Wicked as They Come (Blud #1)

“Can’t you give her some blud?” Antonin asked, leaning close to look into my face. “Just to color her eyes, give her some stamina?”

“Now’s not the time,” Criminy said gruffly. “And she’s not ready yet.”

“She’s a Bludman’s wife, ain’t she? Or is she scared?”

“I’m not drinking any blud,” I said. “But the fact that I’m here should tell you enough about how I feel.”

“The fact that you’re after Goodwill is good enough for me,” Antonin answered. “If you’re against him, you’re on my side.”

We left with more male back pounding, a chaste kiss on my glove, and a hand-drawn map showing a shadowy route to Goodwill’s home in the old monastery. Now that the Coppers were looking for us, we needed to move fast.

“He won’t be looking for us to come after him,” Criminy reasoned. “Powerful man like that. Won’t expect us to bring the fight to his door. Probably too busy looking for us to watch his own back.”

“But what if he isn’t?” I pressed.

“What choice do we have, love?” he snapped. “You want the locket. I’m trying to get the locket. We’ll follow this plan until things change, then we’ll follow a new plan. If you need more of an answer than that, I can’t give it to you. You’re the one who sees the future, not me.”

We followed the alleys of Darkside as far as we could up the mountain. When we reentered the brighter streets of the Pinkies, we clung to the shadows and tried not to draw attention to ourselves. At one point, a Copper turned to stare at us, and Criminy spun around, putting his back against the slimy brick wall of the alley and using my huge hat to shield us both in a wild pantomime of passion that managed to leave me a little breathless. I couldn’t help it—lips were still lips, and hips were still hips, even if we were pretending. Behind me, I heard the Copper spit in disgust. By the time he turned again, we were gone.

Near the cathedral, the neighborhoods grew grimier and duller, and the people seemed more downtrodden and pitiful. Their clothes were ragged and patched, their faces hollow and hopeless.

We huddled in the shadow of the church’s high roof. Above our niche was a broken stained-glass window of a figure on a cross bleeding into a cup. Oddly, it wasn’t Jesus. It was a woman with red hair. And she looked pissed.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Depends on whom you ask. To me, that’s the goddess Aztarte, the first Bludwoman,” Criminy said. “To the Pinkies who now run Sangland, it’s Saint Ermenegilda. She died to drive the bloodthirsty demons from the land, to make it safe for the second kingdom of mankind.” He examined his map for a moment and muttered, “She was a witch and a virago, but the church tries to play that bit down and just remind everyone of her sacrifice. For humanity.”

He pulled out Antonin’s map. “Goodwill’s place is on the other side of the monastery, behind high walls. The inside of the cathedral is guarded, and the walls are patrolled by Coppers with dogs that can sniff through my illusions. I have no idea how we’re going to get in without him knowing about it yesterday.”

We heard voices coming around the corner, and I froze. Criminy pulled me to his side.

“Hold still,” he said, and he tossed some powder from one of his pockets over us both. I suddenly felt very dusty and dry, similar to the feeling of a mud mask right before it begins to flake off.

“Don’t move,” Criminy said out of the corner of his mouth. And it would have been very hard to move, even if I had wanted to. My face and body were completely stuck, and the lone corner of my gloved hand that I could still see was the aged gray of old stone. He’d turned us into a statue.

Moving only my eyeballs, I watched a pack of small, filthy children scamper around the corner, giggling. Their exposed necks told me they were Bludmen—or Bludchildren. They all huddled around a brown object except for one who squatted by the corner, pretending to defecate.

“Did he see you, Les?” said one. I couldn’t tell by look or voice what gender or age the child might be. They all looked the same, really—huge eyes in gaunt faces wrapped in grime-covered rags.

“Naw, the skinny one was too busy calling Bertie a stinkin’ bat-faced bludbag to notice me lifting the fat one’s wallet. Stupid Coppers.” The child emptied the bag and divvied up the coins within, then wedged the wallet under my stone skirt.

“What do you think them Coppers taste like?” asked a third urchin wistfully.

“I bet they taste like shite,” said the tiniest one of all.

“Cheese it—here comes Rudy!” the lookout hissed. They all ran away, melting into the shadows.

Even frozen beside me, trapped by his own magic, I could feel Criminy’s fury. The plight of the starving, filthy Bludchildren had touched a nerve. If he could have shot lightning out of his eyes, the people coming around the corner would have been cinders.

Two young Coppers appeared, their shiny uniforms creaking as they walked behind a giant dog on a chain lead. The dog was copper-colored, too, like a cross between a German shepherd and a mastiff, its boxy head as high as my waist. It was slavering and whining, drool dripping down its chops. The Coppers ignored it.

“Someone oughtta drain those brats,” said the skinny one. “Cor, I hate church duty.”

“Me, too,” said the short, fat Copper holding the dog’s lead. “Downright spooky, even in the daytime. Nobody believes in ol’ Ermenegilda anymore, anyway, do they?”

“Damned if I know,” said the skinny one. “My mum always told me she was just a nice story about helping other humans. About making a sackerfice. Back when people cared.”

The dog sniffed Criminy and me energetically. I held my breath. The fat one yanked the dog back, hissing, “It’s only a statue, Rudy. Some other dog prolly pissed on it. Cut it out.” Then he looked up at the naked saint in the window and grinned, showing teeth like crooked tombstones. “I’d let that ripe little plum make me a nice sacrifice, eh, Gerren?”

“That’s blasphemy, that is,” said Gerren. “But yeah.”

He glanced down from Saint Ermenegilda, looked me straight in the eye, and began to untie the leather laces on his pants, if my hearing was correct. Then I heard his stream, and he sighed as he urinated on us.

Talk about blasphemy.

At least I didn’t feel any wetness. Thank heavens for magic.

“Dunno why we didn’t get to go to the island with everyone else,” the fat one whined. “Nothing here to guard, anyway. What, are the poor folk and the Bludmen gonna overrun us for a barrel of apples and one old, runty cow that don’t even give milk no more?”

“You’re new, so you don’t know yet. Got to keep up the image,” said Gerren, puffing out his bird chest as he redid his fly. “Make it seem like there’s something worth guarding, even if there ain’t. It’s funny, all the secrets you learn once you’re a Copper.”

He sighed and stretched, the leather of his new uniform squeaking. The dog danced around us, straining toward me and Criminy. Gerren smacked it on the nose, and it sat, dejected.

“Do you think what they say about Goodwill is true?” the fat one asked.

“What, that he’s really a Stranger?” Gerren said mockingly. “The secret society and the underground lair and all that?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s ridiculous, that is,” Gerren said as they ambled off, dragging the huge dog behind them. “He’s just an old hypocrite gone to see a doxy on his magic island or handle the trouble at Brighton. Manchester’s so dull and horrid that everybody thinks everybody else is up to no good and that there’s some better place. There ain’t. All the cities is like this, Joff, me boy, and they ain’t never gonna change. Not with them Bludmen about. You’ve got a lot to learn, lad.”

“Bluddy Bludmen,” agreed the fat one as they turned the corner and moved out of sight.

I was magically petrified, but I was so tense with shock that it would have been hard to move, anyway. Jonah Goodwill wasn’t here—he was on an island somewhere far away. We had no idea where the locket had gone, and the low sky was swelling with the purple streaks of evening. I felt a tear trickle inside the weird crust over my skin, and then I fell to my knees, the spell broken.

“Are you all right, love?” Criminy asked, squatting beside me and searching my face.

I wasn’t all right, not by a long shot. I put a hand to my cheek, but it was clean and normal. I had expected to feel the slurry mud of dust and tears or some residue from the magic. But there was nothing.

“I want to go home,” I said, my voice cracking. “I want my locket.”

“And we’ll find it, no matter the cost. Both for you and for those children, to stop whatever Goodwill’s planned. But for now, we’ve got to get off the street. We’ll talk to Antonin again in the morning,” he said. He dusted off his waistcoat and grinned at me. “We’re lucky those bastards stopped to take a piss on a holy relic. At least now we know where to look.”

“Where?”

“According to gossip, there’s a secret island where innocent animals still roam, a paradise free of the creatures of blud. If they say he’s on an island, that’s got to be the one.”

“But how are we going to find it? One island, in all the world, with nothing to go on but rumors? It’s hopeless.” I threw my arms around his neck and buried my head in his shoulder.

He wrapped his arms around me. “Sweet little kitten,” he said as I rubbed my tears away against his jacket. “Don’t you know that rumors are almost always true? And I have other ways of knowing.”

I sniffled, gazing at the mazelike town unfolding below us. All the way down at the base of the high wall, a flock of ash-gray, sickly sheep was huddled, as tiny as ants. They should have been grazing, but the ground was just a foul mass of mud. Their bleating sounded like crying.