I numbly watched a pair of corpses beien.

  The devil was chewing its way through the Wat’s guts, not g for their tents as its teeth sliced through iihe two other heads tio shriek in Infernalspeak, bbbering nonsehat felt like a knife in each ear.

  It wasn’t even nguage, just the devil Bersand ag on what it khis one was more animal than individual, capable of speely to trick people into getting close. If it was capable of having a versation, it deliberately chose not to. That keening sound that made me want to cmp my hands over my ears? Might just be a way to distrad incapacitate prey.

  At least it had learo to down some. I did mao restore Kanes’ healing after, but only with a week of experimenting.

  I was f myself with memories. It kept me distracted. I hadn’t been close with Maria and Morder, but that didn’t make death with them sting less. One dead because of their treachery, the sed directly because of that. Damnations Morder, I thought looking down at the corpse. Was it so unbearable it made the Watch patable?

  There’s been hints, one I’d ignored for his sake while I talked him out of ht leaving. I thought I had vinced him. Apparently not.

  Pain dulled when it was from the same spot so many times. This would be the fourth time I watched someone close to me die for dealing with the Watch.

  As Bersand ate away at Morder’s mashed face, I forced myself not to care. It was easier. His stupidity had ore than his own life. Even as teeth bit and pulled, slurping up the beaten-up face like skin off a chi.

  It was all flesh in the end.

  ***

  I waited in the chambers underh the pit for a while, knowing my brother would be soon to arrive.

  In some flights of fancy I’d imagined myself his closest fidant, for him to so often turn to me for advice. I knew better now. Just one voice among many. Don’t overreach, cause a hand the reaches for the sun often finds it’s flesh burnt by the heat.

  I’d passed by learning that lesson far too many times in the Fme. Only brother’s patience had givehe ce to finally let it sit without a slit throat along the way.

  “An awful night,” Gio opined as he ehe room. “One safehouse destroyed, one of our new recruits dead, Maria dead, and Morder turraitor. And Devel’s turned down my offer this evening. This won’t help.”

  That caught my attention as I prepared the sed saw. “He turned you down? He give any hints why?”

  Devel and the One-horns were…an iing gang based iskirts of the Quarter. Fond of a signature that was far too close to mutition only doo our people for my tastes. They mostly dealt in goods being smuggled into the Quarter iurn for smuggled out goods of an illiature desperate Infernals were willing to provide.

  Desperate Infernals meant people perfectly suited to make deals iivized to do so, just for a bit of power and a way to ething back. Usually not very powerful, they didn’t make food bargainers or usually lived very long, but enough to keep trade up.

  “Plenty,” Gio said. “Mostly reting to not respeg us, our position, or our strength. So iurn, I want to use that delightful little mixture you brewed up on them.”

  I paused, recalling the versation. We’d gohrough a few options, depending on how hostile Gio wao be. The upper limit was something I hadn’t inteo actually be sidered.

  “I’d advise against using it,” I said. “It’s hard to trol, and it’s going to attract attention.”

  “The army uses it,” Gio replied.

  “That makes it more dangerous to use, not less,” I told him. “They’ll think you robbed their stocks.”

  “Let them,” he said. “I want them thinking that. I want Voltar chasing that. I want the Watch busy keeping guard of every army armory iy, and out of this district. I want every little two-bit gang in this Quarter afraid of even thinking of crossing us!”

  His tone grew increasingly irate, and I kept my thoughts to myself and my toill. When Gio focused, it was very uo annoy him. He was never cruel, but still, best to let him just work it out as he tio list out his pints involving Devel.

  Besides, I o and prepare my tools for what was to e .

  When he came to a new subject though, I wish he had stupining about Devel.

  “You were close to Morder, weren’t you?” Gio said, putting the w book from earlier ba its pce, having fotten he was still holding it in his cws.

  I wouldn’t hesitate long for an answer. Deny something anyone could tell him in an attempt at distang, or admit it and brush it off? Not much of a choice. Worse case, he tested me with X’kk’rrt. I’d ehat before. I could do it again.

  I wouldn’t abandon the dream.

  “You could say that,” I said. “We talked often. He was having sed thoughts about this. I still say we’re pushing it too fast.”

  Gio gave me a sad little smile. “Talking often is putting it mildly, the way some are talking. Same with Maria.”

  “Don’t trust everything out of Machti’s mouth,” I replied swiftly. “Besides, you avoid the point. This wouldn’t be an issue if you slowed things down some.”

  “Am I the one avoiding a point?” Gio asked me. “Still, Malvia, slowing down will only increase the ces of it being discovered. It already will move like mosses, and no matter what termeasures we devise to discredit those who turually they will take it seriously. This is the fifth to actually make it to the Watch. Many more, and they’ll start really prying. I have enough to deal with when Vets involved.”

  “You’ve evaded him so far,” I pointed out. “And the other safeguards are suffit. They iigate the people we’ve told the traitors are ours, they end up being , and the Watch buys into you being a boastful braggart exaggerating your reach to be a slightly more effective kingpin.”

  “Yes, thank you Malvia, I’m aware of my own pn,” he said, voice light. “But that reaches a point where that’s the impression I give off to people we want ihe anization. And the Quarter at rge. Which may very well be why Devel has decided he brush me off. And why I want that nipped in the bud before it became a problem.”

  The insisten using the chemicals made more sense.

  “I’d still advise against it. Those are a on we use effectively once before they realize we have it. The moment we do every Watch officer who has even the slightest ce of crossing our paths is going to have a filter mask ready on their belts.”

  "Perhaps," he said, grabbing an apple from a bowl in the room. His voice had a tohat made it clear that line of discussion was over.

  “Skall hear the Imp,” I told him, rolling up the bundle taining my tools.

  He paused, fangs halfway closed around the apple. “You’re certain?”

  “Unless she was informed ahead of time and chose to make a random ent about it at precisely the right moment? Yes.”

  “Well, then tonight wasn’t a plete disaster,” he noted. “She has ing skills?”

  “If she did, I doubt she would have needed my help,” I said, holding up one of my hands.

  I’d washed them of course, but he’d already heard a report from me and Golvar. I’d ried going for the eyes like that before. More effective than I initially thought.

  "You could have told me then,” Gio said, a zy grin ing onto his face as he leaned back. “Still nursing that grudge against Golvar aren’t you?”

  “It’s not a grudge,” I dely. “He doesn’t o know yet. He doesn’t o know ever, if you want to py this safe. Besides, he’s vindictive.”

  “Like you aren’t,” Versalicci replied. “No matter your opinions on his methods, and whatever personal animosity has developed between you two, he has as much right to know every Diabolist in our ranks as you.”

  Btantly false. Golvar couldn’t cast, couldn’t tech casting, mostly only beed by kig Daver into gear. Mostly he tried ving young novices, few that we had, into doing his dirty work for him. Then again, Skall hardly seemed intimidated by Golvar.

  “Him and Daver?” I asked.

  “Would you suggest anyone else to teach her?” Versalicci asked me.

  I had a few ideas.

  ***

  I had Maria’s corpse oable, what was left of it. Face smashed-in, head reo a pulp, the rest of her body was intact though.

  “What are you doing?” Skall asked, sitting down oool, ing for a better look.

  It robably rude to hat even sitting on it, she still had to strain to see what was going on. To be fair, the tables were ridiculously high. Apparently the only tables thiough to support the occasional ogre corpse were ones built fres.

  Well, the only ones we could get our hands on.

  “Maria has departed,” I said meically. “Her soul already on it’s way down to the Hells, there to be reborn. What’s left up here is just meat, and something ut to use for the same struggle she fought in life.”

  “Yer carving her up for pos.”

  I sighed. “Crudely put, but yes, I am. Your watg because you’ll be expected to do it as well, once you get taught. Just be grateful your lessons aren’t as painful as mine were.”

  From her expression, she probably thought physical pain. Hrrm, did she even have anyone she would have cared about sawing open?

  That had lost it’s horror for me soon after. Only so many times you could carve through flesh before it became just ahing you did.

  You learned not to care quickly, not when life was cheap

  For a better world, I thought, beginning to saw at Maria’s arm.

  ***

  I jolted awake in my bed, a y lips I immediately silenced.

  The intense urge to get up, to get out of these covers that had been fortable but now felt like hands restraining me.

  I practically tore my way out of my sheets, stumbling through the dark as I felt something rising up from my gut. I made it to the sink just in time for what little I’d eaten the day before to e back up.

  I gasped, and panted, a few st little remnants f their .

  I pumped water from the sink, spshing it cht into my face. My stomach wrenched once again and I nearly puked again straight into the draining water.

  Nightmares. I wished. Memories are just as bad as nightmares. Between Tyler’s ir and Skall’s re-emergehat particur set of memories haunting my dreams wasn’t toe.

  I’d been su idiot back then. Such a good little soldier for my brother. Such a good little fool.

  That feeling of sawing through Maria’s neck….I wasn’t squeamish, hadn’t been for a while, and in the end that corpse had just bee, but the feeling…I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

  My ha a twinge of pain. That wasn’t the leftn of my fight with Hawkins though, just another memory. Alice’s rea to me asking if she art dwarf had been…well, at least she hadn’t gone for my throat.

  The sun was rising, providing a wele distra from my thoughts. Not yet to the point where beams of sunlight were ing in through my window, but I could see its glow even behind the buildings across the street. Daylight soon.

  I breathed out slowly. I’d mostly settled, and the urgent panic that woke me up dissipated. Hopefully, any more trips down memory with it. Getting lost in memories of the past was just a distra, and I couldn’t afford any of those.

  Abdug those two st night, part of that had been worries about something sparking a fight, the other trying to wrest some way of determining the factors at py. And to avoid a knife in my back. Gregory, he wouldn't kill me, but if some fool notion of capturing me had ventured inside his head, I did not want to be tied up anywhere near Bishop Galspie. And Melissa? Hells, she probably still nursed a grudge from the embarrassment of being rebuked for beating me up. But there was another reason.

  Versalicd the religions of the empire were both mixed up in the same mess and with us fumbling blind. I'd been hasty making that decision, but si was made, I might as well take advantage of it.

  I headed to my ter, grabbing a “Closed” sign to hang up outside. Business would have to wait. I had two prisoo interrogate first.