The Damsel and the Daggerman: A BLUD Novella Read online

  She parked the conveyance and went to her bed, where she’d laid out the many weapons she’d picked up during her travels. The boomerang, the machete, the crossbow, the seawater gun, the brass knuckles with claws that fit over her fingers perfectly. Her main concerns here were giant lobsters and bludseals, which had developed a special oily coating that allowed them, alone of all blud creatures, to touch the sea’s salt and survive. Practically nothing worked against lobsters, of course. Nodding to herself, she tied the machete’s leather holster around her waist, took up her notebook and pen, and stepped down to the sand.

  Outside, the drizzle had given way to air heavy and cold with mist, the sea spray floating toward her like formless ghosts and stinging her eyes. The wildness of the place appealed to her, and she smiled up at the sky, at the electricity latent in the clouds. She started up the path, her boots crunching on the crushed white shells. When the door opened to reveal Marco’s shadow silhouetted with light, she sped up and gave him her fondest smile.

  “I’ve been waiting for this,” she called over the sea’s pounding.

  He said nothing as she skipped up the creaking steps, and she squinted to see his face in the blinding light. What she saw chilled her to her bones. It wasn’t Marco. It was a woman with a knife.

  “I’ve been waiting, too,” the woman said.

  .13.

  “Where’s Marco? What is this?”

  The woman stepped forward until Jacinda could separate her form from the shadows. She was petite and perfect, with large, arresting golden eyes and shiny black hair cut short to show ears heavy with tribal baubles. Looking Jacinda up and down, the girl twirled one of Marco’s knives between her fingers, quick and sure.

  “So this is what Marco was waiting for? You’re so pale and round, like a city cow. To tell you the truth, I’m disappointed.” She pointed the knife at Jacinda’s hand, now on the hilt of her machete. “Throw that into the yard, and put your hands up. Now. I’m as quick with a blade as my beloved Marco, you know. He taught me well.”

  Slowly, her eyes never leaving the girl, Jacinda obeyed, untying the belt and tossing the heavy knife out into the sand. The girl nodded slowly, and with a sick turn of her stomach, Jacinda suddenly realized whom she faced.

  “So you must be Petra. Funny, you don’t look murdered.”

  “Neither do you. Yet.”

  Jacinda stiffened, her eyes sliding sideways, looking for a weapon, an egress, an ally. The girl was clever. She must have been responsible for Brutus’s disappearance, and Jacinda had utterly fallen for it, despite her paranoia. But where was Marco, and why did he say nothing? If he was in the house, surely he would come to her rescue?

  “What have you done with Marco?”

  The girl smirked as if they shared a joke. “Nothing he hasn’t done with you and me. He’s tied up. Come in and see.”

  Jacinda didn’t move, and the girl twirled the knife in her face.

  “Let me be clear: come in and see, or die on the porch. And don’t try anything funny, or he takes a blade in his soft parts.”

  Swallowing hard, Jacinda nodded. The girl opened the door wider and jerked her head inside. With one last, desperate look to her conveyance and the freedom of the sea, Jacinda stepped into the blinding light of the windowless cottage.

  Lamps were hung everywhere, and a fire smoked in the heart. The walls were whitewashed and crumbling, the wind whistling in through cracks and carrying flurries of sand and dust. The smells of salt and fish and decay were overwhelming, with just the faintest hint of copper. Bile rising in her throat, Jacinda turned to find Marco pinned to a makeshift target of weathered wood. Ropes held him spread-eagled, tied tightly around wrist and ankle and wrapped thickly around his neck, his face an angry shade of puce. Knives nestled in the wood against his sides in blooms of blood. His eyes were wide with fear and anger, and her gray silk stocking trailed out of his mouth, silencing him.

  “Marco . . .”

  He shook his head no.

  “You wanted the truth, didn’t you? Here’s the truth. Marco is mine and always has been.”

  Jacinda’s temper flared. Before she could stop herself, she said, “He wasn’t yours this afternoon.”

  Quick as a whip, Petra slapped her—using the hand not holding the knife. Jacinda’s cheek went red, her fury burning up to the roots of her hair.

  “Did Marco tell you he likes to take his time? Because that’s where I learned it.” Petra walked to Marco, slender hips swaying in patchwork breeches, and gently ran the blade of the knife down his cheek. “Can’t go killing you quick, no matter how much you try to provoke me. Plus, I promised I’d tell you everything, and I think someone should know, at least for a little while.” She snatched Jacinda’s notebook and tossed it into the fire, where the pages caught and curled over, black.

  Jacinda had never been angrier, but Liam had taught her, long ago, how to continue using her brain in a life-or-death situation, even when her body and temper betrayed her. It was the reason she was alive, and he wasn’t. She took a deep breath through her nose, her hands shaking and cold.

  “So tell me.”

  Petra spun, flinging her knife at Marco in a glittering silver arc that, before now, had given Jacinda a little rush of excitement. Now she just waited to see if the girl had drawn blood and, if so, how bad it would be. The knife was a hair’s breadth from Marco’s wrist but hadn’t pierced his skin.

  “We grew up in neighboring caravans, my Marco and me. He was taught knife throwing, and even though I wished to learn with him, I was sent among the women to cook and clean and care for the snot-nosed brats. He gave me one of his knives, and I practiced in secret, and whenever our families circled the wagons, Marco would help me, teach me to throw. When it became clear that I caused nothing but trouble among the women, I was sent to his caravan to be his assistant.” She walked to him, pulled out the knife, and paused, assessing him. “There was hope that he would marry me and settle down, but he resisted. And I did my best to break his resistance, didn’t I?”

  Jacinda felt the bile rise in her throat, watching the girl run her pinkie finger around Marco’s lips. He couldn’t move his head, but his nostrils flared with anger.

  “Has he kissed you sideways?” Petra said. “I taught him that.”

  Fighting for control but unwilling to let the little fiend gloat, Jacinda rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Isn’t this all a bit petty?”

  “Petty? Have you ever loved someone for ten years, offered them your heart and your body on a platter again and again, and had them pat your head like you’re a tame dog? Every day that he strapped me onto the target, I prayed that he would hit me, that my blood or tears would force him to care for me even an ounce, touch me with any true feeling, but he never missed. Not once.” She walked up to Jacinda, pointing the knife right at her eye. “Until yesterday.”

  “You’ve been following him? Watching him?” Jacinda swallowed. “Watching us?”

  “Ever since that night on the outskirts of London. Ever since I promised him everything and he turned me down, wouldn’t even bed me. And I sliced him up so badly he went on the run out of shame. The Deadly Daggerman they called him. Everyone thought it was my blood. But he was too much of a coward to fight back, too much of a coward to admit he wasn’t man enough to take a girl’s virginity. Too much of a coward to admit he’d been beaten by a woman half his size. Didn’t even care enough to strike me, dripping with blood in his own wagon. Just ran away in shame.”

  Jacinda was lost in her imagination, remembering the picture in the paper, the cleaver splattered with blood. And now she knew where that story had come from: this girl. Her, and her knife, and Marco’s blood seeping from those white scars she’d found on his body.

  “Running away in shame doesn’t sound like the Marco I know.”

  Petra sneered and flung the knife again. It thudded into
the wood between his thighs, barely a finger’s width away from his pants. He flinched and looked away. “You don’t know him like I do. He plays a good game, knows how to make a girl scream, but he can’t close the deal. He’s not even a man. Did you know he’s a virgin?” She cocked her head, staring at Jacinda with narrow eyes. “Or he was.”

  Stunned, Jacinda looked at Marco’s face, gauging his reaction. His eyes were wide, begging. And she knew, deep down, that if Petra knew the truth, they would both die here tonight.

  “Perhaps he has his reasons,” she murmured.

  “Damn his reasons!” Petra roared. “What happened in his wagon today? No blasted windows. Did he kiss you? Did he use his mouth on you? Did he say that he loves you? Because he doesn’t. He doesn’t love anything or anyone.” The girl’s eyes closed, tears trailing from long eyelashes. She stormed to the target and wrenched the knife from the wood, slamming it back into the target again and again in the unscarred space between his arm and his leg, closer and closer to his chest. “Why can’t I make you love me, you bastard?”

  With Petra’s back turned, Jacinda slipped the bracelet off her wrist and felt around to the reed that had been painted black. Marco’s eyes flew wide, and she shook her head at him. As Petra spun back around, the knife pinched between thumb and forefinger and arm flung back to throw, Jacinda put the reed tube to her lips and blew explosively. A tiny feathered dart found Petra’s cheek as the girl’s arm jerked downward, her knife flying straight for Jacinda’s chest.

  .14.

  The blade pounded into Jacinda’s belly, and she gasped and stumbled backward. She didn’t feel anything at first, just the impact of the throw. And she wasn’t willing to look down yet and see the damage, because as long as Petra was standing, so she would be standing.

  Across the room, the slender girl twitched, her fingers clawing at the tufted dart embedded in her cheek. Jacinda felt a small point of pride; the dart’s poison would work even faster, considering the needle had pierced the girl’s mouth. Through saliva and blood, it would swiftly travel all through her body, rendering her paralyzed. Jacinda had picked up the unusual weapon and the skill to wield it in the jungles of Africa and kept it always on her wrist, well aware that most of Sangland’s inhabitants didn’t even know such a thing existed. Brutus was the muscle, but this tiny needle was the brains.

  As Petra threw the dart to the ground, she tripped and fell on her side. Only then did Jacinda allow herself to look down at her belly and see the damage done by a spurned woman with wicked aim. But all she saw was a dented scar on her leather corset. Running her hands up and down, she realized that the knife must have struck her with the unsharpened side rather than the piercing tip. Thank heavens for small miscalculations. She exhaled in a rush and plucked the dull silver from the floor before rushing to the target and pulling the stocking from Marco’s mouth.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, breathless, and she could only shake her head no.

  “You?”

  “Yes. But I’ll live. Will she?”

  Jacinda looked down at the girl’s form, still but for shallow breathing.

  “There’s enough poison in that dart to take down a lion, so I don’t actually know what it’ll do to a person. The bludgazelle I shot with one never got up again. But she won’t be able to hold a knife for a long time, in any case.”

  Petra’s eyes rolled to her, glazed and unfocused, and Jacinda stepped around her to untie the rope choking Marco’s neck. When she’d finished with his wrists and legs, she helped him step down and immediately checked the bloodstained places left on his body by Petra’s knife. She felt the tiniest shred of pity for the pathetic creature and her mad obsession but not enough to unleash her on the world again, no matter Marco’s pride.

  “It’s not as bad as it was last time.” He put one hand to his side and pulled it away bloody. “She hasn’t been practicing.”

  “I can’t believe you let her go, after that.”

  He chuckled ruefully. “To be quite honest, I was in no shape to chase anyone. Just dragged my carcass off to heal. I never dreamed she would be so obsessed. I had no idea. If I had known she was following me, watching me. Watching us . . .” He shook his head, reached to squeeze her hand.

  She squeezed back. “You did warn me that being a daggerman is a dangerous job.”

  “So is being a daggerman’s lady,” he said with a smile somehow both grateful and mischievous. “Now, aren’t I late for a date in your conveyance?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “You are. And as I tend your wounds, you’re going to tell me what it was like, losing your virginity this afternoon.”

  He looked down, sheepish. “It was welcome. And way overdue. But I think you’ll be especially interested about what happens now. That’s the part you might regret.”

  .15.

  Late as it was and considering they were both in shock, they blew out all the lamps and left the cottage for the short walk to Jacinda’s conveyance—after tying Petra securely to the target. She was still breathing, and Jacinda planned on delivering her to Criminy Stain’s justice by the light of day. But first, there was business to attend to. With the conveyance door firmly locked from the inside and the sea pounding just beyond, Jacinda dumped her weapons off the bed and stripped Marco of his shirt. It wasn’t the way she had planned to get him naked, but it would have to do.

  She tended his wounds with water and a healing salve from her travels, then bound the shallow slices with soft bandages made of her torn stockings. As she fed him biscuits from a tin and brewed the tea, he leaned back against her pillows and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

  “So that bracelet you always wear—it’s been a weapon all along?”

  Jacinda grinned and sat beside him, careful not to jostle his wounds as she held up the bracelet of reed tubes. “Small, pretty, hidden in plain sight. It’s a traditional Abyssinian weapon, although putting it on the bracelet was my idea. They tend to wear them as necklaces or stuck through their ears.” He traced a finger over the inside of her wrist. “A little ostentatious, for my tastes. Liam said . . .” She trailed off, and he curled his fingers around hers.

  “What did Liam say?”

  Jacinda squeezed her eyes against the tears that always threatened. “He said I should have a hole put through my nose, as the Abyssinian warrior women do. He was half serious.” A few tears escaped, and Marco caught them on his finger and gently stroked her cheek. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with sadness, and I don’t expect you to stop loving someone you lost. Never be sorry for talking about him.”

  “He died defending me, you know. It was so stupid. Should have been just another scuffle in the street. But the man who made a vulgar offer for me . . . he was big, and he hit hard, and Liam’s head struck the stone wrong. He died in my arms. And that’s when I decided I had to learn to defend myself.”

  Marco held her close, stroking her back. “I can’t complain about that. You certainly saved my life tonight, sweetness. And I’m grateful.”

  For a few moments, she finally gave in and allowed herself to grieve in Marco’s arms, feeling safe for the first time since that night. When the kettle whistled, Jacinda took it as a sign to put away her sorrow. She straightened, brushing the tear trails away and getting up to fix the tea.

  “Enough about me. Stop stalling and spill. I was promised a story about a handsome virgin.”

  “Always so hungry for a story.” He settled back against her sultan’s pillows. “I guess Petra already told you what you originally wanted to know. She caught me on the moors tonight, on the way to your door. She was always too fast and strong by half, for such a little thing, and she said she’d kill you outright if I didn’t go with her. What she told you about our childhood was true—and it’s also true that I saw her as a little sister, not a lover, and definitely not a wife.” Jacinda hand
ed him a mug of tea, and he wrapped his fingers around it with a grateful smile. “But the main issue is a prophecy my grandmother made when I was very young, although I always called it a curse. Nonna’s a fortune-teller. Not like Lady Letitia—she reads palms.” His eyes went far off. “ ‘Listen well, Marco Taresque. Where you sow, you’ll reap. Where you lie, so you’ll stay. Guard your virginity, for the woman who takes it will be your own forever. Choose carefully.’ ”

  Jacinda shivered, and not only with the realization of the gift he had given her that afternoon and the repercussions to come, if one believed in prophecies. She remembered all too well that one strange night she had spent with a traveling caravan outside of London on her way to find the famous Criminy Stain. Like a knife in the heart, she recalled exactly the way one old woman had regarded her, eyes twinkling across the bonfire.

  “I think I met her. She told me how to find Criminy’s caravan,” she said softly. “She admired my leather corset and told me to be careful.”

  “Sounds like Nonna. As I grew up, I asked her again and again if there was a way around it, if she would look at my palm again and see if something had changed. There I was, young and handsome, girls throwing themselves at me, and I couldn’t get my grandmother to elaborate on whether any seed I spilled would shackle me to a woman forever. It was torture. Pure torture. Even if I’d wanted to bed Petra, I would never have taken the chance.”

  “But you’re so good at . . .”

  Marco smiled sheepishly, looked down, ran a hand through his hair. “If you’re a man like me, living in a caravan, you find a way to please women so well they don’t speak of your noble refusal to bed them. They only talk about your proficiency and generosity in other realms.”