Chapter 2
Idragged the bound and unconscious Silas through the back door of the Syndicate’s rundown-looking safehouse in Berkway.
It was just a dull, aging structure wedged between a shuttered tailor shop and a long-forgotten tavern that smelled permanently of fermented alcohol, nothing that would have let passersby know what went on inside.
“Good work, Gil!” Brent, a fellow bounty hunter, said as he slapped me on the back. “You beat everyone else to him.”
“All in a dishonest day’s work,” I answered cheerfully. “I had some good luck to help me along. Is the Employer in?”
Elvin, another bounty hunter, leaned back and popped some pomegranate seeds into his mouth. “Is he ever? Ambrose is, though. Just through there.” He pointed down the hall to where the Employer’s secretary sat at his desk.
“Want to carry this piece of vermin for me?” I asked, nudging Silas with the toe of my boot. “I’ll make you some food if you do.”
Elvin scoffed and wrinkled his nose. “No way. Carry your own target.” Elvin couldn’t be much older than eighteen and still had the youthful arrogance I despised so much. He went back to sketching another face on a wanted poster.
Brent shoved Elvin. “I’ll take you up on that, Gil.
Make me that hash I like.” He dragged Silas by the feet down the hall.
“Elvin only eats pomegranates lately,” he called as he heaved Silas across a rug.
“It’s his new health plan, but it still hasn’t fixed his sour attitude or helped him grow.
I’ll wager you’ll pass him next year, Gil. ”
After exchanging disgusted looks with Elvin, I went to the safehouse’s small kitchen and whipped together the egg and potato scramble. The kitchen wasn’t particularly clean, but I found a skillet and set about cobbling together the promised meal. Pomegranate rinds littered the table and counters.
Brent came into the kitchen. “Ambrose says good work and that you can go in to collect the bounty whenever you want.” He scooped up the potato peelings and eggs shells and dumped them down the large garbage chute that led to the compost heap outside.
“You know, maybe one day we’ll finally meet our actual employer.
I’ll bet he’s a lot more interesting than Ambrose. ”
“Isn’t everyone?” I grinned back. It was a running joke in our syndicate that we would eventually meet the mysterious Employer who had issued and paid bounties for more than thirty years, yet no one had ever seen hide nor hair of him.
Instead, everything was coordinated through his stuffy and bookish secretary Ambrose, who looked like he should be sitting in a library rather than handing out missions to lethal bounty hunters.
“Your scramble’s done,” I told him. I shoved a few handfuls of scraps down the large garbage chute and, after getting a waft of the smell, sloshed a bucket of water down after it as well. “That compost heap smells almost as bad as Elvin.”
“I heard that!” I heard Elvin shout from the next room.
Brent and I beamed at each other.
“Eat,” I told him, handing over the bowl. “I need to go sign for that bounty. Thanks for saving me from carrying Silas another inch. He was heavy.”
Brent picked up the bowl and gave a hearty sniff.
“Your muscles will come in soon, lad. Just wait another year or two. You’re already pretty strong.
” He peeked around the corner to make sure Elvin wasn’t looking, then threw the last pomegranate down the garbage chute as well and laid a finger on his lips.
I tapped the side of my nose, then said loudly, “Hey, good luck with that pirate. Dargen, right? Ambrose said that was a tough bounty last time I was here.”
Brent raised his eyebrows and grimaced. “Thanks. I’ll need all the luck I can get.”
I left the kitchen and strode down the hallway to Ambrose’s study, my steps long and confident.
“Gil reporting,” I announced. “I’m here to collect the bounty on Silas Grimbeard.”
Ambrose, the thin, horse-faced secretary, was already examining Silas, comparing his face to one of the wanted posters that lined his office. Each showed a sketch of the wanted person, then listed their name, any pertinent information, and the offered bounty.
“Very well, very well. The bounty for Silas is four hundred. Would you like it in coin now or credited into your account?”
“Credited to my account,” I told him, staring at one wanted poster in particular. “How long has this bounty been available?”
Ambrose, busily marking his ledgers, didn’t hear.
I pulled the poster from the wall, brought it over to his desk, and jabbed a finger onto it. “This man. How long has he had a bounty out on him?”
Ambrose examined the poster. “Roderick Vane? He’s been at large for many years.”
I looked at the bounty set for him—two thousand gold shillings. Even if he didn’t have information about my family, I would have wanted to take the bounty. “I can see that. Tobias told me about him several months ago.”
“Tobias? Why were you at the Syndicate’s location in Ebora?”
I rolled my eyes at Ambrose. “I was undercover on that pirate ship for months. We pulled into multiple ports. You were the one who assigned me that mission.” I ran a hand over Roderick’s poster. “I’ll take this one.”
“I don’t think so.” Ambrose licked his dry lips. “Roderick Vane would be too difficult for you. I wouldn’t assign anyone other than the most senior hunters to him.”
“Most bounty hunters tend to die or become injured before they reach senior status,” I shot back. “So why not give it to me?”
“Because then you will certainly never reach senior status. You’d die. Start with easier targets first. You ran off with that pirate captain before I could stop you.”
“I succeeded on that one,” I pointed out, watching as Ambrose shuffled his papers. “I want Roderick.”
“My answer is no.”
Stupid bookkeepers. But he couldn’t stop me before and wouldn’t stop me this time.
“Ambrose, how much do I have in my account?” I asked, still staring at Roderick’s poster.
He riffled through the ledgers and gave a low whistle. “Nineteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-two gold shillings, before the additional credit for Silas. See, you don’t even need Roderick’s bounty.”
“Not everything is about money,” I said quietly.
Ambrose gave a wheezing laugh. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Gil? The Gil I know only cares about money.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the poster for Roderick as I picked it up from the desk. This was the man my sister had been sold to. Who knew what atrocities he had committed, and then gone unchecked for years, decades even?
“Has anyone gone after him before?”
“A few, but they all failed.”
I rolled up the paper, prepared to tuck it into my jacket. “Then I’ll take the assignment.”
Almost immediately, Ambrose tried to snatch the paper from my hands, but I danced out of reach.
He reached for it again. “I already said no. You’re too young, and I won’t send a boy to an early grave, even if he is as troublesome as you are.”
I ducked under his arm. “Let me rephrase, then. I’m taking this assignment whether you agree to it or not. All members of the Syndicate are allowed to take or reject whatever assignments they want. We’re free agents.”
Ambrose shook his head. “I won’t give you the information. You could die on a mission like that.”
“What makes you think I care if I die?
Ambrose waggled a finger at me. “That’s exactly why I’m saying no. Take that assignment and you’ll be chasing death, not doing what’s right.”
I scoffed. “Please. No one in the Syndicate cares about doing what’s right. All we care about is getting paid.”
“Roderick has been in operation for longer than you’ve been alive. Give it up, Gil.”
From the floor, Silas groaned and rolled a bit as he began to regain consciousness, and I gave him a swift jab to his temple so he stilled again.
“Come on, Ambrose. Just give me the file. I know you have it in here somewhere.”
Ambrose jutted out his weak jaw in the most obnoxious way. “No. It’s not a good assignment for you. The Nightsworn will probably pick him up soon, anyway.”
“I can take whichever assignment I want, and I want him.”
Ambrose continued to doggedly shake his head. “Take the poster if you want; there are a hundred just like that one that the Nightsworn have posted all over Berkway. But I won’t give you his file. It’s locked up in the Employer’s office.”
He had puckered up his mouth, his bottom lip curled over his upper lip in a ridiculous way that might have made me laugh if I hadn’t been so annoyed with him. There was no chance he would cave. I’d have to find a different way.
I heaved a dramatic sigh and handed the poster back. “Is he too difficult to catch or something?”
Ambrose nodded curtly and rolled the poster up to stuff into his desk, out of sight. “Very much so. He’s eluded everyone for years. You wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Fine, then. Do you have something easier that pays a good amount?”
Clearly relieved, Ambrose went back to perusing the wall.
“There’ve been a few rumors of a man hustling fights nearby.
No bounty has been set on him yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
There’s a new bounty set on a drug smuggler from Ebora, but the Syndicate members based there will probably be the ones to take care of them…
” I stopped paying attention as Ambrose went on to list several more options.
I kept looking at the poster clutched in Ambrose’s thin hands.
Silas had said he sold young women to Roderick Vane.
He would know where my sister was. I’d have to track down the slavers near the ports to find my mother, but getting to my father all the way back in Ebora would take some doing, unless…
Just as Ambrose had said, there was a group of syndicate members in Ebora. They could find my father, I was sure of it.
“Those are the best options I can give you,” concluded Ambrose. “Are you interested in any?”
“I’ll think about it. But in the meantime, I’d like to put out a bounty of my own.”