Kit knocked in a strange pattern. One knock, then three in quick succession, then a final deliberate boom that shook the door on its hinges. She pulled up the collar of her leathers, covering what she could of the graying skin. Anji thought it was a waste of time, considering the crusted black snot around her nose. The shrieking and arguing on the other side faltered before the door was pulled in a few inches, revealing a red-rimmed eyeball in a hairy, greasy face.

“Out,” said the face, closing the door.

“Not one step back,” Kit said.

The door stopped, then the eye disappeared for an instant, looking back into the room. Anji caught a shock of oil-black hair to accompany the face before the eye shot back into the crack. “Fiacco then?”

“Fiacco,” said Kit. To Anji it sounded as if she were about to collapse from sheer exhaustion right there in front of the open door. What would Anji do if that happened?

The eye swiveled to where Anji stood. “She in too?”

Kit grunted, “New blood,” and made a complicated hand signal to Anji that made no sense at all, but Anji played along and made one back to her. The man in the doorway seemed appeased. He opened the door just enough for the two of them to squeeze through.

Chapter 39

39

The stench of blood and piss and sweat racked Anji’s nose as the door closed at her back. Frayed curtains hung over a shuttered window, letting pillars of dusty light through to a sort of sitting room. Two stiff couches flanked a squat table perched on a moldy rug. A bald, shirtless man sat like a boulder on the right-hand couch, beady eyes focused on Kit and Anji from the moment they walked in. Anji spared him a glance, but her eyes were drawn to the scrawny middle-aged man in soiled clothes strapped to a chair in front of the window, chest heaving, skin sliced in a dozen places. Anji looked down to the floor, feigning a silent deference to Kit and thankful she’d been instructed not to make a sound. She thought if she tried she would throw up.

“What’s all this?”

A raven-haired woman in a patched blue smoking jacket appeared from behind the whimpering man. Anji figured her of an age with Kit, if not a little younger. A slender sheathed sword bounced against her leg as she stepped around the bloody mess on the floorboards. She wiped at her nose with the back of one gloved hand. “I’m a bit busy right now—”

“Fiacco,” the man with the greasy hair murmured. “Rail.” He grinned, teeth milky white.

“Ah,” the woman said, “thank you, Devas.”