Pausing at Mercat Cross, I tried to decide. Turning left would take me towards the dank chasm of organised crime. There was a feud currently erupting between the Badgemen and the Understreets, which I could certainly make use of. The trouble was that feuds of that nature often fizzled out before they really got started; if I filched information from one side to sell to the other, I could make more enemies than I needed. I liked my head where it was, thank you very much.
Heading right would take me to party land. This being a Saturday night, there would be plenty of our supposed lords and masters out on the lash and ripe for my picking. The wealthy humans in Stirling enjoyed considerably greater privileges and freedom than the rest of us because the Filits were always prepared to grant them concessions to keep them on side. The trouble was that sifting through the murky silt of their lives to obtain something I could sell on was harder than you might think – and there was the chance that I’d come away with little of value. On measure, however, it seemed a better bet. I was certainly better at nit-picking than I used to be; in this line of work, experience counted for a great deal.
I shrugged and my shadow rippled against the lit torches surrounding the semi-circle of hanging nooses, all the more sinister for lying empty as if in wait. I turned right, allowing my dark form to mingle and disappear against the darkness of the stone wall. The fake smiles of the semi-bourgeoisie it would be. I decided that an unplanned pregnancy or some new, spiked designer drugs would go down well. It was time to begin prowling in earnest.
The nearest club was wealthy enough to afford its own generator, although the light outside the door was not exactly bright. Still, it marked the place as glitzy and helped to illuminate the long, snaking line outside. I cast an experienced eye along the queue. There were a few faces I recognised, but those stars had already fallen. If I could discover someone who’d not yet begun their descent, I might be in with the chance of making some real money. And real money meant real food. The prospect of buying bread that hadn’t been bulked out with sawdust made my mouth water.
As it was early, I decided to look for a less busy but more up-and-coming venue, the sort of place that was too trendy for its own good and still had strict guest lists. The more exclusive the clientele, the greater potential there was for valuable secrets and high gains. I’d give myself an hour, ninety minutes tops, then I’d wheel back here and aim at some lower targets. The nights were short at this time of year and I had to get home before dawn. I couldn’t risk my shadow being spotted – and that was very possible in the full light of day. The reason I was still alive and free was because I was both cautious and careful.
I pitter-pattered down the street, veering round a gaggle of girls who’d stopped briefly to re-do their make-up. I kept one ear cocked for any interesting scraps of conversation but their focus was on Elizabeth Arden, Bobbi Brown and Coco Chanel, none of whom aided my cause. A rickety bicycle with a small lamp trundled by, throwing enough light to make one of the women blink as my shadow brushed against her bare skin. It wasn’t a problem; the contact was too brief and I was gone too quickly for her to realise what she’d seen and felt. All the same, I picked up the pace. Time was ticking on.
I danced past the Wonky Wallace and slid away from Sparkle. I’d gleaned enough on recent outings to know that Kanji had finally opened, offering a supposedly Zen-like escape from the pain of living in a besieged city. If a Japanese nightclub was an odd thing to find in a small Scottish city under both goblin siege and goblin rule, no one commented on it.
To enter through those hallowed gates you had to be more than able to obtain branded lipstick on the black market, or have enough money squirrelled away to pay for a dusty bottle of Glenmorangie instead of its lethal home-brewed equivalent. Word was that the club was owned by a conglomerate of Japanese baku, minor demons with enough spare cash to settle in for the long haul and wait for the siege to end. They must have greased plenty of Filit and Gneiss palms to get the club opened. Apparently they wanted to forge relationships and prepare deals for whoever was still alive, wealthy and powerful when all this nonsense was finally over. Except this was already our third summer in and there was no end in sight.
I’d heard enough to know that the facts didn’t sit straight. I didn’t know who really owned Kanji but I reckoned it was something far nastier and less honourable than a few long-sighted baku. If I’d thought for one second that the real owner’s identity was a good enough secret to unearth, I’d have moved hell and high water to get to the truth but I couldn’t think of anyone who’d pay sufficient money for the knowledge to make the effort worthwhile.
In any case, I knew that the clientele currently being lured towards Kanji’s wooden torii were considered elite. They had to offer something worthwhile to the owners to gain entrance. Money wasn’t the only valuable currency; given that Kanji’s owners were located outside the city walls, far away from the siege and the problems it incurred, they would trade for favours and promises as much as for hard cash. And the owners had to keep those black-market alcohol import lines open somehow. There was no doubt they were playing both sides and hedging their bets until there was a winner and life settled back down again to a semblance of normality.
Perhaps the club owners could be thanked for the recent break in shelling by sending oily whispers in the direction of the Gneiss goblins. I would never know for sure; the circles where those sort of deals were struck were well out of even my reach. Still, the chatter of the high-class guests sipping champagne and lounging within Kanji’s high walls could feed me for a month. I just had to find the right conversations to eavesdrop.
As I slid up to the entrance, which remained free of the hopeful queues that had adorned the other clubs, a group of rowdy men rocked up. Their banter was as distasteful as their clothing; the latter displayed the fact that they could circumvent the siege and get whatever designer gear they wanted.
‘I’m telling you,’ the nearest said loudly, in a voice that grated on my ears, ‘if you head down towards the old quarter, you can find girls of any age who’ll drop their kegs for you. I had a blonde thing the other night who agreed three hours in return for a pound of rice. She wasn’t smart enough to ask for a down-payment first, so I took what I wanted and left her with nothing. There wasn’t a thing she could do about it. The militia don’t care and she knows it.’
‘Nice work.’
He gave a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘In that case, Murthers,’ drawled another, ‘why don’t we go there instead of here? They’re not going to let us in.’
‘They’ll let us in. They know who I am and what I’m capable of.’ Murthers sauntered through the torii towards the shuttered door, raising one fist to hammer out an insistent knock.
The door opened a fraction and the swarthy face of a goblin appeared. Even I was surprised at that. Kanji’s owner, whoever he was, really did have friends in high places. I slid my shadow past him, only brushing lightly against his stocky body. The goblin shivered slightly while I shuddered – but his focus was on the men. ‘Get lost,’ he muttered to them, as I moved deeper inside.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
The goblin slammed the door shut, swallowing up the rest of Murther’s words. I grinned before skulking into the belly of the Kanji beast.
The interior of the club surprised me. It had a far more authentic air than I expected. I trailed down a wide, wooden-floored corridor, wondering how they’d managed to acquire so many fragile objets d’art to adorn the high shelves. No doubt they’d been ransacking long-abandoned mansions.
Unable to resist, I reached out and touched a tall vase, using just enough energy to send it toppling to the floor with a crash. Behind me the goblin gasped and skittered forward. It was a petty thing to do but it was satisfying. If, despite the siege, they could bring in pretty chinaware then they could bring in food. A thousand years of history was all very well but if there was no one left to appreciate it, it was pointless. You couldn’t eat art.
I followed the murmur of voices and low music until I arrived in a large, dimly lit room. No showy, expensive electricity was wasted here; the sparse tables were illuminated only by candles. They had to be a fire hazard with all the draped wall hangings and paper wall dividers. I resisted the urge to knock over a candle and see what happened because Kanji could prove very fruitful for me, both now and in the future. I sneaked round, pausing to identify various occupants and see what I could learn. There were fewer than eighty people there, including the staff who almost outnumbered the guests. Yep. This place was all about exclusivity rather than profit. How very, very interesting.
Seated at a table by the front of the stage were four people I recognised instantly: Isabella Markbury and her ever-present entourage. The last rumour I’d heard concerning her was that she’d been killed in the four-day-long April bombardment, when the Gneiss goblins had sent a barrage of Greek-fire canisters flying over the river towards the Forthside District. Apparently only Tilly, her best friend, had managed to escape, pausing just long enough to snag Isabella’s Jimmy Choos. Neither Isabella, Tilly, nor the purple-haired twins beside them had been heard of since. Clearly none of them were actually dead, however. It wasn’t earth-shattering information but it might be worth a few bob.