The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [27]
“Woman of few words,” Dean said. “I like that. Here’s the deal, pretty one: I get half when we’re clear of the city and half when I deliver you safe and sound and without any Proctors crawling all over you. Dig?”
“How much?” I said, bracing myself for a price even worse than Dorlock’s. I’d learned one thing at least in the Nightfall Market, and that was nothing came free or easy.
Dean lifted his shoulder. His leathers and grease-spotted denim were as far from my idea of a guide as I probably was from Dean’s idea of an adventurer, but in an odd way we fit. Neither what the other thought we should be. I rather thought we complemented each other.
“Bargains are different for everyone,” Dean said. “From some I take a lot and some nothing they’ll miss at all. You’ll know when it’s time to pay up.”
I thought of Dorlock’s hand on me, and shivered. But Dean had intervened, and he hadn’t tried to con me out of my money, either.
Conrad would be decisive, show that he wasn’t worried. I gave a nod. “All right.”
“Good,” Dean agreed. “For now, we gotta shake a leg if we want to be out of raven’s sight by sunrise.” He whistled to Cal. “Saddle up, cowboy! The Night Bridge is waitin’ for us and the earth is turning fast.”
Across the Night Bridge
WE FOLLOWED DEAN away from the pipe fire, away from the music and the light. I never thought I’d regret leaving the Nightfall Market, but as the noise faded, my apprehension swelled.
The groan and creak of the ice on the Erebus River grew loud as we approached the embankment, like two giants shouting at each other.
“What kind of backwards way are you taking us?” Cal demanded. I wondered too—there was nothing on the other side of the river but the foundry, and the road was patrolled by Proctors.
Dean stopped at a set of steps slick with ice and river water. The river rushed below our feet, beneath a walkway bolted to the bulwark with flimsy rivets oozing rust. I could look down through the gaps and see black, freezing nothing waiting to swallow me whole.
“I’m taking you out,” Dean said. “What you wanted, ain’t it?” His engineer’s boots, leather over steel toes and hobnail soles, clanked on the metal as he descended the stairs.
Cal grabbed my arm and slowed my steps, so we fell paces behind Dean. “I don’t trust him, Aoife. He could be leading us right into a trap.”
I concentrated on placing my feet on the icy steps. The water whispered to me as it swept along the ancient embankment and the old sewer lines that emptied out at the base of Derleth Street. A ghoul could practically reach up and touch the sole of my foot, we were so far down.
“If I wanted to trap you,” Dean yelled back, “I would have turned right instead of left back at the Rustworks fence.” His roughened voice was loud enough to echo from the opposite bank of the river.
Even in the cold, my face flushed. I gave Cal a censuring glance. This wasn’t one of his adventures—if he made Dean cross, we’d be at the mercy of the Proctors. Or something worse.
I fell into step behind Dean, careful not to slip and pitch myself over the walkway into the water. “Why? What’s right instead of left?”
“Right is the old submersible launch. Ran the Hunleys and the diesel subs down to Cape Cod during the war. Nowadays, the mill workers come from Lowell and snatch pretty little girls like yourself to work your fingers to the bone on the assembly lines and in the mills.” He tilted his head to Cal. “Him, they’d just put a shank in his skinny gut and leave him to freeze to death on the riverbank.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said quietly.
Dean shrugged. “Now you do, miss.”
“I can handle myself,” Cal huffed. “And you’re going to find out if you keep up the lip.”
“How much farther?” I said, attempting to keep things peaceable.
“Not far now,” Dean said. “The Night Bridge is just up and around the bend. It’s always waiting for travelers who need it, and for those who don’t … well.” He