Page 12 of A Steeping of Blood
The Ram had taken his parents, Spindrift, hislife, but he had been given a second chance, and he wasn’t going to let her interfere in his life anymore.Her.He still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that the Ram wasn’t a faceless creature. She was Flick’s mother. And Flick was her daughter, the daughter of a woman who loathed vampires, which meant—Jin wouldn’t dwell on those thoughts.
He reached over and ripped the rope out of Coll’s mouth, leaving it hanging around his neck.
“I don’t know, a’right?” Coll sputtered, spittle flying everywhere.
The lantern flickered, sparks flying. There was a time when Jin would close his eyes and see the orange of a fire—now he saw red. Crimson that had been spilled and stolen, crimson that he craved. And to think he’d once craved pastries with that same passion, sweet treats he could still chew and swallow, if he enjoyed the taste of ash.
Jin flinched and wiped the back of his hand on his thigh. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”
“I dunno where the Siwangs are,” Coll shouted. “I don’t even know who they are.”
“Saying it louder doesn’t make your lie any more true,” Jin said calmly. Coll started bellowing something else, but Jin held up a hand. “Please, Coll, stop contributing to my loss of hearing.”
Coll slumped back as much as the ropes would allow.
“Let’s try this again,” Jin started. Normally, he would entice his marks, goad them, or finagle the response he wanted to hear. He couldn’t muster any such thing now, but he would try. “You’re a courier, yes?”
Coll nodded.
“And you make deliveries?”
Coll nodded again.
“Right. Then where, dear sir, did you deliver a ten-kilo parcel of liquid silver?”
His parents were scientists, ingenious and well-known throughout Ettenia. Enough that the Ram burned down their house, leaving Jin for dead. He’d spent the past ten years uncertain if they were alive until Penn told him they had fashioned a silver inoculation currently being used to weaponize vampires.
Which meant that much liquid silver could only have gone to one place: their laboratory. Wherever that was.
Coll whimpered and strained against the ropes again. The man was clearly in a rush to be somewhere.
Jin brandished a pistol from the holster at his side. He had never liked guns. He loathed them even more now that shooting someone meant he flirted with the possibility of flying into a blood-hungry frenzy.
Still, they made for a good threat, especially when a silver-tongue was in short supply.
“I—I swear,” Coll belted out. The room was beginning to stinkof piss, further souring Jin’s mood. The man was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, and threatening him wasn’t going well.
He slipped the pistol back into his holster with exaggerated movements. Coll noticed, and his whimpering slowed.
“I’m sorry, Coll,” Jin said with a sigh, leaning close as if they were about to share a secret.
Coll hiccupped, confusion flashing over his features at Jin’s sudden change.
“Neither of us wants to be here, eh? I know I’d much rather be at home sipping a good cup of tea or—” Jin cut himself off, looking to Coll expectantly.
“Cocoa,” he contributed. “Mum makes a good cup.”
He would have laughed at the portrait of the old man running home to his mother, but Jin didn’t even have a home. He still spoke of Spindrift as if it stood strong, as if it weren’t a pile of rubble at the top of the street.
“Mum’s cocoa,” Jin continued with a nod. “But I’m not allowed to leave until you tell me what I need, andyou’renot allowed to leave until you tell me what I need. It appears we’re both in the same predicament. Help a bloke out, will you?”
Coll processed his words, searching for a lie before he nodded. “I—I was told to hand the package off to a woman at White Roaring Square. She never arrived.”
Jin waited.
“I know nothing else, I swear,” Coll said. He tried for a feeble smile. “Sha—shall we go get warm, then?”
There was more to his answer. Jin heard thehoweverin his tone, heard the way he was abusing Jin’s kindness, and so, his patience shriveled into the cold again.
