Litany of Winter

Severin came back to the warehouse in pieces.

The stones under his palms were cold. When he tried to lift his head, the lantern near the doorway smeared yellow. Pain ran from the side of his skull down behind his ear. He touched the wet line there and found blood.

Something wooden cracked inside the warehouse. Severin looked up.

The one eyed man knelt beside one of the unchained crates. A narrow metal tool sat beneath the clasp. He leaned on it once, and the metal snapped free with a short pop.

Severin tried to get a knee under himself. Pain shot through his left leg, and his right arm folded when he put weight on it.

The man glanced toward the doorway. ”Stay down. You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

Severin sat back against the brick. ”Getting tired of hearing that.”

”Then learn faster if you want to stay alive.”

The reply reached him through the dull ringing in his ear. Severin wiped his jaw with the heel of his left hand and looked at the blood. Less than he expected. Then the warehouse tilted again.

Inside, the man slowly lifted the crate lid, just far enough to look beneath, then shifted it aside without letting the wood drop.

Glass caught the lantern light.

Rows of narrow bottles stood packed in straw, each separated by folded card. Some held clear liquid, others yellow or brown enough to look spoiled. One was nearly black, thick sediment clinging to the bottom. In a squat bottle, something bright and metallic rolled against the glass as the man turned it.

Severin stared through the doorway. He had hauled spirits, lamp oil, medicine, bleach, machine acid and enough cheap tonic to drown half of Blackhaven. None of it had ever arrived in chains.

The man took a folded cloth from inside his coat and spread it on the floor. Three small glass tubes came from another pocket. He set down a pair of forceps and several slips of paper cut to size.

A thief planning to empty twelve crates should have brought a cart.

The stranger chose one bottle from the middle row. He held it to the lantern, turned it once, then pulled the cork. He moved it away from his face almost at once.

Severin caught it a second later. Bitter and sweet, like varnish mixed with rotting meat.

”What is that?”

The man ignored him. He poured a little into one of his tubes, corked both, then put the larger bottle back where he had found it.

Severin watched him write something on the slip of paper.

”You plan on answering any of my questions tonight?”

”No.”

The man wrapped the note around the sample tube and went to the next crate.

This one had a lead seal through the clasp. He cut the seal, opened the lid and pulled back the oiled cloth beneath.

Severin forgot about trying to stand. Four broad glass jars sat in fitted wooden rings.

The nearest held a pale length of flesh folded over itself. For a moment he took it for some butcher’s scrap. Then he saw the nail.

It was a finger, cut away at the base just beneath the knuckle.

Severin swallowed, still sore below the ribs where the man had hit him.

He couldn’t tell what the thing in the second jar had come from. A gray strip of tissue floated in cloudy liquid, too thick for skin and threaded with dark veins. It had been pinned open against a piece of waxed board.

The man bent closer, then checked the paper tied beneath the jar neck.

”Is that fucking human?”

”Not quite.”

Severin looked at the finger again. ”Then what is it?”

”Oh. This one?” The stranger glanced at the jar. ”Yes.”

The stranger lifted the pinned tissue with the forceps and cut away a piece no larger than a fingernail. He dropped it into a fresh tube, then lowered the rest back into the jar.

Severin stared at the tube. ”You’re taking bits of these things?”

”Yes.”

”Why would you do that? Are you some sort of sick fuck?”

The stranger resealed the jar. ”No. I need them.”

”For what could you possibly need this shit?”

The man looked at him with his good eye. ”I warned you this wasn’t worth dying for.”

Severin touched the side of his head where the pommel had landed. ”You could’ve told me more about the cargo.”

The stranger gave no answer and went back to his work.

Severin shifted until his shoulder rested against the door frame. Beyond the yard, the watchman sat in his booth, the tip of his cigarette glowing behind the glass.

Pike had told him to shout if there was trouble. Severin looked at the watchman’s booth. The stranger had said calling him over would get him killed.

Severin looked back at the open crate and the finger floating behind glass. He left the watchman alone.

The stranger opened a third box. Loose paper packets filled the top layer, each tied with string and marked in ink. He slit one corner over a folded square of paper, and gray-white powder spilled out, fine as flour. He took a little with a narrow spoon, twisted it into the paper and wrote another note.

Beneath the packets were shallow wooden trays. The first held chalky fragments that looked like smashed crockery, though one piece had a curved surface.

It was bone, some pieces ground smooth and others scorched black along the edges.

The stranger sampled those too. He left two small cases of glass instruments untouched, along with a wrapped bundle of silver-colored metal rods. A lacquered box with brass corners made him stop. He checked the folded papers inside, took two sheets from the middle and put the rest back.

Severin had known men who could rob a warehouse without leaving a boot print. None of them would waste ten minutes measuring powder into scraps of paper, then put the valuable things back. The man had to be looking for something.

A scrape came from the chained crates at the rear. Severin looked over, but the chain hadn’t moved.

The stranger heard it too. He set down the sample and crossed the warehouse.

”You brought friends?”

”No. Keep quiet.”

The man crouched beside the chained crate and pressed one ear to the wood, but nothing came from inside.

After a few seconds he stood and examined the painted marks along the side. His thumb stopped on the circle split by a vertical line, then moved to one of the hooked marks beside it.

Severin waited, but the stranger said nothing.

The hooded man opened another unchained crate. Inside, smaller jars sat nested in packed salt, several with cloth tied over their stoppers and wax around the necks. A dark red mass pressed against the glass in one of them.

The man lifted the jar carefully, and the dark red mass inside tightened.

Severin thought the jar had shifted in the man’s hand. Then the red tissue pulled in on itself again and relaxed against the bottom.

Severin stared at the jar. ”Put that fucking thing down.”

The stranger turned the jar once more to inspect the underside, then set it down.

”What is it?”

”I don’t know yet.”

The man took no sample from that jar. He made a note, returned the container to the salt and shut the crate.

The next several crates took less time. He added a thumb-sized piece of black resin to his samples and filled another tube with coarse crystals. He spent longer on a bundle wrapped in oilcloth, opening it just enough to inspect something pale and jointed before folding it shut again.

He never took enough to sell. By the end, the samples on the cloth would have fit in both of Severin’s hands.

The stranger corked the last tube, wiped his tools and rolled everything into the cloth before tucking the bundle inside his coat.

He returned the bottles to their straw slots and folded the oiled cloth back over the jars, then rested the lids loosely on top without fastening the clasps.

”So you’re not actually stealing them.”

The man looked over. Severin nodded toward his coat. ”You could’ve filled a sack by now.”

”I don’t want the cargo.”

”Then what the hell are you doing?”

The stranger glanced toward the twelve crates. ”Making sure enough survives to be examined.”

”Survives what?”

The man walked to the doorway. Severin tried to move his good leg out of the way and was too slow. He stepped over it, picked up the lantern and carried it inside.

”Hey!”

He set the lantern on the floor between the chalk lines, well clear of the nearest crate.

Severin looked from the lantern to the man. ”How did you know what was in these crates?”

”Doesn’t matter.”

The stranger crossed to a dark canvas bag beside the wall. Severin hadn’t noticed it before. He opened the flap and pulled out a squat metal tin with a wire handle.

He set it beside the first crate. Even from the doorway, Severin could read the words stamped across the lid: CINDER PITCH.

The man pushed the narrow metal tool under the rim and leaned on it until the lid gave with a sticky crack.

A sharp tar smell spread through the warehouse. Severin looked from the open tin to the twelve crates.

The stranger reached into his bag and pulled out a brush.