“He didn’t want to go home?”
Richard grimaced. “No. He asked for directions to the nearest city instead. I dropped him off at Kelena. He started calling himself Jason Parris and said that this city would become known as his island. An allusion, if you will, to the place where he first received his military training. Now, a year later, he owns everything you can currently see. The old crime lords that ran the Cauldron had established certain boundaries. They had families and business interests, and were unwilling to risk them. Parris had nothing. He tore through them and took over all of their territory. He kills whoever whenever however he feels necessary, without reservation or remorse.”
“Why would anyone follow him?” Sooner or later, someone like that would turn on his own people.
Richard shook his head. “Jason isn’t a psychopath. He’s vicious, but he kills selectively, with a strategy in mind. His people fear him, yet they also know that as long as they comply with his demands, they will be safe and rewarded. He respects strength. He can be charming, but no matter what he says or how he greets us, don’t trust him or his second, Miko. In fact, don’t trust anyone in that building. Jason is the drive and the muscle, but Miko is his mind, and that mind dreams up plans with high body counts.”
Richard stopped, and Charlotte paused next to him. The continuous wall of buildings here was particularly ramshackle, the awning pale and weather-bleached from a once deep rust to a pale, sad orange. Loose lumber had been nailed to the wall in every direction.
“Why did we stop?” Charlotte murmured.
“There are sentries watching us,” he said. “Across the street on the roof, one on the right in the boat, and there is one directly above us on the balcony, listening to everything we say. They will report to Jason, and we’ll wait here and see if he decides to see us.”
She leaned closer to him. “And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll knock,” Richard said.
The wall of the house behind them slid open. An old woman emerged, wearing a shapeless red dress and a red scarf on her hair. She waved at them with a wrinkled brown hand and disappeared inside, into the gloom.
“We’ve been invited.” Richard smiled.
“Indeed.”
“Follow me, please.”
He strode through the narrow hallway. The dog trotted in after him. She was last through the door, in command of Rear Ward, or whatever the proper military term was. Charlotte followed the dog up a short flight of narrow dark stairs, into a hallway, and through another doorway. A spacious room stretched before them, illuminated by the familiar Weird-style lanterns. Shaped like bunches of delicate glowing flowers, the lanterns cascaded from the hooks between the windows near the tall ceiling. An expensive rug stretched across the polished wooden floor to the stone fireplace. In the center, a tea table waited, surrounded by soft chairs upholstered in light leather.
A man sprawled in the largest chair. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his gray shirt. His chest was broad, and his arms, revealed by the short sleeves of his tunic, bulged with muscle. He had to be over six feet tall, and his huge frame dwarfed the chair. His head had been shaved in a series of meticulously spaced strips of various widths that ran from his forehead to the nape of his neck; the effect was alternating stripes of glossy hair and smooth, shaved, light brown scalp.
His features would’ve been handsome in a masculine, square-jawed, leader-of-the-pack way, but a scar covered most of the left side of his face. A burn, Charlotte diagnosed. Not by direct application—either from steam, or more likely, flash-magic heat. Deeper lines crisscrossed the scar. Probably from a grate of some sort that had covered the heat source. So this was Jason Parris. She had expected someone older, but he appeared to be in his mid-twenties.
The man’s eyes, startling green against his darker skin, surveyed Richard and paused on her. Intelligent eyes. He radiated power and menace, and when she met his stare, his eyebrows crept up a hair. Perhaps he had expected her to flinch.
A girl stood next to him, as lean and slight as he was bulky. She looked too young to be here, seventeen, perhaps eighteen. Her face was smooth and a shade darker than his. Her hair hung over her face in stiff, straight locks, the result of some sort of hair product. She wore close-fitting jeans and a gray sweatshirt with HARVARD printed on it in red letters. It had to have come from the Broken.
“The Hunter,” Jason said. His voice was deep and resonant, and he spoke in an unhurried manner. “I feel honored. Do you feel honored, Miko?”
Miko said nothing.
“See, she feels honored.” Jason spread his massive arms. His voice had a slight mocking quality to it. “You smell like piss and you look even worse.”
Jason’s stare slid over to her. His light eyes widened. “Richard, you have a girl. And you got a dog together. Where are you registered? I will buy you a toaster.”
“The dog is hers,” Richard said.
The wolfripper showed Jason his big teeth.
“So, what can we do for the mighty Hunter?”
Richard reached into his bag.
Miko leaned forward, focused.
A man stepped from the doorway, a crossbow in his hands.
Richard extracted Voshak’s bleached-blond braid from the bag and tossed it to the crime lord. Parris snatched it from the air and looked at the blond strands. “When?”
“About ten hours ago.”
“Anybody left from his crew?”
“No.”
Parris glanced at the crossbowman and tossed the braid into the air. A bolt whistled and bit into the opposite wall, pinning the braid securely in place.
The crime lord turned to Richard. “You bring me such fine gifts, Hunter. What do you want?”
“There is a slave ship docking north of the city at eleven tonight. They expect a crew of slaves and slavers to board it,” Richard said.
Parris leaned forward, his eyes suddenly predatory. “They will take them to the Market.”
“Yes. One small problem: the slaver crew is dead, and they’d failed to capture any slaves. If someone was in charge of a rough crew, that someone could take their place.”
The crime lord smiled. It was a chilling smile. “If only we knew a man with such a crew.”
Richard shrugged. “He might be a valuable man to know. He would become quite wealthy, but more importantly, he would be the man who sacked the Market.”
Parris raised one eyebrow.
“The security on the island is geared toward dealing with runaway slaves and irate customers. They won’t expect an assault from a couple of dozen armed fighters. It’s an opportunity for money from the slave trade, wealth from the buyer’s agents, and a chance for revenge.”
“Risky,” Parris said. “We don’t know how well the place is guarded. I was half-dead when they dragged me through it, but I remember guards.”
“‘No guts, no glory,’” Richard quoted.
Risky was an understatement, Charlotte reflected. This plan Richard had hatched made a hardened criminal pause, yet he didn’t even mention it to her beforehand. Unquestionable obedience was one thing, not being used to her full potential was another. She would have to point this out to him when they were alone.
“What share do you want?” Parris asked.
“None. I want the bookkeeper, and I want him alive.”