Chapter 21
Damia
“Istill say it’s not as nice as any of my establishments,” Corrin mutters under his breath as we duck past the bouncer into a smoky bar belonging to one Aldous Chalke.
The old crime boss has been Corrin’s biggest competitor and enemy for the last decade, but times change, and now he’s our ally in the fight for the city.
“Maybe not,” I admit, eyeing up the sticky floors. “But remember to play nice.”
Corrin snorts. “I’d take that advice more seriously if it was coming from a man-eating tiger, rather than you.”
It’s been ten days since we arrived in Hallowbane.
It took two to gather up Corrin’s friends.
First, we found the employees who risked staying in the city after the cleavers came.
Then we made contact with some business associates who were good and mad over the loss of the gambling dens, bars, and brothels.
We even recruited the odd loyal customer.
But it was Chalke who represented the biggest opportunity—the Temple hit his establishments almost as hard as Corrin’s, and I wasn’t surprised that he was willing to join forces to fight against a bigger foe.
The most successful criminals tend to be the most practical ones.
Now we’re meeting in one of his low-profile enterprises for a progress report.
As the familiar faces drift in, Corrin and I approach the polished table where a stocky man in his sixties sits.
His thick arms and large hands hint to strength despite his years, while sharp, predatory brown eyes gleam out at us over a broad nose and ruddy cheeks.
“Lovely to see you again, my lady,” Chalke bends his wrinkled head and kisses my hand. He’s been very friendly ever since I removed my glamour in front of him and he discovered I was a fae noble. I think he sees me as an exotic novelty.
“Wadestaff,” Chalke says abruptly, barely glancing at my companion as he takes a swig of his drink.
I smile, enjoying Corrin’s sour expression. Just because the two are allies for now doesn’t mean they’re friends.
“I’d like to lead the meeting this afternoon, Mr. Chalke, if you don’t mind,” I say. The old man’s eyes twinkle.
“Of course. You’ve got such a nice way of speech about you, my lady, I’m sure everyone would find it a delight if you took charge.”
Corrin’s scowl darkens, and I fight back a chuckle. He dislikes Chalke’s fawning over me more than anything else, and I can’t help but revel at the thought that there’s some jealousy there.
Not that anything’s happened between us since that night. It hasn’t even crossed my mind—much.
I mentally tick off the arrivals, recognizing most of them from our various rendezvous over the last week.
Occasionally, I double-check someone’s identity with Corrin, and he readily supplies me with all the key details.
I have to admit, we work well together. He may not be a soldier, but he has an alertness about him and a knack for reading people that I can’t help but respect.
He nods at me when we have everyone, and I step into the center of the bar, where I can see them all clearly.
I’ve kept my glamour off for this meeting, finding I command more authority when the humans can see my true height and face.
They either meet my gaze with open curiosity or look away, intimidated. Both work for my purposes.
“Well done, everyone. I’m impressed by our progress,” I say. “During the War of the Laurels, I helped organize many a siege against the Ethirans.”
No harm in mentioning my old war stories to drive home my experience and authority.
“There were plenty of extremists among their ranks even then, but in the last eight decades, the Temple has become even more fanatical, more vulnerable to fear and wild superstition. And that’s good for us,” I say, offering my audience a dangerous smile.
“Because it means it’s easy to make their lives a living gloam. ”
My words provoke some chuckles and gentle cheers from the crowd. Thanks to the insane ideology the Temple forces on its employees, our allies have managed to plant a seed of chaos and let it grow.
“Lana, let’s start with you,” I address a pretty woman seated with some of Corrin’s other employees. She was one of his working girls, but lately she’s been heading up our aquari division.
“Well,” she says, brushing her hair behind her ear. “We started with the plumbing at their headquarters.”
“Their headquarters?” Corrin asks pointedly.
“I mean, Mr. Wadestaff’s joint,” she says apologetically to her old boss. “Sula here has been polluting their drinking water with all kinds of nasties,” she gestures to a woman beside her. “And then I’ve been flooding their latrines. They’ve been knee-deep in shit since Wednesday.”
“That better not have permanently damaged anything,” Corrin mutters at me as I pace past him.
“Of course, they tried to undo it all with their own aquari spells,” Lana continues. “But they couldn’t stop themselves getting awful sick.” She smiles, delighted.
“Good work,” I nod, turning on my heel to address the crowd. “As a result, High Inquisitor Meppos and the other anointers vacated the premises the next day, moving out into the suburbs. They left the lowest-ranking clerics to clean up the mess. Milo, tell us what you’ve been up to.”
The young man straightens up proudly.
“We got tongues wagging, Lady Damia. Me and my lads spread all sorts of rumors about the bad luck the clerics have been having. The whole neighborhood’s been chattering about how the redcloaks have pissed off the gods something terrible, what with setting up their headquarters in a previous den of iniquity and all. ”
This was Corrin’s idea. According to the Temple, any disaster that befalls the general population is always the fault of some blasphemer—or group of blasphemers—refusing to be godly enough.
The more senior clerics probably know it’s a load of shit—just scare tactics to keep the population cowed and obedient—but the younger clerics are wide-eyed and naive.
Tell them they’re being punished by the gods, and they’ll believe you.
They’ve heard the message preached enough to buy into it.
“Excellent, Milo,” I say.
He smiles. “It worked a treat, miss. The poor idiots have been doing all kinds of cleansing rituals around the building, stinking up the whole street with incense.”
“And where did they source that incense, Mr. Chalke?” I ask, turning to the crime lord.
“From one of my apothecaries,” he grunts. “Laced with opios, like you asked, my lady.”
“What will that do?” Milo asks.
“It will make them more suggestible,” I explain.
“Will that really be enough?” Chalke says, crossing his arms. “You know I like your grit, my lady, but if you’re planning on storming this place tomorrow, you’ll need more than some spewing latrines and idle gossip to frighten the redcloaks out of that place.”
Corrin clears his throat, studying his nails. “I know it’s not your territory, Chalke, but I thought you’d be paying a little more attention to what’s going on in the city. Particularly as you claimed you wanted the Temple out of Hallowbane as much as the rest of us.”
The older man glowers. “I do,” he says. “And as for your territory, Wadestaff—if you can still call it that after letting it go so easily—I’ll have you know I used to have a very good idea of what went down on Grove Street before the cleavers came and scared all my spies off.”
Corrin drops his hand, grinning triumphantly. “I always knew you had some of your lackeys sniffing around. But now they’ve done a runner. Pity you don’t inspire the same loyalty as some of us.”
Chalke jumps to his feet, five heavyset men jumping up with him. “Now you look here—”
“Gentlemen,” I snap, letting Barb crawl out of my collar and hiss at them for dramatic effect. Corrin goes silent, though he knows Barb is only dangerous to people she doesn’t like…or when she’s really hungry. Chalke’s eyes widen at the sight of my snake.
“Keep it civil,” I say. “The Temple aren’t the only ones with creative punishments.”
I pat Barb on the head, and Chalke slowly lowers himself back into his seat.
“What Mr. Wadestaff was hinting at, Mr. Chalke, was the last prong of our offensive on Grove Street.” I look pointedly at Corrin until he takes his cue.
“As well as making the clerics nervous and stupefying them with opios, Damia’s made sure they haven’t slept properly for two days,” Corrin explains. “They’re being seized by strange bouts of hysteria, waking up in the middle of the night in uncontrollable fits of laughter.”
“Y-you can do that?” Lana asks, awed. “When they said fae have mind magic—”
“You didn’t imagine something like this,” I finish.
“That’s the point. Cleavers and bearers are taught specifically how to block themselves against our magic, but most Trovians—including junior clerics—only have a fuzzy notion of what sensic power is, much less how to deal with it.
The downside of them accusing us of heresy for the last eighty years,” I say archly, “is that we don’t exactly rub shoulders with the Temple very often. ”
“They won’t guess where this hysteria’s coming from,” Corrin says. “And that plays right into Milo’s little story about unhappy gods and bad omens.”
“So they’re drugged up, sick, and sleep deprived?” Chalke says. He has the grace to look a little impressed. “Aye, that’ll do it.”
Now everyone’s on the same page, we go over our plan for this afternoon.
“You look almost excited,” Corrin says as we prepare to leave the bar for Grove Street.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I say, allowing myself a rare grin. “Scaring the gloam out of a bunch of crazed cultists? It’s one of my favorite pastimes.”