The Faeman Quest

Eighteen

Chalkhill wrapped the shadow cloak a little tighter and peered out from behind the dustbin. What was Brimstone doing in Seething Lane of all places? The old boy had once had lodgings down here, but they were long gone. And they’d both owned a business here – the Chalkhill and Brimstone Miracle Glue Factory – but that was long gone as well, demolished by the interfering young busybody Pyrgus Malvae in the days when he was heir to the throne. Was Brimstone heading for the old factory site? It seemed unlikely. The demolished buildings had been replaced by a school, but the contractors neglected to defuse the cobblestone minefield attached to the original plant, so neither the school nor its pupils lasted very long. After that, the city authorities turned it into a carriage park for a while, but the high rate of vandalism meant it was seldom used. Prickleweed eventually invaded from the nearby Wildmoor Broads, so that the old site was a complete no-go area now.

One thing was certain: Brimstone hadn’t come here to make the trip to Buthner as they’d agreed, any more than Chalkhill was looking for transport to Haleklind. Chalkhill knew the smell of bullshine when he heard it and he’d never bought Brimstone’s story about the pillar carved into a dragon with emerald eyes. But that wasn’t to say he didn’t believe Brimstone knew where Mella was. The old fart knew all right: he just wasn’t telling. Chalkhill could only presume he meant to grab the girl for himself, try to hold her for ransom or trade her as a slave. Complete madness, of course, but then – ha, ha – Brimstone was mad, wasn’t he? If he hadn’t been sent potty by the cloud dancer, he wouldn’t have been able to locate Mella in the first place. All the same, his madness meant that if you followed Brimstone when he tried to carry out his loony scheme, you found Mella. And once Chalkhill found Mella, all he needed to do was quietly dispatch Brimstone, who was no further use and too old anyway, then deliver the girl to Hairstreak for slaughter. Mission accomplished double-quick time, fat payment received and on to the next job. Hey-ho the holly!

But what was Brimstone doing in Seething Lane? Was Mella hiding somewhere in this dungheap?

Brimstone stopped outside the barber’s shop, glanced behind him suspiciously, failed to see Chalkhill in his shadow cloak, then scuttled across the street and up three stone steps into a dingy little shop opposite. Chalkhill waited for a moment, then crept closer. There was a faded sign hanging outside the shop:

Chalkhill unfolded his shadow cloak and marched imperiously into the barber’s shop. The chair, as he remembered, faced the window and gave him an uninterrupted view of the tattoo parlour. ‘Short back and sides,’ he snapped as he sat down.

‘Not cutting hair any longer,’ said the barber, a short, plump, balding man by the name of… Chalkhill searched his memory and found it… Nathalis. Filthy little sod, Faerie of the Night, of course – they all were round here – full of stupid jokes, but he’d been in the Lane for years.

‘What do you mean you’re not cutting hair any longer?’ Chalkhill demanded. ‘Your sign says Open. ’

‘I’m cutting it shorter!’ Nathalis exploded into gales of laughter which faded only slowly under Chalkhill’s glare. ‘Ah, that’s a good one. Gets them every time. But seriously, nice to see you again, Mr Chalkhill.’

Chalkhill glanced up at him in surprise. ‘You know who I am?’

‘’Course I do, Mr Chalkhill. Place hasn’t been the same since you closed down the factory, but we all remember you. Well, the old residenters, anyway. Lost a lot of trade when you pulled out, we did. And some of us miss the smell.’ He picked up a pair of scissors. ‘Just a trim, was it?’

Chalkhill settled himself in the chair. ‘Yes, but take your time.’

‘For sure, sir. Anything you say.’ Nathalis ran his fingers through Chalkhill’s hair and began to snip slowly, head to one side and tongue stuck out to aid his concentration.

‘Who’s running the tattoo parlour now?’ Chalkhill asked casually after a while.

‘Foreign bloke called Feniseca Tarquinius. Well, you could tell by the name, couldn’t you? All your foreigners have stupid names. Imagine your mother lumbering you with something like Feniseca. Make you want to go and top yourself. But that’s what it is. Most of us call him Fens for short, on account of his little sideline.’

‘He fences stolen goods?’ Chalkhill asked.

‘Didn’t hear it from me,’ Nathalis said piously. ‘But a nod’s as good as a wink to a quiet bullfrog, so they say.’

Chalkhill frowned. Brimstone couldn’t be trying to shift stolen goods: he was too recently left the asylum to have any. Maybe he was trying to buy some. But what? And why? ‘Any other little sidelines?’ he asked.

‘This and that,’ Nathalis told him unhelpfully. He clipped off another tiny lock. ‘Still in the glue business then, Mr Chalkhill?’

‘Not any longer,’ Chalkhill said.

‘Couldn’t stick to it, eh? Ha-ha. What do you do now, if I may be so bold as to enquire, sir?’

‘I’m an assassin,’ Chalkhill said.

‘You’re an assassin, are you, sir? Kill people for a living?’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ Chalkhill said.

‘Business good, then?’

‘Can’t complain.’

Nathalis hesitated. ‘Not on a job at the moment, are you, Mr Chalkhill?’

‘One or two things in the pipeline,’ Chalkhill said. He let the man sweat for a moment out of badness, then added, ‘But not at this precise minute, no.’

‘I’m relieved to hear it, sir.’

‘You were telling me about Mr Tarquinius’s little sidelines,’ Chalkhill prompted him.

‘Forgery,’ Nathalis said quickly.

Chalkhill raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘Money?’

‘Documents. Travel documents, usually. Passports, destination slips, ID cards, that sort of thing. Good at it too, so I’m told. Goes with the artistic temperament, I suppose. Not a long walk from drawing a tattoo to drawing a new passport.’

‘Costly?’ Chalkhill asked casually.

‘Not too bad if you’re desperate. You could get the full set for under five hundred.’

Which was just the sum he’d given Brimstone up front. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured.

Nathalis set down the scissors and sprayed something smelly on Chalkhill’s head. ‘Thinning a little on top, I notice, sir. Would you like me to use some of our magical hair restorer? We find it gives excellent results, and no extra charge for you, sir, on account of you used to be in business on the Lane.’

Brimstone came out of the tattoo parlour clutching a brown paper bag and headed back up Seething Lane in the general direction of Cheapside.

‘No thank you, Nathalis,’ Chalkhill said politely. ‘The baldness is part of my disguise.’

‘Thought you said you weren’t on a job at the moment, Mr Chalkhill?’

‘I lied,’ Chalkhill told him.

When Chalkhill left the barber’s shop, he strolled across the street to the tattoo parlour. The walls were lined with illustrations of dragons, anchors, hearts, flowers, manticores, haniels, machine parts, swords and weapons, with a scattering of exotica like a London bus and a plate of Analogue fish and chips. A swarthy, broad-shouldered man, naked to the waist, was the only person in the shop. He was cleaning a set of needles with an oily rag.

‘Ah, Fens!’ Chalkhill greeted him easily. ‘You don’t mind my calling you Fens, do you? It’s just that I think Feniseca is such a stupid name.’

Feniseca blinked, then began to climb to his feet. ‘Now, just a minute, Smartass -’

Chalkhill caught him in a ninja nose-hold and stuck a stimlus in his ear. ‘Listen carefully, turdface,’ he whispered. ‘A client of yours just left here a couple of minutes ago with a brown paper bag and he sure as Hael didn’t look tattooed. Old boy, smells of rotted demons. I want to know what you sold him and I want to know it now.’

Feniseca was frozen with terror. ‘Travel documents,’ he said promptly. ‘Full set.’

‘Destination?’

‘Analogue World.’

‘Specifically?’

‘London, England. Well, place near it: I don’t remember the exact name. Have to look up my records. Listen, would you mind taking your finger off the button on that thing? They fry your brains if they go off accidentally.’

‘Only if you have brains to fry,’ Chalkhill said cheerfully, keeping his finger exactly where it was. ‘You going to look up your records for me?’

‘Absolutely, sir,’ Feniseca told him.