Tyler Kyle's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Tyler came up through a hatch two lanes over from Obsqora's, where the tunnel bent under a quiet street. He pushed the lid aside and climbed out into weeds by the curb. The stone strip of road ran empty in both directions, yellow lines fresh, sidewalks bare. He set the lid back and stood on the crosswalk a moment, listening. No boots. No birds. He had a second faction to poison and no clean hand to do it with. He knew the play. Angello's faction already believed a rival had grabbed their cardinal. If a third faction found proof pointing the same way, the two would close on the middle one together. But Tyler could not walk into any den. His face was on paper. Obsqora was burned. He needed a courier who was not him and not her. He found the man he wanted at a stall on the next block, buying dried meat with his off hand. Rashid Ali. Three fingers on the bow hand, blue turban gone dusty at the wrap. A hunter of the third faction, and one Tyler had watched for two weeks — the kind who worked alone and did not gossip. Tyler did not approach him. He waited until Rashid moved off, then dropped a folded scrap of oilcloth in the gutter behind him, weighted with a bent nail. On the cloth: a rough sketch of a hunter-issue harness buckle, the middle faction's mark scratched beside it, and a lane name where the cardinal had last flown. Nothing signed. Nothing false enough to test. Every mark on it was real. Rashid stopped at the corner. He did not turn. He tipped his head at the gutter, waited, then crouched and lifted the cloth like a man checking his bootlace. He read it once. He put it inside his coat. "Who left this," Rashid said. Flat. Not loud. Tyler stayed behind the post of a lamp two doors down. He kept his hands in his pockets. "Someone who watched the harness burn," he said. Rashid did not look for him. "Names." "On the cloth." "Your name." "Closed." Rashid was quiet a beat. "Then this is closed too, if it lies." "It doesn't." Rashid walked. He did not look back. He turned toward his own faction's side of the woods and kept a working pace, the cloth still inside his coat. Tyler waited until the street was empty again, then stepped off the crosswalk into the alley shadow. Two factions now had the middle one's mark in their hands, from two different mouths. The rift would widen on its own. But Rashid had heard his voice. Rashid did not forget voices — that was the whole reason Tyler had picked him. If the cloth held up, Tyler had a weapon. If it didn't, a third hunter would come looking, and this one already knew the sound of him.