A disturbing notion occurred to him. Spit and blood, was it possible he was getting comfortable in their company? He took a swig from his mug to wash away the bad taste that left in his mouth, then choked as he realised the grog tasted even worse.
‘Went down the wrong pipe, eh?’ said a voice behind him, and he was pummelled on the back hard enough to break a rib.
Crake smiled weakly and wiped his tearing eyes as the man sat down next to him. Grubby and balding, with a lumpy nose and cheeks red with gin blossoms, Rogin wasn’t easy on the eye. Nor on the nose, for that matter. He had the sour and faintly cabbagey smell of a man accustomed to stewing in his own farts.
Crake made a heroic attempt to summon some manly gusto and slapped Rogin on the shoulder in greeting. ‘Good to see you, my friend,’ he said, with his best picture-pose grin. The low shafts of sunlight glinted on his gold tooth. ‘I got you a drink.’
Rogin picked up the mug provided for him—a mug Crake had laced with Malvery’s special concoction—and lifted it up so they could clink them together.
‘To your health!’ said Rogin, and downed his grog in one swallow.
‘Oh, no,’ murmured Crake, with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘To yours.’
The warmth drained from the air as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Frost gathered on the churned mud of the thoroughfares, and the people of Marklin’s Reach retreated into their homes. A thin blue mist of fumes hung near the ground, seeping from portable generators that hummed and clattered in the alleys behind the wooden shanties. Chains of electric bulbs brightened and dimmed as the power fluctuated.
Frey huddled in the mouth of an alleyway, concealed by a patch of shadow conveniently created when Pinn smashed the bulbs overhead. Silo and Jez stood with them. Crake and Harkins had been left back at the Ketty Jay, since both of them were a liability in a firefight. Harkins would be reduced to a dribbling wreck in seconds, and Crake was more likely to hit a friend than an enemy.
Xandian Quail’s house stood across the street, secure behind its high walls and its wrought-iron gate. Frey had been watching the two guards behind the gate for an hour now as they stamped back and forth, bundled up in jackets and hoods. He was cold and impatient, and was wondering whether Crake had put enough of Malvery’s concoction into Rogin’s drink.
Malvery himself loitered a little way away, near the wall but out of sight of the guards. A black doctor’s bag lay at his feet. His hands were thrust into his coat pockets and he looked as miserable as Frey felt. As Frey watched he leaned down, opened the bag and took a warming hit of medicinal alcohol from the bottle within.
Then, finally, a groan from behind the wall. Malvery stiffened, listening. After a moment Rogin swore and groaned again, louder still. His companion’s voice was too muffled to hear the words, but Frey detected alarm in his tone.
Malvery looked for him expectantly. Frey stepped out of the shadows and waved the doctor into action.
Go.
Malvery scooped up the doctor’s bag and set off. Rogin’s groans had become low cries of pain now, foul oaths forced through gritted teeth. Malvery passed in front of the gate, halted theatrically as if he’d only just heard the sounds of Rogin’s distress, and then peered through the bars.
Rogin was curled in a ball on the other side, clutching his stomach. His companion, a tall, wiry man with ginger hair and a broken nose, looked up as Malvery hailed him.
‘Get lost, old feller!’ the guard snapped.
‘Is your friend alright?’ Malvery enquired.
‘Does he look alright?’
‘It’s my guts!’ Rogin gasped. ‘My bloody guts! Hurts like a bastard.’ He grimaced as another spasm of agony racked him.
‘Let me help him. I’m a doctor,’ Malvery said. The ginger-haired guard looked up suspiciously. Malvery brandished his doctor’s bag. ‘See?’
The guard glanced back at the doorway of the house, wondering if he should tell someone inside.
‘For shit’s sake! Let him in!’ Rogin cried, his voice getting near to hysteria. ‘I’m dying, damn it!’
The guard fumbled out a set of keys and opened the gate, then stepped back to allow Malvery through.
‘Thank you,’ said Malvery as he passed. Then, since the guard had one hand on the gate and the other on the key, he drew out a pistol and pressed it to the unfortunate man’s temple. ‘Why don’t you leave it open, eh?’ he suggested.
Frey, Silo, Pinn and Jez sallied out from the shadows and across the deserted thoroughfare, then slipped through the open gate. Silo went to the fallen man and quickly disarmed him while Jez did the same to Malvery’s guard. Rogin made a strangled sound of mingled fury and pain, but Silo crouched down next to him and tapped the barrel of a revolver against his skull.
‘Sssh,’ he said, finger on his lips.
Jez closed the gate and Frey kept his gun on the ginger-haired guard while Silo and Malvery trussed Rogin up. They gagged him with a length of rag and one of Pinn’s balled-up socks, which Malvery had chosen for additional anaesthetic effect. Then they carried him off to the nearby guardhouse.
‘Don’t worry, mate,’ said Malvery as they went. ‘The prognosis is good. The pain’ll pass in a few hours, although I’d suggest you send your loved ones out of town before you take your next dump.’
Frey scanned the house quickly. The curtains were drawn across the windows and no one seemed to have paid any attention to Rogin’s cries. If they’d heard him at all, they probably assumed it was someone on the street outside.
He didn’t dare to hope that all might be going well. That would only put the jinx on him.
‘Right, you,’ he said to the remaining guard, as Malvery returned. ‘I’ve got a job for you. Do it well, and you don’t get hurt. Understand? ’
The guard nodded. He was angry and humiliated, but he was mostly terrified. Probably his first time being held at gunpoint. Good. Frey didn’t want to shoot him if he didn’t have to.
Jez tossed Malvery his shotgun as he and Silo returned from the guardhouse. Malvery always felt better with a bit of proper firepower. He didn’t trust pistols; he thought them fiddly.
They assembled on either side of the heavy oak doors, beneath the stone porch. Frey dragged the guard up by his arm and stepped back, pistol trained on him.
‘Get them to open the door,’ he said. ‘Don’t try anything, if you want to keep your brains in your head.’
The guard nodded. He took a nervous breath and rapped on the door.
Frey’s hand was trembling, just a little. His throat had gone dry. He wondered if the guard knew how scared he was himself.
I don’t want to die.
‘Yeah?’ came a voice from inside.
‘It’s Jevin. Open the door,’ said the guard.
The door opened a little way. It was Codge, he of the long face and the patchy black beard.
‘What’s up?’
Frey shoved the guard aside and aimed his revolver point-blank at the white expanse of Codge’s forehead. Codge stared at him in surprise for an instant. Then he went for his gun.
Frey’s reaction was as instinctive as Codge’s had been. He pulled the trigger. Codge’s head snapped back; tiny beads of blood spattered Frey’s face. Codge tipped backwards and crumpled to the ground.
Frey wasted a moment on shock. He hadn’t wanted to fire. What was that idiot doing, going for his gun like that?
Malvery shouldered the door hard and it opened a little way before jamming against the dead weight of Codge’s body. Frey wriggled through the gap and into the hallway. There was a panicked moment as he found himself alone and exposed, face to face with a guard who had been too bewildered to react until now. The man’s hand moved for the pistol in his holster, but Frey’s weapon was out and ready, and he was faster. His arm snapped out straight, finger poised over the trigger.