Wicked as They Come (Blud #1)

I had chosen him over Casper, but I hadn’t yet decided what to do about the locket and the potion. The choice he had demanded that I make came closer and closer with every footfall toward the whited sepulcher of Manchester. If we made it that far. If we got through the gate. If we found Jonah Goodwill before he found us. If Tabitha Scowl hadn’t found him first. And if the locket wasn’t broken, and we could get it and me to a safe sleeping place.

That was an awful lot of ifs.

Criminy glanced over his shoulder with his mouth quirked up. “You thinking about changing your mind, love?” he said. “Now’s the time. Run away with the caravan, get bludded, have an easy life with a handsome rogue?”

“There’s more than my future riding on that locket now. And easy things aren’t worth much,” I said.

He laughed. “Then the hard things had better be,” he said.

When we were almost close enough to Manchester’s wall to attract notice, Criminy ducked behind a screen of wild hedges and boulders. He set down the huge stag’s head, squatted on the grass, and beckoned to me. I joined him, careful to keep my skirts clear of the oozing trophy.

“It’ll have to be magic, love,” he said. “They’re looking for us. So you’re going to be invisible, and I’m going to be in disguise. I’m throwing a harder spell this time, one that won’t take so much of my energy to sustain. You’ll be invisible until I break the spell, but you’ll still be corporeal. You’ll have to stay right next to me so we don’t get separated, and you’ll have to be absolutely silent. And you’ll have to accept that if you get hurt, you’re on your own. Can you do it?”

“I can do anything,” I said.

He plucked a fallen hair from my shoulder and said, “That was easier than usual. Didn’t even get to make you squeal.”

He removed his glove, laid the hair over his black-scaled hand, and set it on fire with a word. As it burned, he sang things in an odd, musical language until it was ash. Then he kissed me swiftly and sprinkled the ashes over my head.

Even though it was impossible, I felt them land in my hair and melt like snowflakes. Criminy smiled as I faded from view. It was my third time being invisible, and it was just as disconcerting as ever. But this time, I couldn’t see myself, not even a little bit, not even like glass or water. I was one hundred percent not there, my clothes and Uro with me.

“Now it’s my turn,” he said. He nipped his finger and drew lines across his face with the blood, murmuring another song. It was his same blood that had brought me here, bursting from the locket and leaving pockmarks on my bathroom counter and permanent stains on my hand. And it was inside me now, too. It had to be very powerful stuff.

He bent down to put his glove back on, and when he looked up, I gasped.

He was now an elderly man with light brown skin and small tufts of white hair behind his ears. His chocolate-brown eyes grinned at me with mischief, and his quirked smile still held the same pointy teeth.

“How do you feel about older men, little pet?” he said with a raspy voice.

“You look like Antonin’s grandfather,” I said.

He laughed and rose from the ground with an exaggerated stoop. As he shouldered the stag’s head and started limping toward the city, I followed in his wake, the grasses parting for my invisible dress.

Right before we got within hailing distance of the gates, I whispered, “Stop to lace your boot, would you?”

He obeyed, dropping the stag’s head and kneeling with exaggerated stiffness to fiddle with the high laces of his boot. I knelt next to him, took his face in mine, and kissed him hard. He raised his arms to pull me closer, then remembered where we were and what we were doing. He scratched his head instead, all the while kissing me back fiercely.

“Whatever happens, I think I love you,” I whispered in his ear as I pulled away.

The features he wore weren’t his own, but the expression of relief and triumph was.

“I knew you’d come around, pet. Whatever happens, I love you, too,” he whispered back. “I always have.”

Then he rose from the ground a different man in more ways than one. He shuffled to the guard’s post, holding the stag’s head on his shoulder and fumbling in his waistcoat for the documents we’d forged that morning, before we knew Goodwill’s ultimate plan.

“Papers,” came the flat voice.

The old man put the papers in the box and waited as the guard examined them.

“Rafael Fester of Nag’s Head,” the guard barked. “State your business.”

“Good evening, sir,” the old man said, his voice a mixture of sunshine and subservience. “Heard Magistrate Goodwill collected curiosities and thought he might accept a humble token of esteem from the people of Nag’s Head. This monster devoured eight Pinky children at a picnic afore my son kilt it and died in the bargain.”

“You have papers for Viviel Fester,” the guard said. “Where is she?”

I had an invisible Oh, shit! moment. We had both forgotten about our original, two-visible-people plan—the one we’d made up before the spring showed us the truth of things.

But Criminy was clever and quick as ever. The old man’s face was pained, and he softly said, “My wife passed last year, sir. I keep her papers with mine out of habit. Lived together two hundred years, we did.” A few red tears rolled down his face.

The guard crumpled the extra set of papers and tossed them onto the ground in his booth, the bastard. No wonder everyone hated Coppers.

“Toll has gone up,” the guard barked. “Eight coppers or two vials.”

The old man set down the stag head and hunted through his pockets, gathering change. He counted out eight copper pennies and set them in the box. It flicked in, then back out with his papers.

The guard cleared his throat. “It is decreed that all Bludmen register for a badge at the House of Holofernes in Darkside upon entering the city. Bludmen without badges will be subject to inquisition and possible draining. Have you seen either of these people before?” He held up inked drawings of Criminy and me. The word WANTED slithered across the top of each image in elegant calligraphy. The drawing of Criminy was spot-on, but the one of me was more than a little imaginative.

I looked like an evil seductress, some sort of vampy witch-queen.

I liked it.

I wanted a copy for my wagon.

“Never seen the devils, sir, but never been out of Nag’s Head till this week, neither. I’ll be on the lookout, though. And how can I get to see Magistrate Goodwill, sir?”

In answer, the guard pulled his lever, and the giant door squealed open.

Scratching his head and looking up at the huge doors, Criminy was having a marvelous time acting like a country rube. He picked up the stag’s head and wandered through the door. I was close on his heels.

After the door slammed shut behind us, he whispered, “You there, pet?”

In answer, I stroked his back softly, right where I had once clawed him.

“Yeah, you’re there,” he muttered. “Try to keep up.”

Keeping up his country-mouse act, Rafael Fester goggled at the shops and the people and generally got in everyone’s way, accidentally smacking a grand Pinky dame with his bloody trophy at one point. He asked random people for directions to Darkside, then took pains to go the wrong way.

Still, I knew that he knew exactly where he was going, and I stayed as close to him as possible, trying to remember not to bump into anyone myself. I saw a filthy urchin sidling close to pick his pocket at one point and almost intervened, but Criminy spun around quickly and pegged the kid with an antler, shouting, “What, who said that?” like deaf old men everywhere. The urchin slunk back into the shadows, rubbing a lump on his forehead.

Finally, I could see one of the shadowy entrances to Darkside, although I didn’t recognize anything from our earlier venture to Antonin’s house. We were in a part of the city that I hadn’t seen before. Rafael relaxed a little among his own people and straightened his back before asking a passing chimney sweep for directions to the House of Holofernes.

“It’s two blocks up, but you don’t want to go there,” the Bludman said in a hushed whisper. “The Coppers know everything that happens in that inn, friend. What goes in your mouth and what comes out of it as well.”

“But the guard at the gate said I had to get a badge,” Rafael said, acting confused. “What happens if I don’t go there?”

“Don’t be a fool, old man,” the chimney sweep hissed. “Get a fake badge underground. Go see—”

He stepped back as a Copper rounded the corner and made a beeline for them. Picking up his bucket and brush, he said, just a little too loudly, “Glad she’s doing well, and give her my best, will you?”

The chimney sweep turned to go, but the Copper swung his billy club in a significant sort of way and said, “I don’t see your badge, Bluddy. Yorick must have been giving you directions to the House of Holofernes. How kind. I’ll take it over from here.”

The chimney sweep hurried away as the Copper pointed the billy club to steer Rafael down the darkening street. Of course, he didn’t come anywhere close to touching the dangerous Bludman, however old and frail.

“Wouldn’t want you to get lost,” the Copper said. “Something bad might happen to you.”

“I’m grateful for your help, sir,” Rafael said. It was almost believable.

I drifted in their wake, as silent as a ghost. It was twilight, with indigo clouds boiling overhead. Shadows loomed as orange gaslights hissed into life. I waited for the first fat, wet drops of smoggy rain to fall, but the sky was holding its breath.

Stores began opening their doors to Bludmen who had spent all day working as the servants of their prey, the warm light making cheerful rectangles across the shining cobblestones. Bludmen of all ages drifted into the streets, the women walking arm in arm, chatting in groups, or going through the open doors to do business. It was shocking, the difference between the relaxed Bludwomen in their showy, open gowns and the cramped, nervous Pinkies so tightly laced and tightly wound. The Copper’s constant sneer made his disgust for Darkside all too obvious, and I couldn’t help tripping him once. “Damn Bluddies need to clean up after themselves,” he muttered to no one in particular as he straightened his coat.