Stalking Darkness

with her. And that young breaker, Shady—they found her floating in the harbor out past the moles. Some are even wondering about the Rhíminee Cat, but he’s another you don’t never know about.”
    Seregil jingled the coins in his fist. “Who’s supposed to be doing all this killing?”
    For the first time Tym looked uneasy. “Don’t know. Don’t
nobody
know, and that is strange. The snuffers claim ain’t none of them doing it. Folks is gettin’ nervous. You don’t hardly know whether to take a job or not.”
    “I have a job, if you’re interested,” Seregil told him, sliding the silver enticingly closer.
    Tym looked hungrily at the stack of coins. “This wouldn’t be a running job would it?”
    “No, just a snoop. There’s a house near here I want watched. If you see anyone you know go in—breaker, runner, keek, anything—I want to know about it. Or anyone you think doesn’t fit with the neighborhood. Is that clear?”
    “Breakers and runners?” Tym’s eyes narrowed again. “This got to do with the killings?”
    “Maybe he’s scared,” Alec suggested quietly, speaking for the first time.
    Tym lurched up, gripping the hilt of his knife. “Maybe I ought to fix that pretty face of yours!”
    “Sit down!”
barked Seregil.
    Alec stiffened, but remained where he was. Tym sullenly obeyed.
    “Now,” Seregil resumed calmly, “do you want the job or not?”
    “Yeah, I want it,” Tym growled. “But it’ll cost you.”
    “Name your price.”
    “Two sesters a week.”
    “Done.” Seregil spat in his palm and clasped hands with the thief. As Tym tried to withdraw his, Seregil gripped it tight.
    “You’ve never turned on me yet. This would be a poor time to start.” Seregil smiled, but that only made the threat implicit in his tone more ominous. The force of it drove the cocky sneer from Tym’s face. “If anyone tumbles and offers you more to turn to them, you smile and you take their money, then you come straight back to me.”
    “I will, sure I will!” Tym stammered, wincing. “I ain’t never turned on you. I ain’t going to.”
    “Of course you aren’t.” Seregil relinquished his hold at last, but the imprint of his long fingers glowed for a moment in white, bloodless stripes across the back of the thief’s hand. “The house is the tenement in Sailmaker Street with the red and white striped lintel. You know the one?”
    Tym nodded curtly, flexing his hand. “Yeah, I know it.”
    “You can start now. Report to me in the usual way.”
    Alec shook his head incredulously as Tym disappeared down the stairs. “You actually trust him?”
    “After a fashion. He just needs the occasional reminder.” Seregil drummed his fingers lightly on the table. “In his own way, Tym trusts me. He trusts that I’ll pay. He trusts that I won’t double-cross him, and he trusts that I’ll hunt him to the ends of the earth and slit his throat if he turns on me. You’d do well to watch your step with him, though. That was no idle threat just now.”
    “I was just trying to push him along,” Alec began, but Seregil held up a hand.
    “I know what you were doing, and it worked. But you don’t understand people like him. He respects me because he fears me. I nearly killed him once and he’s the sort that takes to you afterward because of it. But he’d slice you open in a minute and worry about my reaction later. Insulting him the way you did is enough to make him your enemy for life.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Alec said. He’d never quite gotten around to telling Seregil of his last confrontation with Tym. Now didn’t seem to be the right time, either, but he stored away the advice.

20
M UCKING A BOUT
    T hrough the next week the dreary Klesin rains rolled in off the sea in earnest, melting away the last of the filthy snow still lingering in the shelter of alleyways and corners, and insuring that Seregil and his company were perpetually damp.
    Tym kept watch over the Sailmaker Street house, but reported nothing beyond Rythel’s expected movements between there and the sewer site.
    Work for the Rhíminee Cat—a papers job—came in at midweek. This fell to Alec, who spent the next few days scouting the household of a certain lord whose estranged wife wanted certain papers stolen. During the evenings, however, he became a welcome regular at the Hammer and Tongs. Whether Rythel would remain in his uncle’s shop once the work was completed seemed to be a matter of speculation,