advantage you haven’t pressed. I’m guessing you’re one of the good guys. I’ll help you, but you have to help me.”

I nodded and lowered the sword. “How?”

“One of the men here, he… well, he wants to get me alone. In secret. See, when we excite them, it’s supposed to be saved for their gods, but he’s not willing to keep things religious. And I’m running out of polite ways to say no.”

“It’s not Prince Frederick, is it?”

“Good lord, no. His name’s Doug Candora.”

“You want me to have a talk with him?”

“No, I want you to… well… take me for yourself. Claim me. Once a girl’s taken, none of the others can bother her. If they do, they have to face the test of the baby dragon.” She nodded at the cage on the table.

I looked at her dubiously. “Uh-huh. And how exactly do I ‘claim’ you?”

“All you have to do is just let me stay with you.” She lowered her chin and raised her eyes, the very picture of demure supplication. “It won’t be a miserable experience, I promise. I know a lot of things, and since you’re not technically a follower of Lumina-”

“Stop it. This is a business transaction, not a seduction. I have boots older than you. But it also sounds like a good plan.” I took her chin and turned her face toward the light. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty,” she said, and twisted free of my hand. “And if this partnership is going to work, you can’t touch me.”

If she was twenty, then so was I. My tastes hadn’t run to girls this young since I was that young. I smiled. “I think I can manage to control myself.” I offered my hand. “Well, my name’s Eddie.”

“Nicky,” she said as she took it. Her hand was small and, when she placed it in mine, she did so with the practiced grace of someone used to having her hand kissed or bowed over. She noticed it as soon as I did, and abruptly gripped my fingers in a tight man-style shake. “Looking forward to working with you, Eddie,” she said.

“So where is this Doug Candora?”

“He’s not here yet. Marantz sent him on an errand.”

“He’s one of Marantz’s guys?”

She nodded. “He pretends to be a believer. Knows all the prayers and rituals, but doesn’t believe a word of them.” She smiled mischievously and added, “Like you. He keeps Marantz up on the flock gossip.”

“Okay. I need to finish looking around down here; how will I find you?”

“I’ll be in the common room. I’m safe as long as I stay there. We can go to one of the private rooms after that.”

I nodded. She started to say something else, thought better of it and swept dramatically out of the cave, her red cloak billowing enough to display her bare feet and calves.

I waited to hear the distant slam of the cellar door. Then I went back down the tunnel. At the far end, a single torch blazed in a sconce and illuminated a second cavern. This one was smaller, and was mostly taken up by a slow-flowing black river that emerged from one low-roofed tunnel and exited down another with a much higher ceiling. Three docks for rowboats stretched out from the narrow, rocky ledge. Two boats remained; Marantz and Tempcott must’ve departed in the third. There was no way to tell where this river ended up for sure, but to be efficient for smuggling it had to join up with the Gusay at some point. That meant the two ringleaders were probably somewhere in Neceda.

I reminded myself that I was, too. The Lizard’s Kiss, or whatever the hell it was now, was smack in the middle of town, yet I’d seldom felt so isolated. A dragon cult, sponsored by a gangster and patronized by royalty, operated underground-literally-in a third-rate river village. The royal might be a genuine convert, but the gangster had to be in it for the money. And why had the gangster ordered the torture and death of a girl in the Black River Hills?

And how did it tie in to Lumina, half of an obscure cult’s dragon deities? The fire dreams are made of, Frankie had called it. They had one skull for an icon; did Laura Lesperitt know where the other was? Would that be worth her life to these people?

And how did that fit in with the old guy with the gloves? And Liz’s apparent betrayal? And Hank Pinster’s murder? And Mother Bennings’?

Clearly I didn’t have all the pieces yet. And I wouldn’t find them huddling upstairs with a pretty young girl.

I’d promised her I’d come back; I didn’t say when. I climbed into one of the two remaining boats, untied it and shoved it off. The current caught me and carried me off into the dark.