The Penitent Damned by Django Wexler Page B

was no surprise that enough money had made a liar out of the Old Man. They'd been at a loose end after a successful job in Hamvelt had produced more heat than they'd bargained for and sent them fleeing south and west towards the mountainous country near the border. Even still, when word had come through the Old Man's labyrinthine network of contacts that a proposition was on offer in Vordan with an almost ludicrous sum of money attached to it, he'd come close to turning up his nose at it. Alex had worked hard to convince him that they should take the deal; the fact that the job was obviously impossible only sweetened the pot.
    Besides, she thought, if it's impossible, they'll let their guard down.
    Alex liked impossible things. It was impossible to jump from one tenement block to the next, for example. You'd need a grappling hook and a lot of line, and even if it found purchase on the rotten shingles crossing would be a dangerously long and noisy endeavor.
    She herself was impossible, after all. In this day and age, who believed in magic?
    At the corner of the tenement roof, she paused, perched like a gargoyle. Twenty-five feet across the way, another hulk of a brick building loomed. A few lights flickered weakly in window frames on the upper stories, but lower down the shutters were tightly closed. It certainly wasn't impossible to climb one of these buildings from the outside—indeed, with their flaking mortar and crumbling bricks, it wasn't even a challenge. It was reasonable to assume, therefore, that the targets had taken some precautions against a stealthy approach from below . But from above?
    Alex spread her arms like an orchestra conductor, raised her hands, and smiled. Liquid darkness rushed out of her cuffs, flowed over her hands like ink, and spread outward.
     
    · · ·
     
    "Always try to think like the target," the Old Man had told her, that morning. " Be the target, as close as you can. Whatever you're trying to steal, hold it close to your heart, and think what you might do if you heard a bad man like me was going to come and take it from you."
    He laughed, his ancient, wheezing laugh that showed off empty gums. Once upon a time he'd been a legend, the master thief Metzing, scourge of the burghers of Hamvelt and merchant houses all across the League cities. By the time Alex had met him, he was seventy years old if he was a day, and while he remained surprisingly spry his thieving days were done.
    Alex had heard it all before. She was more interested in breakfast, which was steak and eggs done with some kind of runny cheese you didn't get in the League cities. Vordanai cuisine had some odd eccentricities, she'd discovered in her brief time in the city, but for the most part it was delicious. Except for the sausages. She taken a bite of one she'd bought from a street vendor and sworn off ground meat for the duration.
    The Old Man glared at her, and she realized she'd forgotten to offer the proper attentive noises. Her mouth was full of egg, so all she could do was nod vigorously, to show she'd understood. He snorted and waved a dismissive hand.
    "You don't listen," he said. "But you never did, so why should I be surprised?"
    Alex swallowed. "I'm listening. I'm listening!"
    "Fine, then you listen but you don't hear ." He sighed and sank back in his chair. "We should never have come here."
    "What, to this inn?"
    It was quite a nice one, in fact, on the eastern end of the Island, as the Vordanai termed their most fashionable district. The Old Man always said that people expected to find thieves in low dives and cheap flophouses, so any thief who cared to avoid attention would avoid such places at all costs. Alex secretly thought that he'd simply acquired a taste for luxury during his illustrious career, but she wasn't complaining. They sat at their own table in the well-appointed common room, with leather chairs and well-dressed waiters bowing whenever Alex raised a finger. Beside them was a window made of real