Stalking Darkness

19

"How do you know he'll come?" Alec asked as they climbed to the empty room over the nameless lower city slophouse the following evening.

"He'll come." Seregil eyed the greasy table with distaste, then sat down on one of the stools next to it. "He's probably already around somewhere."

He hadn't been hard to contact An informal network permeated the lowest classes of the city like the roots of a tree; a coin and discreet word with the right party was usually sufficient.

Almost before Seregil had finished speaking, they heard a light step on the stairs behind them. Tym paused in the doorway, scanning the room suspiciously.

With a deferential nod to Seregil, he sauntered in.

Alec eyed the thief with carefully guarded dislike.

The last time Alec had seen him was outside the city that day with Micum and Beka. Cocky with his new skills, Alec had surprised him in a crowd, hoping to pay him back for cutting his purse.

Instead, Tym had nearly knifed him.

He was still thin and dirty as ever, and still cloaked in an air of hungry arrogance. Slinging one leg over the bench opposite Seregil, he favored Alec with a long, appraising sneer.

"Still with 'im, eh? Must be gettin' something you like."

Alec returned the look impassively.

Tym snorted a brief, humorless laugh and turned his attention to Seregil. "You asked after me?"

Seregil rested one fist on the table and slowly opened it to display a thick silver half sester.

"Any queer customers about?" he asked, using the common slang for spy.

Tym snorted again, a harsh, ugly sound. "What do you think?"

Seregil snapped his hand closed over the coin, opened it again. A second coin glittered in the hollow of his palm. "Are you working for any of them?"

Tym eyed the coins, an almost thoughtful look smoothing his narrow face for an instant. "Think I'd tell if I was?"

Seregil's hand closed, opened. Four coins.

Alec studied Tym's face. The aloof mask stayed firmly in place.

"Could be," Tym replied cautiously.

Close. Open. No coins.

That got a reaction. Tym sat forward, looking like a man who'd just overplayed his game. "Bugger! No, I ain't working for nobody, but there's them that might be."

Seregil opened his hand again. Five coins.

"Rat Tom come by a stash real suddenlike, wouldn't say where from," Tym confided, all crafty compliance now.

"Where's Rat Tom now?"

Tym shrugged. "Turned up dead in an alley not two weeks ago, throat cut."

"Who else?"

"Fast Mickle claims he did a papers job in Helm Street."

"What house?"

"Don't know."

"Where could I find Fast Mickle?"

Tym shrugged again. "Ain't seen him for a while."

Seregil snatched the coins away with a disgusted sigh and rose, motioning for Alec to follow. "Let's go. There's nothing to be learned here."

"There's talk," Tym added hastily.

Halfway to the door already, Seregil turned with an exasperated frown. "What talk?"

"It's the gaterunners mostly. Some turn up flush all of a sudden, then they turn up dead or not at all."

Alec exchanged a quick look with Seregil, thinking of what the woman had told them in the sewers.

"Madrin, Dinstil, Slim Lily, Wanderin' Ki, all of 'em dead one way or another just in the last month," Tym continued.

"Tarl's been lookin" for Farin the Fish for a week now."

"I thought Farin was a breaker?" Seregil returned to the table. Alec remained standing just behind him.

"He is, but still it's funny he's gone. Him and Tarl been together for years."

"Any others?"

"Virella maybe, she's another runner, but you don't never know with her. And that young breaker, Shady—they found her floating in the harbor out past the moles. Some are even wondering about the Rhiminee Cat, but he's another you don't never know about."

Seregil jingled the coins in his fist. "Who's supposed to be doing all this killing?"

For the first time Tym looked uneasy. "Don't know. Don't nobody know, and that is strange. The snuffers claim ain't none of them doing it. Folks is gettin' nervous. You don't hardly know whether to take a job or not."

"I have a job, if you're interested," Seregil told him, sliding the silver enticingly closer.

Tym looked hungrily at the stack of coins. "This wouldn't be a running job would it?"

"No, just a snoop. There's a house near here I want watched. If you see anyone you know go in—breaker, runner, keek, anything — I want to know about it. Or anyone you think doesn't fit with the neighborhood. Is that clear?"

"Breakers and runners?" Tym's eyes narrowed again. "This got to do with the killings?"

"Maybe he's scared," Alec suggested quietly, speaking for the first time.

Tym lurched up, gripping the hilt of his knife. "Maybe I ought to fix that pretty face of yours!"

"Sit down!" barked Seregil.

Alec stiffened, but remained where he was. Tym sullenly obeyed.

"Now," Seregil resumed calmly, "do you want the job or not?"

"Yeah, I want it," Tym growled. "But it'll cost you."

"Name your price."

"Two sesters a week."

"Done." Seregil spat in his palm and clasped hands with the thief. As Tym tried to withdraw his, Seregil gripped it tight.

"You've never turned on me yet. This would be a poor time to start." Seregil smiled, but that only made the threat implicit in his tone more ominous. The force of it drove the cocky sneer from Tym's face. "If anyone tumbles and offers you more to turn to them, you smile and you take their money, then you come straight back to me."

"I will, sure I will!" Tym stammered, wincing. "I ain't never turned on you. I ain't going to."

"Of course you aren't." Seregil relinquished his hold at last, but the imprint of his long fingers glowed for a moment in white, bloodless stripes across the back of the thief's hand. "The house is the tenement in Sailmaker Street with the red and white striped lintel. You know the one?"

Tym nodded curtly, flexing his hand. "Yeah, I know it."

"You can start now. Report to me in the usual way."

Alec shook his head incredulously as Tym disappeared down the stairs. "You actually trust him?"

"After a fashion. He just needs the occasional reminder." Seregil drummed his fingers lightly on the table. "In his own way, Tym trusts me. He trusts that I'll pay. He trusts that I won't double-cross him, and he trusts that I'll hunt him to the ends of the earth and slit his throat if he turns on me. You'd do well to watch your step with him, though. That was no idle threat just now."

"I was just trying to push him along," Alec began, but Seregil held up a hand.

"I know what you were doing, and it worked. But you don't understand people like him. He respects me because he fears me. I nearly killed him once and he's the sort that takes to you afterward because of it. But he'd slice you open in a minute and worry about my reaction later. Insulting him the way you did is enough to make him your enemy for life."

"I'll keep that in mind," Alec said. He'd never quite gotten around to telling Seregil of his last confrontation with Tym. Now didn't seem to be the right time, either, but he stored away the advice.