Margot when it came to business on Elani, but that wasn’t saying much; he didn’t have her face, her figure or her sheer magnetism. And to date, he’d been unable to buy or hire it, although the constant stream of young women who worked for a week or two in his storefront always caused speculation when things were slow on the beat.
He charted stars, read palms, tea leaves and hands; he also specialized in reading bumps on the head that were conveniently hidden by hair in most cases. His biggest seller, ironically enough, was a cure for baldness, if you didn’t count aphrodisiacs. Kaylin was not a tax collector, and she’d therefore never had call to examine the books of either merchant, but she was willing to bet that Margot’s love potions outsold anything Billington tried to push.
Billington was a man who was keenly aware that there were only so many people to fleece, so his envy often got the better of him. Usually this happened when he’d been drinking, and at this time in the morning, most of the bars and taverns were closed for business.
Kaylin glanced at Severn, and froze. His hand had dropped, not to his clubs, which were regulation gear, but to his waist, around which his weapons of choice lay twined. He was closer to the store than she was, and even if he hadn’t been, he was taller than most of the milling crowd, and could see above their heads.
Kaylin, who’d never been, and would never be, as tall, made do. She tapped two people on the shoulder and told them, tersely, to get the hell out of the way. Her hands were around the haft of her beat stick; nothing she had seen had made her draw daggers. And drawing those daggers on a crowded street was an invitation to a hell of a lot of paperwork; her instinctive dread of reports usually kept her in line in all but real emergencies.
The people started to argue, took one look at her surcoat and her face and backed away. They backed into one or two other people, who started to speak, and then did the same. If this was the effect of being soaking wet in Elani Street, Kaylin thought buckets of water might actually come in useful for something other than dishes.
As they cleared, she saw that Billington had, indeed, brought goons. The window hadn’t shattered by accident, and in the back of the shop, well away from the shards of broken glass, she could see the dim outline of Margot’s clientele. Margot, however, was not cowering with them. She had turned a particular shade of red-purple that clashed in every way with her hair, but somehow suited it anyway.
That, and she wasn’t a fool; she had seen Kaylin trip over her sign, and she had seen Severn right it. She knew they were walking the beat, and she knew that Kaylin’s intense dislike of her business would mean at least someone was watching her like a proverbial Hawk.
Either that or, Kaylin thought grudgingly, she wasn’t a craven coward. It’s funny how hard it was to see anything good in someone you disliked so intensely.
But in this case, it was impossible to miss. Billington was there, and Kaylin couldn’t actually see his face, but she could count the backs of his goons. They were standing along a half circle behind him, and they were armed. None of this seemed to make a dent in Margot’s operatic, if genuine, rage.
Kaylin snorted and started to walk toward them; Severn’s hand caught her shoulder. She glanced back at him and frowned.
“Something’s up,” he said, his voice pitched low enough that she had to strain to hear it. “They broke the window. But Billington hasn’t raised his voice. He’s not drunk.”
She turned to look at the display of backs again; Billington’s was the broadest, and also, by about three inches, the shortest. Severn, however, was right. Margot’s voice could be heard clearly. It always could. But no one else seemed to be talking much, and that was unusual. They seemed, in fact, to be waiting.
Broken window—that would get attention. The possibility of unrest in Elani would get attention. Whose?
Theirs. The Hawks.
She tightened her grip on her stick; Severn, however, unwound his chain. The blades at either end, he now took in each hand. He did not, however, start the chain spinning. She wondered, not for the first time, and no doubt not for the last, what he had been like as a hunting Wolf. Who he had killed? Why?
But this was not the time to ask, if there ever was one.
She took a deep breath and waded through the last of the sparse crowd until she was three yards from the closest of the backs. Lifting one hand—and her voice, because no normal speaking voice would cut through Margot’s outrage—she said, “What seems to be the problem here?”
The man standing closest to Billington’s back turned.
The world shifted. It wasn’t a man. It was a stocky woman, with a scar across her upper lip, and a pierced left eyebrow. Her jaw was square, her hair cropped very short—but Kaylin recognized her anyway. The others turned, as well; Kaylin was aware of both their movement and Margot’s sudden silence.
One of the men said something to Billington and handed him a small bag. He also handed a similar one to Margot, whose hands grasped it reflexively. Even at this distance the sound of coins was distinct and clear.
“Apologies for the misunderstanding,” the woman said to Margot. It was a dismissal. Margot’s lovely eyes narrowed; Kaylin saw that much before the woman turned to her.
“Hello, Eli.”
Words deserted Kaylin. She shifted her stance slightly, and her knuckles whitened.
“You don’t recognize me? No hello for an old friend?”
“Hello, Morse,” Kaylin said. Morse. Here.
“So,” she said, as she met Kaylin’s widened eyes, “it’s true. You’re a Hawk. You got out.” Her smile was thin, and ugly. The scar didn’t help.
Kaylin nodded slowly. “Yeah. I got out.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“You’re not in Barren now.”
“No. But I’m running a bit of a mission for the fieflord. You want to try to arrest me?” She laughed. The laughter, like the smile, was ugly and sharply edged.
Kaylin’s hands shifted on the stick she carried. But she put it up. “No.” Drawing a deep breath—which was hard, because her throat and her chest seemed suddenly tight and immobile—she added, “Unless Margot wishes to press vandalism charges.”
Margot, however, had opened the bag that had been placed in her hands.
Morse shrugged and turned, almost bored, to look at Margot. “That should cover the cost of the window, and the inconvenience to your customers. Do you want to cause trouble for us?” The words shaded into threat, even blandly delivered.
“I will if you ever break another one of my windows,” was the curt reply.
“Fair enough,” Morse said, and turned back to Kaylin. “Well, Officer?”
Kaylin walked up to Margot, trying to remember her intense dislike of the woman. It was gone; it had crumbled. Margot wouldn’t cause trouble for Morse. No one with half a brain would. “Margot?”
“It was probably a misunderstanding of some sort,” the exotic charlatan replied. She took a second to cast a venomous glare at Billington who, with his lack of finesse and class, was standing
