Eight of Sparrows

the offer pt.1

As Chan emerged from the eastern arch, cheers greeted him, Jisung was trailing behind, and if Chan was any judge, already working himself into a sulk. The idiot was always too vulnerable. Dirix, Rotty, and the others charged towards them, whooping and shouting with Jisung's revolvers held aloft. The crew had gotten the barest glimpse of the proceedings tonight with Geels', but they had heard most of it. Now they were chanting, "The Bursraat is on fire! The Dregs don't have no water!" Gossiping aunts the lot of them.

They were shouting over one another, saying statements like, "I can't believe he just turned head and tail!", "He had a loaded gun in his hand!", "The idiot bidded away all his coins!" Chan knew this was entertaining to them, and the question that stuck out to him the most was; "Tell us what you had on the guard, Chan."

"I'm not talking, Holst could be useful to us in the future." Chan said. The overall mood was jittery and their laughter had the frantic serration that came with disaster. Some of them had expected a fight and were still itching for one. Chan knew there was more to it, and he hadn't missed how no one had mentioned Big Bolliger's name. They'd been badly shaken by his betrayal—both the revelation and the way Chan had handled his punishment. Beneath all the jostling and whooping, there was fear. Good. Chan relied on the fact that the Dregs were murderers, thieves, and lairs. All of them were dirty and rotten. He just had to make sure they wouldn't go running off and make a habit of lying to him.

Chan dispatched two of them to keep an eye on Big Bolliger and to make sure that if he made it to his feet, he left the city. Immediately. The rest could return to the Slat and the Sparrows Den to drink off their worry, make some trouble, and spread the word of the night's events. They'd tell what they'd seen, embroidery the rest, and with every retelling, Christopher would get more and more ruthless. But Chan had business to attend to, and his first stop would be Fifth Harbor.

Jisung stepped into his path, "You should have let me know about Big Bolliger," he said in a furious whisper. Chan knew he could have and possibly would have but that doesn't change things now. "Don't tell me my business, Ji."

"You think I'm dirty too, Chan?"

"If I thought you were dirty, you'd be holding your guts in on the floor of the Exchange like Big Bol, so stop running your mouth." Jesper shook his head at Chan's reply to his question, and rested his hands on the revolvers he reclaimed from Dirix. Whenever he got cranky, he liked to lay hands on a gun, like a child seeking the comfort of a favored doll.

It would have been easy enough to make peace. Chan could have told Jisung he knew he wasn't dirty, reminded him that he'd trusted him enough to make him his only real second in a fight that could have gone badly wrong tonight. Instead, he said, "Go on, Jisung. There's a line of credit waiting for you at the Sparrows Den. Play till morning or your luck runs out, whatever comes first."

Jisung scowled, but he couldn't keep the hungry gleam from his eyes, "Another bribe?"

"I'm a creature of habit."

"Lucky for you, I am, too." He hesitated long enough to say, "You don't want us with you? Geels' boys are gonna be riled after that."

"Let them come," Kaz said, and turned down Nemstraat without another word. If you couldn't walk by yourself through Seoul after dark, then you might as well just hang a sign that read "soft" around your neck and lie down for a beating.

He could feel the Dregs' eyes on his back as he headed over the bridge. He didn't need to hear their whispers to know what they would say. They wanted to drink with him, hear him explain how he'd known Big Bolliger had gone over to the Black Tips, listen to him describe the look in Geels' eyes when he'd dropped his pistol. But they'd never get it from Kaz, and if they didn't like it, they could find another crew to run with.