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“I hear you’re a free man again too, Sin,” Rastus droned on. “That hag of a wife finally nasty herself into the grave? Or maybe you brought a bit of work home with you when they shipped you out?” He slid Cam a knowing look. Flexed his fingers. “Never took much, did it?”
Cam placed the glass back on the table with deliberate care, his fist crushed around it, the urge to pick the sleazy grub up by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattled burning its way up his throat. “You brought me here for a reason, Rastus.”
Rastus stubbed his cheroot out on the table. Immediately lit another. “You’re looking for a sergeant.”
“I am. What do you know?”
“A man’s got to live, and the army don’t pay.” Rastus’s sob story was as familiar as his tobacco-stained teeth, the broken veins across his flattened nose.
Cam shrugged. “You forget who you’re talking to. I know where the bodies are buried—so to speak. You’re not starving.”
Rastus grinned. “Ah, no, b
ut that bit of sparkle’s my retirement fund. I’ve got to have a little brass to live on day to day. What are you willing to pay me?”
“Depends on what you’re selling.”
“My life won’t be worth a whore’s promise if Buchanan finds I’ve spoken to you.”
Cam flashed a dangerous smile. “Then you better hope he doesn’t find out.”
The corporal didn’t flinch exactly, but his easy manner stiffened into something approaching fear.
Cam had him hooked. He just needed to ease him into the boat. “You’ve the lives of a cat. What have you got to fear from this Buchanan? Spill it, and we’ll toast to old times. You and me.” God, there was a thought to sour his stomach.
Rastus nodded slowly, his demeanor still cautious. His eyes scanned the room, much as Cam’s had done earlier. He lowered his voice, forcing Cam to lean closer. “Buchanan ain’t no ordinary sergeant, that’s for certain. Can’t put my finger on why, but it’s a feeling I get. He’s got a way of looking right through you like he was reading your mind.”
That caught Cam’s attention, though he never moved a muscle, not even a break in eye contact. Rastus would see it and up the price.
“You’ve seen him more than once?”
“Scads of times. He’s tight with a group that lives in a set of houses by the canal. A queer bunch. Some are officers. Some no more than rankless lobster backs. I do a bit of work over that way from time to time. Just to keep my hand in.”
Cam fixed the man with a deadly stare. “If you’re setting me up…”
Rastus had the grace to look offended. “Would I do that to a fellow Serpent?”
In a knee-jerk reaction, Cam reached across the table, pulling the other man close enough to smell the sour odor of sweat on his skin, hear the terrified hitch in his breathing. Whiskey sloshed over the plate onto Cam’s breeks. “Never speak that name again,” he growled. Before any could note the strange behavior, he released him. Sat back. “The war’s over. That’s no longer who I am.”
His jaw working, Rastus cleared his throat. “Is it, Colonel? You can pretend it’s not a part of you, but the serpent’s always there. Waiting.”
Bands of pressure tightened around Cam’s skull; his hands trembled despite his best effort at controlling the fury that narrowed his vision to a pinprick.
Rastus rose from his seat at the table. Straightened his stock, the seam of his jacket. “If I were you, I’d let it out, Sin. If you’re set on tangling with Buchanan you’re gonna need every trick you ever learned. The skills of the killer are all that’s gonna keep you alive.”
Chapter 9
Doran watched the slow crawl of the murky canal water past his window, digesting the news his last runner had brought.
Questions were being asked. Someone searched for a mysterious sergeant. Someone who paid well for answers.
The mistakes that had brought him to this point were his alone.
He’d left a trail when he left the last soldier alive. Trusting to the rapid decay of the man’s body his first lapse in judgment. Death came slower than anticipated. He lived long enough to talk of what he saw before the goddess blade pierced his heart. But that was an oversight Doran could remedy.
His second mistake was underestimating the strength of Other and mortal combined.
Morgan Bligh was competent among the Amhas-draoi, though nowhere near the caliber of her cousin, Conor. Trading on her family’s power among the Other, rather than her own skills, to advance.
