4
Astarion made his way along the waterfront, keeping the buildings tightly to his left.
The fog was even thicker here, draped over the docks like a funeral shroud, and the last thing he needed was to misjudge a distance and stumble over the wall.
The bay here didn’t count as running water, but it was cold and full of all sorts of dreadful things.
Fish pissed in it. So did sailors. Astarion really did not want to have to squelch home smelling like an estuary.
He passed another spill of light, this time from a bar where a halfling was playing an accordion in front of an audience that did not seem to be made up of accordion aficionados. I could probably get more applause by walking in, grabbing that bard by the throat, and dragging them out.
A large piece of dock equipment loomed before him.
It looked like a crane, but being nautical, it was probably called a larboard mizzenpoop or something like that.
Astarion did not feel the need to clutter up his mind learning names for things on boats.
They all sounded like tawdry sex acts, possibly performed with a dead fish.
He leaned against the mizzenpoop for a few moments, letting his eyes adjust to the fog.
Small red lanterns gleamed along the street, appearing and disappearing as the breeze off the ocean twisted the fog into strange shapes.
Prostitutes, most likely. Hard to do business if the sailors can’t find you.
Astarion did not hunt prostitutes, even though they seemed like they would be easy prey.
Not because he was a good man—that was a laugh—but because the ladies of negotiable affection watched out for one another, and they would have rapidly noticed that those who went off with a certain pale elven client did not come back.
Immortality was all well and good, but being tossed into the River Chionthar would mean a quick, brutal death by running water.
Petras, who had all the brains of an orange tabaxi, had attempted to hunt prostitutes when he was newly made.
Astarion didn’t know what had happened, just that Aurelia had found him in an alley, bloody and shaking and stinking of sewage.
It had taken a fair amount of blood to get him healed up and coherent, and he wouldn’t talk about it even now.
Truth be told, Astarion had a certain fellow feeling for prostitutes. The number of times he’d used his body to lure a victim into Cazador’s clutches probably qualified him for membership in their guild.
As if summoned by the thought, the fog around him flickered red and a voice said, “Hey. You there.”
Astarion swung around and saw a red lantern approaching him, held by a slender figure in clothes that might have been revealing if he could see anything but an outline in the mist. He sighed internally.
“Madam, I’m flattered, but I’m afraid that I’m not looking for company this evening.”
The prostitute came closer, lifting her lantern. “No. I’m looking for you.”
“Me?”
She nodded. She was small and waiflike, and Astarion guessed she had at least three knives on her person. “I’ve seen you here before. With your red eyes.”
“They aren’t red,” Astarion said reflexively. “It’s a reflection.”
She stepped close enough that he could see her skeptical expression. Her own eyes were big and brown and could probably look liquid and adoring. At the moment, they looked like frozen agate.
“Ugh. Fine, you’ve caught me. My grandmother was a drow. A dear woman. Had a remarkable way with a snake-headed whip.” Astarion let a faraway look cross his face. “Grandfather always said that’s what attracted him to her in the first place.”
The woman snorted. “Save it for the marks.” Her accent was pure Waterdeep, and her ears proclaimed some elven ancestry. “I’ve seen you before, sometimes with a client. Sometimes a client I know.” She lowered the lantern a little. “Then I don’t see them ever again. Funny, isn’t it?”
Astarion tensed. He could probably overpower her, and no one would notice in the fog, but all the reasons he didn’t hunt prostitutes still held.
I could dump her body in the bay. She’d wash up, and it would look like she just fell off the dock in the fog.
Gods, what a waste of effort, though. All that work, and I still wouldn’t have anything to bring back to the old man.
He could practically smell her blood, but he knew better than to dwell on it. Cazador’s proscription was clear: Thou shalt not drink the blood of intelligent beings. Astarion’s victims belonged to the master vampire alone.
He didn’t let any of that show in his voice when he drawled, “You make me sound like a dangerous man, Madam. I like it, but wouldn’t that make approaching me…unwise?”
The woman cocked her head. “Three people know I’ve been looking for you. I don’t come back, they know why.”
A chill sank into Astarion’s gut. “And why, exactly, have you been looking for me? Other than my superb good looks.”
“Need your help.”
“My help?” Astarion smiled at her, letting just a little too much canine show. “My help doesn’t come cheap, my darling.”
She gestured over her shoulder with her free hand. “There’s a human named Boris who drinks at the Green Eel. He fancies himself a sailor, but he’s the son of a merchant captain. Won’t have him on the ships anymore. He’s a drunk and a bastard.”
“Sounds delightful.”
The woman’s eyes bored into his; she was clearly unconcerned about their red sheen. “He doesn’t pay enough to be as rough as he is, and he’s getting rougher. He broke Sheena’s arm last tenday, and the magistrates won’t even hear the case.”
“They wouldn’t,” Astarion said. He wouldn’t have, when he was a magistrate.
If a rich brothel owner had brought a suit, that would be another matter entirely, but a street prostitute’s word against a merchant’s son?
You’d need a signed eyewitness statement from the head of the Temple of Tyr to even get in the courtroom door. “What do you want me to do about it?”
The woman from Waterdeep smiled beatifically at him. “I want you to make him disappear, too.”
* * *