Gunlaw

Gunlaw 41

Chapter 27

Mikeos took the handle, the metal cold and slightly slippery. He turned it and pushed the door open. The room beyond was lit so brightly that he had to squint against it. Probably more lanterns and candles burned here in this one space than in all the rest of the workings put together. Lanterns hung from the ceiling on chains, candles burned in twisted iron stands, scarlet curtains hid the walls and a single oak desk faced him, with a high-backed chair behind it in which a dead man sat.

"Visitors! I don't get many of those." The dead man looked up from his ledger, setting his plumed quill back in the inkwell. He had a pale face, almost all one piece, ill-fitting his bones. Grey hair ran across his scalp in dry tufts. Apart from books and the quill only a paper-spike and an old bowler hat sat on the desk.

Mikeos moved in, gun held straight-armed before him, aimed at the corpser, eyes taking in the curtains, looking for man-shapes. The place stunk of death and blood. "Got questions for you, dead man. The Walker? That's how they call you?"

The corpser gave a dry grin, showing mismatched teeth, some black, some grey, some fresh and pearly. He spread his hands. "You don't want to listen to those savages up there. Superstitious nonsense is all you'll get from their kind. Henry Walker's the name. Pleased to meet you, mister . . . ?"

"Mikeos Jones."

"And your questions?" Again the grin, the pale face stretching against dark stitching around Walker's temples and hairline. "And do come out where I can see you, Sir Domen. No need to hide behind your young friend. And did I glimpse a lady of the cloth outside my door? Come in, come in, come one, come all."

"Doesn't this place hurt you, corpser? Don't the ruins make you want to run? I heard the dead don't do so well in places like this." Mikeos didn't like the dead thing. He doubted he would have liked the man who died and left it. Each time Walker smiled Mikeos felt Elver Samms' cold fingers at the back of his neck. He'd spent three hours hacking Samms into pieces small enough to throw out across the Dry, but still he could feel the corpser's fingers, the sick-touch of them that night Samms caught up with him in the Bullet and Rye and killed the taur, Grum. The night Lilliana chose to save Mikeos and send Samms running.

Walker shrugged, bones creaked. "It's not so bad down here. Up top I'll admit it's none too pleasant, but then what part of my ... condition is pleasant?" He held up a grey hand, skin stitched around each finger bone and turned it this way then that, inspecting. "Still, we mustn't moan now must we? Down here where the dark wurms burrow it seems the Old Ones' influence is weaker." He lowered his hand to the desk. "And the Three really don't dislike us corpsers as much as you might think, Mikeos Jones." Again that grin, softer and more dangerous this time.

Mikeos heard Jenna's entrance, the swish of robes announcing her. Hemar moved out to the side, claws clicking on stone. "What are you doing here, Walker? What's all this to you?"

"Dollars and cents." Walker tapped a finger on his ledger. "The bottom line, Mister Jones. Corpsers are often interested in commerce. After all we have peculiar needs and it turns out that you can buy literally anything. Did you know that, Mikey? I've bought far more children than I ever stole. Know what a baby costs? Less than ten dollars."

Mikeos's finger tightened on the trigger, a hair from firing. He forced his hand to relax. Jenna spoke behind him. "You didn't buy help from the sect, creature-that-was Henry Walker. The sect don't trade. So whatever is going on here is about more than money."

"Very astute, Jenna Crossard, but then you always were a clever little girl, weren't you? Don't look surprised – I know all about you, girl, where you've been and where you're bound. Bad places both. Sykes Bannon should have snuffed you out in that alley, just another little alley rat for the gutter. But Sykes was always a loose cannon. He was older than any of us. Did you know that? Older than the rails so they say, but I find that hard to credit. Mikey here did us a favour when he put that one down. Did you know that, Mikey? Did you know you helped my star ascend among the dead fraternity?"