Blood Engines(4)

 

“What do you want?” the girl asked, in clear, unaccented English.

 

Marla looked at the master. He was expressionless, but she suspected he could understand English as well as the girl could. “I need information.”

 

The old man shook his head and bowed a fraction of a degree.

 

“We sell herbs, not information,” the apprentice said. She was trying to watch both Marla and Rondeau, which was difficult, as Rondeau had begun absentmindedly wandering around the shop, prodding at things.

 

“I’m looking for a man named Lao Tsung,” Marla said.

 

The old man sniffed. The apprentice sneered, no longer pretending to be polite. “And you think all Chinese people know one another?”

 

Marla rolled her eyes. “Look, where I’m from, we keep track of all the important sorcerers who come around. Lao Tsung’s been living in the city for years, and he’s got power. He’s not actually Chinese anyway. He’s a very long-lived Mesopotamian, if that makes you feel any better. I figured you might know where he is, that’s all. If you can’t help me…”

 

The old man looked meditatively at the ceiling. “One thousand dollars,” he said, his English crisp and faintly British. “That is the price of the information you seek.”

 

Marla frowned. “Look, I could cut open a chicken and stir around its guts and find Lao Tsung—I’ve got the gift of haruspexy. I just thought it would be less bloody to ask the locals. I don’t want to step on any toes, I just want to do my business and leave.”

 

“Haruspexy will not work. Try it if you want, but don’t come back after. Already you waste our time. One thousand dollars.”

 

Marla sighed and called Rondeau over.

 

He was holding half the money, which was perhaps a mistake, but he’d insisted. If Marla died in an earthquake, he’d said, how would he afford to get home? He gave the bills to Marla, and she passed them on to the apprentice, who examined them and nodded.

 

“Lao Tsung is dead,” the old man said, without apparent pleasure.

 

“Bullshit,” Marla said. “He’s been alive for centuries, he came here specifically to get his cancer healed, and it worked. How can he be dead?”

 

“The answer to that question will cost one thousand dollars.”

 

Marla was over the counter before the old man could even step back, pressing a dagger into his belly. He opened his mouth—presumably to loose some spell—and Marla shoved a wad of cash between his teeth, silencing him. “As you can see, it’s not about the money. I just don’t like having my time wasted. And Lao Tsung was a friend.”

 

The apprentice was speaking quietly to herself, and Marla sighed. “Rondeau?”

 

“Yup,” he said, and drew his butterfly knife, flipping it open with the ease bred of a lifetime on—and under—the streets. “Okay, so be quiet, or I’ll have to cut your throat or something, and I just got this suit, so that would suck for both of us.”

 

The apprentice stopped talking. “You are not sorcerers,” she said. “You are thugs.”

 

“There’s a time and a place for magic,” Marla said, “but it’s a bad idea to get too dependent on the abracadabras.” She returned her attention to the old man, who did not look terrified, or angry, or anything at all; his expression was impossible to interpret. “I’m going to take this money out of your mouth, and give it to your apprentice, and then you’ll consider yourself paid in full, and tell me everything I need to know about Lao Tsung, okay? And if you get itchy for revenge, let me tell you who I am—I’m Marla Mason. I run the city of Felport, and if you haven’t heard of me before…well, I can make a name for myself on this coast by doing something incredibly nasty to you. But like I said, I just want to do my business and be on my way. Agreed?”

 

The old man nodded.

 

Marla took the wad of paper from his mouth and handed it to the assistant, who began straightening the cash on the counter, spreading the bills out, smoothing the wrinkles, making piles. The master must be a disciplinarian son of a bitch, Marla thought. “So,” she said. “Lao Tsung.”

 

The old man mumbled something in Chinese.

 

“As we told you, Lao Tsung is dead,” the apprentice said, without looking up from the money, apparently unconcerned with Rondeau and his knife. “He was killed this morning by frogs.”

 

Marla repeated those words to herself—“killed this morning by frogs”—considering the possibility that it was some idiom translating badly. “He was killed by French people?” she said at last, frowning.