Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold Page B

white it almost hurt, was perched on a stool, the corner of her tongue poking out of her mouth as she worked at her letters. She looked up with a smile. “Help you?”
    “Missing order, for the Red Lantern?” I recognised her now; she normally delivered our order.
    “Just a moment.”
    She slipped off her stool and disappeared through a curtain into the back. I heard murmuring and the butcher appeared, the girl behind her. She was a big woman, greying hair in a tight bun, with solidly muscled arms and blood on her apron. She was holding a cleaver. “Missus Steel, isn’t it?”
    “Yes. We put an order in, should have got it this morning?” I held out the list, but she didn’t take it.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “Order shouldn’t have been taken, we can’t fill it.”
    I glanced around the shop; there seemed to be plenty of meat, but I’m not Flower; I couldn’t tell what she had and what she didn’t. “None of it?”
    “Sorry. And we can’t take any more orders.”
    “You can’t...”
    “Not for the Red Lantern.”
    “Ah.”
    It happens sometimes. There are people who don’t want to be associated with my business, even when they can make money out of it. She hadn’t struck me as the starched-underlinen type, but you can’t always tell.
    She glanced up at me, briefly. “I’m sorry,” she said. Funny thing was, I got the sense she meant it. Maybe she really was sorry, one businesswoman to another.
    I just smiled – well, I moved my mouth – and turned to go.
    “Missus Steel?”
    “What?”
    She fidgeted with the cleaver, not looking at me. “You oughta be careful.”
    It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to get into, especially with the girl hanging around looking wide-eyed at me. I glanced at her. Her mother caught the look and jerked her head towards the back of the shop; the girl went.
    “Look,” I said, “if your husband or whoever’s been coming to see us, you need to talk to him, not to me. We don’t ask.”
    “My husband’s been dead five years. I’m just saying.” She turned away, lifted a skinned animal the size of a small deer onto the slab with one easy swing of her arms and started dismembering it with swift accuracy.
    I found another butcher easily enough, though I didn’t doubt Flower would soon pick a different one, but the shop looked clean and smelled fresh and the owner, a skinny, furry chap with a wide grin, had no problem filling the order.
    From there, I went to The Lodestone. It’s all low lighting, staff so discreet they’re practically invisible, and the smell of some of Scalentine’s most expensive food. I was dressed in my normal street clothes: good boots, leather and... well, leather, mostly. It’s comfortable, it’s stylish (by my standards, anyway), and it can survive a lot. I’d barely walked in when Clariel saw me.
    I love to watch a professional at work. I’m not exactly inconspicuous at my height, even in Scalentine, but she whisked me out of sight without causing so much as a ripple among the clientele. She’s something. Always dressed in a dark blue suit so crisply cut you could shave coins with it, glowing white wings folded behind her. She doesn’t like the term angel , but it gets used a lot.
    She raised an eyebrow at me. I’ve seen strong men quail at the sight of that eyebrow, but I’m not so easy to intimidate.
    “I assume you are not looking for a table,” she said, giving me the up-and-down.
    “Not at your prices, Clariel. I need some information.”
    “Swift, Babylon.” She waved one elegant hand towards the restaurant. “We are busy today.”
    I told her.
    “And why did you come to me?” She looked at the girl’s picture and raised the other eyebrow. It indicated that such things as kidnapping were vulgar, and beneath its notice.
    “They were staying at the Riverside Palace. People with that kind of money eat here. If you hear anything that might involve this girl, let me know, eh?”
    Her eyes are the exact shade of