“Funny you should say home,” Cari teased, a sly smirk curling over her impish features. “Where exactly is that now? The warehouse or… the Court.”
“Wherever my cat’s at, brat,” I snarked back. “Keep up, will you. That’s Spicy Kat right over there.”
Working past the outer fringes of the Market brought us to the serious core of the place, where shouting and dealing happened at a furiously fast pace and where anything could be had for a bit of coin and some favors. We were shoulder to shoulder with chefs looking to bring something unique back to their restaurants, jostled about as they went from stall to stall, pinching bits of powder between their fingers and sniffing at the aromatics much like a Regency aristocrat pulled a bit of snuff from the mons of their hand.
The scents were nearly as overpowering as the wash of colors, assailing us in waves from curries to teas with a bit of pungent unknowns folded in between. The worst part was keeping Cari focused on moving forward. As much as she loved to delve into the exotic spices from far-off cultures, the hibiki in her blood drew her to the mounds of vibrant powders and leaves, entranced by the potential power trapped within. Avarice gleamed in the depths of her dark, hooded eyes, and I could practically see her mouth watering at a stall specializing in different types of garlic.
“Keep your head on you, Cari,” I scolded, hooking my hand under her elbow. “You can come back and play witch later. For right now, I need info.”
Spicy Kat saw me before I could get Cari moving, and she glanced about, gauging the crowd. Round-faced and freckled, Kat was typical of the understreet dwellers—mixed race with pulls of Japanese and a few other things tossed in for good measure. A bit taller than the gaggle of Korean women gathered around her stall, she was able to get a clear line of sight on me, her chin raised up when I began to work around people. The swing of her leather jacket was heavy, a clear sign it was armored, but she’d left it open, displaying a worn gray T-shirt printed with the oak tree logo of her spice stall. A slash of pink lipstick was her only concession to makeup, but she’d already chewed off a bit of it, probably digging her teeth in when she bargained someone up from a low price. Every bargain with Kat was like pulling teeth, and she took pride in making each coin scream before she handed it over.
“You wait until I’m done here,” Kat grumbled at me, measuring out a bit of saffron from a basket. “And don’t touch anything. I don’t want to have to watch your thieving fingers.”
“I have never stolen anything from you in my entire life,” I scoffed. “Your spices are stale and weak. I’d be better off scraping up sawdust from the chair-carver in the third quarter.”
“Pele’s fire, and you’re wearing a badge. Why not just bring a health inspector with you.” Her eyes narrowed even further, and she glanced quickly at the women clustered around a bin of orange-rind tea. “Do not lose this sale for me, Gracen.”
“Then don’t accuse me of stealing,” I shot back, keeping my hand on Cari’s elbow, trying to make sure she stayed out of the way. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll let this one go, and she will shop until her fingers are bloody from testing things out. Probably pay your month’s stall rent.”
“Stop that,” Cari hissed. “Let go. I’m going to go look. You can go do whatever it is you need to, but I’ve got my eye on those lime leaves.”
I waited as Kat dickered and dealt. There were eyes on us, or at least me, but none of the people staring looked like they were either curious about an elfin in their midst or concerned about the badge markers plastered on my jacket and at my waist. The weight of my guns was a reassuring press against my back and hips. I was uneasy—more so after Gibbons—but it seemed like a typical day at the Market, people more concerned with getting in and out before the evening rolled in and things got dangerous than some Stalker slowing business down for a spice seller.
“Lara, come ring these up,” Kat called out to her assistant, a pale wraith of a woman hovering near Cari. “Then sell that one everything under the sun. Don’t let her bargain you down.”
“Good luck with that.” I nodded toward Cari. “She came out of her mother haggling for a deal.”
“Come over here.” Kat motioned me to the back of the stall. “Let’s go talk in the bay.”
As a generational-legacy stall owner, Kat’s family secured a spot up against one of the buildings and used a docking bay as a lock-down area for her stall and inventory when the Market closed at night. The rectangular bay was empty, except for a few barrels of supplies and a pair of folding chairs set around an empty wire spool Kat and probably her mother before her used as a table. It was gouged out with pencil and pen marks with a few scorches of cigarette burns here and there. Kat sat, flopping down into one of the chairs with a heaving sigh, staring up at me as she rubbed her belly.
“You going to sit?” she asked, nodding toward the other chair. “Or are you going to make my neck hurt looking up at you?”
“Sitting doesn’t seem prudent. Someone’s got a price on my head.” I debated the chair, then decided leaning against the wall was the most relaxed I was going to go. “Maybe you’ve heard about that.”
Kat crossed her arms over her chest and stared out into the Market. She chewed her lip for a moment, taking off more of the pink lipstick, then finally nodded. “Heard about it. Lot of people have. They don’t like it. But they’re also kind of wondering why you’re going after Kenny Dempsey when you don’t do bounties. That changed?”
“Just for Kenny,” I replied, my attention drifting out toward the Market as well, wondering what Kat was looking at. “I just buried his brother… my mentor—”
“Man was your father. Everyone knows that. Call it what it is,” Kat laid into me. “So you’re hunting his brother?”
“Kenny’s got a bounty on him. I take him in, he’ll make it to jail. Someone else does? Who’s to say?” If Kat knew about the price on me, she probably knew the details on Kenny. I wasn’t going to show my hand on anything about Dempsey’s original contract, but she was right; I wasn’t known for bounties. “I owe him a fair shake. At least for Dempsey’s sake.”
“Dempsey hated the bastard,” Kat spat. “But this is the kind of stupid thing you’d do. Sort of like biting off a guy’s face.”
“He was trying to kill me,” I pointed out. “Almost killed Jonas. What did you expect me to do? Just let him?”
“Nah, you don’t go after Stalkers, especially not ones as pretty and stupid as you are. You’re an easy touch. Hardly any of those around. Don’t got enough money to get rid of that banshee pack in your lake? Shoot Gracen a message and he’ll go out there and take care of it for a bag of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.”
“I’m not that bad,” I refuted. “Okay, if it’s guava jam, maybe. How about if we just cut to the quick of this so I can get out of your hair and you can go back to dealing reefer plugs tucked into your bay leaves.”
“You going to bust me?” She gave me a hairy eyeball. “Because that’s just not cool.”