“Why look at you, young lady!” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you ripe as a peach!”
If I were to treat him mathematically, take his measurements, he’d be extraordinarily large—a rolling tub of a man boiling over with cheer. I didn’t see what was so funny.
“We need a guide,” I said. “We need to leave Lovecraft. Tonight.”
Dorlock laughed, his kettledrum stomach trembling. “Doesn’t waste any time! Going to grow into one of those modern women, I fear, always in a rush!” He reached out to pinch my cheek, and I ducked. I’d grown an aversion to being touched a long time ago. Nuns will do that to a person.
“Please, sir,” I protested, trying to keep myself stiff and ladylike, like Mrs. Fortune. “Can you help us, or not?”
“Of course,” Dorlock boomed. “Of course, of course.” He crossed his bare arms over his leather vest and matted chest hair. I tried to look only at his face. “It’s all a question of payment, lassie.”
I looked back at Cal. “I have fifty dollars,” I said. Cal’s eyes went wide at the mention of the sum. Dorlock’s eyes, by turn, narrowed.
“Fifty United States American dollars, eh? Well, missy, it won’t buy much Uptown way but down here in the rat hole of the Rustworks, you just might have yourself a deal.”
I felt crestfallen, realizing at the gleam in Dorlock’s gaze why Cal had looked so alarmed. It was all my money. I should have struck a harder bargain. A boy would have bargained. Conrad probably would have made money on the deal.
“We’ll leave in an hour or so, to beat the sunrise,” said Dorlock. “Up and down and all around we’ll go. It’ll be a grand adventure for you two kids.”
“I care less about the adventure than the Proctors,” I said, trying to stay firm.
“Yeah, and we’re fifteen,” Cal interjected. “We’re not kids.”
“Of course not, you’re a strapping young lad, aren’t you?” Dorlock chuckled. “Going to feed you up and get you big. Why don’t you go get something from the fires for your lady friend, strapping lad? It’s a long walk down under the ground.”
I frowned at that. “Ghouls live underground,” I said. Not even Proctors went into the old sewers and railway tunnels, the only “underground” I knew of. The new sanitation system ran on clockwork and didn’t need tending. Nobody went underground. Nobody alive, anyway.
Dorlock shook his head, brows drawing in like a bank of thunderheads. “You just have a head stuffed full of learning, don’t you, young lady? Worry less. You’ll get wrinkles before your time.” He laughed like he was the chief audience for his own joke.
I opened my mouth, knowing there was murder in my eyes, but Cal touched me on the arm. “I’ll get you a weenie with chili. If these people even know what one is.” He gave me a small nod before he walked away. I knew that nod—it was the please don’t get us into trouble nod. If Dorlock was responsible for us not getting arrested, mouthing off would just be stupid.
As it turned out, the Nightfall Market didn’t possess any weenies or any chili to put on them, and Cal ended up standing in line to buy us two newspaper cones full of fish-and-chips. I sat on the fender of a Nash jitney that had rusted to chrome and bones next to Dorlock’s tent, where I could keep Cal in sight. Dorlock grinned at the white of my knees, and I pulled my skirt down over them.
“You do look sweet,” Dorlock said, reaching to push the hair out of my face. “Beauty soon fades, down here. You’re a rare treat.”
I glared up at him, knowing the knot in my throat that had started when he grabbed for me wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. “Don’t. We hired you to guide, and that’s all.”
“I’m just being friendly,” Dorlock said. “Loosen up, lassie.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and I shrunk, but it was like trying to pull myself out of a bear trap. “It’s a long time out of the city, and we might as well get along.”
Maybe that was the single blessing Nerissa’s madness had given me—I’d never had a mother to teach me smiles and manners, to do what a nice girl would do. I reached up and knocked Dorlock’s hand off my shoulder, hard. “Perhaps I don’t want to get along that way.”
Dorlock’s pouchy face fell in on itself, anger stealing into his small eyes. Hidden anger, like a snake. The most dangerous type.
“You don’t have any weight to throw around, lassie. I’m the one watching your hide underground, and it’d behoove you to treat me sweet.”
Before I could snap back at him, the Nash creaked as someone sat down next to me. “You know, Dorlock, I’m impressed. Behoove is a big word for you.”
I turned to stare at the stranger and met his eyes. They were silver. His smile was crooked, and his hair was long, swept back with a rash of comb tracks. The stranger’s hand was firm and ridged when he took mine and shook it. “Dean. Dean Harrison. And you might be?”
I opened my mouth, shut it. I didn’t quite know what to make of the stranger, except that he didn’t seem to care for Dorlock any more than I did, and his hand was warm.
“I might—” I started.
“She might be with me.” Cal reappeared, irritably juggling his camp duffel and two helpings of takeaway. I watched Dean tilt his head back and look up to Cal’s considerable knobby-kneed height.
“Sorry, brother. I didn’t know she was spoken for.”
“Oh, for the sake of all His gears,” I huffed at Cal. Of all the times for Cal’s tough act, this was the absolute worst. I shook Dean’s hand in return. “I apologize for my friend’s manners. I’m Aoife Grayson.”
Dean’s eyes and smile were both slow, but there was nothing dumb about them. He took the seconds to memorize everything about my face. I’d seen the same look on master engineers, contemplating a new device or problem. Dean took me in, and he smiled. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Aoife.”
I returned the smile, writ much smaller. Boys—men—weren’t in the habit of smiling at me. I was odd, and I knew it. The few smiles before Dean’s had lead to pranks, but when I looked Dean in the eye, his pupils just grew wider.
Cal grumbled, his face turning colors. “Aoife. We need to go with Mr. Dorlock.”
Dorlock himself had turned a plummy shade of purple, huge hands clenching and unclenching like they wanted for a neck. “Harrison, you little ratlick, what are you doing yakking to my clients? They hired me fair and square—go poach somebody else’s hire, vulture.”
“Like I was about to bend your girl’s ear on,” Dean said. “You don’t want Dorlock, miss. He pays the barter boys down here to talk him a good game, and he poses the part, but it’s all fancy. Man will have you chumming a ghoul nest inside an hour if you go with him.”
“Guttersnipe!” Dorlock roared, raising his fist to Dean. “They chose me. Market rule says free hires to all. The sweetheart here and her companion want to go underground, and underground they’ll go.” He didn’t have the false face of a kind old uncle any longer. Rage had turned him crimson.
“Never knows when to shut his yap, either,” Dean muttered, standing up. His full height was a head shorter than Cal, but Dean was broad and solid where Cal was still disappearing inside his school clothes. Dean’s face wasn’t but a year or two older than mine, but it held a spark of wickedness, a blade-edge of worldly knowledge that a person could only light by seeing too much, too soon. Conrad had the same look. I didn’t trust Dean, but I was starting to like him.
“Listen, Dorlock,” Dean said. “I’m being a pal and giving you a chance to walk away dignified-like.”
Dorlock’s nostrils flared. “Or?”
This time, Dean’s smile wasn’t slow and it wasn’t warm. “Or,” Dean said, “I can show your shame to these nice Uptown folk. You choose.”
I stepped back to stand by Cal in anticipation of a blow or a knife between the two. Dean had to be crazy, mouthing off to someone the size of Dorlock.