Brood Parasites

Chapter Three

There was a loud crack, as of a weight dropping on a chair, followed by protesting creaks, as if that chair were forced to bear weight against its design. When the creaks reached a pitch suggesting they would turn from wooden groans into cracking splinters, they stopped. Two thumps of heavy leather banging on more wood followed.

Wrathchild looked up from his newspaper to see James Fowler at the table. Chair tilted back at a dangerous angle, heels perched on the table edge, hands clasped across concave stomach. His stubbled face radiated a look of pleased superiority.

"So I hear you had a to do with his lordship last night," said Fowler.

"Not especially." Wrathchild looked back down at his paper.

After returning the Blake boy to his home that morning Lord Blake's footman had congratulated Wrathchild on his skill and asked him to leave. When asked about the payment the footman assured him the money would be forwarded.

Wrathchild had opinions of the upper classes' promises when it came to money, and left the house with his payment, bruised knuckles and the oath of Sir Blake that his actions would earn him no more business from himself nor any of his acquaintances.

"Anyway, on to matters of more import," said Fowler, punctuating the change in subject with a slap on the table, "How well did my little trick do?"

Wrathchild curled down the top of the newspaper, just enough look into Fowler's eyes.

Fowler smiled in his thin way. "Not bad, eh? I told you it would work."

Wrathchild put the paper on the table. "No. It did not work. I asked for something that would stop someone, knock them out at most, disable them, put them to sleep. Your little trick did not do that."

"I'm sorry, I may have miscalculated a little. Next time I'll make sure they go into a deep sleep."

"You put them into a sleep they'll never wake up from. Not unless he can breathe through a crushed chest." He gazed levelly at Fowler.

"Oh," Fowler eventually said, breaking his stare to look into space for a moment more. "But he was disabled, yes?"

Wrathchild picked up the paper again.

"Next time you're going to have to be more specific, old chap. And I don't know what you're complaining about, one more body in the rivers. Unless it's a blue blood the Watch couldn't give a tinier shit. Is there anything to show it was you?"

"It's not the," Wrathchild began but stopped, allowing the paper to drop an inch and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again he said, "No."

"Well there you go then, don't know what you're complaining about. Do you still have the charm on you?"

"Somewhere, do you really need it now?"

Fowler's attention was already elsewhere in the large and still mostly empty saloon. The taproom of the Grapes of Bacchus, gloomy at the best of times, was inversely dim to the mid morning light out in the street. Autumn had given up early this year and sleet pelted the filthy streets, but the sun had not caught up and still shone without realising winter had already arrived. This far down in the warren of western Dunholm the light was a weak thing, made anaemic by the dirty windows along one wall of the pub. The effect was to highlight the dark places in the room; the pooled shadows of the booth, the thick varnish of the bar, the chips and dents along the tables.

Even so, people still drank. Worries and thirst do not sleep, and it looked like the few men who held their cups definitely did not either.

Wrathchild returned his attention to the newspaper. He caught himself scanning the tightly printed columns again, hunting for he did not know what.

If you have the power to control them.

The Batavian's words would not let him go, and his mind had been falling back to them when he left it to wander.

On a whim he'd bought a news sheet on his way to the Grapes, partly to see if the nagging was a kind of prescience, partly to hope it would stop the words bothering him.

If you have the power to control them.

What had Charlie Clark brought to Dunholm?

The Batavian's words held more weight than he would expect if the man was talking about bolts of untaxed silk. It came across as a warning, and self preservation would not allow Wrathchild to ignore it.

"Penny for them."

Wrathchild blinked and his eyes unfocused from the print. Fowler had gotten bored and turned back.

"It's nothing," he said, and tried to go back to the paper.

"Speaking of, where's my cut?"

Wrathchild sighed and gave up on the paper. "It's going towards what you owe me. Rent's due and I'd rather not sleep on the streets."

Fowler's chirpy face fell. "That's hardly fair, Jon. A man's got to eat."

"You'll eat, don't worry about that."

"I mean, I spend most of the day looking over my shoulder for the Collar. I ain't even got time to set up a stall these days By the time its up I need to run. I don't have enough time to sell any charms or turn any tricks. You know how hungry that makes a man?"

"I said you'll eat."

Fowler fell back into his seat and huffed, "Bollocks" beneath his breath.

Wrathchild went back to the newspaper and had just found the spot where he was reading before when Fowler spoke again.

"And I'll need something lining my stomach if we're going to do this job tonight."

He was about to tell Fowler that of course he'll eat if he'd just shut up for a while when he realised what he'd heard. "What job?"

"The one for Tall Paul. Tonight," he added when Wrathchild didn't answer. Slowly Fowler's grin faded. "I may have forgotten to tell you about a job."

Wrathchild dropped the newspaper and drew a hand down his face.

"Look, I know what you're thinking," said Fowler, taking his boots from the table and leaning forward. He carried on talking but Wrathchild wasn't listening. They had a longstanding agreement that it would be him who found them work. Fowler's talents did not stretch to identifying which jobs they should and should not take. And besides that, Wrathchild was exhausted. Last night had been their first pay that month. He hadn't eaten properly in a day and using Fowler's little trickhad drained him in a way he could not describe. Using magic. It felt like it sucked on his soul, leaving him diminished in a way which could never be replenished.

He needed rest.

"God damn it." He dropped his fist on the table. Not with a great deal of force, but enough that Fowler jumped and stopped talking. A few of the other drinkers in the tap room looked over, saw who made the unexpected noise, then looked away. Wrathchild took a deep, controlling breath, and said, "When?"

Fowler's grin returned. "An hour after sunset. You'll see, money in the bag, old chap. Money in the bag."