Page 17 of The Thief's Mark

Cal seized the brief respite to draw upon his duskflame. The flickering dark fire infused his flesh, and within moments, his appearance had shifted to mimic the brute on the ground—just in time for the first goon whose nose he’d broken to recover enough to squint around.

His bleary gaze locked on Cal. “Where’d that Void-eater go?” he said, his voice high and nasally thanks to his broken nose.

Cal spun to the right and gestured frantically.“There!”

Confusion wrinkled the brute’s brow when he turned and saw his companion lying on the floor. Before he could figure out what had happened, Cal lunged forward and delivered several swift blows to his head and neck.

The thug dropped. Cal crouched down and scrambled at his belt, unhooking his cudgel. The brute hadn’t drawn it, either because Cal hadn’t given him a chance or because they wanted him and Griff alive.

Rising with the cudgel in hand, Cal shifted his illusion yet again in another burst of duskflame. This time, he adopted his usual Blackjack persona these thugs would be familiar with from The Last Drop, only with a couple of select embellishments. He added a nasty wound dripping blood down the right side of his face and made his right arm appear limp and broken, the cudgel tucked against his side out of sight.

By then, the second brute was stumbling back to his feet. His mouth twisted in a snarl. When he spotted Cal’s wounded visage, he grinned. “Looks like Dex got in a good hit or two. Guess it’s up to me to finish the job.”

Cal raised his free hand and took a step back, widening his eyes in feigned fear. “No, please! I’m sorry. I’ll be good, I promise.”

“Sure you will,” the goon chuckled. He hefted his own cudgel, slapping the heavy wood against the meat of his palm. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Cal waited until the brute had closed most of the distance and brought his cudgel back before darting forward inside the brute’s reach. The goon tried to grab him, punching at his wounded side…except of course, there was nothing actually there to hit.

Cal swung his own disguised cudgel into the back of the thug’s skull with a muffledcrack.The brute collapsed, and Cal grinned down at him.

It was almost too easy when you could take advantage of your opponent’s misconceptions the way his power allowed. Fighting him, everyone was always off-guard. It was how he’d managed to evade capture all these years.

And now that the way was clear, it was time for him to make his great escape yet again.

He hurried toward the back of the room and the window he’d rigged for a quick getaway there, only to shout in surprise assomething wrapped tightly around his limbs. He toppled to the ground, writhing to free himself. That was when he realized he was caught in a faintly glowing net.

What the Void…?

A click echoed above him, and he stilled, craning his neck to see Griff standing there. The inspector had his Vantoric revolver out and leveled at Cal, its barrel still smoking.

“I’d stay still if I were you,” Griff said. “I think it’s time we finish that chat we were having.”

Cal’s gaze flicked from Griff to the room behind him. His eyes widened when he saw the rest of the Brotherhood thugs laid out there. In the time it had taken Cal to deal with his two, Griff had knocked out two more cold and left the other two entangled in nets…just like the one now holding him.

Well, this isn’t good.

Cal scrambled desperately for an explanation the inspector would accept. Griff had been distracted by the fight. Maybe he hadn’t seen Cal use his abilities. Maybe this was still salvageable.

“Look man, I don’t know what’s going on here anymore than you do,” Cal said. “I came here to spend some time with my grandma. I was taking a nap in the back when you arrived. You must have missed me.”

“Save it,” Griff said, his face hard. “I recognize your aura. I thought there was something off about it, and I realize now what it was: duskflame. What were you doing at The Last Drop? Do you know anything about this ‘orb’ the Brotherhood is after?”

Okay, so the secret of his power was out. But that didn’t mean all was lost. He could still feign ignorance about all the rest. He’d talked himself out of worse jams than this one.

He did the best he could to cross his arms in the net and summoned a scowl. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know what’s going on here anymore than youdo, and last I checked, being a duskflamer isn’t illegal here in Sanjarka.”

“No,” Griff agreed. “It isn’t.” He cast a pointed glance toward the two thugs Cal had singlehandedly knocked out. “But somehow, I doubt that’sallyou are.”

Behind Griff, the woman in charge gave a throaty chuckle. She shifted within her net. “Ain’t you figured it out yet, Inspector? That there is none other than the infamous Blackjack. Let us retrieve what he stole from us, and you can have him. No hard feelings for this little…misunderstanding. Deal?”

Cal’s heart sank.Shadow and shade…

Griff took a long, slow blink. Though his hard expression didn’t change, Cal could tell he was struggling to process that new information.

All right, things seem pretty bleak.But if there was one thing growing up on Derimay’s streets had taught him, it was how to be a fighter.

“Come on, Inspector,” Cal said with a hearty chuckle. “You don’t honestly believe her, do you? She’ll say anything to save her own neck.” When Griff didn’t reply, Cal licked his lips. “Think this through logically. If I—”