Chapter 162: For Appearance’s Sake
James was throwed through the gate hard enough to knock his feet out from under him. Kit came after, then Jim, with Sam last of the four.
The iron gate slammed shut behind them with a crash that rattled James’s teeth before he had even found the floor.
Behind the bars, the two guards who had marched them in were still enjoying themselves.
Earlier that night, El Gato Loco had been packed so tight that no man’s elbow remained entirely his own. The four of them had wedged themselves into a corner with the whole plan already laid out between them.
James had told them more than once. "Nothin’ fancy. A shove, a shout, a broken jug or two. We want the watch’s eye on us, not the whole street’s blood."
Jim had nodded along to every word, which ought to have worried James considerably more than it did.
Then Jim spotted a woman two tables over, dark curls and a laugh loud enough to travel across the room, and the Iron-Gut Jim inside him that had never learned a lesson in its life reached straight for his own four words.
"Ron. Plata. Mujer. Luego."
The man beside her, built like a hogshead that had grown legs, came off his stool already swinging.
"Nice one!" Kit grinned the entire time.
The hogshead’s fist caught Jim square across the jaw.
Kit, who had meant to throw a soft one merely to make the whole business look convincing, forgot himself the instant his knuckles met somebody’s face. The punch landed clean, with real strength behind it, and the look of delight on Kit’s face made it plain that the performance had ended several seconds ago.
"That felt bloody wonderful."
Then Sam tried to calm them.
He got as far as ’Easy, now’ before a fist crashed on his jaw and put an end to any talk of peace for the evening.
James watched the whole thing come apart with sheer resignation.
A table went over and glass broke somewhere behind him. The hogshead man went flying backward through a shuttered window on the strength of Sam’s shoulder, taking the shutter with him into the street.
By the time the watch came through the door, half the tavern was still fighting itself, and the men in uniform gathered every soul left standing, drunk locals included, with no more discrimination than a fisherman showed when he threw a net over a shoal.
"Cap’n."
Kit’s voice hauled him back.
James had his hand flat against the wall, the stone cold and slick with old damp beneath his palm.
The cell was low enough that Sam had to duck near the far corner, and the straw underfoot had gone dark and sour, while some slop bucket was doing its best to make the smell worse.
A single grate high near the ceiling let in nothing a sensible man would call light.
Two men lay sprawled in the near corner, too drunk to have stirred since they were thrown in.
Sam moved to the gate, checking the iron and whether a lock was worth the trouble. Kit paced the cell twice and then gave it up.
Jim pressed a hand to his ribs and winced, the stitched cut from days before still tender beneath the bandage.
James pulled the three of them close.
"Right then." He kept his voice low.
Since Ambrosio’s back room, he had promised himself he would lean less on the shop and more on his own gut. But a blade a man could hold in his hand and trust with his eyes was a different creature from a name bought on faith alone, and there was no shame in knowing the difference.
He went silent, eyes half shut, reaching for the shop. Beneath the straw in the corner, weight appeared where there had been none a breath before, two shapes instead of one.
⚓ [FATE SHOP - PROVIDENCE]
Simple Weapons
Four boarding knives, each blade no longer than a man’s hand, freshly honed and wrapped tight enough to stay put in a wet palm. Small enough for a boot or sleeve, and sharp enough to finish an argument as soon as they came out.
Cost : 10 Fate (Dynamic)
Lockpick Kit
A set of slender iron picks made to work inside the workings of an old lock, with a short wrenching bar to keep the tension where it belonged while the picks did their work. Made for a door that had never expected the sort of man who knew what he was doing.
Cost : 10 Fate (Dynamic)
Twenty Fate, deducted. Balance, one hundred and forty.
Kit shoved the straw aside and came up with one of the knives, already spinning it in his hand.
Jim took the picks and the bar without wasting a question, working the little wrenching iron between two fingers to see how it answered him.
James was already reaching for a knife of his own. "Don’t ask. I’ve not got a decent answer, and you’ll only waste time waitin’ for one."
Sam only clicked his tongue.
Somehow that said rather more than an argument would have.
Meanwhile, Jim crouched at the gate with the picks and began working them into the old lock, patient as if it was his own front door.
The lock gave sooner than expected, the old iron yielding to a firm turn and a soft click.
Beyond the bars, the lone guard posted by their gate had his back half turned.
Sam rushed over before the man could realize the lock clicked.
One hand clamped over the guard’s mouth and the other drove a knife up beneath his jaw and through. The blade cut through the throat and he bucked violently against Sam’s grip, blood spilling hot between the fingers over his mouth.
He fought for a breath that would not come, choking and thrashing as the knife tore free. Then the strength went out of him all at once and his body sagged in Sam’s hands, the struggle gone, leaving only a corpse to lower onto the stone.
The four slipped through into the passage beyond.
The stone was cold under their feet, and torchlight came in thin patches with long stretches of darkness between them. The cells crowded both walls, most of them silent.
The crew went down the corridor together, and none of them said a word louder than a breath.
The passage spread onto a guard post with one lantern burning over it.
Two watchmen were slouched over a hand of cards, neither showing much interest in the game, while a bottle between them seemed to be doing most of the watching for them.
Sam sneaked up to them.
The nearer guard never got beyond one startled breath before Sam’s blade slashed across his throat.
"¡Ah-"
The cry broke into a wet gurgle while blood sprayed across the lantern-lit table, black and red in the weak light, and his cards went flying as he clawed at the wound. He crumbled over the table, knocking the bottle aside, then slid to the floor in a bloody heap.
The second man was already half out of his chair.
"¡Alar-!"
Jim’s knife drove up beneath his ribs before he could finish the word. He jerked hard, the pistol still trapped in its holster, and Jim twisted the blade deep.
The blood spilled down the man’s shirt. He tried to draw breath, tried again, but only a thick, choking noise came out.
Jim ripped the knife free.
The guard crashed against the table, dragging the cards and bottle down with him, and hit the floor beside his companion.
James and Kit stayed at the passage behind them, backs against the wall, wincing at every scrape and thump and praying to every god under the sun that nobody had heard the racket. To their considerable relief, the watch seemed either too drunk to notice or too deeply asleep to give a damn.
The corridor narrowed, then bent toward a shorter run of cells set apart from the others.
A single lantern hung outside the place, and beneath it the guard finally came into view. He was young under the uniform and leaning against the wall, half asleep on his feet.
Kit went first this time, quick and low.
The young man never properly woke before the blade cut beneath his jaw and punched through. He jerked hard, choking on the first rush of blood as it spilled down his throat.
Kit ripped the knife free, and the guard staggered against the wall, blood running freely down his neck before his knees gave way onto waiting arms before he struck the stone, then lowered against the wall, leaving a dark smear where his head came to rest.
James clapped a hand onto his good shoulder and left it at that. There was not much else worth saying.
The cells cut onto a short stretch, with only three doors instead of the long row behind them.
The last had a figure curled in the corner, knees drawn tight against her chest and arms wrapped around them. Her hair had fallen loose, covering most of what little light came through the high grate.
James walked to the bars and wrapped a hand around the cold iron.
"Milagros?"