1.11. Never Trust a Skinny Chef

A great streak of red slashed across a painting behind him of a naked lady with an appropriately gobsmacked expression for it.

“Right-o,” Annalise said, into the new stillness.

Seth clicked his tongue and opened the gun up again to load its empty chambers. “I should have kept a tighter bead on him.”

Annalise shrugged amicably and gave his arm a pat. “You’re all right, fella. I’ll get us out. Come on. Stick close.”

Seth followed her down the portrait hall, to the manor’s doublewide front door. Annalise put her shoulder to one of its arch-point halves and shoved it outward into the face of a firing line.

“I want Chief Hermandat Carter,” she announced, to the wall of guns and angry, fearful men. She tugged the door shut again before anyone could say anything or pull any trigger. “Does Rohan have an office or anything?”

“He did. I already searched it.” Seth held out the attaché. “Put a bunch of stuff in here.”

Annalise’s face lit up. She pawed through the bag. “Oh, yes. This is brilliant. I love when they keep this many notes. Perks of organized crime, eh?”

“You can go back over it yourself if you like,” Seth said. “See if I missed anything.”

“Nah. I trust you.” She continued her exploration, heedless of the dizzy feeling those words had just knocked into Seth. She gasped as she uncovered the cigars. “Ah, g’wan. Are these—”

“Madam Verdugo.” A muffled voice through the door. “You asked for me.”

Annalise looked up, face all business again. “Carter?”

“Yes, Madam Verdugo.”

“Rohan il Agante and his co-conspirators have faced the Legion’s justice. I am leaving Prossimo now, and taking Seth il Gutierre with me.” Annalise handed Seth the bag with a mouthed thank you and a thumbs up. He returned the gesture. “Provided we can depart peacefully, there will be no further investigation or inquest. But if a single person deters me, or tries it, I will deal with them swiftly, then reopen my investigation into Rohan’s organization. I will not leave Prossimo until I am completely satisfied that it has been disposed of, root and stem. I will ensure any illegally acquired property that can be linked to Rohan is seized by the Legion for penalty or redistribution. Am I understood, Carter?”

Silence.

“Am I understood,” Annalise repeated.

“Yes, Madam Verdugo.”

“Brill. I’m coming out now, then.” She beckoned Seth over. “Look fearful, now. Like I’m dragging you off. Good work. I almost believe you’re afraid for your life.”

“That’s me,” Seth said. “Great actor.” He took a deep, stabilizing breath.

Annalise swung the manor door open and strutted from the manor, sword on her shoulder, face-to-firing line. “Give a lady the wrong idea with those guns, gentlemen,” she said.

Barrels swung haltingly down or skyward. Annalise favored the death stares with an unbothered smile, hooked a finger into Seth’s collar, and dragged the cutpurse through the dusty street and its dusty crowd, and up to the stables and into the bloodstained hex-engine.

Seth never set foot in Prossimo again.

Unless you count the last little stop he made, to the widow Nuncia’s cottage. He was glad not to see her, and didn’t knock. Just left the money on the stoop in a pile of crisp score notes and a letter on top saying thank you, sorry, and goodbye.

This done he returned to Annalise, who was leaning on the hex engine door smoking a cigar. She raised its smoking ember to him in salutation. “You want one of these, il Gutierre?”

He shook his head. “I don’t smoke much.”

“I try to keep it to one or two times a week, but these are Traluco Diamonds.” She took out a cigar from the box on the hex-engine’s hood and skinned its cap with Polecat’s gravity knife. “And you’ve earned one. Hell, you’re the one who stole ‘em.”

“Normally they give these to people about to be executed, y’know.” Seth took the cigar and gave it a sniff. “I was given to understand my sentence is community service.”

Annalise was patting herself down for her matches. His words paused her. He glanced her way; she was looking at him with a thoughtful expression.

“It can be a sentence, sure,” she said. “Find the head and then we’re off on our separate ways.” She dug out her matchbook and struck one. “But it happens, Seth, that I am hiring.”

“You are?”

“I am, indeed.” The match illuminated her pale face in the evergreen dusk and danced in her blackened eyes. “Lean forward. Don’t inhale yet. Just let her toast.”

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He obeyed, and with her he watched the flame dance across the cigar.

They stood like that for thirty seconds—close enough he could hear the slow, measured breathing through the straight prow of her nose—then she shook the match out and stuck her own stogie back between her glossy black lips.

“I’m going into the fall with some catch-up to play,” she said. “Owing to a few months spent learning my new territory and doing all the paperwork bollocks. Let it burn down a bit, now. Patience.”

He paused his inhale sheepishly.

“But I’m on track to squeak by without a visit to the Winter War, especially if I have a sure hand like yours in the retinue. So I’m hiring for the season, and maybe for more than just a nixer, if you show me you’re right for it. Okay, now. Take a puff.”

Seth allowed himself a pull. He held the sweet, earthy taste in his mouth for a while, and pondered. Then he breathed his words out with the cedar smoke. “I don’t know.”

She lifted a brow.

“Don’t know if I’d call myself a sure hand, I mean,” he said. “Or if I’m built for it. Just being honest.”

“Take your shirt off,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“Your hexentat. It’s under your shirt, right? Think I caught a snatch of it on your back. Take it off. Let me see it. I’ll hold your smoke.”