Glee Street had docile mornings.
I’d been here long enough to notice. Early in the day, you had fewer people visiting. Most would wait for the comforting cover of night to venture here. Not only did it protect polite society from noticing you there, it also added to the thrill of danger. After all, who might be lurking in the shadows of dingy back alleys, waiting to ambush them and provide a thrill of danger?
No one. Holmsteader broke the legs of anyone who even ventured near Glee Street who might be a threat. Occasionally, so employee of hers would rush out, pretend to do sothing, then vanish, leaving so mber of the upper crust behind.
Excited that they’d almost been robbed before the clearly cowardly Infernal had seen that their clear better (in both morals, integrity, and wealth) would smite them for the terity.
I honestly didn’t know if I despised it for playing into what they thought of us, or for being a successful way of exploiting their prejudice for money. This bizarre, sanitized version of the Quarter.
Hate, I decided after a mont of thought. After all, I wasn’t getting any of that money.
Either way, this was morning still, the sun climbing up to the sky. Late morning by now. I’d slept in. Holmsteader wouldn’t desert Glee Street just because of . And I’d put a stop to the Hellgate ritual for now. I’d enjoyed my rest then co here on a day more pleasant than the last several. No snowfall this ti, no clouds, but still the sa winter temperatures far too soon. Snow from before still lay all over the street to be shoveled by garishly dressed gang mbers who cursed having to do this instead of so vagrants.
I wonder how many of them knew their boss was responsible for the shortage of available hands for hire surrounding their territory?
Leaning against a wall a few streets away, I had my eyes closed, focusing on the noise.
Getting any closer than this wouldn’t be worth it. I hadn’t had the ti to biosculpt my features. They would be on the lookout for , and my new appearance would certainly stand out.
They’d be on the lookout in general. I would have thought my threat about Imperial Intelligence or Bishop Gallaspie being aid this way would have spooked Holmsteader normally. Now that I was certain she was involved in the conspiracy? Doubly so.
Also, at this point, I must be approaching being one of the main causes for injuries in their gang.
I was close enough that news would filter back to them eventually, which is part of what I wanted. It would only be expected that I would be here. After all, so of her people had tried to kill Gregory and Alice.
Breath, I reminded myself idly, tail thrashing. Paynt for that could wait until after more imdiate concerns had been handled. Then I could handle things more permanently.
Anyway, the reason to be seen was to be spotted and deed early in the process of doing that. If I were here listening, scouting, I wouldn’t be ready until tonight at the earliest. At which point Holmsteader could make her own preparations.
No one could know I’d already done most of the scouting I’d needed before waking up.
I’d been in Holmsteader’s office. No windows, only a single door in or out.
See, you didn’t last long in this business without being paranoid. And no paranoid person would stay in a room with only one entrance to anything that wasn’t open air.
My own exit for ergencies was a weak section of wall in my basent, leading to the maze of tunnels of the Underground. If sothing was dangerous enough to make run, the cost of rotting my way through it would be an easy price.
I didn’t use my tunnel for the simple reason that it would take too long to squeeze out that way. Plenty of ti for soone to shoot bullets or magic before you got into the underground.
Holmsteader would have nothing so dramatic, and more importantly, she’d have sothing besides the obvious.
It took half an hour of bribes and questioning to find out about her gang’s section of the tunnels, about the different entrances, and about the one rumoured to lead directly to her office. Despite their eventual deaths, helping out Marat and Jones had earned so grace with the people around Glee Street.
So of them had their own doubts about Holmsteader as well. Nothing concrete, just the vague inkling that she really couldn’t have not known about Tyler’s activities. The lack of hands shoveling snow besides Holmsteader’s gang wasn’t just because of the sacrifices. Not directly, at least.
So it was ti for a trip to the Underground to find my way in. Directly into her office, through her own private bolt-hole.
Probably not the rumoured one, which was such bait it might as well have been wrapped in at and served with a side of cake and tea. There would be one there that would lead to her office, probably more hidden away, but definitely not one anyone would have heard of.
The only way a truly paranoid person felt safe was if they had an escape route only they knew about. No one else could know, because the mont they knew, you had a leak you could never plug, even with death. They may never actively turn, but that didn’t stop soone deep in their cups from running their mouth, or innocently letting it slip, or saying it when threatened with sothing. Even if they were silenced by death, necromancy, soul-reading, chronomancy since that apparently did exist, and a half dozen other magical arts existed for ripping secrets from the departed.
So the truly paranoid said nothing about their true escape route, and it had only occurred to half an hour into searching for Holmsteader’s that I definitely had no plans to reveal any details of my own to anyone around .
There was, of course, a difference between and Holmsteader, so obvious I wouldn’t even waste ti trying to think of it.
Instead, it was best to figure out where the bolthole was.
See, your absolute last resort bolthole would have the smallest number of complications possible. The idea behind it was to get out, and get out quickly.
No map of the underground was perfect. The map I’d gotten while freelancing with the Delvers was very close. Over a dozen different ones covering specific areas of the city. Out of date, and I doubt I’d be given a new one. Being allowed at all would probably be touchy.
Tended to happen when you hid your past as a rebel, murderer, and half a dozen things even adventurers looked down on.
The Black Fla map was even further out of date, but it contained details that not even the Delvers had figured out.
It took a while to look through the different layers of paper that slowly assembled a three-dinsional map of what lay underneath our feet. There were plenty of tunnels, but ones that would see decent traffic. As the Delvers tad more of the underground, more people would find use for them. So anything with a decent amount of foot traffic was out.
Sealed room marked for removal of monsters later? Out. Even if they had been removed by now, Holmsteader would have had her bolthole before then. Cave tunnel known for semi-regular monster appearances? No. Cistern supplying city water supply? That might be different.
Cistern water was treated to be less lethal than Nover water normally was. Cisterns had overflow drains so they would never be completely full. Cisterns were not regularly visited.
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I let out a breath. I hadn’t been underground since Almaseck had banished from the area his subset of the Delver’s guild managed. Since the shapeshifter case, I’d received a letter confirming I wouldn’t be welco in any of the areas directly managed by the Delvers. Technically, just a ban from their guildhalls and associated businesses. I didn’t want to antagonize them by encountering Delvers, so I’d kept my distance.
Well, that and the other group who controlled the underground beneath the Infernal Quarter. My dear half-brother and his group still lurked down there, their newest iteration of Understreet hidden away, tendrils of influence stretching back up to the surface.
Running into them would be worse. I imagined after last night, it would be open season on .
Well, I wasn’t quite ready to hunt Gio yet, but I wouldn’t hesitate to prune a few of his at shields before that confrontation if needed.
Ti to see what the underground had in store for .
***
Sotis, life was the most anticlimactic thing in existence.
An hour and a half later, I stood at the cistern entrance, panting slightly, two bullets short from when I started. I’d narrowly avoided getting bitten by so very nasty winged rats that had decided that my ears would be their lunch.
I’d felt the Imp stir after I’d put a bullet in each of them. It had declined to say anything after the two vermin fled.
Further evidence it was there, staying quiet except when tempted by the prospect of possible food. Its brief discussion with on the Queen of Masks had been its only re-ergence after I’d been asleep in that fey-realm.
Perhaps its efforts there to try to make embrace being a devil had exhausted it?
It was a more comforting thought than the alternative.
No Delvers, no Black Fla, not even so random monster to attack while I moved through here. Very disappointing.
I opened the cistern door, getting ready to take a dip if necessary while trying to search for the exit of Holmsteader’s bolt hole.
I was lucky. She’d taken the ti to actually build a wooden platform secured to the roof, forming a makeshift bridge to the door from where a ladder descended from the roof. I tsk’d as I stepped onto the shaky platform. It swayed as I walked, keeping my hands on the supports as I moved. Beneath the water of the cistern was perhaps ten feet down, dark. The lantern held by my tail gave enough light to see.
Don’t do any more work than is necessary to secure your way out. So what if you needed to take a little dip? It wasn’t as if the water hadn’t been treated since being drained out of the Nover.
Sothing shifted in the water, a shadow moving. As long as I was tall, it glided through the water toward .
I didn’t wait to see what it was, rushing towards the end of the bridge.
Sothing broke the water as I reached the rope ladder. Thank the hells, it was well-maintained, and had planks for steps so I wouldn’t struggle to balance my hooves on ropes. I grabbed onto it, then paused. The platform wasn’t shaking or showing any signs of being attacked. Hands firmly gripping the ladder, I peered down to see what had erged from the water.
It was a fish. So unholy abomination born of the Nover, blank empty eyes looking up at curiously. Its fins moved across the water, tail sending dark water flying. Six feet long, it stared blankly, mouth open.
We stared at each other for a few monts, as I struggled to tell if it was preparing to attack. It looked like a perch. Was it big enough to consider food?
After a while, it dove back under the surface, leaving just as confused as before. The Imp snickered inside my mind.
“What?” I hissed, keeping my tone low. I wasn’t sure how far my voice would travel in here. No need to risk alerting Holmsteader or anyone else near this escape route.
It is greeting one of its own, the Imp said, and I resisted the urge to scream.
At least now I knew why the platform, if fish that big were growing in the cistern. The why could be soone else’s mystery.
I dimd the lantern, not wanting the light to shine through any cracks as I climbed my way up. I went slowly, trying not to strain the ropes or make the clacks of my hooves on the planks too loud. It was slow going in the dark, and I wasn’t all the way up when I first heard the voices.
The first, Holmsteader’s voice, that sa fake sweet tone she’d assud with the first ti we’d t. “-and yes, I’m more than a little upset. How do you think I was going to feel after a devil cos to my place of business and threatens to go on a rampage if I don’t outfit it with several of my people?”
“We stray from my reasons for coming here,” another voice said, and I froze. I couldn’t tell anything about it; it went in one ear and out the other without a single thing specifically registering as noteworthy.
Which itself was noteworthy. And exactly how the voices of the priests of Baltaren had sounded.
“Your reasons for coming here are transparent,” Holmsteader replied, the venom not hiding so well in the politeness now. “You’re trying to evaluate who needs reassurance after whatever that fiasco was last night.”
“That fiasco was another step on our way to completion,” the voice said.
“If that is what you wish to call it, certainly,” Holmsteader said. “From what I have heard, it sounds like soone stumbled into a Watch trap. So now you’re checking to see who is thinking of pulling out and folding before they lose their bet.”
“We remain convinced of everyone’s commitnt to seeing this to its end,” the voice said. Definitely Baltaren. Trying to focus on any specific detail just made my mind slide off of it, like trying to climb on a rain-slicked rooftop.
“You remain convinced the devil’s will figure out how to make us pay for backing out,” Holmsteader said. “And I have no plans of risking that. However, you and that devil repeatedly risking the very thin cover I’ve established are not helping keep that decision.”
“No one saw enter this room,” the Baltaren replied.
“You rely too much on your magic bag of tricks,” Holmsteader replied. “It’s made you soft. There was no need to do this here.”
“My ‘magic bag of tricks’ has thwarted more than what Imperial intelligence can bring to bear,” the other voice said.
The entire ti I’d kept slowly climbing, taking extra care as I cleared each step. Risky business. Eventually, I just stopped, not wanting to risk even the slightest chance of making a noise besides breathing. I was a good ten feet down from the sa floor as them, which was as close as I dared get.
“Well, if you’re here to reassure or threaten to stay in line,” Holmsteader said. “Did we stumble into a Watch ambush?”
“Of a sort,” the voice replied. “Not the ones that were supposed to be assigned to deal with us. Different ones. As well as…others.”
“Oh, more than the Watch involved, does that make it better for us?” Holmsteader said, civility completely abandoned. “What new enemies do we have, and who got them involved? Tell , is it the detective figuring out all our sches or that giggling, cackling psychopath making herself a pain once again?”
I frowned from where I was hiding. Tagashin could co across as chaotic, but she did restrain herself when disguised-
“Because frankly, if it’s the latter, you can handle her yourself. I am not getting within spitting distance of Malvia Harrow if I can help it.”
I bristled, trying not to make a noise. I did not cackle!
“The latter has been handled. She will no longer be a problem without risking unleashing the Imperial axe still aid at her neck. And once again your obsession with the Black Fla dominates your mind.”
“My obsession with not putting myself at more risk than necessary has kept safe,” Holmsteader replied.
“We are aware of your unwillingness to contribute more than what you deem the least effort to the plan, yes.”
“Our deal was I lend you Tyler’s services, do my best to cover up the deaths of the vagrants he sacrificed for your sche, and help you launder money,” Holmsteader said in the sa sickeningly sweet tone she’d had when first eting . “Nothing more than that. I even put aside my doubts that this was so complicated territory-grabbing sche by Versalicci to the wayside.”
Well. That might explain a bit more about why Singer Reginald had been the first to be killed. If the laundering had been done by other priests, he might have seen them while indulging his own vices. Eventually, he might have suspected sothing if he knew they were in the program with him.
“I’m well aware your paranoia has endangered the plan almost as much as your people’s incompetence,” the other voice said. “Your diabolist was warned not to deal on the side.”
“And if that is what had done him in, I’d agree with you,” Holmsteader said. “Alas, instead it was that lunatic you insisted I deal with, who sent his insane half-sister into my territory that killed Tyler. Why are you talking to instead of Versalicci?”
There we go. Confirmation. Daver hadn’t gone rogue. My half-brother was up to his stupid little goatee in this ss. But why?
“Versalicci has done little to actually jeopardize this,” the other voice said, and my ears prickled again. Who was this? “He hasn’t delivered a ritual circle right to the enemy’s house, for example.”
“Oh yes, I should have refused the half-sister working for Imperial intelligence so they could have torn my entire operation apart,” Holmsteader said, the faux-pleasant tone completely drained away. “Where they could have found out even more about all the little details, yes, that would have been much better for all of us. How about the one Versalicci lost, and how no one can apparently get a straight story about whether his pet possessed were there to help the diabolists or the attackers?”
“Your paranoia will be your destruction,” the other voice warned.
“Your recklessness will be yours,” Holmsteader scoffed back. “Now, unless you have anything else to uselessly say, get out of my-”
Sothing snapped, a crunching sound that made force myself to go limp. Don’t freeze, don’t go tense, nothing to make noise even as the sound of wet choking mixed with sothing being ripped apart from up above.
“Foulhorn eyesore,” the blank voice said as sothing splattered across the floor. “You have spent your last barb.”
More sounds, walking, then sothing wooden being smashed, and then…nothing. Not even breathing.
I waited, waited a full three minutes. If the Baltaren was hiding his breath, I supposed I would end up paying for it. I couldn’t wait any longer.
Holmsteader was likely dead. I’d already gathered quite a bit of information about her involvent just by listening.
But access to her private office with no one else inside was too good to pass up, and so I scrambled up the ladder.
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