“He might just need some nails.”
“I mean, does this look like a good place?”
“From the outside, it seems good. Not too much traffic, anyway.”
I had actually already made the assumption that he didn’t need nails. Loiosh and Rocza landed on my shoulder as I entered the place, about two minutes after Josef. As I walked in, I wasn’t holding a weapon, because I can get to one fast enough if needed, and because once, long ago, I walked into a place wielding and stepped straight up to a pair of Phoenix Guards who didn’t think it was funny at all.
It was four walls with no ceiling, and a door in the back that I suppose led to his living quarters; and even with no ceiling, the heat struck me at once. The forge was huge and glowing orange, there were two long tables, one on each side, and they were full of weapons. Excuse me, tools. The blacksmith—at least, I assume he was a blacksmith; he was wearing an apron, anyway—had olive skin, a neat little beard, and bright blue eyes. As the eyes shifted to me, I nodded a greeting and told him, “I need to speak to this fellow; would you mind leaving us alone for a minute?”
Josef turned around. “Just who are you suppos—”
I slapped him hard enough to rock him back on his heels, and by the time he recovered I was holding a knife at his throat—a nice stiletto with about nine inches of skinny blade and a wicked, wicked point. The blacksmith retreated through the door in the back of his shop. A little part of me observed that I was enjoying this more than I should.
“We’ll just be a moment,” I told the door the blacksmith had gone through.
The place smelled like sulfur and charcoal. Josef’s head was tilted back away from the knife and he was glaring at me. I said, “How do you do, Josef? My name is Vlad. I’m just here to give you a little information. And don’t glare at me, I have a knife at your throat. When you have a knife at my throat, then you can glare at me. As I said, I have information for you. Do you want to hear it, or do you want me to find out if I can tickle the top of your skull from the inside?”
“Say it, then,” he said, just barely not spitting.
“You need to find honest work. Or a different kind of dishonest work. But your scheme for Ristall Market is over as of now. Tell your associates, unless you want me to talk to them.”
“Who—?”
I pushed a bit with the dagger, forcing his head further back and breaking his skin a little. “No,” I said. “You aren’t talking yet. I’m still talking. When I ask you questions, you can talk.”
I cleared my throat.
“As I was saying, you’re done. You don’t need to tell the merchants, they’ll figure it out. And you don’t need to tell the Jhereg who set you up in this, I’ll take care of that.”
A flicker behind the eyes? Oh, yes. I’d known anyway, but the confirmation was nice.
“Now, to my question: Who was it? I need a name, and I need to know where he can be found.”
He hesitated. I moved the knife just a little bit away from his throat before hitting him in the stomach with my left hand. Then, when he doubled over, I smacked the side of his face with the hilt of the knife. Loiosh flew down from my shoulder and hovered for a moment in his face before landing on the floor in front of him and hissing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t quite catch the answer. What did you say his name was?”
He coughed, which wasn’t responsive, but I didn’t hit him again. He spat out some blood and said, “I’m going to—” and I kicked him in the face. He was tougher than I’d expected, but the kick finally did it.
“Vaasci,” he said.
“How do you get hold of him?”
He hesitated only a second, then said, “Back room. The Twig on Falworth Hill.”
“Good. Now listen. I’m going to talk to your friend Vaasci. If it turns out that he’s expecting me, I’m going to come back here and decorate Ristall Market with your intestines. By the time I’m done talking to him, you might want to be out of town, because I’m going to tell him you gave me his name, and that might irritate him, if he’s still alive.”
“You—”
I hauled my foot back to kick him again and he shut up.
I said, “In case you haven’t picked up on it, I don’t like you very much. You’re better off not giving me any reason to like you less. Feel free to tell your buddies about me, though. If they leave town, it’ll give me less to do. And if they come after me, I’ll enjoy it enough that I won’t care about the extra work.”
Loiosh resumed his place on my shoulder. I turned my back on Josef and walked out.
South Adrilankha smelled unusually sweet.
“Boss, you know you’re a bully.”
“Yeah.”
“And worse, you enjoy it.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve missed being a bully all these years.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m proud to know you.”
“Uh huh.”
I headed generally west until I found a market that was open. I got some klava from a street vendor, paying an extra few coppers for a glass to drink it out of. I stood there drinking it. Right out in the open, looking like me, two jhereg on my shoulders. The klava was wonderful.
“So, okay, that was the easy part, right, Boss?”
“You nervous?”
As I said it, Rocza shifted on my left shoulder. “A little,” said Loiosh.
“What about?”
“Standing here like this.”
“Okay. We’ll walk.”
We did; aimlessly, but generally west, veering a bit northward now and then. It was still early, and I didn’t figure Vaasci to be the early type. At least, I never had been when I’d been with the Organization.
“Okay, Boss. Can you explain something to me?”
“Probably not, but I’ll try.”
“Are you deliberately giving that Easterner time to do what you told him not to?”
“You mean, time to alert Vaasci? Yes.”
“You didn’t explain that part of the plan to me.”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Mind telling me why?”
“I don’t think I can explain.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll try, though. First, I want to know if he will. I mean, if Josef actually gets the message to Vaasci, that will tell me whether there’s a loyalty, or maybe just that Josef is more afraid of Vaasci than he is of me. I need to know that.”
“At the mere cost of walking into a trap?”
“Heh. Like we’ve never done that before?”
“Not on purpose. Well, not often on purpose.”
“Second ... it’s harder to say.”
“You’re hoping for the chance to kill someone?”
“Not exactly.”
“You’re hoping someone will try to kill you?”
“That’s closer.”
“Boss—”
“Kicking that bastard in the face gave me a taste, Loiosh. I need more than a taste.”
“Boss, I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t like it.”
“I know.”
“It’s not like you to make decisions based on—”
“I know. Have you ever been half asleep, where you aren’t sure if you’re dreaming or not?”
“I don’t dream, Boss.”