The Blood Market Chapter 12

I walked Victoria home, and received a second, slightly more lingering goodnight kiss at the door for my trouble. The girl knew how to hook people, that was clear. I walked back to Harbinger's office to drop my sabre off, true to my word. My mind turned inward and returned to my earlier panic attack. I hated my reaction. I wondered why these things happened in civilian situations and not in conflict as in my fight with Jaromir. I knew that my life had had suffered far fewer setbacks and are minor tragedies than a majority ofntye people struggling to get by in sticktown, to say nothing ofntye people living inbth eponymous ring of shanties and shacks that surrounded Sticktown. And in Sticktown residents enjoyed a much higher standard of living than people living in many other nations after the fall. I knew this. My mind knew all of this. My mind knew that I had not dishonorably discharged, which would have easy to do and would had made my scapegoat status near perfect. I had a job that paid. Harbinger had given me the opportunity to use my skills already in the job. My brain kept advising my gut that our life status ould have fallen much further and collapsed much more completely then it had. The problem keeping me from believing my brain, rested in fact that my gut kept sending alarm signals. My gut didn't believe my brain. My gut disagreed, not in words, because unlike the brain the gut didn't speak in words.

My gut spoke in alarms. Something felt wrong, my gut kept advising my brain. My brain kept advising the gut that no problem existed. The gut disagreed, and continued sending alarm signals. And eventually my brain decided that the gut must have a point, based purely on how insistent my gut's messages remained. And so my brain went in search of a reason that might explain my gut's alarm. I had lost my girlfriend, and she now stood as a possible obstacle between myself and my work with Harbinger. I panic in crowds, and still struggle with nightmares relating back to the Ashlands. My career in the military was finished, and my disgrace had become well known, and the official story that I carried all the blame for the loss of life in the Ashland Incident seemed to have taken hold in the rank of file of my former comrades in arms. My brain, once it started looking, had no trouble finding reasons for the alarms my gut kept sending out. My primary worry concerned whether Harbinger regretted taking me in. my presence had complicated matters with the Sheriff's office due to my relationship with Violetta. And I had reacted badly to his pipe smoke and driven him up to the roof. And now I was hanging up my sabre to please a pretty girl I had known less than a day, just because she was a good kisser and I was on the rebound.

I climbed the stairs to Harbinger's office and set my sabre down on top of my backpack. I could hear Harbinger moving around up on the roof, and the smell of his pipe smoke wafted down, in through open windows. He had honored his word not to smoke in his office, and had moved to the roof to do so, but the heat of the dry season meant that closing the windows would invite death by baking. The smoke lingered like a shadow in the room, barely present, but present enough to cause me unease. Harbinger had made the attempt, and I didn't want to chastise him for doing his best. I would go for a walk. I headed down to the street and stepped out into the night. The streets were not as busy as during the day. I disliked the sporadic problems with crowds that seemed to linger after my discharge from the Dragoons, causing occasional problems that screamed of weakness. The crowds at night were less and thus more manageable.

As I walked, I tried to put things together. People had been killing themselves. No, I corrected myself. People had been shooting themselves in the head fatally. The effort that people are putting into attempting to convince us to not look into the deaths basically confirms that they can't possibly be suicides. So people are being made to die so as to appear that they have killed themselves. Some of the bodies have the organs harvested. A human smuggling ring was accepting blood and organs as payment to ferry people out of South East Asia.

I stopped, something was trickling up in my mind. Zhang had said that he though the red tattoo related to a Red Flag Fleet, which certainly matched our experience with the thugs from the blood market. But I recalled something. Naval personnel liked to frequent a pub down by the water called "The Fleet", and I knew from rumor that a secret invitation only speakeasy inside "The Fleet" called "The Pirate Queen". The secret was fairly open in the military. Generally to receive an invitation one had to be a naval officer or a former naval officer, and generally had to have done something fairly impressive in the service of New Jericho. I had been to The Fleet occasionally, but not being in the Navy meant that such visits had been infrequent. But remembered that the owner had been a woman of Chinese descent.

It fit. It definitely fit. I debated going back to get Harbinger. He would high as a vulture on a hot day. And I would have to go up in the pipe smoke to get him. I shook my head, the junior partner going off on her own to investigate.

"This is asking for trouble," I said to the night air. I thought about the smoke and decided that trouble was preferable to more hallucinations.

It didn't take long to reach The Fleet, but as I approached, my soldier senses started too tingle. Something had triggered my danger instincts. I paused. What was I noticing? What had triggered my alarm bells? I saw the figures standing in alleyeway beside The Fleet almost immediately; four men, sons of Perun from their appearance and their bearing. They stood over a shape that looked suspiciously like the body of an unconscious or dead human being.

I appraised their posture and suspected they were not armed. As I watched, one of them looked up in my direction and spotted me. He said something to his companions and pointed at me. The three grinned at each other and turned towards me.

I moved my off hand to my sabre, and then remembered that my sabre now sat on my backpack in Harbinger's office. Which meant I had to either evade them, or fight four guys using either my knife or gun- which could be lethal and get me arrested. You can't claim self-defense if you're better armed than they are.

"I was indeed right about asking for trouble," I said under my breath.

One of them called out to me as they approached, "This is a lucky coincidence, you're the next lady on our list."

I should have run, I knew, at that point if I wanted to avoid a fight, but curiosity bested my common sense and I asked, "What list?"

"Our list of people who need to learn how to be less interested in business that doesn't concern them." The same thug said, standing just a little back from the other two.

"That doesn't really work as a strategy when you're working for a private detective," I said.

"You aren't getting the message blueback. So consider this priority post for your crazy boss. A taste of things to come if he doesn't lay off looking for people who don't want to be found. As far as you two are concerned, they're just regular immigrants. it's healthier for you that way." One of them said.  A blueback was a slang term, not terribly polite either, that infantry gave to dragoons and other cavalry officers. The name refers to the navy blue uniform, compared to the infantry brown that NCMs (non commissioned members) wore as dress uniforms.  As the first one finished speaking, the other two charged. Without my sabre at my side, I didn't have an easy means of preventing them from closing the distance. They hit me in a combined tackle from both sides. The two men felt like they carried a combined weight of nearly five hundred pounds or more as we hit and crashed to the cobble stones.  Without my sabre and now, grappling two large foes, I didn't have easy access to my pistol or my boot knife. I found myself mentally berating myself for not strapping my pepperbox hold out pistol to my wrist. One of the thugs landed two wild blows to my face with rune tattooed fists  while I was blocking his friends, knocking my head back against the cobblestones, leaving my dazed.

I struggled to regain my mental clarity as I scrabbled with my hands to block the incoming blows. They definitely considered me a reasonable threat, three on one seemed to be their preferred method of assault. Although given how I had treated Jaromir Hus, perhaps I had that coming.

I assessed my options. They wanted to send a message, so they were probably trying to rough me up and not kill me. I could theoretically take my medicine and walk away later, but they might not leave me in a condition to provide useful assistance to Harbinger. I could draw my pistol, assuming I actually was able to do so, and risk killing them or myself through that escalation. I could draw my t-handle knife from my boot and try to cripple, and also risk killing them or myself in the escalation. Another fist slipped through my blocks and hammered my head against the cobblestones. I reached for my knife.

I had to stop blocking to grab my knife, moving my right hand down to my boot, and using my left hand to grapple the bigger of the two thugs to maintain a decent position. As such, I took a few more hits as I grabbed my knife from my boot. One decent hit landed on my brow and jolted down the bones of my eye socket. My eye closed as an automatic reaction and I could feel tears welling up as an automatic body response. It didn't feel as though my eye had actually been hit by the blow, but I would have to check to be sure after I survived this. Eye injuries can ruin a sniper's career. I got the knife into my hand and rammed it into the gastrocnemius muscles on the left calf of the bigger thug. As he howled, I turned the blade and ripped the knife out. I twisted and appraised my options on his friend, who had leaned back in shock- having noticed the knife. Taking what was easily available, I plunged the knife into the top of his foot, straight through his estensor muscles. The adrenal response was kicking in as I twisted the blade out of his foot and pushed into a backwards roll. The roll carried me away from my attackers and allowed me to flow back to my feet. I dropped my knife into my jacket pocket and drew out my pistol.

"Let's just admit that the message was lost in post and call it a day." I said, drawing a bead on the thug who had spoken initially.

"I can't let this go," the man answered.

"You will and you'll all of you walk away as well. If not, then you'll discover that I am perfectly capable of hiding bodies in the parts of Ring where the Sheriff's boys and girls wouldn't dare going."

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Noise from inside the fleet drifted out along with the smell of cheap stale grain alcohol. I looked at the man, staring into his eyes. He looked back. And a long moment passed. His eyes darted back and forth, not looking away from my face. I suspected he was searching for give, an opening in my facade that might make him think he could make a move. We held each other's gaze for seventy five seconds, I could feel him scrambling for any opening, like a rat in a mason jar. His shoulders slumped just slightly and he nodded.

"The pain is coming," He said, "You aren't going to win forever."

"Nobody wins forever," I answered, "But you won't be the one to make me lose. Not you. Not tonight."

Another long pause and then he waved to his fallen men. I considered a parting shot, but the act seemed petty. So as the men pulled themselves up, I stayed silent and watched them hobble away without a word. Once they were gone. I turned back to the body left behind. The body was missing a lower jaw and most of the nose and the left eye had been blown apart by a gunshot wound. The shot had come from under the chin. I checked the hands, no powder burns, but I found a familiar tattoo, bright red like an old traditional Chinese seal with an ideogram in negative space. I was staring at the body of Li Jing. But without powder burns, we could conclusively rule out suicide on this one. I was looking down at our first clear cut murder victim. And I needed to tell the Sheriff.