Read Online The Queen of Lies by Michael J. Bode - Free Book Online Page B

impression that I work for Cordovis’s people.” He motioned to the bar. “Not many customers here. The attacks can’t have been good for business.”
    Red let out a sigh. “Since the attack the only people who come in are Fodders, most of them looking to enlist. People are afraid we’re not warded, but I salt those sheets every morning. The guy who died wasn’t even a client. He was a boatman sweet on Hilta. Her contract was almost up, and I didn’t see the harm in letting them have the room.”
    Salted sheets? That’s a new one. Heath pointed to the parchment. “Did you see this man that evening? He may have been directly responsible for your recent decline in revenues.”
    Red nodded. “Yeah. The creepers asked about him too. I talked with him, but he was never anywhere near Hilta’s room. Why? What does he have to do with the deaths?”
    “I’ll talk to Hilta,” Sword volunteered, and darted off. Over his shoulder he called out, “Pay the lady.”
    “Step into my office.” Red motioned for Heath to follow. The room was Spartan and well organized with shelves of neatly lined ledgers and lockboxes. Red gingerly set herself down in a chair by her desk, pressing her hand against her back. It looked painful. “Your friend is very odd…He has Protectorate markings, but he speaks like an outsider.”
    “Fortunately there’s only one of him.” Heath sat in the chair opposite her. “Are you hurt?”
    “Old injury that never healed right,” she explained. “You see a lot of that here. I provide a line of work for those of us who no longer can take on mercenary contracts and don’t fancy growing pumpkins in the veteran farmsteads. But you didn’t come here for my service record.”
    “You’ve got a fine establishment.” Heath smiled. “I suppose it helps when the girls know three ways to break an arm.”
    “There’s more than three, young man.” Red looked at the parchment. “Verge, the bouncer, didn’t remember seeing him come in. When homeless show up, we send them away gently and tell them to come back in the morning for a handout around the back. A lot of them served beside us in the Protectorate’s wars, but Genatrovan vets don’t get farmsteads they can go to. War is just a lot harder on them mentally. No offense.”
    “None taken,” Heath said. “Our peoples experience fear differently.”
    She continued, “He didn’t make a fuss. He was just sitting in a corner by himself. I don’t even know how long he was there. I thought maybe he was trying to get a free show, but his eyes were white as snow. I told him he had to leave but said to come back the next day for some rations.”
    “Did he?” Heath knew this from Loran’s reports, but he suspected there was more to the story; there always was when authority was involved.
    “Leave? Eventually. Haven’t seen him since,” Red said. “Old Milk Eyes said he could pay, but he phrased it really strangely. ‘I can’t afford to justly compensate you,’ he told me, ‘but if you permit me to linger here a while, I have something small you may find pleasing.’ Then he handed me this.”
    Red reached down the front of her leather corset and drew out a small black velvet pouch about an inch and a half long. She opened the bag slowly, and Heath recognized instantly what it was by the soft glow that came from within. She pulled out a slender crystal that pulsed with soft, coruscating light. Strands of ultravivid hues appeared and floated through it before fading into diffuse forms.
    “He gave you that ?” he whispered.
    “I thought it was pretty.” She suddenly looked concerned. “Is it dangerous?”
    “That’s an Archean shard,” Heath said. “Worth about thirty prisms, which is probably enough to buy this place—staff contracts included—three times over. Hard to find buyers, though. I could help broker something for a percentage.”
    Red tucked the prism into the pouch and slid it down her bra. “Thank you for the