But I found no trace of Carris Lethway. The hungry shadows had simply swallowed him whole.
I was hiding in these same hungry shadows when a shiny black carriage slowed and then stopped.
I heard the door open. I never heard footsteps. Suddenly, they were just there.
“Well, well,” said one.
“We meet again,” said the other.
They smiled toothy vampire smiles.
I recognized them as the pair who’d slain the fat man at the Docks.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Out for a stroll?”
“We saw the flames.”
“We came to see.”
“Fires send them fleeing.”
“It’s more sporting that way.”
My hand was already on the hilt of the weapon. I’d paused to reload it a few blocks ago. I wasn’t sure it would prove fatal to halfdead.
I was sure I had no interest in finding out.
“Ah, but I’m hardly fleeing.” I pulled the thing out. “I was just heading home, enjoying the fresh night air.”
They locked eyes with me.
One shrugged.
“Ride with us,” he said.
“We’re done hunting.”
“Quite done.”
“Evis will owe us a favor.”
“A very large favor.”
They turned and made for their carriage.
I let out my breath and followed.
I asked if they had seen a barefoot man. They responded in the negative, though they were quick to point out that their tastes were too refined to allow them to dine upon the sick or the injured. I hadn’t liked the way they looked at me, at that moment. I made it a point to force a sudden wet cough.
They took me home to Cambrit and even bade me a good night. I still don’t know their names or their House.
They regaled with tales of the hunt all the way home.
I hoped I would never see either of them again.
I stayed in my office long enough to change my shirt and coat. The vial that had broken inside my pocket stank of garlic. There was also blood splashed up my right arm. I had no idea to whom the blood last belonged.
The skull was still muttering in the bag. I wished Mama were around with a bit of handy eldritch lore about muttering skulls. I could just stomp the thing into splinters, of course, but for all I knew that would leave me with a pile of vengeful dust. I settled for dumping a bag of salt on it and locking it in a drawer.
Assuming Carris Lethway was alive, I decided he’d make a beeline for Tamar. And since he’d have no way of knowing Tamar was stashed in a hotel downtown, I had a hunch he’d find somewhere near the Fields house to hide, so he could watch for Tamar in safety.
Which wasn’t a bad plan, except that the kid was wounded, feverish and very possibly dying.
I shoved the letters I’d written in a drawer. Toadsticker’s hooks hung empty on my wall. I’d had no time to search for him when the fracas started. I hoped Evis would understand.
The sun was just creeping up when I hit the streets again. The weapon was in my right-hand coat pocket. I was down to a dozen of the explosive rounds it fired, which meant I’d already fired a dozen times. Try as I might, I could only recall firing the thing six times.
Six times or a dozen, I’d slain a wand-waver, and that’s something no mere sword could have done.
I hoofed it until the cabs starting moving. So I was a good five blocks from Cambrit before I caught a ride. From there, I made good time, and reached Fields’s well-trimmed neighborhood before the sky lost its traces of dawn.
I let the cabbie go. The sidewalks were getting crowded. Carris could hardly expect to mingle in his current state. That limited his hiding places.
I made the block, noting places that afforded cover and a good view of Tamar’s home. I picked out six places. All but one faced the front door.
I checked the long shot first. And found signs that someone had been sleeping there. But I didn’t figure it was Carris, since they left behind a couple empty bottles of cheap red wine and the wrapper from a pub sandwich.
Curious. Someone with an interest in the Fields and their servant’s entrance. Might be the butler from down the street, carrying on with a maid.
Or it might be something else.
But it wasn’t Carris, so I emerged from the hedge with as much dignity as I could muster and joined the passing crowd on the sidewalk.
Next, I checked the same clump of hedges that had recently concealed Mills and. I found blood on the leaves, blood so fresh it was still sticky. A bloody scrap of rag was lying on the grass, beside a pair of ragged shoes.
So he’d grabbed clothes and shoes along the way, and left these when they didn’t fit.
And then, presumably, he’d gone looking for the one person in the world Carris Lethway felt he could trust.
I recalled the hint of murder I’d seen in Fields’s chubby little cheeks. I wasn’t convinced he would murder the kid in cold blood, but there was only one way to find out.
I didn’t even have to knock.
The door opened as soon as my shadow fell across it. Both Mr. Fields and his wife stood within, bleary-eyed and anxious.
“Yes, he’s been here,” said Fields, before I uttered a word. “Been and gone.”
“He was hurt,” said Mrs. Fields. “Badly.”
“I know.” They stepped aside and motioned me in. “I found him last night, but he jumped me before I could explain who I was.”
“He’s looking for Tamar.” Mr. Fields gritted his teeth. “And whoever is looking for him may be looking for her too.”
“Which is why I kept her whereabouts a secret. Relax. Tamar is fine. Do you have any idea where Carris might be headed?”
“Yes, dear, why don’t you tell Mr. Markhat where that poor young man is heading? And why he might be heading there?”
She crossed arms over bosom in the universal sign for wifely disapproval.
Mr. Fields went crimson.
“You sent the kid on a wild goose chase to protect your daughter,” I said before he could reply. “Wonderful. Brilliant. That’s what any father would do, medals and parades all around. But I’m not Carris Lethway, Mr. Fields. So when I ask where you sent the kid, I expect an honest answer.”
“He sent him to Wall Downs,” snapped Mrs. Fields. “You’ve heard of it? Tiny little town fifteen miles south of here? They grow wheat. We buy most of our flour from there.”
I knew of the place. What I knew of it told me it might have a pair of roads, a couple of inns, a canal or two that connected the town to the Brown. Two hundred souls, a couple of big plantation houses and a lot of home-brewed corn whiskey.
Not a bad place to hide someone. Not a good place to send an injured kid.
“Did you give him any specific destination, or just point him south and slam the door?”
“I cleaned him up and treated his wounds and gave him twenty crowns, Mr. Markhat.” He shot a sideways glance at his glowering wife. “I am not as heartless as people seem to think.”
Mrs. Fields suppressed a snort of derision.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I told him she was staying at the Two-Headed Lamb. It’s an inn. North end of town.”
“And then you just let him go.”
“Damned right I did. And I’m not sorry. He showed up here half dead and bloody, raving about kidnappers and fires, and demanding to see Tamar.” He glared at me. “He’s nothing but trouble, I tell you. Just like his devil of a father.”
“He ran, Mr. Fields. Ran all the way across Rannit, after Curfew, wounded and sick. All to see Tamar. I don’t know the kid. But I do know this-his devil of a father would never have do that. For anyone.”
Fields turned away.
“He’s gone. Follow him or not, I don’t care which. His father, though. Dead?”
“I hear he left town.”
“Left? For where?”
“Place called Wall Downs. Something about two-headed lambs.”
He said something less than complimentary. His wife turned and marched away, leaving him alone with me.