A Riddle in Ruby by Kent Davis Page A

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    R uby crept from below like a ghost in mist. The full moon had cooperated and snuck behind a bank of clouds like a coconspirator. There were shadows and dark corners everywhere. It was the kind of night Skillet had called just enough light to make trouble.
    She slipped from the shadow of the mast to an island of rope in the central deck, to the shelter under the forecastle stairs. Now that they were moving, now thatthey were in action, she let all the worries fall away. She ran her thumb over where she had carved her name in the underside of the third step. The Thrift was her place. No jumped-up, scarred-up constable would find her if she didn’t want to be found.
    Once Cram had opened the door, they held a quick council. Gwath’s strange power. His hunt for Rool. The nearby city. They settled on a desperate plan, but they had all agreed it was their only chance.
    So she sneaked up to Fat Maggie. The dim line of the hawser rolled down to the tug, and a little island of light spilled out of the wheelhouse. The city twinkled beyond, perhaps a few miles away. By morning at the latest, the tug would bring them into dock, and the ship would be flooded with soldiers and sailors and chemystral monsters. They were truly flushed rabbits, and the hunters were closing.
    She threw one of the wood nails she had brought with her, and it made a solid clack on the wall next to the stairs. At the signal Athen and Cram sneaked out of the door to the lifeboat hanging from hooks on the portside. Ruby scanned the rear deck and the water below for sinister shadows as the two began to lower the little vessel over the side. This was a game of cats and mice. She understood mice more deeply at that moment than ever in her life. Whether or not the cats are fighting, the mouse just wants to go on its way.
    Behind her, down on the deck, Cram muffled a curse. It carried like a gunshot in the ocean air. She whirled to see what had happened, and Wisdom Rool was there before her.
    â€œYou’re quite the little sneaker, Ruby Teach,” Rool said. He was dripping water head to toe, and one arm was lashed to his shoulder with a sling of torn sail.
    Ruby backed against Fat Maggie.
    â€œQuiet now. Your two compatriots have just discovered that there is a fist-size hole in that lifeboat, and the prissy one at least will deduce that the thing will begin sinking the moment it hits the water.” He closed in a step, looming over her. “You and I have unfinished business. Now, duty still requires that I offer you the opportunity to surrender and avoid any unpleasantactions, which may, perhaps, descend upon you and your allies. What say you?”
    The man was a demon. Terror clawed up her legs and fixed its claws around her throat. She couldn’t speak. She needed to summon a ruse, to pretend, to make it all better and trick him into letting them go.
    Nothing came.
    She fumbled under her dress, drawing her knives.
    Rool laughed. “I was hoping you would say that.” His good right hand snaked forward, knocked one knife to the deck, and then flashed to the other hand, where he bent her wrist. She heard a pop. She gasped. He snatched the knife from the air as it fell toward the deck.
    She tried to seize the moment and darted past him, but his foot lashed out and took her ankle from under her. She fell to the deck, and the first knife skittered over the edge.
    Rool unlimbered the sack with his wounded arm and let it hang open. He was not a demon. He was a demonic ratcatcher, and she was as helpless as a rodent in a trap.
    The moon came out, time slowed, and she wonderedif Wisdom Rool was the last thing she would see for quite some time. Staring up at his empty eyes, she was perfectly positioned to see the shape of Gwath drop like vengeance toward him from the rigging, high above.
    She was also perfectly positioned to see Rool spin and plant her knife squarely in Gwath’s chest before he slammed into the deck next to