Despite working with Caleb and Jamie for two weeks, I wasn’t an expert on wards. But I knew quality when I saw it. These had to be worth a small fortune, especially now, with prices inflated due to the war. So what the hell were they doing here? And what, if anything, did they have to do with Cyrus?
I wrapped them in one of my socks, having run out of handkerchiefs, and stuffed them in an inner pocket of my coat. I tagged the body on the way out, to let patrol know it was mine, and picked up the slug ward—now extra slimy—off the floor. I stuck it back on my skin without looking at it.
Calling in had to wait until I made it back to the mouth of the drain, where I was able to get decent reception. Caleb must have still been at lunch, because I actually got through.
“Sedgewick’s frothing at the mouth,” he told me, without so much as a hello. “The man is pissed.”
“He’s always pissed.”
“Yeah. Not like this. You need to get back here.”
“I’m working on that. By the way, have any licensed wardsmiths reported a robbery lately? A big one?”
“The Black Circle’s hit a few places,” he said slowly. “What are we talking about here?”
“Wolves. Powerful. Expensive. Three of them. I don’t know what they do yet.”
“I thought you were looking for your boyfriend?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’ve noticed that with you. But no, no wolves.” And that settled that. Because Caleb would know. He didn’t usually work in the Dungeon, but he’d been there for three months since his injury. And he was the kind who paid attention.
“Thanks. Uh, and can you let patrol know that there’s a body in that drain off 91?”
“Another one?”
“Yeah. Tell them to bring a baggie.”
“Lia…” He sighed. “Just be careful, all right?”
“Aren’t I always?” I hung up before he could answer that, and went to collect my guide.
He was taking photos for a family, but dropped the camera when he saw me emerge from the wash. I waited until the tourists drove off, then crossed the street. He looked a little pale. In retrospect, I probably should have used the handkerchief on my face before making it into a bandage. Oh, well, too late now.
“What…what…”
“You were right. Those kappas are a bitch. Any other mysterious new monsters suddenly turn up anywhere?” He shook his head, wide-eyed. “How about wardsmiths? You know any of them?”
He blinked. “Like personally?”
“Like any way.”
“There’s lots in the tunnels. Everybody’s making wards now.”
Yeah, like the idiot who had done the protection ward on the cave. But the charlatans getting rich off people’s wartime paranoia weren’t who I needed. Becoming a master or even a journeyman wardsmith took decades of training. No fly-by-night con man had made those wolves.
“I’m talking about someone good. Someone professional.”
“If they were good, they wouldn’t be in the drains.”
Normally, I’d have agreed, but I didn’t think the guys who attacked me had had the money to buy those wards. And no local, licensed wardsmiths had been robbed. So whoever had made the wolves either wasn’t from around here, or wasn’t licensed.
“I guess we’ll just have to stay here, then,” I told him. “And clean out those kappas.”
“There’s a guy who hangs out at Tilda’s Place, over by the Tropicana,” Dieter said quickly. “They say he’s pretty good.”
I smiled. “Let’s go find out.”
Chapter 7
I peered into the dark drain dubiously. “There’s a bar down there?”
Dieter nodded. “Tilda’s. It’s been there forever. The dwarves like to drink at her place, so they cut her a deal on the rent.”
“Dwarves?”
He scowled. “Yeah. Nasty little fuckers. They run the market.”
I peered into the maybe eight-by-six tunnel again. I spotted cockroaches, spiders and a few creepy orange crawfish. But no people—of any kind. “There’s a market down there?”
He shot me a pitying look. “You don’t know much, do you?”
“Lately, it doesn’t feel like it.”
“It’s one of the biggest in Tartarus. And they know it, too. You wouldn’t believe what they wanted to charge me for a booth. So I tried just walking around, hitting the entrances and stuff, you know? And they still wanted to charge me! Like, I wasn’t even sitting down and—” He stopped abruptly. “You know, come to think of it, there are probably other wardsmiths if I ask around.”
I grabbed him by the back of the shirt as he started off. “Let me guess. The dwarves don’t like you, either.”
“They might have said something about not coming back.”
“For how long?”
“Like, you know. Ever.”
“Then we’ll do this quick.”
The tunnel curved after half a dozen yards, blocking out the rectangle of light behind us. Smothering blackness came crushing in on all sides, and the ward hiding the market had no telltale light leaking through to help me zero in on its location. I could feel it, buzzing somewhere up ahead, but couldn’t quite—
A skinny young guy with spiked red hair came barreling out of a wall on a wash of light, pushing an overloaded shopping cart. He skidded to a halt, the cart’s wheels making tracks in the muck. “Potion supplies?” he asked, not missing a beat.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s one of the main reasons your type comes down here,” Dieter said, as the vendor started pawing through his mobile shop. “It’s either buy contraband, hire an assassin or find a good time. And you look like you could do your own killing.”
“What about the good time?”
The vendor suddenly thrust something into my face—something brown and scaly, with a gaping maw of teeth. I put two bullets in it before I realized it wasn’t moving. It landed on the floor a few feet away, spinning slowly on its curved shell.
“If you ask me, you could use one,” Dieter said, swallowing. “You’re real tense.”
“You shot it, you bought it,” the vendor added, picking up the still-smoking carcass.
“What the hell is it?”
“Dried armadillo. Keeps evildoers out of your home.”
“Too late.”
I forked over a ten rather than waste time arguing, which turned out to be a mistake. As soon as the pale concrete wall rolled back, I found myself mobbed by a line of hawkers selling the magical equivalent of snake oil. I barely noticed. Because stretching out behind them was a sight designed to make anyone’s jaw drop.
I’d expected something along the lines of the previous drain—gloomy, smelly, depressing, dangerous. I’d expected a bunch of little dirty caves filled with huddled, desperate people. I’d expected a low ceiling, bad air and vermin. I hadn’t expected an enchanted forest.
But that’s what spread out in front of us in a dazzling expanse. Softly glowing branches shed a delicate white light over a huge cave. They draped the booths that filled the space, crisscrossed above footpaths and climbed up stone support pillars. Some people had even stuffed twigs into colored glass jars, making lanterns that spotted their booths with watery puddles of amethyst and plum, turquoise and jade, ruby and amber.
My brain finally supplied the name—hawthorn. I recalled a few basics—originally from Faerie, burns brightly with the application of a simple spell—but that description left a lot to be desired. The branches threw gently waving shadows on the walls, ceiling and floor, shadows with leaves and berries, neither of which the dried branches had.
“This way!” Dieter was tugging on me, obviously embarrassed to be seen with the gawking tourist.
I followed him through a maze of cardboard and plywood shanties. Inside, medicine women, folk doctors, astrologers, fortune-tellers and cut-rate sorcerers plied their wares. Dogs and children ran underfoot. People laughed and bartered around the shops, or called to each other across the aisles. After the deadly quiet of the drains, it felt like a madhouse.