My cheeks grow warm, which is odd considering I’m half-undead. “I, uh, want to please you.”
“Is that why you asked for a list from me, too? You think vengeance for my ghoulish past will bewitch me to you?”
“Well . . . will it?”
She laughs again, leans forward, and kisses me softly. Her lips are the very picture of perfection, so full and plump against mine. Her words are a caress against my ear. “You don’t need to do anything to endear yourself to me, Garroway Kuffich. Although the idea of murdering evil men on my behalfdoesexcite me.”
“Then the job is worth it.” I wrap my arm around her lovely curves and yank her close, until our hips touch. The heat on her drives me wild, and if Vallan wasn’t leading this cart around like a reckless maniac and tossing us left and right, I’d be of a mind to take Sephania right here in the wagon.
“Is it wrong I’m becoming a bloodthirsty bitch and I’m enthused about it?” she asks.
My head shakes automatically. “You aren’t a bloodthirsty bitch. These people”—I tap the crinkled parchment in her lap—“aren’t worthy of living. They aren’t worthy of absolution through turning, either. Oblivion is the only fate they deserve.”
“That makes me feel a bit better.” She leans back and stretches her legs out. “Though I do worry I’m changing in a bad way.”
I think for a moment, tapping my chin, trying to drum up something that doesn’t sound forced or trite. “You understand the potential with Sister Cyprilis, giving her your blood, don’t you, lass? What it might mean?”
Her nod is small, reserved. Sephania is not a clout chaser.
“You may become the most important person in the two cities if what we hope happens . . . happens.Thatis not changing in a ‘bad way.’” I smile at her, winking. “Besides, you’re already the most important person to me and two others.” My voice lowers to a grumble as I glare at the back of Vallan’s bench and his massive shoulders. “Even if one of them is in the process of trying to kill us currently.”
She lets out a soft laugh, wraps her arm around the back of my neck. “You know just the right things to say, you damned charming grayskin. I can’t say that for Vall or Skar.”
I sniff, feeling a very human emotion rising in the back of my throat. Tilting my head, so my temple touches hers, I speak tenderly. “Then know this, Sephania Lock: I don’t want a list of names from you for clout, or bonding, or even revenge. I want the names for a more selfish reason: I cannot fathom the thought of you being hurt. And with the bastards who caused you anguish alive, walking this earth, there will always be a part of you still hurting.”
Between the three of us, we have quite the network of rumormongers to elicit support. Human spies, resistance operatives, rebels in the shadows.
Sephania cut her teeth on the underground fighting pits of Nuhav. She’s familiar with the gangs and street-crawlers. She knows guttergirls and sewerboys aplenty, from her time in the almshouses. She also has a reputation now as a vampire-killer, the infamous Hellwhore and Bitch-Queen.
I imagine those titles might finally come in handy, rather than being insults to make her bristle.
Vallan squares away much of the clandestine work in Nuhav at Master Skar’s behest, meeting with court spies Skar has placed in the human city. One such operative on our side is a man named Vanison Shirin, who is the human brother of a vampire at court called Indokkus Shirin.
Vanison is rarely seen, though if anyone knows how to get to him, it’s Vall.
And me, well, my expertise is a bit cringeworthy, yet also noteworthy because of the bedfellows and acquaintances I’ve racked up over the years: drug addicts, cloud sniffers, drunks, and some of the same slumlords Sephania knows and hates. I have experience attending flesh markets, which Seph does too.
Once we’re rolling through Nuhav, our first stop is in the northwestern section. It’s nicer than the other districts of this ramshackle city, though I’d never call it extravagant ornice. Parts of the road here are rocky and dilapidated. Windows are broken across multiple storefronts. This area has larger houses and buildings than other parts of Nuhav.
That is because this is the hosting grounds of the Bronzes, the Nuhavian city guard that patrol the city. There are two barracks here, which we ride past keeping a wide berth. Deeper in the district, far from the gate where we entered, bright lampposts and loud taverns welcome us deeper into the abyssal heart of Nuhav. It’s here we make our first stop, meeting with a fat slobbish man who stays near the merchant quarter.
“Perevis considers himself a man of commerce as leader of the Gilded Guild,” I say as we depart the carriage, leaving it hidden in the shadows of an alley. With the Manor Marquin crest etched into the hull of the cart, I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to touch it—even the greedy merchants and tradesmen of Nuhav who do everything they can to suck the city dry.
“Gilded Guild?” Sephania says with a snort. “How pretentious can this man possibly be?”
“More than you can imagine, little honey badger. He fancies himself a landlord rather than a slumlord. If we’re going to find the two slavers on Cyprilis’ list, Perevis is a good place to start. He knows people.”
We walk a short, winding road past a few cobbled-together shacks and buildings hiding the true gem behind them: a three-story gambling den. I nod at the building, noting the raucous voices and chatter drifting out of the windows. “Our man lives out of the third story and runs his operation from there.”
“Operation?” Vallan asks.
“Loaning, skimming, trading ill-gotten goods.” I shrug. “Regular slumlord shit.”
Vall grunts and we continue toward the building. Two men stand at the front, perking at the sight of us before notably wilting when their eyes land on Vallan’s hulking frame at the back.
“You don’t look familiar-like,” the man on the right says. He spits on the ground, baring his teeth—all four of them—with a black smile. “Friends of the Gilded only, boy . . . shit.”
His face pales when Vallan steps between me and Seph, looming over everyone. He crosses his huge arms. “We have an appointment with Perevis.”
