Brechalon Read Online Free Page B

tail
off.”
    Ssissiatok hunkered down to make herself look
smaller and turned toward the village, hurrying through the forest.
Behind her she could hear the stranger. He was once again making
the strange warbling cry.
    * * * * *
    This was another part of the city that Terrence
Dechantagne knew well. It was known to the rest of the city as The
Bottom and to those who lived there as Black Bottom. It was a
section of the town built on land sloping down toward the River
Thiss and it seemed as if it was perpetually falling into the green
waters. Besides thousands of two and three story houses that all
seemed to be either leaning toward the river because of the sloping
land or leaning in the other direction in hopes of countering the
slope, there were countless seedy pubs, sordid meeting houses, and
hidden drug dens.
    Terrence drove his sister’s steam carriage down
Contico Boulevard, past the ancient stone buildings of the Old City
and past the sea of tenement apartments, turning off into the dark
and winding roads of Black Bottom. His vehicle was the only powered
one on the road here. Foot traffic predominated, though there were
quite a few horses, either pulling carriages or being ridden. There
were enough of them that there was a two foot tall embankment of
horse manure that ran down either side of the road. Flies filled
the air almost as thickly as did the stench.
    Following a series of alleys that would have
confused anyone not intimately familiar with the area, Terrence
brought the vehicle to a stop in front of a nondescript house. He
peeled off his driving gloves and tossed them onto the seat next to
him, and then he climbed down. The only light came from the dim
headlamps and the tiny sliver of moon, but Terrence didn’t need
either to detect the three men coming toward him from the shadows
between two houses on the other side of the street. The foremost
had a knife. The second carried a cricket bat. The third one was a
big man. He didn’t seem to have a weapon, probably thought he
didn’t need one.
    “ Hey blue coat. You can’t park here
unless you pay the…” The man stopped talking when Terrence shoved
the barrel of his forty five into the man’s mouth.
    “ You’re not going to talk to me
anymore,” said Terrence. He looked at the other two. “Either one of
you talk?”
    “ Put that away,” said the second
man.
    “ I’m not taking orders right now
either. This fellow a friend of yours?”
    “ My brother.”
    “ Then I take it you don’t want me
to splatter his brains across the street.”
    “ You won’t. People like you follow
the law.”
    “ People like me are the law,” said
Terrence. “Your brother and I are going inside. When we come out
again, I’ll pay your toll or whatever you want to call it. But.
Anybody touches my car, bothers me, or brasses me off in any way,
and I make you a little closer to being an only child.”
    Terrence guided the man, still sucking on the
barrel of his pistol and now walking backwards, around the car and
to the door of the building. He rapped the door three times and it
opened an inch.
    “ I’m here to see Blackwood,” said
Terrence.
    The door opened and Terrence pushed himself and
his unwilling companion through. Inside was a large dark room. The
person who had let them in turned out to be at least as large as
the muscle in the street. He loomed over both of them and most
people would have been intimidated. There was no furniture in the
room and the dozen or so people there in various states of
unconsciousness were sprawled out across the floor.
    “ I’m here to see Blackwood,” said
Terrence again.
    “ Nobody sees him unless I say they
do,” said the big man, his deep voice just as menacing as his
physical presence.
    “’ Salright, Teddy. Dechantagne’s an
old friend.”
    Blackwood came down the stairs at the far end
of the room. He was a small man with a head of thick, curly, red
hair and a cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth.