In the Shadow of Lightning

20

The Lampshade Boardwalk was a mighty wooden structure that thrust itself out onto the Tien River in the northeast corner of Ossa. Much like Glory Street, it was a place where the castes of Ossa mixed easily; poor fishmongers hawked their wares mere feet from high-end jewelry stores, or a sailors’ bar might rent space from an expensive hotel for passing merchants. The Lampshade had a carnival-like air, but unlike Glory Street it was a family-friendly place, mostly closed down by dark during the summer, or nine o’clock during the winter.

Kizzie arrived to her meeting two hours early, strolling around the area while shops closed down and restaurants snuffed the gas lanterns above their patio seating. She eyeballed everyone and everything; looking for hiding spots, watching for ambushers. She wanted to be ready for any trickery that Glissandi might attempt. She cast a mental net with her sorcery, looking for nearby glassdancers just in case Glissandi was that well-connected. There were none.

It was nearing ten when she turned her jacket inside out, switching the brightly colored embroidering for drab gray. She took the crimson feather out of her felt hat, cocking up one side, then pulled a handkerchief up over her mouth.

The Palmora Pub was one of the few places that stayed open after dark; a place for all the laborers, cooks, buskers, and salesmen to go drinking after their clientele had gone home. Kizzie walked up to the second story of the boardwalk half a block away, positioning herself next to the top of a thick wooden pylon and watching the pub.

Much to her surprise, Glissandi arrived at exactly ten. The scarlet jacket she wore over a black tunic was clearly meant to be subdued, but she still looked extremely wealthy, like someone who’d lost her way leaving a jeweler’s kiosk. She wore a deep frown, glancing this way and that, clutching at something heavy she was concealing beneath her jacket.

A pistol, perhaps? Too big. A pair of pistols?

Kizzie produced her braided earrings, threading one into each ear. The witglass quickened her thoughts, and her muscles responded to the forgeglass, but it was the sightglass she needed. The whole world came a little more alive. Sights and sounds grew sharper. The fishy scent of the river became almost overpowering. She let herself grow used to the difference and then used her vantage point to investigate the area. No sign of Glissandi’s bodyguards or any kind of a trap. Were they well-concealed? Had Kizzie spooked her into honesty?

Kizzie stuck her hands into her pockets, gripping her blackjack with her left, and strolled in a circular path around and then down so that she approached the Palmora Pub from the opposite direction. She came up alongside Glissandi.

“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.

Discarding the satchel full of money, Kizzie used Glissandi’s confusion as a distraction while she patted her down. No knife. No pistol. Damned arrogant guild-family member thought that she could buy her way out of a murder, and that her two bodyguards would take care of things if that didn’t work.

“Move and I’ll give you a red smile,” Kizzie said, raising her stiletto to Glissandi’s throat.

Glissandi’s composure and arrogance were gone. She stared back at Kizzie in fear, breathing heavily. Kizzie brushed her free hand across Glissandi’s ears. A tiny stud of forgeglass and another of sightglass, both of them low-resonance by their feel.

“What do you want?” Glissandi demanded between breaths.

“We already established that. I want answers.”

“No. I’ll give you money. I’ll double what’s in the bag. That’s all I can offer.”

“You can offer a lot more than that.” Kizzie felt in her pocket for the shackleglass. With one quick movement, she forced it into one of the piercings in Glissandi’s right ear. Glissandi’s shoulders immediately slumped, her whole body relaxing. Her expression became resigned, but fear still remained in her eyes.

“Don’t do this,” Glissandi hissed quietly.

Kizzie had no compassion. She’d just been forced to kill a pair of bodyguards over a question. She’d not demanded money or evidence, just answers. She was damned well going to get them. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “Did you help kill Adriana Grappo?”

Glissandi began to tremble violently, much like Churian Dorlani. Her mouth opened. A tiny noise issued forth, but it was barely more than a squeak. “I did,” she finally managed.

“Why?”

Glissandi’s right eye twitched. For half a moment, Kizzie thought she was going to have a full-blown seizure, but the Magna spat out one word: “Orders.”

“From who?” Kizzie waited a moment and gave Glissandi a shake. “From who?” she demanded again. “Who wanted Adriana dead? Who were the other killers? Why kill Adriana?”

Glissandi gave a high-pitched whine. Her jaw moved strangely, and it took Kizzie a few moments to realize that there was something leaking from the corner of Glissandi’s mouth. Kizzie took a half step back in horror. Glissandi smiled at her, dark liquid pouring out of her mouth, and mumbled something victoriously.

She had bitten off her own tongue.

“What the pissing…” Kizzie began. She didn’t get the chance to finish. Glissandi suddenly lurched forward, falling on Kizzie’s knife with surprising force, ramming the weapon into her own chest. Glissandi gave a gurgling laugh as she tumbled to the ground. It was a sound Kizzie knew she would remember forever.

Kizzie stared down at the body at her feet, mouth hanging agape, unable to comprehend what had just happened. She felt suddenly very cold. What kind of a person killed themselves rather than sell out their employer? Kizzie’s mouth was dry, her thoughts muddled. She pulled herself together enough to kneel down next to the body, checking Glissandi for more godglass and a pocketbook. She grabbed the leather satchel. She had no way of getting rid of the body. Best make it look like a robbery gone bad.

She swore quietly to herself through the entire process, her hand hurting, her blood pounding. She needed to leave as quickly as possible.

She’d just fetched back the shackleglass when she noticed that there was still life in Glissandi’s eyes. They were moving very slightly, staring past Kizzie with powerful intent. Slowly, Kizzie turned around.

There, out in the darkness, just beyond the help granted to her senses by the sightglass, was a figure. It looked like a man, bald and impossibly tall and thin, nearly seven feet tall. She could see the glint of light off his eyes as he stared at her, but he did not move or speak. Kizzie’s pulse quickened further. Snatching everything she had gathered to herself, she hurried away from Glissandi’s body.

She paused at the next alley to look back. The figure remained where he was, staring directly at Kizzie. He didn’t even look down at Glissandi’s body. Who was he? A night watchman? Another bodyguard? A damned boardwalk madman? Kizzie did not want to know. She’d had enough of confrontation for one night. She hurried down to the Palmora Pub, where she ducked inside and then let herself out through a service hatch underneath the bar. Creeping along beneath the boardwalk, she heard heavy footsteps above her.

The footsteps paused, and between the cracks she could see a light-skinned man staring toward the Palmora. It was definitely the tall man. He did not go any closer, but gave a heavy sigh and then turned and walked back the way he came – up toward Glissandi’s body. Kizzie waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before she found a ladder and made her way back up to the boardwalk.

She had never once before in her life run home out of fear. She wasn’t about to do it now, but she’d be damned if she didn’t find herself moving much faster than usual until she’d sought out a hackney cab and had paid the driver to take her to her apartment. A powerful guild-family member had just killed herself rather than admit who gave the orders to kill Adriana Grappo. With her dying gaze, she had looked at that tall man in the shadows.

Something was rotten in Ossa – far more rotten than usual.