The Demon in the Wood Read online

  Inej climbed onto the railing and launched herself from the safety of the balcony, heading for the roof. If they survived the night, she was going to kill Kaz.

  There were always two guards from the stadwatch posted on the roof of the Exchange. A few kruge from the Dregs and the Black Tips had ensured they wouldn’t interfere with the parley, a common enough transaction. But Geels was implying something very different. Had he really managed to bribe city guards to play sniper for him? If so, the Dregs’ odds of surviving this night had just dwindled to a knife’s point.

  Like most of the buildings in Ketterdam, the Exchange had a sharply gabled roof to keep off heavy rain, so the guards patrolled the rooftop via a narrow walkway that overlooked the courtyard. Inej ignored it. It was easier going but would leave her too exposed. Instead she scaled halfway up the slick roof tiles and started crawling, her body tilted at a precarious angle, moving like a spider as she kept one eye on the guards’ walkway and one ear on the conversation below. Maybe Geels was bluffing. Or maybe two guards were hunched over the railing right now with Kaz or Jesper or Big Bolliger in their sights.

  “Took some doing,” Geels admitted. “We’re a small operation right now, and city guards don’t come cheap. But it’ll be worth it for the prize.”

  “That being me?”

  “That being you.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “The Dregs won’t last a week without you.”

  “I’d give them a month on sheer momentum.”

  The thought rattled noisily around in Inej’s head. If Kaz was gone, would I stay? Or would I skip out on my debt? Take my chances with Per Haskell’s enforcers? If she didn’t move faster, she might well find out.

  “Smug little slum rat.” Geels laughed. “I can’t wait to wipe that look off your face.”

  “So do it,” Kaz said. Inej risked a look down. His voice had changed, all humor gone.

  “Should I have them put a bullet in your good leg, Brekker?”

  Where are the guards? Inej thought, picking up her pace. She raced across the steep pitch of the gable. The Exchange stretched nearly the length of a city block. There was too much territory to cover.

  “Stop talking, Geels. Tell them to shoot.”

  “Kaz—” said Jesper nervously.

  “Go on. Find your balls and give the order.”

  What game was Kaz playing? Had he expected this? Had he just assumed Inej would find her way to the guards in time?

  She glanced down again. Geels radiated anticipation. He took a deep breath, puffing out his chest. Inej’s steps faltered, and she had to fight not to go sliding straight off the edge of the roof. He’s going to do it. I’m going to watch Kaz die.

  “Fire!” Geels shouted.

  A gunshot split the air. Big Bolliger let loose a cry and crumpled to the ground.

  “Damn it!” shouted Jesper, dropping to one knee beside Bolliger and pressing his hand to the bullet wound as the big man moaned. “You worthless podge!” he yelled at Geels. “You just violated neutral territory.”

  “Nothing to say you didn’t shoot first,” Geels replied. “And who’s going to know? None of you are walking out of here.”

  Geels’ voice sounded too high. He was trying to maintain his composure, but Inej could hear panic pulsing against his words, the startled wing beat of a frightened bird. Why? Moments before he’d been all bluster.

  That was when Inej saw Kaz still hadn’t moved. “You don’t look well, Geels.”

  “I’m just fine,” he said. But he wasn’t. He looked pale and shaky. His eyes were darting right and left as if searching the shadowed walkway of the roof.

  “Are you?” Kaz asked conversationally. “Things aren’t going quite as planned, are they?”

  “Kaz,” Jesper said. “Bolliger’s bleeding bad—”

  “Good,” Kaz said ignoring him.

  “Kaz, he needs a medik!”

  Kaz spared the wounded man the barest glance. “What he needs to do is stop his bellyaching and be glad I didn’t have Holst take him down with a head shot.”

  Even from above, Inej saw Geels flinch.

  “That’s the guard’s name, isn’t it?” Kaz asked. “Willem Holst and Bert Van Daal—the two city guards on duty tonight. The ones you emptied the Black Tips’ coffers to bribe?”

  Geels said nothing.

  “Willem Holst,” Kaz said loudly, his voice floating up to the roof, “likes to gamble almost as much as Jesper does, so your money held a lot of appeal. But Holst has much bigger problems—let’s call them urges. I won’t go into detail. A secret’s not like coin. It doesn’t keep its value in the spending. You’ll just have to trust me when I say this one would turn even your stomach. Isn’t that right, Holst?”

  The response was another gunshot. It struck the cobblestones near Geels’ feet. Geels released a shocked bleat and sprang back.

  This time Inej had a better chance to track the origin of the gunfire. The shot had come from somewhere near the west side of the building. If Holst was there, that meant the other guard—Bert Van Daal—would be on the east side. Had Kaz managed to neutralize him, too? Or was he counting on her? She sped over the gables.

  “Just shoot him, Holst!” Geels bellowed, head tilted back, desperation sawing at his voice. “Shoot him in the head!”

  Kaz snorted in disgust. “Do you really think that secret would die with me? Go on, Holst,” he called. “Put a bullet in my skull. There will be messengers sprinting to your wife and your watch captain’s door before I hit the ground.”

  No shot came.

  “How?” Geels said bitterly. “How did you even know who would be on duty tonight? I had to pay through the gills to get that roster. You couldn’t have outbid me.”

  “Let’s say my currency carries more sway.”

  “Money is money.”

  “I trade in information, Geels, the things men do when they think no one is looking. Shame holds more value than coin ever can.”

  He was grandstanding, Inej saw that, buying her time as she leapt over the slate shingles.

  “Are you worrying about the second guard? Good old Bert Van Daal?” Kaz asked. “Maybe he’s up there right now, wondering what he should do. Shoot me? Shoot Holst? Or maybe I got to him, too, and he’s getting ready to blow a hole in your chest, Geels.” He leaned in as if he and Geels were sharing a great secret. “Why not give Van Daal the order and find out?”

  Geels opened and closed his mouth like a carp, then bellowed, “Van Daal!”

  Just as Van Daal parted his lips to answer, Inej slipped up behind him and placed a blade to his throat. She’d barely had time to pick out his shadow and slide down the roof tiles. Saints, Kaz liked to cut it close.

  “Shhhh,” she whispered in Van Daal’s ear. She gave him a tiny jab in the side so that he could feel the point of her second dagger pressed against his kidney.

  “Please,” he moaned. “I—”

  “I like it when men beg,” she said. “But this isn’t the time for it.”

  Below, she could see Geels’ chest rising and falling with panicked breaths. “Van Daal!” he shouted again. There was rage on his face when he turned back to Kaz. “Always one step ahead, aren’t you?”

  “Geels, when it comes to you, I’d say I have a running start.”

  But Geels just smiled—a tiny smile, tight and satisfied. A victor’s smile, Inej realized with fresh fear.

  “The race isn’t over yet.” Geels reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavy black pistol.

  “Finally,” Kaz said. “The big reveal. Now Jesper can stop keening over Bolliger like a wet-eyed woman.”

  Jesper stared at the gun with stunned, furious eyes. “Bolliger searched him. He … Oh, Big Bol, you idiot,” he groaned.

  Inej couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The guard in her arms released a tiny squeak. In her anger and surprise, she’d accidentally tightened her grip. “Relax,” she said, easing her hold. But, all Saints, she wanted to put a
knife through something. Big Bolliger had been the one to pat down Geels. There was no way he could have missed the pistol. He’d betrayed them.

  Was that why Kaz had insisted on bringing Big Bolliger here tonight—so he’d have public confirmation that Bolliger had gone over to the Black Tips? It was certainly why he’d let Holst put a bullet in Bolliger’s gut. But so what? Now everyone knew Big Bol was a traitor. Kaz still had a gun pointed at his chest.

  Geels smirked. “Kaz Brekker, the great escape artist. How are you going to wriggle your way out of this one?”

  “Going out the same way I came in.” Kaz ignored the pistol, turning his attention to the big man lying on the ground. “Do you know what your problem is, Bolliger?” He jabbed at the wound in Big Bol’s stomach with the tip of his cane. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. Do you know what your biggest problem is?”

  Bolliger mewled. “Noooo…”

  “Give me a guess,” Kaz hissed.

  Big Bol said nothing, just released another trembling whimper.

  “All right, I’ll tell you. You’re lazy. I know it. Everyone knows it. So I had to ask myself why my laziest bouncer was getting up early twice a week to walk two extra miles to Cilla’s Fry for breakfast, especially when the eggs are so much better at the Kooperom. Big Bol becomes an early riser, the Black Tips start throwing their weight around Fifth Harbor and then intercept our biggest shipment of jurda. It wasn’t a tough connection to make.” He sighed and said to Geels, “This is what happens when stupid people start making big plans, ja?”

  “Doesn’t matter much now, does it?” replied Geels. “This gets ugly, I’m shooting from close range. Maybe your guards get me or my guys, but no way you’re going to dodge this bullet.”

  Kaz stepped into the barrel of the gun so that it was pressed directly against his chest. “No way at all, Geels.”

  “You think I won’t do it?”

  “Oh, I think you’d do it gladly, with a song in your black heart. But you won’t. Not tonight.”

  Geels’ finger twitched on the trigger.

  “Kaz,” Jesper said. “This whole ‘shoot me’ thing is starting to concern me.”

  Oomen didn’t bother to object to Jesper mouthing off this time. One man was down. Neutral territory had been violated. The sharp tang of gunpowder already hung in the air—and along with it a question, unspoken in the quiet, as if the Reaper himself awaited the answer: How much blood will be shed tonight?

  In the distance a siren wailed.

  “Nineteen Burstraat,” Kaz said.

  Geels had been shifting slightly from foot to foot; now he went very still.

  “That’s your girl’s address, isn’t it, Geels?”

  Geels swallowed. “Don’t have a girl.”

  “Oh yes, you do,” crooned Kaz. “She’s pretty, too. Well, pretty enough for a fink like you. Seems sweet. You love her, don’t you?” Even from the rooftop, Inej could see the sheen of sweat on Geels’ waxen face. “Of course you do. No one that fine should ever have looked twice at Barrel scum like you, but she’s different. She finds you charming. Sure sign of madness if you ask me, but love is strange that way. Does she like to rest her pretty head on your shoulder? Listen to you talk about your day?”

  Geels looked at Kaz as if he was finally seeing him for the first time. The boy he’d been talking to had been cocky, reckless, easily amused, but not frightening—not really. Now the monster was here, dead-eyed and unafraid. Kaz Brekker was gone, and Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.

  “She lives at Nineteen Burstraat,” Kaz said in his gravelly rasp. “Three floors up, geraniums in the window boxes. There are two Dregs waiting outside her door right now, and if I don’t walk out of here whole and feeling righteous, they will set that place alight from floor to rooftop. It will go up in seconds, burning from both ends with poor Elise trapped in the middle. Her blond hair will catch first. Like the wick of a candle.”

  “You’re bluffing,” said Geels, but his pistol hand was trembling.

  Kaz lifted his head and inhaled deeply. “Getting late now. You heard the siren. I smell the harbor on the wind, sea and salt, and maybe—is that smoke I smell, too?” There was pleasure in his voice.

  Oh, Saints, Kaz, Inej thought miserably. What have you done now?

  Again, Geels’ finger twitched on the trigger, and Inej tensed.

  “I know, Geels. I know,” Kaz said sympathetically. “All that planning and scheming and bribing for nothing. That’s what you’re thinking right now. How bad it will feel to walk home knowing what you’ve lost. How angry your boss is going to be when you show up empty-handed and that much poorer for it. How satisfying it would be to put a bullet in my heart. You can do it. Pull the trigger. We can all go down tonight. They can take our bodies out to the Reaper’s Barge for burning, like all paupers go. Or you can take the blow to your pride, go back to Burstraat, lay your head in your girl’s lap, fall asleep still breathing, and dream of revenge. It’s up to you, Geels. Do we get to go home tonight?”

  Geels searched Kaz’s gaze, and whatever he saw there made his shoulders sag. Inej was surprised to feel a pang of pity for him. He’d walked into this place buoyed on bravado, a survivor, a champion of the Barrel. He’d leave as another victim of Kaz Brekker.

  “You’ll get what’s coming to you someday, Brekker.”

  “I will,” said Kaz, “if there’s any justice in the world. And we all know how likely that is.”

  Geels let his arm drop. The pistol hung uselessly by his side.

  Kaz stepped back, brushing the front of his shirt where the gun barrel had rested. “Go tell your general to keep the Black Tips out of Fifth Harbor and that we expect him to make amends for the shipment of jurda we lost, plus five percent for drawing steel on neutral ground and five percent more for being such a spectacular bunch of asses.”

  Then Kaz’s cane swung in a sudden sharp arc. Geels screamed as his wrist bones shattered. The gun clattered to the paving stones.

  “I stood down!” cried Geels, cradling his hand. “I stood down!”

  “You draw on me again, I’ll break both your wrists, and you’ll have to hire someone to help you take a piss.” Kaz tipped the brim of his hat up with the head of his cane. “Or maybe you can get the lovely Elise to do it for you.”

  Kaz crouched down beside Bolliger. The big man whimpered. “Look at me, Bolliger. Assuming you don’t bleed to death tonight, you have until sunset tomorrow to get out of Ketterdam. I hear you’re anywhere near the city limits, and they’ll find you stuffed in a keg at Cilla’s Fry.” Then he looked at Geels. “You help Bolliger, or I find out he’s running with the Black Tips, don’t think I won’t come after you.”

  “Please, Kaz,” moaned Bolliger.

  “You had a home, and you put a wrecking ball through the front door, Bolliger. Don’t look for sympathy from me.” He rose and checked his pocket watch. “I didn’t expect this to go on so long. I’d best be on my way or poor Elise will be getting a trifle warm.”

  Geels shook his head. “There’s something wrong with you, Brekker. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not made right.”

  Kaz cocked his head to one side. “You’re from the suburbs, aren’t you Geels? Came to the city to try your luck?” He smoothed his lapel with one gloved hand. “Well, I’m the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel.”

  Despite the loaded gun at the Black Tips’ feet, Kaz turned his back on them and limped across the cobblestones toward the eastern arch. Jesper squatted down next to Bolliger and gave him a gentle pat on the cheek. “Idiot,” he said sadly, and followed Kaz out of the Exchange.

  From the roof, Inej continued to watch as Oomen picked up and holstered Geels’ gun and the Black Tips said a few quiet words to each other.

  “Don’t leave,” Big Bolliger begged. “Don’t leave me.” He tried to cling to the cuff of Geels’ trousers.

  Geels shook him off. They left him curled on his side, leaking blood onto the cobble
stones.

  Inej plucked Van Daal’s rifle from his hands before she released him. “Go home,” she told the guard.

  He cast a single terrified glance over his shoulder and sprinted off down the walkway. Far below, Big Bol had started trying to drag himself across the floor of the Exchange. He might be stupid enough to cross Kaz Brekker, but he’d survived this long in the Barrel, and that took will. He might make it.

  Help him, a voice inside her said. Until a few moments ago, he’d been her brother in arms. It seemed wrong to leave him alone. She could go to him, offer to put him out of his misery quickly, hold his hand as he passed. She could fetch a medik to save him.

  Instead, she spoke a quick prayer in the language of her Saints and began the steep climb down the outer wall. Inej pitied the boy who might die alone with no one to comfort him in his last hours or who might live and spend his life as an exile. But the night’s work wasn’t yet over, and the Wraith didn’t have time for traitors.

  About the Author

  Leigh Bardugo is the author of the New York Times–bestselling series The Grisha Trilogy. She was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Yale University, and has worked in advertising, journalism, and, most recently, makeup and special effects. These days, she lives and writes in Hollywood, where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band.

  leighbardugo.com

  grishaverse.com

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  The Demon in the Wood