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BLIND DRUNK DATE

H enry was quick with his knife, ripping it away from Léon’s shapely neck before he could impale himself on it.

He was not so quick with his footwork, and his stomach rose almost as sharply as Léon’s had at the hot and wet sensation on his feet, and at the smell that accosted him with putrid humidity.

Léon braced himself against his would-be attacker for the first bout, then pushed off and into the wall to eradicate more of the evening’s doings.

He grunted, and he purged, and he retched, and his assailant stood still all the while.

Was there any point, Henry wondered, in going ahead with his plan?

Would Léon even remember his threats in the morning?

But Henry had waited several long hours in the cold of that alleyway, and he wasn’t about to throw it out the window because L’Ange de la Merlot couldn't hold his wine.

“Get up!” Henry hissed.

Léon didn’t seem to hear him over the groan and ensuing splash on the pavement.

Henry’s fingers twitched at his side while he waited for completion of the ejection, and when Léon thrust himself back against the wall, replenished his oxygen, and looked as though he might settle down for a little nap in his puke, Henry grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out of the alley. Across the square he strode, Léon stumbling to try to keep up, being all but carried, until they made it to a trough in the centre of the square. There, Henry let his grasp slip, and Léon fell in a heap on the wet cobblestones. He flinched at the splash of water Henry threw in his face. “Clean up. Wake up.”

Léon wiped a few drops away, then examined the water on his hand, unable to make out the shade of it in the dark, wondering if the water was stained with the blood of his Godmother, or if it was just that strange red rain. “How often do you think they replace this?”

“What?” Henry snapped.

“The water. Did they refresh it this evening, do you think?”

“What do you care? You live in filth. You are filth.”

Léon, beginning to think perhaps his new companion was somewhat inclement towards him, leaned back on two hands and scowled upwards. “Do I know you?”

“Ah, he’s awake now. Where were we?” A soft rustle sounded against Henry’s cloak, and for the second time that evening, a knife was stuck under Léon’s chin. “Listen carefully. You must do everything I say.”

Léon tried his skin against the blade with a laugh. “I have no money, citizen. They supply the drink, they give me all the food I want for free, that’s the deal. For the heads themselves, I get very little coin. I have nothing for you.”

“I don’t want your blood money, Ange,” Henry seethed. “I wouldn’t take it if you gave it freely, any more than I’d piss on you if you were on fire.”

“Well, then…” With a drunken shrug, Léon scanned the empty square. “If you want neither my money nor my person, I hardly see what use I can be to you.”

Léon wrapped his hand around the edge of the trough to push himself to standing, then found himself knocked onto his back by a sharp slap across his face. A boot stamped down on his chest, and his assailant soon had a knee at his cheek and that knife right back at his throat. “When you get home tonight, you’ll find your brother is not there.”

No time or food or potion in existence could have knocked the sobriety back into Léon as effectively as those words. “Where is he?”

“He’s safe. For now.”

Léon clamped his hand tight onto Henry’s wrist, those eyes he’d admired moments earlier now begging to be gouged out. “Where is my brother?”

“You’ll go home, you won’t say a word about any of this, and tomorrow, at midday, you’ll leave the keys to the prison cells under a rock at the bend in the river.”

“The keys? Are you mad? I’m an executioner, not a warden. How am I supposed to get your keys?”

“For every hour you’re late, he loses one finger. Then?—”

Henry’s teeth snapped together with a gum-splitting crunch at the sharp thrust of Léon’s palm. His other arm backhanded Henry and knocked him off balance. He yanked a leg up, and Henry smashed down on the cobblestones on his back with the full weight of Léon on top. Léon managed to get one excellent punch in before Henry lifted a knee into his gut and knocked the wind out of him. He threw him off and rolled over. Finding Léon pushing himself up on all fours, gasping for air, he leapt to his feet and smacked a boot hard into his side, felling him against the dewy stone, where he let out a sharp cry, clutching his side.

Henry spat a mouthful of blood to the ground. “Do you imagine I’m acting alone? If I don’t come back, and soon, they’ll kill him. This is your only chance.” He waited for Léon’s coughing and spluttering to quiet, but figured the message must have gotten through, because Léon, who glared up at him as if he were Satan himself, didn’t launch a new attack. “Midday. There will be a large rock, right at the bend in the river. You’d better have those keys beneath it.”

He stalked off into the dark, his adrenaline rushing too fast to let him feel the cut seeping blood down his cheek.

Léon’s raw scream made him pause for the length of one enormous beat of his heart. “I’ll kill you if you hurt him! I’ll fucking kill you!”

The pitch of that cry went through Henry like an arrow, but he forced himself to stagger on through the night without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

After all, what was Léon’s temporary suffering in comparison to the disaster that awaited the entire city if he didn’t manage to get those keys?