Best Served Cold

“Ah! The ringmaster for tonight’s circus of murder!” Morveer leaned against the rail of the stairs, sneering down, Day not far behind, her dangling hands slowly peeling an orange.

“Our poisoners! I’m sorry to see you made it out alive. What happened?”

Morveer’s lip curled still further. “Our allotted role was to remove the guards on the top floor of the building. That we accomplished with absolute speed and secrecy. We were not asked to remain in the building thereafter. Indeed we were ordered not to. Our employer does not entirely trust us. She was concerned that there be no indiscriminate slaughter.”

Cosca shrugged. “Slaughter, by its very definition, would not appear to discriminate.”

“Either way, your responsibility is over. I doubt anyone will object if you take this, now.”

Morveer flicked his wrist and something sparkled in the darkness. Cosca snatched it from the air on an instinct. A metal flask, liquid sloshing inside. Just like the one he used to carry. The one he sold… where was it now? That sweet union of cold metal and strong liquor lapped at his memory, brought the spit flooding into his dry mouth. A drink, a drink, a drink He was halfway through unscrewing the cap before he stopped himself. “It would seem a sensible life lesson never to swallow gifts from poisoners.”

“The only poison in there is the same kind you have been swallowing for years. The same kind you will never stop swallowing.”

Cosca lifted the flask. “Cheers.” He upended it and let the spirit inside spatter over the warehouse floor, then tossed it clattering away into a corner. He made sure he noted where it ended up, though, in case there was a trickle left inside. “No sign of our employer?” he called to Morveer. “Or her Northern puppy?”

“None. We should give some consideration to the possibility that there may never be any.”

“He’s right.” Vitari was a black shape in the lamplit doorway to the kitchen. “Chances are good they’re dead. What do we do then?”

Day looked at her fingernails. “I, for one, will weep a river.”

Morveer had other plans. “We should have a scheme for dividing such money as Murcatto has here-”

“No,” said Cosca, for some reason intensely irritated at the thought. “I say we wait.”

“This place is not safe. One of the entertainers could have been captured by the authorities, could even now be divulging its location.”

“Exciting, isn’t it? I say we wait.”

“Wait if you please, but I-”

Cosca whipped his knife out in one smooth motion. The blade whirred shining through the darkness and thumped, vibrating gently, into the wood no more than a foot or two from Morveer’s face. “A little gift of my own.”

The poisoner raised one eyebrow at it. “I do not appreciate drunks throwing knives at me. What if your aim had been off?”

Cosca grinned. “It was. We wait.”

“For a man of notoriously fickle loyalties, I find your attachment to a woman who once betrayed you… perplexing.”

“So do I. But I’ve always been an unpredictable bastard. Perhaps I’m changing my ways. Perhaps I’ve made a solemn vow to be sober, loyal and diligent in all my dealings from now on.”

Vitari snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

“And how long do we wait?” demanded Morveer.

“I suppose you’ll know when I say you can leave.”

“And suppose… I choose… to leave before?”

“You’re nothing like as clever as you think you are.” Cosca held his eye. “But you’re cleverer than that.”

“Everyone be calm,” snarled Vitari, in the most uncalming voice imaginable.

“I don’t take orders from you, you pickled remnant!”

“Maybe I need to teach you how-”

The warehouse door banged open and two figures burst through. Cosca whipped his sword from his stick, Vitari’s chain rattled, Day had produced a small flatbow from somewhere and levelled it at the doorway. But the new arrivals were not representatives of the authorities. They were none other than Shivers and Monza, both wet through, stained with dirt and soot and panting for breath as though they had been pursued through half the streets of Sipani. Perhaps they had.

Cosca grinned. “You need only mention her name and up she springs! Master Morveer was just now discussing how we should divide your money if it turned out you were burned to a cinder in the shell of Cardotti’s.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she croaked.

Morveer gave Cosca a deadly glare. “I am by no means disappointed, I assure you. I have a vested interested in your survival to the tune of many thousands of scales. I was simply considering… a contingency.”

“Best to be prepared,” said Day, lowering the bow and sucking the juice from her orange.

“Caution first, always.”

Monza lurched across the warehouse floor, one bare foot dragging, jaw muscles clenched tight against evident pain. Her clothes, which had not left too much to the imagination in the first instance, were badly ripped. Cosca could see a long red scar up one thin thigh, more across her shoulder, down her forearm, pale and prickly with gooseflesh. Her right hand was a mottled, bony claw, pressed against her hip as though to keep it out of sight.