CHAPTER VI

Jona looked out the window past his mother’s shoulder. He let his fork linger in mid-air, half a piece of chicken hanging like a wilted crescent moon.

“Are you all right, dear?” She had eaten her small portion already. She always said that she really wasn’t hungry. Jona didn’t fight her about it. “Jona, dear,” she repeated. “Are you all right?”

“Hm?” Jona set his fork down, and glanced away from the window. “Oh, just thinking about tonight.”

“Any big plans?”

He lied. “I was trying to make some in my mind.”

“Well, be careful out there,” she said.

“I will, Ma.” Outside, people were walking like they were going somewhere important.

“You could just stay home and read a book.”

Jona looked back at his mother. “We can’t afford that many candles, Ma.”

She winced. She had spoken from a different time in her life, long lost to her. “Still, you could just stay home,” she said. “There’s always something to do around the house, even in the dark. You could go to the roof. There’s plenty moonlight most nights. Don’t need light to hang laundry.”

Jona shook his head. “Not if it rains.”

“Wear a jacket,” she said, her voice quavering slightly.

“I will, Ma.”

She pointed her finger at him, sternly. “Be home before dawn. I hate going to work not knowing where you are,” she said, “It worries me.”

He laughed. “I might not make it home tonight, Ma. I might go straight to work if I’m near and out for muster.” He stood up and stretched his arms. He hadn’t taken off his uniform since the last time he washed it. The sleeves were spotted with brown blood stains, and the whole thing reeked of sweat and rain.

He would need to change clothes before he left, if only because the smell might give him away from the shadows.

Killing people was easier than shadowing them. He didn’t have to change his clothes when he was killing people, and it was over quicker. He simply found his man, did the job, and went off into the night.

***

Jona stopped below his mother’s window and listened to her breathing in the dark. She didn’t snore when she slept, but her breathing was hard enough to hear outside her open window. She breathed in dyes and the floating remnants of threads all day long with the dressmaker’s. Her lungs were heavy from the work, she had said, but none of her fellows were that bad.

Jona looked up past the eaves of his ancestral manor. It wasn’t particularly impressive these days, but it was larger than any of his fellow guardsmen’s houses. He wondered why his mother never rented out any rooms, like in the house where Salvatore lived. He wondered if it was because of him.

The laundry lines nearby fluttered with clothes. One nice thing about keeping the house empty was that the laundry could dry up on the roof, where no one could see his clothes slowly fraying due to his tainted sweat.

Jona left his mother’s window.

He had a mask, but it was too early for it, and it was too hot until the stones let go of the sun’s heat. Tonight was going to be hot, too. It would only be worse underground.

Good, decent people were still walking in the late twilight. Women kissed men beneath parasols. Horses pulled carriages over cobblestones. All of this had been the Joni Estates, once.

A light drizzle strolled with him. It sounded like polite applause on the brim of Jona’s hat. Rain kept people’s eyes down. That was good. Jona made his way to a sewer grate out beyond his father’s lost lands, where the underground waterways were older than the buildings, and dropped down into the darkness. There were plenty of grates along this line, and he could see well enough to move from one patch of moonlight to another, counting his path between the grates along the walkway beside the flow of putrid water. It had rained most of the day, and the water was high, sometimes splashing under his boots where it rose over the lip of the walkway. Mice, clumped together in the dark, looked like a living carpet scurrying away from Jona’s boots.

Jona hated the sewers.

When he had counted five grates, he turned. He counted out another seven and turned again. The lines broke at the rivers, but there was always a way for city workers to cross the rivers without paying a toll. The sewer lines spit out rowboats left for workmen piled pell-mell just inside the mouth of a grate where it spit into the water.

The sound of the underground drums reverberated from the deep edge of the underground, then faded out as Jona walked on. He had to stop and check the numbers on his map. He miscounted once, and had to retrace his steps until he could hear the drums again. Up out of the sewers in an alley, Jona walked with a crowd of net-weavers to the edges of the decent neighborhoods, where buildings bowed a little and alleys smelled a little better than where Jona was coming from, and the cobblestones emerged like islands from a black sea of mud.

It would have been so much easier if he could have just crossed a bridge, paid a toll, or ridden ferries across. The first night, he hadn’t even bothered changing out of his uniform.

***

“Salvatore,” the man had said. A carpenter with tools in his belt and sawdust all over his sleeves walked Jona into a half-finished room, where he had pulled out instructions from the bottom of a tool box: maps through the sewer lines, places to stand. All of it mapped out, moment-by-moment and late into the night. “This hard working fellow like Salvatore’s gone crazy over a girl. He needs someone to scare him off, but it isn’t as simple as killing a man.”

“How can you map his life out like this? Doesn’t he get sick of doing the same thing every day?”

“Yeah, but…” The carpenter pursed his lips. “He’s… well, he’s not exactly like you, but he is kind of like you. He’s been living a while. Too long, maybe. It’s a mess. Heard we’re sending you on it.”

Jona realized he had been holding his breath, and unclenched from the shock. “You said, he’s… like me?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know there was another one.”

“Ain’t any more than you two,” said the carpenter. “That’s all there is. Just you, and him. Imam might notice him with what he’s doing. That’s bad for us and our interests. Ought to just… Night King said let you take this over, prove yourself. Been working hard. You earned a chance to use your head.”

Jona looked at the carpenter’s face. It was blank. The man lived a lie. He could be lying, now. “If there’s any more like me and Salvatore, I’d like to know about it. I won’t do anything. I just want to know. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ll pretend like you didn’t say that.”

“Please.”

“It’ll be hard to get Salvatore off this girl. His head is… well, he seems normal enough, right? But he ain’t. Aggie, his girl, can’t know you’re there. She’d break under a whip, and where’d we be then? Imam all over us. Salvatore burning alive over some girl, and we’re gone to ground. She goes missing, they start sniffing around, find the stain of his blood? Best to keep it quiet. Focus on the man, and don’t let her know you’re there. Salvatore drops her, she’ll forget about it soon enough, and go back to praying. Girls sneaking out give it up soon as they got no reason, too. Salvatore’s a mess. He’s a good boy for us, but his head’s all wrong. Needs to find himself a new girl won’t get us in so much trouble.”

“Okay,” said Jona.

“This is a soft job. This is you proving to us you’re more than a knife.”

“Okay.”

“When you think about it, it’s a gift. I wouldn’t have given it to you. I think she likes you. I think she knows what you want.”

In the notes, it was written out how much Salvatore was handing over to the fence, and how much money he made for the Night King. One week of theft was more than Jona made all year at everything he did, including the bribes.

For the first few steps away from the carpenter, Jona considered taking all this information to Sergeant Calipari. He had ample evidence of a thief at work, with deep connections to the Night King. He could get the carpenter from the handwriting, if it was the man’s handwriting. If not, a few hours with Geek and Tripoli taking turns would clear everything up. What stopped him wasn’t the doll hidden in his house, or the Night King’s reach—but that he never knew another like him.

***

Following and watching and always thinking what it could mean—what did any of his actions and gestures mean—Jona kept close to Salvatore’s heels a while.

This is his him.

When night comes, we will take to the streets of the city, and see if we can find the demon child, the immortal.

***

That first night, Jona had to follow the maps. By the time he got anywhere, he was too late to do anything but scout the scenes of Salvatore’s life. In a week or two, he’d figure out enough wrong turns to know the sewers better than the streets above.

Salvatore ate the same thing in the morning, from the same shop. Every night, he went looking for the woman he loved. Every night, he planned his caper, he met up with his girl, he burgled someone, and he fenced what he stole with the Night King’s man underground. Then, he took his girl out on the money. He spent everything he made, every night. When the landlord demanded money, Salvatore’d do a quick job before he met the girl. That’s what the notes said about him. There wasn’t any mention of his heritage.

If the notes were right, Salvatore wouldn’t be in his room when Jona got there. Jona was still wearing his uniform that first night. He didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission. Inside, everyone was either sleeping or out. Jona slipped his boots off at the front door and carried them so he could walk softly up the stairs. He found Salvatore’s room unlocked. Jona stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He lit a match.

Salvatore was well-aware of the uselessness of locks. He kept his precious things well-hidden, instead. Salvatore slept in a hammock, and it was the only thing visible in the room, which was only just bigger than a closet. There wasn’t even a candle to carry the match fire. The heat crept close to Jona’s fingers. He blew it out. He poked around with his hands in the hammock in the darkness. Just rags. He pushed on the cloth, testing how well it was tied to the wall. It was nailed strong. Jona sat in it. Then, he laid down in it.

He tried to imagine talking to another demon child. What do you know about being like us? What do you know? Because I don’t know anything except people get sick sometimes, and they’d burn me alive.

It was the first time he had ever thought about what to say as if it could be a real thing, with words and a face and someone talking back.

Jona left fast and quiet.

***

Salvatore smiled while he walked down the street, because he had a girl. If someone stopped him and asked him why he was smiling, he’d just shrug, and grin. “Nice day,” he’d say, even in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Once he passed beyond his district, where people might know him, he slipped into an alley between a draper and a wool merchant. From the alley, he had to slip behind a pile of empty crates and down a tiny stairwell to a cellar door, leaking water. A single slit on the third brick from the top hid in the shadows of the brown stone.

Salvatore slipped a coin into the slit. The lock clicked open. A hidden gear turned, and the cellar door opened inward, into darkness. It was a temple to the Nameless, fathers of demons. It wasn’t much of one.

Salvatore walked through pitch black until the end of a long hallway, counting his steps with his hands in front of him. He turned a corner and did the same. He did this every night. He did it in his sleep. In the distance, he heard the echo of the drums. He wasn’t stopping there, until he had something to sell there. He just moved faster underground than above, where carriages and people and ferries slowed him down. He jogged along familiar paths.

When Salvatore turned a few more black corners, he stepped up to the street-level again, into a new alley, faster than if he’d gone through the streets. He was next to the ferry now, at the Silence Tavern.

Silent, it wasn’t. Wild, disorganized music tumbled from the windows. Bouncers tossed drunken men into the streets, where the men could fight each other away from the mugs and tables. Women who had finished working for the night told filthy jokes arm in arm, laughing and laughing and drinking on their side of the tavern.

The bartender was a man so short he could walk barefoot atop the bar to serve the drinks and stand at eye level. He only had half his thumbs, and the mugs he carried were as dirty as he was. He spilled a lot.

Salvatore raised his hand, and the bartender walked over and planted a drink in front of him. Salvatore placed a pure silver piece in the man’s open palm.

“I got a drink you won’t believe,” said the barman.

“That so?” said Salvatore. He sniffed the mug in front of him for hints of urine. He put it back down on the counter without a sip.

The small man kicked the mug away, spilling over the bar. Other patrons shouted. The bartender ignored them. “You running out tonight?”

“Maybe,” said Salvatore. “I’m thinking on it.”

The bartender turned away from Salvatore long enough to grab a fresh mug, pour some wine into it. “Got a helmet you wouldn’t believe either.” He placed the new drink in front of Salvatore. “It’s just a helmet. Looks like nothing.”

Salvatore lifted the glass to his nose for a sniff. He frowned. “I’m not in for that. I like a sure thing.” He set the drink back down on the counter, untouched.

“Now, listen, it’s not like that. You know those big insect-looking things up by the Sabachthanis? Those things he built?”

Salvatore leaned back, folding his arms. “I don’t cross Sabachthani, and I especially don’t cross those,” he said. “Cut me up like nothing.”

“Listen, with this helmet… I did it myself three times just for the fun! All the house guards wear the same kind of helmet. They got no head to think with. They just see a helmet. Easy.”

“Easy?”

“So easy, you wouldn’t believe it,” the barkeep said. “Bet he’d get robbed everyday if it weren’t, well… You know… Sabachthani’s stuff. Some of it don’t sell for any price. You want in?”

Salvatore nodded towards the door at the back and got up from the chair. He left the wine where it was.

Jona slipped into Salvatore’s place from the crowd. He grabbed the abandoned wine and sniffed it. He thought it smelled fine. He threw it down before anyone could stop him.

Jona ordered another drink. He didn’t know what to do. He figured it would all be over as soon as Salvatore went after Sabachthani’s house, and Ela sent her dogs after him. He was supposed to improvise about the girl, and he didn’t know what that meant either, or how to do it. He knew how to drink, and he was good at that.

The next night, Jona waited in the shadows in front of Aggie’s window. By then, he’d seen her coming in and out of the window of her cell a few times. Jona didn’t think anything would happen this night, with Salvatore chasing Sabachthani’s rich goods the night before, he would have faded into the house defenses, mysterious and dead. When Salvatore arrived, Jona didn’t believe it right away. He couldn’t imagine anyone trying to steal from Lord Sabachthani. What had happened that Salvatore was still here, and still alive, with only a helmet to protect him? Later on, he saw the helmet come out and he thought more about it.

Salvatore never used it, Jona realized. He was smarter than that. When Aggie was ready to do a job alone, Salvatore would put it on her head. Until then, he just kept it, hidden with his tools.

This was the first time in all his nights of watching Salvatore that Jona hadn’t wanted to grab the man and shout at him. Staying out of Sabachthani’s house was the first smart care the thief had ever taken regarding his demon blood. He should never have gotten involved with this girl, a novice of Imam, who grew sicker every night they kissed.

***

My husband and I walked the convent’s walls, the skin of man upon us. We kept to the alleys and shadows. We poured holy water where we thought we might have smelled the stain.

We lingered into the night to see if Salvatore might return to his lover’s window, even after she had died, because he was forgetful and a creature of his habits. We stood where Jona stood all those nights he watched.

I saw with my eyes.

We waited together the first night. Then, we took turns for two nights. Then, we stopped. He wasn’t coming back for her. He couldn’t even remember her name. We hadn’t expected him to arrive, and invested no more hope in it than that.

He must have found a new window by now, forgotten all his nights here.

***

Jona watched from the shadows.

Salvatore walked past the convent as the vespers crowd dispersed. He waited until the lights were out.

All good novitiates had washed their faces and gone to their pallets. The bad ones kept themselves awake in the dark, waiting for their chance to slip into the night.

Salvatore slid where a building’s shadow fell on the stones of the fence. He pulled himself over in one graceful leap, then moved across the marble courtyard by hugging the stone fence, and the shadows it made from the streetlamps.

He climbed the fence where it met the other side of the building, balancing on the stones with the soft soles of his boots, and pressing his stomach against the wall. He jumped up along the convent wall with an arm stretched out. A hook appeared in his hands like a silver bird’s beak, and bit at a brick windowsill. Salvatore hung there a minute, like a black flag at half-mast, then a second hook swung up from his wrist to a windowsill. A rope tumbled down to the ground from the back of the hook. Salvatore climbed up to the windowsill he had hooked. Placing one hand upon the ledge, he unhooked the teeth of the grappling hook with the other. He pulled himself up, then threw the hook again, to a new windowsill, near the top of the building. He snagged it on his first try. His girl was waiting for him at a windowsill.

Jona frowned from the sidewalk. Salvatore looked like a thief at a convent’s walls. How could Salvatore stay out of trouble? How long had he been doing this? There must have been bribes. Someone had bribed the guards, but it would take a single open window, a single sleepless night, and someone would scream murder and then nothing could stop the guards, not with all the witnesses—not gold, not connections, not even Imam himself.