The problem with gangs, Kizzie had long ago decided, was that they attracted the stupid, the talentless, and the lazy. If someone wasn’t skilled enough to make it as a guild-family enforcer or to join the National Guard, what business did they have as a lookout for ill-gotten goods?
Kizzie pushed away from her stoop and wandered slowly down the street, passing the warehouse and its lookout before stepping inside the stable next door to find a pair of middle-aged men loitering near the door, both with their pinkies marked by light blue client paint that showed that they served – and were protected by – the Vorcien.
“You the teamsters I asked for?” Kizzie showed them her silic sigiclass="underline" the Vorcien inverted triangle with the setting sun over the desert. Her sigil was much smaller than a proper guild-family member’s – she was only a bastard, after all – but it tended to elicit the proper amount of respect.
One of them nodded, glancing into the street nervously. “I hope this job is going to be fast. I heard the Castle Hill Garroters are dangerous.” His companion nodded eagerly.
“The Castle Hill Garroters are a wannabe guild-family that can’t figure out how to safely sell the cindersand they stole from a Vorcien riverboat,” Kizzie replied. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. It didn’t used to be like this. She used to have status and regard. She used to be in charge of an entire National Guard watchhouse, wining and dining powerful Vorcien clients. Now she was relegated to tracking down thieves.
“Shouldn’t we come back when things aren’t as crowded?” the other asked.
“It’s Castle Hill. It’s always crowded. Besides, they’d expect us to hit them at night. Now bring your cart and horse around.”
Without waiting for an answer, Kizzie emerged from the stable. She hugged the wall, walking slowly and casually, approaching the lookout from the left. The poor woman didn’t even know she was there until Kizzie had a stiletto pressed against her side. The lookout inhaled sharply.
“You have a choice,” Kizzie said pleasantly. “Scream, and I will perforate your lungs. Or you can answer my questions and continue to breathe. Nod if you choose the second one.”
The lookout swallowed hard and nodded. “Who are you?”
Kizzie lifted her right hand to show the silic sigil, while keeping her left, along with the stiletto, firmly pressed against the lookout.
“Glassdamn,” the woman swore. “Iasmos said the Vorcien couldn’t track us.”
Iasmos was a petty crook, the self-styled head of the Castle Hill Garroters. “Iasmos is an idiot,” Kizzie said. “How many are inside?”
“Just Iasmos and the girls.”
“Define ‘girls’?” When the lookout didn’t respond quickly enough, Kizzie gave her a little poke with the stiletto.
“Ah! His sisters, Dorry and Figgis.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yes!”
“What kind of godglass do they have?”
“All three have forgeglass. Iasmos wears witglass, but I think it’s been spent for months.”
“All right. Slide that blunderbuss off your shoulder. Good, now tell me what you learned from this little lesson?”
The lookout gave an “eep” sound as Kizzie poked with the stiletto again. “Not to steal from the Vorcien!”
“Wow. I’m surprised you actually picked up on that. Now get the piss out of here. I’m going to pretend like I never saw your face.”
The lookout did as instructed, hurrying down the street without looking back. Kizzie waited long enough to be sure she hadn’t doubled back before heading around to the narrow alley next to the warehouse. She tossed the blunderbuss in the mud and removed a pair of godglass earrings from her pocket. The earrings were expertly braided, three wire-thin godglasses – witglass, forgeglass, and sightglass – wound together into one powerful piece. They were by far the most expensive items she owned, and she held them up to the light to see just how much sorcery they had left in them. The color had leaked out of perhaps half of the intertwined glass, like a partially filled cup of wine. If she rationed herself, she would get another five months of use out of them. She slid the hooked ends into a piercing on either ear, listening to the hum of the sorcery and feeling more alive from it.
Kizzie was not, by nature, a violent person. Even discounting her minor talent as a glassdancer, she could be dangerous. That was a prerequisite to being a guild-family enforcer, after all. But violence always seemed like the first resort of morons. A bit of careful planning, some bribery and blackmail, maybe some good old-fashioned investigation. Those were her usual tools.
Unfortunately for her, cleaning out an upstart gang did not require a lot of subtlety.
She walked down to the warehouse’s side door at the end of the alley and pounded on it hard. Putting her back to the wall, she shifted her stiletto to her right hand and drew the blackjack from her pocket. The door opened and a woman’s voice asked, “Who’s there?”
Kizzie brought her blackjack down hard across the woman’s thigh, eliciting a pained yell and giving her enough time to check the woman’s face. Yup, it was one of Iasmos’s sisters, Figgis. Kizzie slit her throat and kicked her backward into the warehouse, following her falling body in at a run. The forgeglass pushed Kizzie beyond normal limits, giving her supernatural strength and speed while the witglass allowed her to process her surroundings as if the world were standing still.
The light in the warehouse was dim, and it might have hampered Kizzie’s abilities if not for the sightglass in her earrings. She spotted Iasmos to her left; a man in his mid-twenties, wearing a soiled but expensive jacket he probably took off someone he murdered. Dorry, the other sister, was just behind him. Both stared at Figgis with mouths agape.
Kizzie threw her blackjack overhand, striking Iasmos right between the eyes. He stumbled back, distracted long enough for Kizzie to close the distance. Her stiletto found the space between his ribs. Kizzie caught a glimpse of Dorry raising a pistol. She jerked up on her stiletto, lifting Iasmos slightly, using him as a shield as the pistol went off.
The sound, amplified by her sightglass, deafened Kizzie in the enclosed space. She ignored the ringing in her ears, tossed aside Iasmos, and buried her stiletto in Dorry’s eye.
Kizzie checked the small warehouse for any other gang members before returning to make sure all three of her targets were dead. She wiped her stiletto on Iasmos’s jacket. Her heart was pounding, there was blood on the sleeves of her tunic, and she couldn’t hear damned much of anything. Otherwise the operation had been a success.
She paused that thought and did another sweep of the warehouse. It was a typical thieves’ hideout, with stolen goods scattered on the floor and stacked haphazardly on shelves. Mostly stuff that had “fallen off” a riverboat or been pickpocketed. Kizzie still didn’t know who their connection down at the riverboat docks was, but that wasn’t part of her job. What mattered was the crate of cindersand, just a couple of feet square, tucked into a corner, stamped with the Vorcien silic symbol. It was still full of the fine grayish-colored sand, and for that she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t need any other perceived failures in her life right now.
She switched out her braided earrings for a piece of cureglass, and the ringing in her ears went away within moments. She poked her head out the side door of the warehouse. Revelers must have heard the gunshot, but no one seemed to care, so she walked back to the front door and slid it open.
Her teamsters were just outside with their horse and cart.