It was never easy to walk the rooftops. It meant walking across one roof, climbing down, and then finding a way onto the next roof. Heavens and Hells help you if that next roof had tiles or anything else that could break and make noise. When people were walking effortlessly across roofs, it usually meant magic was involved, magic that cost money.
To add to the complications, it had been years since I’d done this, and it had been in a completely different body.
Not helping was how much I carried. I’d left my teapot and other surviving belongings with Edwards, but I’d kept my saber, my pistol, a lantern, a hip pouch with empty vials, and two empty bags with straps looped around my shoulder. Not the most awkward load, but with how out of practice I was.
My hoof slipped, and I bit back a curse as a piece of roof slid off.
And another tile gone. How are you doing this when you’re even smaller than your old body? Perhaps some of my attitudes have stuck around with you.
The temptation to spit back about how Biosculpting worked, and that I was not a glutton was almost more powerful than the need to stay as quiet as I could be.
Besides, I had other things on my mind.
I was being trailed. Poorly. Very poorly, as the veritable crash of thunder from someone behind me stepping on a loose tile sounded for the fifth time in the last half hour.
Me being out of practice and in a body not suited for this probably meant that some people might think an enormous cat or dog was walking across their roof. Some with more practiced knowledge of the streets might have gone to make sure all their upper windows were secure.
Anyone living under the rooftops the two idiots tailing me had gone through probably thought a dragon had just landed on top of their house. Maybe they even started tearing the roof off and were about to devour their children.
Okay, I exaggerated a little. A gargoyle then. A very large gargoyle.
I had a hooded lantern on me, currently shut. No need to give anyone down on the streets the idea someone was prowling around these rooftops.
With only a single, very slim moon out, it made seeing where I was going difficult. I’d taken too long to get out of that damn coffin. Tully had been too thorough with his hammer and nails.
It also raised the question of how my tails were tracking me. It wasn’t a lightless night, but one of them must have a way of peering through the dark better than me. Which, considering the number of races that had better nightvision than humans, didn’t narrow the list by much.
I’d been waiting for a chance to deal with them, and the current building, only a couple of stories tall and with a large chimney, provided the perfect opportunity.
I quickly put the hooded lantern down by the chimney. This was going to be difficult. I clambered down as if to climb down, keeping my hands gripping the edge of the roof. I shimmied over to where the chimney would block the sight of me getting back up on the roof.
My arms burned and almost immediately, one of my hands slipped off the edge of the roof.
Oh right. Falara was much weaker than Malvia, and I hadn’t kept in the best of shape. I was stronger than I should be for my size but not used to doing this in a body this small. I’d done this at Hell’s Own, but there had been railings to grip there. Biting my tongue, I tried to get my loose hand back on the side of the roof. Two times I failed, but the third time I managed it and pulled myself up. I got up just in time.
One of the skulking figures hurried towards where I’d passed through, clearly trying to catch sight of where I’d dropped to the ground below. As he neared, I opened up my lantern, the light blinded him and revealing his face to me.
“Hello Tommy!” I called out cheerily, then kicked him right in the groin.
The watchmen collapsed, a tide of verbal filth coming out of his mouth as he convulsed on the rooftop.
“I guess you not being able to turn it off wasn’t just part of your cover,” I remarked, pulling my flintlock out.
Amna froze as I pointed it at her. The dwarf had been slower than her taller human partner, so she stood half a rooftop away. The light from my lantern was just enough to make out who it was. If any other Watch lurked in the darkness, I couldn’t see them.
“It’s half a rooftop, it’s dark, and I can’t see in it unlike some of my race, so it’s decent odds I’ll miss,” I informed her. “Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t risk it. I’m a very good shot when I’m motivated. Well, what a strange coincidence to find you two fellow prisoners of the Watch here on a rooftop, following me.”
Amna held her hands up placatingly, not moving at all. For now.
“Listen, clearly the guy who hired us to do this really, really didn’t properly inform us about who you were, so if you don’t mind we’ll just give you his name-”
“Saw you at the march,” I interrupted her. “In uniform. Didn’t see him, but I really doubt whichever officer is running this would let you bring an outsider in. Also, because I can add numbers and am not an idiot.”
Amna went quiet and beneath me Tommy paused in his expulsion of verbal filth to sigh.
“Well, shit, that’s the whole fucking thing blown then, Amna. Captain’s gonna ream both our asses over this.”
“Here’s a wonderful trick of the trade, if you’re in the secret police business. Don’t do actual police work where your suspects may actually see you. It tends to give the entire game away.”
“We know,” Amna protested. “High command wanted all hands handling those idiots.”
“Well, I suppose it was a rather large march. Easy to tell why they’d want everyone handling it.” I leaned down, putting the lantern on the floor. Keeping my gun on Amna, I drew a knife with my free hand. Below me, Tommy stilled as I pressed the knife against his throat.
“Is that really necessary?” Amna protested.
“Consider it insurance against you two. Or however many watchmen are also here tonight, watching from a distance. Contrary to appearances, I don’t actually want anyone dead, so any additional incentive I can add to prevent that from occurring is to everyone’s benefit.” I did leave some space between my knife and Tommy’s throat. “If someone is going to kill me, better make it a headshot and hope gravity favors you.”
“Fucking foulhorn,” my hostage gasped underneath me. “You don’t let me go, I’ll make sure to find you in some back alley and-”
“Enough of that,” I snapped, pressing the knife to the flesh. “Do you have no self-preservation instinct at all? Because after today, I am not in the mood for slurs, you flat-cap fuck.”
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He stilled, mouth shutting.
“He really can’t turn it off,” Amna pleaded.
“I’m getting that impression,” I said sardonically. “Okay, so again, I don’t want to kill anyone. Many people have been testing me on that, mostly by attacking me first. Not that you’ll ever get me to admit that in court. So what we’re going to do instead is I ask some questions, since I feel I’m owed some answers for once this week, and then we’ll decide how to get out of this mess. Sound good to you two? Nod, don’t speak.”
Mutely, the both of them nodded, and I allowed myself a brief grin. Oh, I felt like a villain out of a cheap book or one of those serial stories published in the papers, but it simply felt nice not to be entirely on the back foot. Mostly by forcing others onto their back foot.
I might be a bit sadistic. Maybe a little. That or just worn out with everything that had happened.
“Excellent! First question. Why are you after me? All the details. Don’t leave any of it out.”
Amna hesitated. “I might not know all of it.”
“Captain calls it need to fucking know,” Tommy said. “We’re fed a diet of shit and nothing before heading out, most times. Just names to tail.”
“Then tell me what you do know,” I replied. “Full accounting, maybe even some speculation. Also, which captain?”
“Henry Malstein,” Tommy answered quickly.
“Tommy!” Amna hissed, staring daggers at her colleague.
“Fuck him, he doesn’t have a knife to his throat, and he’s not the one holding one to mine!”
“Not Laura Forester?” I asked with a frown. She’d been the leader of what Versalicci considered the most effective of the Watch’s many “special” units five years ago.
“Forester? No. They hate each other, especially because Captain Malstein’s been taking recruits that Major Forester considers hers.”
I sighed. “Alright. I’m not interested in your inter-departmental squabbling. What did Captain Malstein instruct you to do?”
“The Captain told us to go in the cells on either side of you after he cleared out an entire block to ensure there was no one else there who might mess it up-”
“-which was fucking stupid, because it probably made you suspicious as all hell that something was going on,” Tommy finished for her.
“No finishing each other’s sentences,” I snapped. “Amna, you’re the only one answering questions. But yes, mostly correct.”
“Right, so we were supposed to find out if you were working with Versalicci, mostly just come off as sympathetic ears in case we try to meet you again later. Captain arranges for Hallows, Mitchell, and Folkes to tail you, and they somehow lost you in a sandwich shop. Captain reamed their asses over it. The next day we were going to surveil your apartment, but that march broke out and every spare watchman needed to go make sure a riot didn’t break out. After that Malstein assigned us to tail you, then word came back you were at Lady Kersin’s estate. Followed you to the Hell’s Own, then Mitchell and Folkes came to relieve us. They lost you, and the Captain told us to find you again. Luckily, someone tipped us off you’d been to St. Lanian’s, and we’ve been tailing you ever since.”
Well, it sounded like I was back on someone’s shit list over at the Watch.
“Who sent the tip?”
“I don’t know,” Amna said.
I pressed the dagger’s edge a little tighter against Tommy’s throat. “Amna. I don’t want to hurt either of you, but I have had a hells of a past few days. I need something to help try to make sense of this. Why does Captain Malstein want me followed?”
“The Black Flame case,” she said hurriedly. “They found the box they questioned you so much over, but it’s gone missing.”
“And they think I took it?” I asked incredulously. “What, do they think I snuck into the Coffin or the Rock and stole it back out for the Black Flame?”
“No, but they want an explanation for what was inside. They didn’t find the box until after questioning you, and Malstein can’t get a warrant for your arrest.”
The Hells? Who in the Watch had both the pull to stop a warrant for me and would even want to? They probably didn’t know, so my next question was in a different direction.
“What was in the box, Amna?”
She hesitated, gaze dropping to Tommy’s face.
I didn’t even look there, just pressing the edge in. It hadn’t cut skin. Yet.
“Angel’s Sorrow. A dozen doses of it. At least that’s what Quarryman says.”
I nearly dropped the knife. What?
“Angel’s Sorrow,” I repeated. “This Quarryman is certain that’s what it was?”
“I wasn’t there for that part, but we’ve never seen him be wrong.”
Versalicci was dealing in Angel’s Sorrow? The hells are you thinking, Giovanni?
“Is that all you wanted to know?”
Amna had managed to shuffle over three feet towards us while talking, in that painfully awkward way of people thinking if you just inched forward, no one would notice. You distracted people so they didn’t notice you moving till it was too late. That’s how you did it.
“Back off,” I warned her. “Here’s how this is going to go. I’ll be taking Tommy off this rooftop and a fair bit away from here. You follow me, he dies. I get even a hint that there’s more of you out here and they follow me, he dies. He tries to break loose, he dies. I leave him tied up in some alleyway, and we stay out of each other’s way this evening.”
“Shit deal,” Tommy observed. “And why do I got to be the hostage? Take Amna, she weighs less.”
“Shut up, Hostage.”
“He isn’t wrong,” Amna said, seemingly not bothered by her erstwhile friend trying to make her the hostage instead. “How about you leave Tommy up here? We both turn the other way, walk back, you can shoot us if we even look behind us.”
“Or I can slit Tommy’s throat, shoot you in the head, and then your secret police buddies can shoot me, leaving Tommy here to bleed out,” I said.
Tommy somehow managed to find a new level of paleness for his skin to reach. Any whiter and he’d be more pale than milk.
“You’re asking me to put a lot of trust in you.”
“Well, I’m not the one who got caught,” I replied. “Here’s a thought, if you don’t want to end up in this position, don’t be so incompetent at sneaking around. This isn’t being debated.”
It ultimately wasn’t, and it ended with a worried-looking Amna watching as I forced Tommy to climb down the wall first.
***
“For us it’s just orders, you know that right?” Tommy hurriedly whispered as I pulled him back into the alley. “It ain’t anything personal.”
It was awkward as hell keeping a grip on him since he was nearly two feet taller than me.
That settled it. The next person I was becoming would be taller, just to avoid situations like this. Then again, the entire point of becoming Falara had been to avoid situations like this. At least he was being a cooperative hostage.
“Honestly, you seem super nice when you’re not threatening to kill me, and so refined and uh…” the Watch member struggled to think of something else to say. “The fact you’re about a foot and a half shorter than me and able to manhandle me like this is a bit of a turn-on?”
This was his idea of flattery to preserve his life? Now I believed Amna that they’d joined the Watch just so he wouldn’t get killed.
“I prefer when you were spouting curses and sexually deviant acts,” I muttered.
“Really? I can go back to that. It’s much easier for me to think of things involving that!” He exclaimed loudly. Someone trying to sleep in the alley snarled at us to be quiet as I dragged him past.
I couldn’t tell if he was being loud to keep whichever members of the Watch were out here on my tail, or if he was genuinely this clueless. I dragged him over to behind some pile of something that stank like rotting flesh and forced him to sit down at pistol-point.
Then I started binding Tommy with ropes.
“Is this really fucking necessary?” He complained. I counted it as progress: he hadn’t made some joke about bondage.
“Yes,” I replied. “Don’t struggle, or I will try to render you unconscious first.”
He grumbled, but complied with me. Watch training probably included some idea of what happens to your brain when enough force is applied to knock someone out. A chokehold would do the trick, but I didn’t want to aggravate the Watch any more. Eventually, we reached the point where the only thing left to bind was his mouth.
“Should have done this from the start,” I muttered as I gagged the Watchman with many coils of rope. He still tried to yell, but rope muddles the sound to the point his colleagues would need to be in this alley to hear. “Don’t make too much noise, or someone will notice, and in an alley like this, they might not be too friendly to the Watch.”
That stopped the yelling, although now Tommy was staring at me reproachfully.
“Don’t give me that look. You all started this by tailing me. Also, you can wriggle out of this in half an hour by yourself. Just don’t be too loud.”
With that, I left him and hurried out of the alley. Two possibilities lay before me. The first, that this Captain Malstein was low ranking in the Watch hierarchy and I was a low enough priority that two officers who were incompetent at following a suspect across rooftops was all he could spare. The second, these two had been set on my tail with the purpose of distracting me from the actual officers set to follow me.
I’d like to think I’d notice any who were following me, but recent events had made it clear how out of practice I was. The best I could do was hope any other Watch officers following me tonight would be the kind to intervene when some of their comrades were in danger.
If Forester had sent any, slim chance of that, but I’d cling to it like a piece of driftwood for now. Besides, time wasted was time I couldn’t spare.
With that, I left the Watch officer and hurriedly continued on my way. The tracking spell still pointed the same direction, and this near the river, it could only mean one place. The docks of Garretsville. Good. A long walk would give me some time to think about what the hell Versalicci was doing.