Sword and Shadow (4 page)

“Would rather have whiskey,” the constable grumbled, but he made his way into the sitting room. Raven ignored his comment and went to find the wine.

Val could almost feel the steam pouring from her ears. She’d emerged from her bath to find that her gown was missing, and that it had been replaced by a pair of linen trousers and a white silk shirt. Obviously both garments were Raven’s and it surprised her that he’d even have noticed they’d be about the same size.

But her surprise didn’t outweigh her pique. She was supposed to be dressed in local clothing—which meant those damned confining dresses and gowns. Yes, she hated them, but she had the distinct impression she’d hate being labeled a witch and killed even more.

She ran straight into Raven in the hall as he emerged from the room mockingly referred to as a kitchen. He held a bottle in one hand and a single glass in the other. “Let me guess,” she said. “That’s not wine.”

He looked taken aback at her tone. She deflated a little, plucking at her shirt as she stared at him.
We look directly eye-to-eye,
she realized, startled that she hadn’t noticed that before this moment. Admittedly, she was tall for a woman, and he had never had the opportunity to reach his full height, but it still surprised her. No wonder his clothes fit her.

“What’s with the outfit?” she asked him. “I can’t go out dressed like this.”

“I have an idea, but I’ll explain after my guest leaves.”

“You have a guest? Who is it?” She leaned past him to look into the sitting room. A very rough-looking individual in some sort of uniform stared back at her curiously. “Ah, crap,” she murmured. “He’s going to assume I’m a witch, isn’t he?”

“Warlock,” Raven corrected. “And, no, not necessarily. I don’t think he’s particularly superstitious.”

“Good.”

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Chapter Five

Raven glowered at Goban over his shoulder as Val brushed past him and entered the sitting room. The constable rose to his feet in an almost involuntary reaction as he gaped at the shapely blonde woman dressed in a man’s clothing. For the first time since Raven had known him, the ex-caravan guard looked completely stunned.

Val walked straight up to him and stuck out her arm. “Hi. I’m Val.”

Goban glanced at her hand, then back up at her face, seemingly at a loss for words.

Caught between amusement and a twinge of jealousy, Raven decided to come to his rescue. “She’s a rather unique friend of mine, Goban; recently arrived in the city. Val, this is Goban, an associate among the local constabulary.”

“Associate, eh?” The sergeant looked a little dubious about that. He bowed with very little grace. It was obviously not something he did very often. “Pleased to meet you, Lady Val. And may I say, that’s quite a fetching outfit you have on.”

Well, it seemed the man had found his tongue. And Raven didn’t like what he was doing with it. “Can we possibly get down to business?” he asked curtly, telling himself that he was just annoyed because this was taking up valuable time better spent on other things.

And nothing to do with the fact that Goban is putting more effort into
charming her than you even bothered to consider.

That damned voice in the back of his head had a nasty habit of being right.

Val lowered her hand. She should’ve known better. Men here simply did not shake hands with women. That required an ability to view them 32

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as equals, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Not here. The man, Goban, seemed far from scandalized by her clothing, however. He stopped short of leering at her, but not by much. “I would offer you a snack, Sergeant,” she said. “But it appears my old friend dines out far more often than he eats here, so his kitchen is embarrassingly bare.”

Goban shrugged. “I’m not hungry. Thank you, though.” He glanced at Raven. “So you want to talk business, do you? Fine. There’s a ship heading for Migar with the morning tide—the
Capricious—
and the Governor wants a piece of its cargo retrieved.”

“Oh? So what’s that have to do with me?”

“Don’t try to bullshit me, Raven. You hate the Church as much as I do. The whispers you’ve heard of contention between the Governors and the Church are true—they want to lead a revolt against Church authority. Well, weapons they acquired for that purpose have fallen into Church hands. We can’t let them take them to the Defenders hall and figure out how they work. We have to get them back. You’re the only one I know who has any chance of getting it done.”

“I’m flattered you have this much faith in me, but that’s a tall order.”

“I know you’re a warlock, Raven. I’ve had my eye on you for a while now. But I think you’re trustworthy, and you’d be a damned good man to have at your back in a fight. I need you—your province needs you. Are you willing to stand with us?”

Raven opened his mouth and said nothing for a long second. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Now he knew who’d purchased the weapons, and why. Good intelligence to have, but there was no way he could scratch their backs in this instance, as much as he wanted to.

That would put him at odds with TAU, who required the weapons either be destroyed or transported to Starhaven.

He didn’t like either choice. He wanted the Provinces to be able to rise up against the Church with some hope of actually defeating it, not ground under its heavy, magical boot. He didn’t think their prospects would be too good if he confiscated the guns.
Dammit.

His jaw snapped shut and he uttered an inarticulate growl.

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Val turned to look at him, eyes widening, and he stared her down.

Fucking meddling bastards.
He wanted to yell it out loud, but didn’t think that would go too well with Goban, who seemed to be sizing Val up for pedestal placement somewhere. “I…can’t.” He shifted his gaze back to the watch sergeant. “It’s not as though I don’t want to,” he added, “but I just can’t.”

Val looked stricken, he noted with some satisfaction. She’d caught the nuances as well, and at least had some idea what her agency’s policies were creating here. Without the guns any attempt to rebel against Church authority was most likely doomed to fail, and the aftermath would be terrible to behold.

Goban glanced at the bottle of wine in Raven’s hand and sneered.

“On second thought, I don’t think I’ll take that glass of wine after all. I really must be going.” He nodded cordially to Val and strode past Raven without a glance. “I’ll show myself out.”

He managed to refrain from slamming the door as he left.

“Well, that sucks,” Val muttered. “I had no idea.”

“I had a suspicion,” Raven growled. He glanced down at the bottle of wine in his hand and lifted it for a long pull. He doubted it would have any effect, but he could always hope. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “This is worse than you can imagine. I’ve put a lot of time into gaining Goban’s trust, and this could well have destroyed all that work. I can’t carry out my duties if I’m forced to abide by your rules.”

“They exist for a reason,” she told him, jaw tightening around the words.

“Like most rules, they exist to screw the weak,” he snarled back. He drained the bottle and stormed out, tossing it aside as he stepped through the door. He vanished it before it hit the floor.

Val stared after him, resisting the urge to follow. She understood why he was angry, but wasn’t sure what she could do about it. All she had to do was imagine if
both
sides got a hold of the weapons. It would be a bloodbath. From what Raven said, he suspected these were semi-automatic assault rifles. Muskets would be one thing…AK-47’s were a horse of a different gender entirely.

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She wished there was something she could do.

Then again, maybe there is.

She poked around the place for several minutes, coming up with a voluminous cloak, sword belt and scabbard to use for the weapon she’d liberated from the black-haired bitch. She also located an old pair of boots that fit reasonably well. Thus clad, she stepped out into the night.

Raven lifted his head and sniffed. Someone had opened the front door. Frowning, he emerged from his private room and tread silently through the house, coming to the entryway after a moment of looking around for Val. It seemed pretty obvious she’d gone out—not something he would’ve recommended until he’d had the opportunity to talk to her about the transfiguration. She was dressed as a man and who knew what sort of chaos would ensue if any of the locals spotted her.

Not that it was that big a danger at the moment. In the hour before dawn, usually even the ruffians were abed.
Damn her eyes! What is she
playing at?

He followed her into the pre-dawn morning, using the scent of her tracks to lead him along her trail. At one point he lost her, so he called in Cerberus to help. The big dog came loping from the direction of the house and quickly sniffed out her path.

It took another fifteen minutes before he realized she was heading for the district watch-house.
Looking for Goban?
He was curious how she’d taken off directly toward it; there was no way she could have learned the route since she’d been here.

Nothing weirder than a psi,
he decided.

Coming from a vampire and a mage, that’s rich.

Now his little voice was trying to pick a fight.
Oh, shut up.

Val knew they were there long before they made their move. She sensed two pinpoints of anticipation off the street ahead and smiled to herself. A couple of footpads, looking for a last score for the night.

She felt like kicking a little ass. She almost felt sorry for them.

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She walked down the center of the street until she was about thirty feet away, then dodged toward the wall on their side. Panicked by this sudden maneuver, they rushed out of the mouth of the alley, skittered around the corner, and rushed her.

A thought scream―like a sonic bolt spearing from her mind outward―dropped the first one like he’d been struck in the face with a wrecking ball. The second dodged past his falling comrade, and brandished a long dirk.

She drew her rapier. And smiled.

His eyes grew wide as he realized he was facing a woman. Val made a few flourishes with the sword, then a come-hither motion with her other hand. And she smiled some more.

He turned and fled, leaving his unconscious companion behind without a thought.

“Well, that wasn’t very much fun,” she informed the abandoned thief at her feet. “You guys are truly pathetic.”

“They are Argos and August Conn,” Raven’s voice cut in from behind her. “That’s August there. Dumb as a soggy pretzel. His brother’s the one with the brains, but only in comparison to August.”

“I’m surprised they’re still alive.”

“Frankly, so am I.”

She nudged the sprawled-out Conn brother with her toe and glanced over her shoulder.

Raven stood some forty feet away beneath a gas light, arms folded across his chest. He peered at her with hot eyes from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.

“So why are they still on the streets?” she asked.

“They haven’t done anything bad enough yet for the watch to take an interest. There are hundreds of little alley-rats like them lurking around—as long as they don’t rob the wrong person, or kill anyone in the process, they are free to scurry around to their hearts’ content.”

“And Goban is a part of that?”

“He tries—which is more than I can say for some of the bastards in the upscale districts. You don’t get away with murder down here. Goban 36

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won’t tolerate that. In other parts of the city you can pay your way out of a murder rap before the blood’s dry.”

“Nice place.”

“Not much different from Earth throughout much of its history,”

Raven said with a shrug. “The worst thing we agents can do is lie to ourselves about the worlds we visit. Ones this far out on the chain are the weirdest, since not even the place names or even the tribes of man are quite the same. Celts in the Americas, Native Americans in Africa, Blacks in Southeast Asia, and the Germanic peoples practically non-existent. It’s an unrecognizable Earth, but all the landmasses are the same. And so are the people. Humans just like us.”

“You still consider yourself a human?” she asked.

He snorted. “What else should I consider myself? A God? A hero?

Hardly. All of
this
is about real heroism—about the guy who gets up every day and labors at the docks, or grinds himself away in a mill somewhere. About the woman who raises ten children, keeps a house, gardens, and takes in laundry on the side. I’m outside of all of that. The best thing I can do is protect humanity from dangers it’s not even aware of.”

He took a step forward and, for all she saw of it, materialized less than five feet away from her. She suppressed a shiver. That wasn’t magic. That was vampire. “You know what pisses me off about this whole gun thing, Valerie? What pisses me off is that those weapons can give an ordinary person a fighting chance against someone like a Deacon—

someone whose innate power makes them equal to five or ten men―or against a lycanthrope, or even a vampire. Nothing else would but magic, and we don’t have the means to teach that to them.

“Christ, Val, the people in this province―hell, all the provinces―are exploited by both the Church and their leaders, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. Does that seem right to you? If the Deacons were out-world mages doing this, Sash could step in. If they were using banned technology, TAU could step in. But who helps people when they’re being ruled over by a bunch of corrupt pigs they have no way to fight back against?”

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He was almost in tears. Val stared at him. She didn’t know how to respond to this. He was absolutely right, but everything she’d been taught told her that he was dead wrong. And the two thoughts could not reconcile themselves inside her head.

“That this governor is willing to risk himself by purchasing these weapons in the first place says that the people have caught a break,”

said Raven. “The Church props up the civil structure as long as the civil structure props up the Church. It’s astounding to see someone challenging that. And we have to go and
fuck that up.”

Raven shook his head and turned away. She didn’t need to see him cry. Besides the fact it was just undignified, it was also a bit…creepy.

Most mortals seem to find blood tears to be unsettling. He had no reason to believe she wouldn’t be the same. “You shouldn’t be out here right now. We’ll find Goban tomorrow. I don’t know what I’ll say to him, but I figure it out. Maybe I can lend myself to their cause in some other capacity.”

She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder from behind. “If I have to, I’ll help, too. We have to make this right.”

He glanced up toward the east. “Better do it tonight. Right now I need to get home before the sun comes up and blasts me into my component atoms.”

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