Chapter 19 Ransom

Chapter 19 Ransom

Down in the harbour, twenty-three ships floated in the moonlit dark. Their sails were furled, their lamps extinguished, as they tried to hide from the monsters of Fantome. Seawater lapped against the dock, casting the faint scent of brine into the air. A still night so far. Unlike yesterday, when the screams were so loud, Ransom could hear them all the way up on Merchant's Way.

‘It's too quiet down here,' said Nadia, her stiletto-heeled boots clacking along the boardwalk. She tightened the belt on her black trench coat, her gaze darting around. ‘Even the gulls have flown away.'

‘Clever birds,' muttered Ransom, flipping his collar up to stave off the chill. Not for the first time in his life, he had the sudden, stirring desire to fly away from here too. Away from Dufort and his endless demands, away from the spitfire that plagued his nightmares. Away from the monsters that seemed to spring up from nowhere. All this danger was beginning to feel like it was part of the same web, only Ransom couldn't figure out where he sat within it – was he the spider or a fly?

And what in hell's teeth was Seraphine Marchant?

Orphan and runaway.

Liar and artificer.

He cast his gaze out to sea, thinking of their conversation from last night, how she had begged him in the street, not out of fear for herself but the dog in his arms. The dog he had almost killed several nightguards to save. In her desperation to save the mutt, she had revealed a naked terror Ransom hadn't seen in her before. He had hated the sight of it.

It was dangerous territory he found himself in now. Too close to guilt, a hair's breadth from empathy. He should have killed her in that alleyway by the Aurore and buried his curiosity with her corpse. He had known it even then, but that smart mouth had got the better of him.

She had broken his nose for it. A reward for his stupidity. In a flare of panic, he had flung that rum bottle and she had tripped, falling backwards with a hard crack. They had stood, then, glaring at each other in the slick of their own blood. And when he saw that red line dripping down her neck, smelled the metallic tang mingling with the lemon blossom on her skin, it had turned his stomach. He had thought of Mama, sewing her own cuts closed over the sink too many times to count, and in that moment, as he towered over Seraphine Marchant, he didn't feel like a Dagger. He felt like his father.

For that reason alone, he was glad he saved the dog.

Not that it had garnered a shred of trust from her. That damn necklace remained a mystery he itched to untangle. Every time he glimpsed his reflection marred by all those black whorls, his thoughts returned to it. To what she could do for him, if she only stopped running. But then, perhaps she was smart enough to know that once she surrendered what he wanted from her, she was dead anyway.

Seraphine.

He was not yet done with her.

Lark, walking by Nadia's other side, picked up a rock and threw it into the sea. It soared over a sailing boat and landed with a plonk.

‘What are you doing?' hissed Nadia.

‘Seeing if there are any monsters who want to come out to play,' said Lark, firing another. ‘Don't they usually come up from the sea?'

‘They come from everywhere,' said Ransom.

And yet, they still hadn't caught one. Lisette was patrolling the north of Fantome with her own band of Daggers, while Caruso and Raphael took the quarters to the east and west. Tonight, Ransom had accompanied Lark and Nadia down to the harbour. They had come to investigate the Lucky Shell, a tavern at the far end of the boardwalk, where sailors congregated after long weeks at sea to listen to jaunty shanties and drink until the sun came up. Several nights ago, a monster had torn through it, sending its patrons fleeing in horror. The proprietor, Kipp, hadn't been seen since. And as a staunch ally of the Daggers, his fate – like his coin – was of great importance to Dufort.

The tavern was deserted. There wasn't a speck of light flickering at its windows, which had been shattered in the chaos.

‘Not such a lucky shell after all,' remarked Lark as they wandered towards it. ‘Even the rats have deserted it.'

They stood still a moment, peering up at the sorry fa?ade, as if the tavern might tell them a secret. Wordlessly, they brought out their vials of Shade, downing them at the same time. Monster-hunting was dangerous enough as it was, but to do so without Shade was a fool's errand.

Ransom had learned that the hard way.

Lark shivered as the magic flooded him, his green eyes flickering to silver. Nadia's brown eyes changed a moment later, a shadow wreathing her neck as she flashed her teeth. Ransom blinked, and the night lit up. The darkness fell away, revealing the modest row of empty stalls and crooked taverns cowering along the edge of the sea.

Lark cracked his knuckles. ‘Who wants to do the honours?'

Nadia kicked the door in. ‘No time like the present,' she said, stalking inside.

‘That was… incredibly attractive,' said Lark, trailing after her.

She tossed her silky black braid. ‘I know.'

The inside of the Lucky Shell was an even sorrier mess than the outside. The beams were broken, the tables had been tipped over and the floor was soaked in spirits. There were shattered bottles everywhere, the bar stained with spilled wine.

‘What the hell was it even doing in here?' said Lark, picking up a stool to sit on.

Nadia shrugged as she rounded the bar. ‘Maybe it needed something to take the edge off.'

Lark clucked his tongue. ‘Nadia Raine. How can you possibly joke at a time like this?'

‘It's how I cope with crippling uncertainty,' she said, flinging a coaster at him.

He caught it with one hand, then fired it at Ransom. It clocked him in the side of the head. ‘Why have you gone quiet?'

‘I'm thinking.' Ransom used a shadow to yank the stool out from under him. Lark fell with a clatter. ‘Give it a try sometime.'

‘Nah,' said Nadia, leaning across the bar like she was going to offer him a drink. ‘You've got that faraway look in your eyes.'

Lark leaped back to his feet, unruffled. ‘That's because he's thinking of his farmgirl.'

Ransom bristled. ‘She's a mark.'

And that was the enduring truth of the matter. Dufort didn't give a rat's ass about Mercure's truce. At least not where it concerned the girl. He had dragged Ransom into his chambers not long after their meeting at the Aurore to tell him so.

Get it done and hide the corpse.

No body, no proof.

Nadia and Lark exchanged an amused glance. ‘I'm curious,' said Lark. ‘Have you ever spent this much time with a mark before?'

‘You know… alive ,' added Nadia. ‘Because mine tend to die right after they see me.'

‘One last glance at paradise before they plummet straight to hell,' said Lark.

She turned to examine a tap, hiding the blush creeping into her cheeks.

Ransom picked up a bottle of wine and set it on the bar. The label was black like all the others here, with an emblem of a golden five-leafed clover. Underneath, the looping script read Nectar of the Saints.

Lark frowned at it. ‘Huh. I've never seen a bottle like this one before. They serve King's Sup up on Merchant's Way.'

‘I prefer Queen's Kiss ,' said Nadia, turning to look at the label. ‘It's cheap and tangy. But you only get it in the Hollows.'

Ransom hated wine but he had spent so much time in taverns, he could vaguely picture both labels. King's Sup and Queen's Kiss came from the royal vineyards of Valterre, which meant they bore the same royal insignia: two swords crossed beneath a rose in bloom. Not this strange five-leafed clover.

Nadia hopped up onto the bar. ‘Poor old Kipp,' she said, surveying the destruction from her new vantage point. ‘Do you really think he was kidnapped?'

Lark frowned. ‘Kipp is the crankiest bastard I've ever met. A barrel of a man, six foot of muscle and swearing. Why would anyone want to kidnap him?'

‘Then he's dead,' said Nadia, with a huff. ‘This tavern was his one true love. He'd never leave it willingly.' She looked down at them, silver eyes dancing. ‘Remember when we came here for your eighteenth birthday?'

‘How could I ever forget?' Lark chuckled. ‘We drank an entire bottle of whiskey and you danced a jig on this bar.' He leaned back to look up at her, his eyes so soft they looked molten. ‘You should have been a dancer, Nadia.'

‘Maybe one day.' She smiled, shadows crawling to kiss those nimble, graceful feet. Not her shadows, but Lark's. They laced her ankles, as if coaxing her to dance again. For him.

Ransom had the sudden sense he was intruding on a moment. ‘Every sailor in the place fell in love with you,' Lark went on. ‘If I remember rightly, Kipp offered you a job on the spot.'

‘Maybe I should have taken it,' she said, sinking back down. There was a note of wistfulness in her voice that Ransom recognized from his own thoughts, a sense that a part of her really did wish for a simpler life. A kinder life. ‘Hung up my shadows for an apron…'

‘And then get eaten by a monster anyway?' Lark shook his head. ‘I can't think of anything more tragic. You'd have been bored shitless. Your mind wanders every time you have to lace up your boots.'

She smirked. ‘That's true.'

He grabbed the bottle Ransom had plucked from the floor and ripped out the cork. ‘How about one last drink?' he said, pouring out three glasses of dark syrupy wine. ‘To the people we left behind.'

‘And the Daggers we became,' said Nadia, picking up a glass. She wrinkled her nose as she took a sniff. ‘ Ugh. I'm not drinking this. It smells like my grandfather.'

‘Your grandfather's dead,' said Lark.

‘Exactly.'

Ransom didn't even reach for his glass. Even if he'd liked the taste of wine, he was too restless to drink. While Lark shoved the bottle aside and grabbed the whiskey instead, Ransom stepped away from the bar entirely.

‘I'm going to take a look upstairs.' He stalked across the tavern, to where a wooden door led to a narrow staircase. Their voices faded as he climbed. At the top, a familiar sulphuric stench hung in the air. The hairs on Ransom's arms stood up, the Shade inside him jerking to attention. Shadows darted along his knuckles, poised to strike.

There was only one room on the second floor of the Lucky Shell. Kipp used it mainly for storage, and to snatch sleep in the slow hours between dawn and dusk. It was filled with barrels of ale and crates of various other kinds of alcohol. There was an unmade bed over by the window, a nightstand littered with flakes of tobacco, a threadbare armchair and a fireplace that had been boarded up to keep out the rats.

Ransom stood on the threshold, his arms braced on the doorframe as he peered inside. It might have seemed ordinary to anyone else – an abandoned room in an abandoned tavern – but with Shade in his system, he noticed something that made his breath swell in his chest.

There was a shadow in the room. A gathering of darkness Ransom could not see through. It was crouched behind the barrels in the corner, and moaning softly, as though it was in pain. The sound was so human Ransom wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him. But the smell was even stronger now, the air so cold he could see his breath in it. There was a wrongness in here. A wrongness he had encountered once before on the banks of the Verne.

He stepped into the room. ‘Hello?'

The shadow stilled. Shade was a second heartbeat inside Ransom, pushing him towards the darkness.

Go and look, he imagined it whispering. Don't be afraid.

A part of Ransom was afraid, but he was curious, too. If this truly was a wounded monster, hiding upstairs in the Lucky Shell, then he would capture it and drag it home to Dufort.

The creature trembled as Ransom approached. He peered at it, trying to make out a face in the shadow, but its misshapen head was bowed, its sinewy limbs pulled around itself until it was no bigger than the barrel it was hiding behind.

Another step, the floorboards creaking. It occurred to Ransom that he should alert Lark and Nadia to his find, but he was so close now he was afraid of spooking the creature. ‘Hello?' he said, softer now. ‘Can you hear me?'

He stopped at the barrel. The creature snapped its head up, revealing a gaping mouth of jagged teeth. Its lidless silver eyes flashed a half-second before it lunged.

Ransom let out a shout as the beast landed on him, pinning him to the floor. A terrible coldness swept through him. He swung his fist, searching for purchase in the sudden swarm of shadows, and it met bone with a sickening crack.

The monster howled.

Ransom bolted upright, grabbing its neck. He shuddered through another shock of cold. It was like staring into the face of Shade, watching Shade stare back. The monster bared its fangs, a growl coming on fetid breath. They wrestled, shadows folding around them until Ransom found himself in the darkness too. The room faded away until all he could see were those wide glowing eyes, inches from his own. Beneath their shine, there was something oddly familiar about them but Ransom's thoughts were turning sluggish, his heart slowing until it ached with every beat.

The Shade inside him was quickly fading. He knew, with chilling certainty, that he would have no protection against death without it. The monster knew it too.

Ransom flexed his fingers, trying to command the shadows that surrounded them, but they belonged to the monster – they were part of the monster.

The beast reared up, doubling in height as it shook itself free. It stood on Ransom's chest, crushing him into the floorboards. He kicked out as the creature's jaws unhinged, revealing the blackened hollow of its throat. That smell came again – barrelling into Ransom with such force it made him retch. He bucked and thrashed, pinned to the floor like a helpless moth.

‘Ransom?' He heard his name through the swarm of shadows. ‘What in hell's teeth is going on up there?'

The creature pitched forward, sinking its fangs into his shoulder. A scream ripped from his chest, taking the last of his breath with it. Blackness swept in, and Ransom knew if he closed his eyes, he would never open them again.

There was a crash and then an almighty hiss as the room exploded with firelight. The monster roared as it leaped off Ransom. The darkness went with it, the entire room flaring into focus. There were flames everywhere, bottles smashing and whiskey roaring as it went up in smoke.

‘Move!' Lark yanked Ransom to his feet. ‘It's coming down!'

Nadia was in the doorway, with a rag over her mouth. An empty oil lamp swung from her hand. No prizes for guessing where she had thrown the first one. Ransom found his footing, and the two men stumbled towards her, their eyes on the monster as it lurched for the open window. It paused on the sill, and in the split second between flame and shadow Ransom glimpsed the ghost of a face. The remnants of what the monster had once been.

No, not what. But who.

A gasp stuck in his throat.

Lark stiffened in surprise.

And then the beast was gone, leaping from the window and disappearing like a breeze into the night. Smoke filled the room, the flames reaching so high they licked the ceiling.

‘Run!' Nadia dragged them from the room as a beam fell and sliced the bed in two. The staircase was crumbling, the smoke so thick Ransom couldn't see through it. He covered his mouth with his sleeve and followed Lark and Nadia all the way down to the bar, where the ceiling was caving in.

They made for the exit, wheezing and coughing as the smoke spat them out onto the boardwalk. Lark tripped over a barrel and nearly face-planted on the ground. Ransom caught him by the collar, pulling him up. Nadia sank into a crouch to catch her breath while Ransom squinted into the night, looking for the monster. But the world was dark. His Shade was spent.

‘It's gone,' said Nadia, rolling to her feet.

Lark looked down into the rippling water, as if he was expecting to see a face in the waves.

She pulled him away. ‘Don't. We've already played with fire tonight.'

Behind them, the tavern roared and crackled, spitting smoke into the sky. Ransom could hear people shouting in the distance. The nightguards would be here soon, for all the good their quivering chins and paltry swords would do against a monster.

Still, the Daggers had to get out of here.

‘Did you see its face?' said Lark, falling into step with him.

Ransom shuddered at the memory. He was still trying to make sense of it. ‘I hoped I'd imagined it.'

Nadia looked between them. ‘What was it?'

‘Not what,' said Lark. ‘Who.'

She jostled him. ‘Stop talking in riddles.'

‘It was Kipp,' said Ransom. ‘The thing that attacked me was Kipp.'

Nadia stopped walking. ‘You're wrong.'

He tugged her on. ‘I wish I was.'

Lark's face was as grim as his own. It was the truth, plain and terrible. They hadn't come upon a creature in the Lucky Shell, but a man, who had somehow been changed into a monster. When the light had flared and the shadows flickered, Ransom had glimpsed a face he once knew. Lark had seen it too. They had found Kipp, after all.

‘He didn't flee the monster, Nadia. He became the monster.'

The silence yawned as all three of them tried to untangle the mystery.

They reached the end of the boardwalk and headed for the Rascalle, taking cover under the awning of Florian's Emporium. The nightguards were already on their way. Ransom could hear the clatter of hooves, saw lanterns swinging in the distance.

Nadia wrapped her arms around herself, her voice quiet. ‘If that thing really was Kipp, then that means all these monsters… they're just…'

‘People,' said Lark. ‘They're just people.'

‘But how does it happen?' she whispered. ‘How did Kipp turn into a monster in the first place?'

‘It has to be Shade,' said Ransom, slumping onto the windowsill. ‘All that darkness. The reek of it. I had no power over it.'

‘Shade doesn't do that ,' said Nadia, all three of them silently staring at the marks on their hands. Perhaps wondering if one day they might become monsters on the outside too.

Lark leaned back, touching his head against the window. ‘The puzzle is before us,' he murmured. ‘But half the pieces are missing.'

Nadia sighed. ‘This is a brand-new coat. And now it reeks of smoke.'

Lark snorted. ‘At least we're keeping things in perspective.'

‘Here's a perspective,' said Ransom. ‘We need to find out how ordinary people are being turned into monsters. And fast.'

Lark looked up at him. ‘So, we can help them?'

‘No.' It was Nadia who answered. ‘So, we can destroy them.' She frowned as she looked to the flaming boardwalk. ‘Because one thing's sure as shit. If we don't start killing them, they'll keep killing us.'