Page 9 of Skinwalker's Bane
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Adam Wary lived in the Esquiline, not the Wall district as Devin had expected. That made walking there impossible. She didn’t havethatmuch time to spare. Taking the train and possibly being recognized as she stepped onto the Esquiline platform was also out of the question.
Devin printed a pair of dark pants and shirt from her personal files. The shirt had no collar or embellishments, so it would blend in somewhat with the average Esquilino’s standard dress. She changed, then disengaged the sound shield, told Nichola to take a break and waited for her assistant to close the office door before stepping out from around the divider and hurrying out to the access alley between the Port Corner and the lanes of residential apartments that snugged up against the port side of the ship, leaving the rest of the district to the markets and the tankball arena.
There was always a personal podcar for rent lingering in the area. She took the nearest one and gave the AI directions for the Esquiline markets, not the specific apartment. She didn’t want an electronic record of her destination stored anywhere.
The Esquiline market was a much smaller affair than the specialized, rambling Aventine markets. Everything was sold in this one market and it was a noisy, busy place, even for a weekday. The stalls were smaller, the paths between them narrower. People brushed shoulders and joggled elbows, apparently immured to the cramped spaces.
Devin looked around helplessly. There was no signage to show where anything was located. Did people just know?
She moved over to the nearest stall and caught the eye of the owner, a woman with dark hair liberally streaked with silver. “I’m looking for apartment two hundred and six. Can you tell me where to find it?”
The woman tilted her head, considering. “Why, that would be part of the Beehive, I’m sure. Their numbers are high, like that.”
“The Beehive?” Devin repeated.
“Over there, by the mag line, up against the Field.” The woman pointed to the far side of the district, where the rail line ran the length of the ship. “You can’t miss it.”
Devin almost laughed. Perhaps she should have caught the train, after all. So far, no one had started and stared at her, the way people often did in the Aventine, which meant train travel would probably have been safe. If she had used the train, then she would have been on the right side of the district. The pod had already trundled off to find its next customer, so she resigned herself to walking.
The daylights here were very bright and she was glad to keep her back to them as she wove through the apartment units. It took longer than she expected to make her way to the corner between the Field of Mars and the train line, because the apartments were not laid out in orderly rows the way they were in the Aventine. It felt as if the units had been left where they had first been dumped, facing in all directions, creating corners and pockets and strange angles, narrow files and wide corridors. There was no sensible way to head for the Beehive except to keep taking turns that would lead her in the right general direction.
There were not many people walking about the paths as she was. It was the middle of a work day. That kept the risk of recognition low.
When Devin found the Beehive, she knew it immediately. Most of the apartments in the Esquiline were standalone units. They could be stacked if needed, yet they weren’t. The Beehive, however, was two stacks of three standard apartments, with a double-wide apartment topping it off, all pushed right up against the towers and pipes of the Field. There was a set of stairs on either side of the stacks, leading to each apartment.
The apartments were clearly numbered by variations in the color on their exterior, that formed numbers. Perhaps Devin was not the first to wonder which one was which. Apartment two hundred and six was the top, double-wide one. The exterior was a deep blue.
She climbed the stairs to the top and pressed the alert pad, her heart starting to hurry. Perhaps this was just as foolish as the small voice in her head had been trying to tell her all along. Maybe she should turn and go home.
The door opened, taking her choice away. Adam Wary tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. They were bloodshot. She lifted her chin to look him in the eye.
“You’d better come in,” he said gruffly and turned away. He didn’t hold the door for her.
She stepped into the apartment and looked around curiously. It seemed to be a large building from the outside, yet in here, it felt cramped. There were many doors, all of them closed, leading off from the central room, which had no windows. It seemed as though there were clothes strewn everywhere, even upon the eating counter in front of the kitchenette. There were also dirty dishes and cups dotted about.
“How many people live here?” Devin asked, prodded into asking the direct question by the chaos. She stayed near the door, which seemed safest.
“Too many,” Adam said shortly. He stopped in the middle of the room, where there was a few meters of open floor, and pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants. “We can’t all afford to live in the Palatine.”
“How do you know I live in the Palatine?”
“You only work in the Aventine. That little office isn’t for living in. And you’re not a Plebian. That just leaves the rotunda.”
She tugged on her plain shirt uneasily. “No, I’m not a Plebian. That is, in part, why I am here.”
“Confession time?” he asked. It was just as blunt as her question about his housemates.
She checked her stirring irritation, pushing it aside. “I don’t like being called a liar.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t have lied.”
“I didn’t lie. Not once.”
“If you want to be technical. You tried to give me the impression you didn’t know Lincoln.”
“It’s not what you think.”
