“Walk with me,” she said, keeping her voice low.
Glissandi’s nostrils flared. “You sent the note?” she demanded.
“In private,” Kizzie told her, jerking her head down the darkened boardwalk. She half expected Glissandi to refuse. Instead, the Magna sighed and fell into step beside Kizzie. Once they were a little farther from the hubbub of the Palmora, Glissandi cleared her throat.
“Who are you?”
“No one of consequence.”
“You certainly won’t be if this goes further than tonight.”
Kizzie stopped and turned toward Glissandi. They were out of earshot of the closest boardwalk patrons. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
Up close, Glissandi looked older and more severe. She had crow’s-feet in the corners of her eyes and several blemishes covered by makeup. “I mean,” she said, her voice dripping with the arrogance of someone who’d done this many times, “that this sack has forty thousand ozzo in it.” Slowly, she drew a leather satchel from beneath her jacket and tossed it on the ground between them. “Accept it, and then take whatever secrets you might think you know to your grave. I don’t want to see you or hear from you again.”
Kizzie was a little amused. She glanced over Glissandi’s shoulder toward the Palmora, where a fistfight had broken out between two keelboatmen. “I think you read this wrong,” she said.
Glissandi’s jaw tightened. “I made you an offer. This is nonnegotiable. Pick up the bag and be grateful that I don’t snuff you out where you stand.”
Kizzie glanced toward the closest rooftops. Marksmen on the boardwalk? Not even Glissandi would dare something so brash. The minute a rifle blast went off this place would be swarming with National Guardsmen. Kizzie was far safer armed with a knife in the dark than anyone carrying a firearm. “I don’t want your money,” she said. “I want to know why you killed Adriana Grappo.”
“I see.” Glissandi’s demeanor grew somehow more cold. There was a glint in her eye now, something that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Anger? Fear? Kizzie could see she had taken her off guard, and it took her a moment to gather herself. She suddenly rubbed furiously at her nose. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do, and you’re going to hold a piece of shackleglass and tell me why,” Kizzie said.
“Who are you with?” Glissandi demanded. “The Cinders? The National Guard? A private investigation firm? Who?” Her voice cracked. “The matter was dropped. Dropped!”
“Private investigation firm,” Kizzie lied. “Why did you kill Adriana Grappo?” She reached into her pocket to palm the shackleglass, intent on forcing it into one of Glissandi’s piercings. As she did, she noticed that Glissandi was rubbing at her nose again furiously while her eyes grew a little bit more wild. Glissandi glanced to her left and right.
That wasn’t an itch, Kizzie realized. It was a signal.
She heard the feet pounding along the boardwalk with moments to spare. Kizzie whirled just as two massive shapes sprang out of the darkness. She grabbed Glissandi, jerking the Magna woman between her and the assailants. A cudgel swing was abruptly aborted. A man swore, trying to stop his forward momentum but slamming into Glissandi and – right behind her – Kizzie.
Kizzie stumbled back, barely keeping her feet as the other two went down. Her sightglass allowed her to see just well enough to ascertain that the attackers were a pair of big Purnians, no doubt the bodyguards that Veterixi warned her about. The second bodyguard leapt the heap of his boss and companion with surprising dexterity. He came at Kizzie hard, swinging a short cudgel. She ducked one swing, sidestepped the next, backpedaling toward the Palmora.
Kizzie’s opponent was easily six inches taller and outweighed her by four stone. He was in his late thirties. He had a forgeglass stud in his left ear and a broad, smashed face like he’d headbutted an anvil in his youth. Godglass was not always a great equalizer. It merely augmented existing traits, so even if Kizzie’s forgeglass was better, that big brute was probably a lot stronger than her. She couldn’t let him catch her. Lucky for her, she didn’t need strength. A sharp knife would equalize things well enough.
She didn’t even bother with her sorcery, as she wasn’t good enough to manipulate glass in a quick-moving situation like this. Instead she drew her stiletto, still bobbing and weaving, looking for an opening that she could exploit before the other bodyguard joined the fight. She had mere moments to do it, so when her opponent swung just a little too hard, Kizzie sidestepped the blow and brought her blackjack down across his elbow.
He gave a pained grunt. Kizzie stepped in, felt his offhand catch her by the lapel of her jacket, and buried her knife between his ribs. She jerked it out, stabbed again, and then shoved him away as he gasped for breath while his lungs filled with blood.
Glissandi was up. She’d recovered the leather money satchel and was sprinting down the boardwalk, away from Kizzie and toward the crowded Palmora Pub. Kizzie checked her face to make sure her handkerchief was still covering it. The move turned out to be a mistake, as the second bodyguard had also gained his feet and was already closing the distance between them.
She barely managed to get her knife up between herself and his cudgel. The exchange was badly mismatched, her hand going instantly numb from the force of his strike. She threw herself to the side, tripped, and rolled away from another blow. She sprang back to her feet, but too slowly. The bodyguard grabbed her roughly by her knife wrist. He raised his cudgel to brain her in the side of the head.
Before the blow could fall, Kizzie tapped him between the eyes with her blackjack. He staggered back, sudden tears pouring from his eyes. She tried to shake the grip he had on her knife hand, didn’t succeed, so smacked him twice more with her blackjack – once on the temple, and then on the throat.
He stumbled, gagging, dropping his cudgel to clutch at his throat with both hands. Her knife finally free, Kizzie buried it in the spot where his throat met his shoulder.
She was already sprinting after Glissandi before the bodyguard hit the ground.
“Hey!” one of the sailors outside the Palmora shouted as she approached. “Slow down there!”
Kizzie looked down at the bloody stiletto in her hand, looked in both directions for Glissandi, and responded, “That bitch and her friends jumped me! She stole my bag!”
In broad daylight that excuse would never have worked, but the sailors outside seemed just drunk enough to accept it at face value – at least for long enough that one pointed to his left. Kizzie didn’t give them a chance to second-guess themselves. She followed his direction at a sprint, heading up the stairs to the second level of the boardwalk.
It was dark here, very few gas lanterns still lit, the lights of Ossa glittering across the river. Kizzie paused long enough to take a deep breath and hold it in. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, but she could also hear the sound of someone running across the planks of the boardwalk just on the other side of the darkened windows of the closest restaurant. Kizzie’s witglass helped her calculate speed and distance, and she rushed to cut Glissandi off. She ran lightly, sacrificing a little speed for as much stealth as she could manage. She passed one narrow alley, then another, and turned right at the next.
She emerged just behind a dark figure clutching a bag. Kizzie saw the glint of city lights reflected off Glissandi’s eyes as she looked over her shoulder, and then Glissandi tripped and fell right on her face. Kizzie had to grab on to a pylon to keep herself from running over the damned woman. Stiletto in one hand, Kizzie pocketed her blackjack and grabbed Glissandi by the back of her jacket. She hauled her to her feet and shoved her up against the wall.