Page 36 of A Treacherous Trade
But only just.
I referred to him by his name privately because it made him less of a monster somehow. I hadn’t considered his leave to do so would be regarded as a novelty. Or a privilege.
“Does he not also giveyoucompensation for following his orders?” the Blade asked when I didn’t answer.
“He gives me corpses and bids me to make them disappear,” I muttered, lowering my voice to be certain I was not overheard by the horde of females outside. “He gives me coin to scour up the rivers of blood he spills. To hide his sins.And yours. What he doesn’t give me is achoice.”
I spoke the truth. We both knew it.
After Mary’s death, I’d been desperate and destitute, terrified of walking the streets with a butcher like Jack the Ripper after the working women of Whitechapel. I’d taken what the landlord at Mary’s rooms paid me for that foul and soul-shriveling job and bought what few chemicals and cleansers I could find. Subsequently, I stationed myself outside the morgues, following the coroner’s carts and boldly offering my services to the bereaved.
This was the state in which the Hammer found me. Half-starving. Homeless. Scraping together what I could to share rooms with other unfortunates in the common houses, stuffed to the rafters with those ready to slice you open, if only to get closer to the cookstove.
We’d met whilst I lingered at the scene of a suicide in Lambeth, crestfallen to be told that the body was hung from the rafters, and therefore needed no cleaning up after. Hating myself for feeling this way about the tragic demise of another human being.
The Hammer—Jorah—had offered me more coin than I’d seen in my lifetime to scrub out a room in the building adjacent to the one where the man hung. He was leery of the local constable and detective inspectors as they lingered over the suicide victim.
Much like that victim, I imagined, desperation had driven me to agree, even when I noticed that the room had only one chair and buckets of blood beneath it.
That none of the blood on the Hammer’s clothes was his own.
After that, he’d sent the Blade to “hire” me for other jobs, ones to which no police would ever be called. I refused, of course, and found out the hard way that I’d been employed by theTsadeqSyndicate, a powerful gang operating under the guise of a fraternal order. A brotherhood of gang leaders who’d climbed high enough to not need dirty their hands anymore.
I’d sold my soul to man who vied with the Devil to own the sins of the city, and to refuse him was to bring my sense of discretion into question.
The only sin to the Syndicate was disloyalty. All else was vice, and vice could be sold at a premium.
At their head, the Hammer was named for one of their heroes, and he ruled with a velvet voice and an iron fist.
I had no idea how Jorah Roth and Aramis Night Horse had become associates, or how long they’d relied on each other… but when the Syndicate needed a job done with more silence and discretion than the Hammer could provide, they sent the man standing before me.
The Blade.
His sharp, unflinching gaze cut through me now, threatening to spill everything said and done between us onto the ground for the vultures at the door to pick through.
“He hasn’t sent for you since… the night of the fire at St. Michael’s,” Night Horse said, resting his bare shoulder on the tall bedpost and regarding me with rank speculation. “You must be out of money if you’re selling your—”
“I’ll thank you not to say another word!” I rasped, holding my hand up against his—admittedly understandable—supposition before scurrying around the foot of the bed to his side.
He watched me approach with an avid interest that made me especially conscious of how little we both wore.
“Listen,” I said in the lowest register possible. “My services were engaged by the proprietress of The Orchard after a woman was murdered here. I learned that Jane’s death was the second within the space of a month. The local inspector is less than little help in the matter. And since the victim was likely poisoned, it is most probable she knew her killer. I amsupposedto pretend to work here to gain the trust of the other women and glean what information from them that I can… and… well…”
He gestured toward the door with his chin. “And this is how it is going.” His smirk first returned as a glint in his eye before it reached down to tug at his lips.
“They locked me in here,” I muttered through a scowl. “I’m somehow supposed to prove myself by…”
“By fucking me.” His left eyebrow rose as his finger traced the outline of my mask.
“Which I’mnotgoing to,” I said quickly.
“Pity,” he said, his almost amiable demeanor never changing. “You are fortunate to find me in this room rather than a more… impatient customer.”
“Yes, thank you ever so much for not raping me,” I said, my voice dripping with sardonic distaste. Though I hesitated when the weight of his words hit me. Before I’d seen Night Horse, I was terrified of exactly what he mentioned—losing my virginity to a man who’d paid for it. Someone who’d been told he owned my body for the next half an hour and wouldn’t takenofor an answer.
I gazed toward the door, feeling some of my wrath for the women on the other side disintegrate. If only a little. This life they led…
Night Horse gathered a white shirt from where it hung next to the washbasin and shrugged into it. I watched with curiosity as he fastened buttons from the bottom up rather than the top down. Was he leaving? Would he search for another place to take his pleasure tonight?
