The Five Faces (The Markhat Files) Read Online Free Page B

moment, my man is about to whisper in my ear,” he said. “He’ll be telling me what your friend from this morning told him. Last chance, Markhat. You want to talk about dogs named Cornbread, or you want to talk about the faces?”
    “I told you the truth, Captain. All of it.”
    The Watchman came inside and leaned by Captain Holder’s ear.
    It took him maybe ten seconds to tell it all, and ten seconds for a big vein in Holder’s sweaty forehead to start throbbing.
    I lifted my hands and spread them.
    “I went to the docks looking for a dog-fighting ring,” I said. “And a man in a wide-brimmed hat who speaks with an accent. That’s all I know. That’s all Mr. Penny the weedhead knows. I’m looking for a dog named Cornbread, because I was a dog handler during the War and my wife thinks I’m adorable. What’s this about faces, Captain? Because it’s the first time I’ve heard mention of—”
    The Captain stood. He glared at me and raised his hand and for one awful moment, I was sure he was pointing me out to his men so there’d be no mistaking who to beat and then arrest.
    “I don’t believe a damned word you say,” he said. His men, all of them, were a single syllable, the smallest motion, from mayhem. “If I find—when I find—you lied to me, I’ll put you down so deep they’ll lower your slop with a bucket and a winch. Stay out of my way, Markhat. Avalante be damned. Get in my way and I’ll end you.”
    He stormed out.
    His men turned to follow.
    “Nice of you to stop by,” I said. “Always happy to assist the Watch with their enquiries.”
    The last one out was kind enough to close my door.
    I let out the breath I’d been holding. I paced until my nerves were settled, and then I pulled out my notepad and doodled until I heard Mama’s heavy footsteps sound outside.
    “Boy?” She stuck her head in my door. “You alive in there?”
    “I’m fine,” I said. “Made some new friends. How many are still out there watching?”
    “Four, maybe five,” she said. “Ain’t got a damned lick of sense between ’em, neither. Might as well be flyin’ kites and wearin’ skirts. This ain’t about no dog. Boy, what you got mixed up in?”
    I sketched a Watchman in a skirt, a kite string in his hand.
    “People keep asking me that. Wish I knew,” I said.
    I settled back, applied my keen intellect to the matter at hand, and was napping before Mama’s footsteps faded as she stomped her way home.

Chapter Five
    Some sixth sense woke me just before the scrap of paper came sliding under my door.
    I found my gun and kept it in hand for the count of ten. But no one knocked. No one tried the latch. Traffic was heavy on Cambrit, both horsedrawn and pedestrian, so I didn’t hear my note-slider leave.
    I got up and peeked through my fancy glass anyway. Ogres rushed past, hauling their carts of night soil west toward the tanneries. People walked the streets, squinting in the sun. Mr. Bull pushed his ancient broom across his smooth-worn stoop and maintained an animated conversation with his tireless, silent shadow.
    I used the toe of my shoe to push the scrap of paper into the patch of light my door-glass let through. The note had been folded, which meant it might bear hex signs, and the last thing I needed for lunch was a generous portion of killing magic.
    I have learned a few things from Mama over the years. I filled a copper pan with moon-shone salt, and lit four white candles, one at each corner of the pan. I spat in the salt three times, and then I used my Army knife to put the note down centered in the salt. I threw three pinches of salt on the paper, turned around three times while holding my breath, and then I used my knife to unfold the note.
    I KNOE THE DOG FIGHT MAN, it read. METE TONITE ALLEY BY LONGSWAITE AND COOPERS. COME ALONE HOUR PAST CURFEW BRING CROWN I GIVE YOU NAME.
    I turned the paper over. It was half of one of the nuisance waybills the Regent outlawed right after he outlawed the