‘Plan B? Isn’t that just code for ‘‘wade in there and shoot anything that moves’’?’
‘Exactly. And that means bullets flying everywhere. And because I don’t like getting shot much, I try to avoid Plan B when I can.’
‘Remarkable how often we end up using it, though,’ Crake commented.
‘That’s because Plan A never bloody works.’
The door was opened by a pinch-faced bruiser with hulking shoulders. A little bell tinkled cheerily overhead. ‘Mr Frey and Mr Crake, right?’
‘ Captain Frey,’ said Frey.
The thug gave him a long and deeply unimpressed stare. Frey returned a cheesy grin.
‘ Captain Frey,’ the thug said at length. ‘Come in, then.’ He let them through, locked the door behind them, and then searched them for weapons. They weren’t carrying any, for the same reason that Frey had only brought Crake from his crew. They were going to try and do this the nice way.
The curio shop was an unsettling place. Shelves of glass-eyed dolls stared down at them as they were led towards the back. They passed a stuffed beast that Frey didn’t recognise, some kind of hunting cat with a mane of spikes like a porcupine. He was half-convinced it was going to spring to life and snap at him. Ticking toys shifted restlessly in the dark: the kind of clockwork junk Pinn was fond of. He was reminded of the night Pinn had rashly announced his intention to be a famon iftous inventor. The pilot appeared to have forgotten all about it, which was probably for the best.
Mind on the job, Frey. You’ve got one chance to play this right. Don’t mess it up like you did with Trinica.
He shut away that memory. Her scorn had burned him. He’d never even had the chance to tell her about the curse.
Nine nights left. Was it really true? It had been three nights since he’d seen the vision in the cargo hold and spoken to the sorcerer, and there’d been no sign of the daemon in between. Despite Crake’s strange readings, despite the sorcerer’s words, he still couldn’t fully convince himself of the threat. He kept trying to reason his way out of it. A simple hallucination wasn’t too much to worry about, really. Maybe Crake’s readings were skewed. And the sorcerer was hardly reliable: he might be as much a charlatan as the Awakeners were.
He couldn’t quite believe that there was a daemon out there, waiting to get him. That margin of doubt was what kept him going.
Crickslint sat behind a desk in a small area at the back of the shop. There was a single electric lamp hanging from the ceiling above his head. He had a jeweller’s glass fixed to his eye, peering at a small golden casket that he was turning over in his hand. Two more bodyguards, inconspicuously armed, stood at the edge of the light. Frey and Crake settled themselves in antique seats that had been placed in front of the desk.
Crickslint ignored them for a while. Darian waited. He was used to these boring displays of importance from people he dealt with.
‘Darian Frey,’ he said eventually. He put the casket aside, took out the jeweller’s glass, steepled his fingers and smiled a chrome-toothed smile. ‘We meet again.’
Frey winced inwardly. He’d forgotten how irritatingly theatrical Crickslint was. Every movement, every expression was exaggerated; his conversation was full of dramatic pauses and flamboyant surges in volume. The annoying piece of shit seemed to think he was the Dread Lord of Vardia or some such bollocks, instead of a weasel-faced runt with a voice like a girl.
‘Yes,’ said Frey, as neutrally as possible. ‘Apparently we do.’
‘And who is your friend?’ asked Crickslint, drawing out the syllables, tapping a finger against his cheek as if pondering deeply. His face lit up. ‘Why, it looks like Grayther Crake, the daemonist.’
‘How do you do?’ Crake said politely, seemingly unfazed by Crickslint’s over-the-top delivery. Coming from the aristocracy, he was probably used to odder things.
‘Now,’ said Crickslint. He adjusted the sleeves of his jacket and made a show of arranging himself. ‘What business might you two gentlemen have with me?’
Frey sized up his opponent, trying to spot anything that might give him an angle. Crickslint’s teeth were new, since the last lot had been knocked out. He could have had a natural-looking set made up, but he clearly preferred to think of himself as fearsome, so he’d chosen metal. His face was sallow as ever, with small weak eyes. Thin blond hair was slicked back over a long skull.
Frey knew his sort. He was just like the weedy, sickly children at the orphanage where Frey grew up, the ones who got beaten up and pushed about their whole adolescent lives. Frey had to resist the urge to bully him now. Something about him made it instinctive.
But Frey would have to tread carefully. Crickslint had grown sly, and he’d gained the power to get revenge on the world for all those humiliations. That made him dangerous.
‘Trinica Dracken sold you a relic recently,’ Frey said.
‘She did.’
‘I’d like you to loan it to me.’
Crickslint blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘A loan. You know. Two weeks. I’ll pay, of course, and I can leave you a Firecrow as collateral. I just need to borrow it.’ He shrugged. ‘You lend money to everyone, right? This is the same thing. You can still sell it on at full price after I’m done.’
Crickslint looked faintly amused. ‘That’s an odd proposition. And what do you intend to do with it?’
‘That’s my business. But you have my assurance, my absolute assurance, that it’ll be returned to you in perfect condition.’ It was an easy enough promise to make, since Frey wasn’t thinking much further than getting his hands on the relic at this stage.
Crickslint leaned forward across the desk, so that the light from above fell onto his face, calculated to lend him a sinister air. ‘Do you even know what it is, Captain Frey? The relic, I mean?’
‘No,’ said Frey. ‘Do you?’
‘Perhaps.’
Frey narrowed his eyes. ‘I reckon you don’t. I bet you don’t even know where it came from.’
‘Oh, I can tell you that quite easily. It was found by an explorer. Ugrik vak Munn kes Oortuk, in fact.’
‘Uh-huh. I’m guessing he’s not from around here.’
‘He’s a Yort. Huo; ot fe’s actually quite famous.’
‘Never heard of him. Where’d he get it from?’
‘That, I’ll admit, I don’t know.’
‘So how’d the Sammies get hold of it?’
‘They caught him. Sammies don’t like people wandering about outside of the Free Trade Zone. Especially not those who go around stealing their ancient relics.’
‘And you heard about it. Through a whispermonger, I’m guessing. And then you sent Trinica Dracken to get it for you.’
Crickslint clapped slowly. ‘Very good, Captain Frey. None of which gets you any closer to having it yourself.’
Frey leaned back in his chair. If there was a time to make his move, it was now. ‘I like your new teeth,’ he said.
Crickslint gave him a sharklike smile. ‘Flattery. You must really have nothing to bargain with.’
‘My friend here’s got something similar. Show him your gold tooth, Crake.’
Crake leaned forward and offered a dazzling grin. His tooth glittered in the light from overhead. Crickslint, half-interested, glanced at the tooth. Then a strange expression crossed his face and he peered closer.
‘That is a nice tooth,’ he said.
Frey felt a stirring of hope as he saw Crickslint’s eyes glaze over. He’d seen it happen to people before, as they stared into their own reflections in Crake’s daemon-thralled tooth. They became mesmerised and suggestible. If he was lucky, the bodyguards wouldn’t even notice what was going on.
‘It is a nice tooth, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Listen, Crickslint, we go way back. Why don’t you just lend me that relic, and let’s not worry about a price. I’ll bring it right back to you when I’m done with it. How’s that sound?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Crickslint, not taking his eyes off Crake’s tooth. ‘Yes, that sounds fine. Whatever you want.’