I took her hand. It was warm and dry and her fingers slipped easily through mine, like we’d held hands a thousand times before.
She spoke a nonsense word, and I felt the last of the mojo slip off my shoulders and well and truly fall away.
“Now you’ve got nothing to blame but the innate depravity of your soul. Still think I’m pretty?”
I gobbled something complimentary and let go her hand. We stepped out into the hall, hadn’t gone three steps before Wendy popped out of a door and pretended she didn’t know we were there.
Wendy had an extensive wardrobe, though it didn’t appear to take up much room. She turned, spoke, batted her eyes and was about to join us when Darla grabbed my hand again and gave her a glare. “Ease off, sister,” she said. “This one is mine. Aren’t you, honey-chunks?”
Wendy giggled. I left, and the Hoogas even dipped their gazes in farewell.
And-God help me-that was Darla.
Chapter Three
I left the Velvet a scant hour before Curfew. In my neighborhood, Curfew doesn’t mean much. Mama Hog’s customers still come and go. The streets are still thick with layabouts, wobbling drunks and assorted ne’er-do-wells. Even the street minstrels don’t pack up before the Watch starts bellowing and waving truncheons in their faces.
Here, though, blocks from Cambrit, people were already closing up shop and heading home. The street was choked with rattling carriages and cursing drivers. I had to plow through passers-by with a shoulder and a glare.
I’d gotten one last thing from Darla, on my way out. She’d been with Martha, that last time she had set out for home. Darla said they’d walked together as far as Waylon Street and there, Darla had taken a cab north towards home, while Martha continued on foot south and west.
I’d lifted an eyebrow at that. Darla had explained that the New People neighborhood really began at Darton. Once Martha reached that, she was perfectly safe.
I’d reserved comment on the thought of any part of Rannit being perfectly safe. But it did make a sort of sense-four blocks through a moderately good part of Rannit, then another seven home, surrounded by smiling Balptist faces who doubtlessly were all paragons of simple country virtue, or terrified of the brothers Hoobin, or both. It didn’t sound dangerous put like that.
So I walked that way too. I set a brisk pace, fast enough so I wasn’t mowed down, slow enough to take in the sights.
Four blocks. Four blocks of haberdashers and jewelers and shoemakers and sweetshops. I counted four Watchmen in the first two blocks alone. Their tall, blunt blue hats and ambling gait made them easy to find, even in a milling crowd.
I nodded to a smiling banker and pondered Martha’s fate. She wasn’t yanked kicking and screaming into an alley-too many people, of exactly the sort who wouldn’t just turn away and pretend they’d seen nothing. No, someone would shout, and another, and soon there’d be Watch whistles and running feet and swinging Watch-sticks and that would be the end of any would-be alley-grabber.
So I walked. Had a rough time crossing the street at Mayben, had to wait with a mob for a white-gloved traffic-master and his whistle.
Had Martha, perhaps, done this every day?
I turned, met the eyes of the six or seven people nearest me. “I’m looking for a woman,” I said, loud enough that they could hear. A few people guffawed, or exchanged “Oh, no, another nut” looks, but I ignored them. “She used to walk home this way, every day. Short lady, blonde hair, thirty years, spoke with a New People accent. Anybody know her?”
Shrugs and nods, all meaning no.
The traffic-master blew his whistle, halted traffic and waved the mob of pedestrians forward.
I stayed behind, repeated my question again, three more times.
No one had anything but shrugs and suspicious glares. I’d even tugged at the traffic-master’s sleeve. Put my question to him. “Hell no,” he said, in a voice nearly as loud as his whistle, “and shove off.”
I shoved. I found a wall and leaned against it. The sun was getting low. Curfew was coming, and I was a long way from home.
So I gritted my teeth, set my jaw and decided it was time for drastic action.
I found the nearest blunt Watchman’s hat, dove into the crowd and steered toward it.
I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, Martha’s strange rapport with repellant, hostile creatures ran the range from ogres all the way down to the Watch.
Turns out, it had.
The second Watchman I spoke to remembered Martha. They’d rarely spoken, he said, but she’d always smiled at him as she passed.
He was a young man, my second Watchman. A vet, only two years on the Watch, which may explain why he was still human. And though neither the Hoobins nor Darla had stressed the point, I surmised Martha was unlikely to go unnoticed by any young human male.
“Pretty, is she?”
I swear the man blushed. “Yessir. Nice too. Didn’t ever seem like she was in a hurry either.”
I’d nodded, hoping he’d go on, hoping he’d idly mention seeing Martha forced at sword point into a nearby shop or carried bodily into a carriage emblazoned with the name and address of the owner.
He didn’t. Yes, he’d seen her pass, most days. No, he couldn’t recall the exact day he’d last seen her. No, she’d never been in the company of anyone else, neither had she ever seemed nervous nor upset or even mildly perturbed.
He’d then surprised me by offering to ask his fellows the same questions. His name was Rupert, and I could find him again at the same street corner tomorrow.
After that, I hoofed it west. The tall red brick buildings swept the cobblestone street with shadow, and the sky took on that brief blaze of crimson that heralds sunset. By the time I reached the plain, well-scrubbed buildings of the New People night had fallen and the Curfew bell had rung.
And that last lingering bell toll cleared the streets, at least in this part of town.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, walked on and whistled. My shoes made loud clop-cloppings on the pavement. A chilly wind sprang up and walked with me, sending paper scraps rustling behind me, setting neatly trimmed boxleaf shrubs tossing and making dry whispers in the dark.
All in all, I was wishing I’d taken a cab. Not that I was afraid a passing halfdead might take a fancy to my upturned coat collar and decide I might do as a snack. But I wasn’t getting much out of this jaunt through the Hoobins’ neighborhood, my feet were tired and now I’d missed supper at Eddie’s.
There were lights in most windows, and the scents of a thousand hearty suppers mingled with the shy wind. I’d expected the New People neighborhoods to be poor but well scrubbed. Instead, I had to look hard to see any signs of poverty. The doors were all square and plumb and light didn’t show at the edges. The windows sported new glass and frilly curtains and outside each one hung wood shutters painted to match all the rest. The stoops were all swept, and though I did see a child’s carved horse left out on one I never saw a drunk or a weed-head or even a smashed wine bottle.
But the street was empty. That bothered me. If it was deserted or nearly so that evening Martha walked it, she could have been snatched. It would have to have been done quickly, it would have to have been done quietly, but there were ways to do both, and men who would do them.
Why? I looked about me, at the warm homey glows from all those ranks of windows. Why Martha Hoobin?
Curtains jerked as they were hastily drawn back. So. The street might be quiet, but that didn’t mean no one was watching.
I squinted into the shadows, found a house number, tried to figure where I was in relation to the Hoobin place.
It wasn’t far. My feet sent up a fresh pair of aches to let me know what they thought about that judgment, but I waved at my audience and moved on.
Maybe, thought a small petty corner of my mind, maybe they’ll have supper done by now.