Dantes came down early in the morning as he had the previous day. Creeping completely silently down the stairs and arriving to the sight of Zilly once again cleaning the floors. She was a very orderly sort. He’d noticed how immaculate she kept her bar, and everything in the Vixen seemed to run on a schedule she set.
Her ear twitched as Dantes arrived, she stopped her mopping, and gestured for him to follow her.
He raised an eyebrow, but complied. Pausing only to slip off his boots so that he wouldn’t dirty the freshly mopped floors. He met her in the kitchen where she seemed to be preparing another simple and portable breakfast for him. He waited patiently, watching her work. She was graceful, grabbing certain items without even looking at them, and tying up the food in a cloth napkin with a kind of simple grace he found captivating.
He held out an expectant hand, but she just looked at him for a moment. Her gaze was neutral.
“You came back yesterday with a much heavier pack than you left with.”
He shrugged. “Had to buy a few things.”
“How does a deckhand afford to hire a whore at full price every night?”
“I’d been saving for quite some time. I did my best to avoid the vices of gambling while at sea, unlike my fellow sailors.”
“I haven’t known many men who avoid gambling, but engage freely in whoring.”
He smiled. “I didn’t say I avoided all vices, just gambling…and even that, just at sea.”
“Did you hear about the recent prison escapes? I started hearing about it the day after you showed up.”
“I’ve always had shit timing… Come back to my home city for the first time in five years, and all of a sudden the Underprison has a breakout.”
Zilly’s eyebrow twitched, she clearly wasn’t buying a word he was saying. She handed him the napkin of food anyway. “You’re dangerous, I can tell. Vera wants you here, and I won’t go against her, but if you care about her in the way she does for you then you should leave as soon as you can.”
“And here I thought you were paying attention to me for other reasons.”
“You’re too short for me.”
He laughed, “I’ve heard a number of women say that to me over the years. I’ve always been a climber though, most of them come around.”
Her mouth almost twitched into a smile, but she kept her neutral expression up. “I’m not most women.”
“True, that I could tell right away.’ He took her napkin and dropped his wry smile for a more serious expression. “I don’t intend to be here too long. Maybe a month. I’ll do what I can to make sure any trouble I cause doesn’t come to the Vixen or Vera. You have my word…for whatever that’s worth.” He meant it. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Tel.
She nodded, surprised at his brief sincerity.
He smiled again. “Thank you for the food. I’ll be back for breakfast,” then he walked out of the building and began heading for his new garden.
…
The next several weeks Dantes fell into a familiar pattern. He’d wake up early to go and tend his garden which was growing far quicker than was normal, but also slower than his blood garden had developed. Still, hearing pleas for more water, or shade, or fertilizer were a lot easier to deal with than screams for blood. Since he couldn’t rely on speed he decided to focus on scale. He bought fruits and vegetables from vendors all over the city, feeding himself, rats, roaches, and whatever else was interesting, and then taking the time to plant the seeds. He found three more sealed sections, and began to tend to them as well. It took less time to maintain with each visit, and he eventually began to see and feel new threads between himself and those gardens that grew stronger with each day. They still paled in comparison to the thick strand that connected him to the Underprison, but it was progress, and he started to see the first signs of fruit after only two weeks, which he immediately began offering to whatever nearby animals were interested. He also gifted Vera and the Vixen a number of flower boxes for each of the windows, all of which seemed to flourish and produce sublime fragrance due to his presence. Pleasant smells were a good thing to keep around a whorehouse.
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His only disappointment had been his inability to grow weed. Every time he acquired a seed or two, he’d take them to his garden and find them much too picky to plant. They seemed to have incredibly specific care needs, which likely explained why most of those he’d known who grew them seemed to need to focus so much on their care. Still, Dantes saved the seeds with the hope that he’d eventually have whatever insight he required to grow them.
After he tended his gardens, he’d arrive back at the Vixen for breakfast with Vera and the girls, then he’d act as the bouncer until late afternoon when Decker arrived, typically in a sour mood. He would listen to the different sailors talk about how much this country or that pissed them off, or about how Rendhold would need to choose a side eventually in attempts to sound intelligent and impress women who cared far more for the coin jingling in their pockets than anything rattling around in their skulls. He’d sometimes need to rough someone up, or calm someone down, but overall the early shift wasn’t a lot of trouble, and he could follow along as Jacopo enjoyed his time in the city feeding, fighting, and fucking, though the third thing he tuned out.
In the evenings he would go through the city in ratform with Jacopo, verifying the people, places, and deals that Pacha had put together in his report. He found gambling dens, warehouses for storing illegal goods, corpse disposers, guardsmen Mondego had paid off, hideouts, sub-bosses. Pacha was good at his job, and that made things all that much easier for Dantes. He also attempted to infiltrate Mercedes and Mondego’s home, but found that it had been enchanted to block out vermin. He saw Mercedes leave the home only once, and never saw Mondego leave, though a number of the men in his employ frequented the building, often with chests full of his cut of all the profit that flowed in and out of Midtown.
The more information he had, and the more favor he had, the easier it would be to start taking bites out of Mondego’s fledgling empire. He’d need other resources, and maybe even some muscle, but nothing beat intelligence on the enemy. With at least a marginal flow of favor in place he sent rats to monitor Gaspard’s haunts as indicated by Pacha’s information. He had no hits so far, but he was sure he’d find him eventually. He wasn’t smart enough to stay hidden forever.
The last thing he did every night was return to his first garden a second time. He employed the same technique he’d been using in the Pit before he’d escaped. He’d light a number of candles one by one using Tel’s finger, and broadcast images of light to nearby moths and other insects. They would move toward the light, and once enough were gathered he’d let the bats know that an easy meal was available. Once they were well into their meal, he’d depart and head back to the Vixen for dinner, and he’d end the day spending the night with whichever woman, or in some cases, women who hadn’t had as much luck with their clients that they’d have preferred. It was a true chore for him, but he persevered somehow.
…
Dantes felt the tight press of warm bodies around him, and for a moment wondered how Tieara could be surrounding him from all sides. He shook his head, it was dark and he could hear a light chittering all around him, eventually he found himself able to understand small snippets of it..
“-roost too close to the entrance”
“-fruit. Blood takes too much to fill up.”
“-mate again soon.”
He looked around, but couldn’t make out any specific features of what was surrounding him, only that it was warm and, for the most part, comfortable. He tilted his head up, and realized that the ground was above him somehow. He blinked twice, trying to make sense of it. While he was pondering the floor, the chittering suddenly ceased and left behind a silence that was hungry for words. He felt movement, and could feel a parting of all of the warm bodies near him as something else approached. Waves of something beat against him gently like an unsteady breeze as something located and approached him.
He felt cold and alone for a moment, and then, suddenly, a massive black shape flipped itself right side up, its feet grasping a piece of cave wall in front of him, and its enormous black wings folding around its body like a cloak.
“Hello, Dantes,” said the Bat god. It’s voice was fine and clear, but for some reason it made his ears ring as he heard it.
“You’ve heard of me?”
“My brother indicated to me that you may pay me a visit soon. I admit, I’d thought it would be sooner than your visit to the roaches, but I suppose it makes sense for you to work your way up the food chain.”
“I simply wanted to show the proper deference,” managed Dantes, picking up on the bat’s oddly noble method of speech.
He gave a low satisfied hum. “As it should be. Blessings from me to your kind are rare, many of them move straight to that which seems the most powerful, rather than the most useful. Now vampires and warlocks, they have the good taste to request my blessing early and often.”
“I apologize for the shortsightedness of my brethren.”
The bat god bent down and leaned in close. His teeth were tiny in his mouth, but razor sharp, and his eyes were a bright and maddening yellow. “Be careful. You don’t want to take responsibility for a group you don’t truly know.”
Dantes nodded. “Wise.”
The bat god straightened himself out. “Before I give you this blessing, you should know that it is largely due to my brother that you are receiving it. You will not always be able to receive a blessing simply by feeding a god’s children. Many of us are pickier than that.”
Dantes hadn’t considered that, but it made sense. He’d even noticed that the gains he received from the rats and roaches had increased when his garden was completed, even when they didn’t seem to be actively eating.
“I appreciate your generosity.”
“You say that now,” he lifted his wings, and encircled Dantes with them, plunging him into total darkness. He felt a sense of complete nothingness for just a moment, and then a searing pain in his arm. He tried to pull it away, but the darkness around him seemed tangible, and held him in place. He felt the blood flowing from his arm and into whatever was causing the pain. He struggled, and fought, but his resistance grew weaker and weaker until he thought he had nothing left. Then he woke up.