seeing the place as though with new eyes: the furniture, worn down to the wood in some places; the old bloodstains on the stone floor; the piles of filthy clothing in the corners.
“Of course you don’t,” Arliss continued, answering his own question. “No one likes living down here. Tell me, boy, have you ever been topside?”
Christian shook his head, repressing a scowl, for the word itself irritated him, made him think of Maura and her damnable client.
“It’s better up there,” Arliss continued. “Cleaner, and the air reeks less. People smile more. When you look up, you see bright blue sky instead of slime-covered stone.”
Christian nodded. He had heard such stories all his life, and he supposed he believed them, but he didn’t trust them. Smiling people? Bright blue sky? What place was there for him in a world like that?
“If topside is so wonderful, why don’t you go and live there?”
“I am, boy,” Arliss replied. “Poppy and numbers, I’m slowly selling all of my interest in the tunnels. Within six months, I’ll be gone for good.”
Christian stilled. Arliss out of the Creche . . . it would rock the place almost to its foundations, leaving the poppy trade controlled by a handful of lesser dealers.
Don’t let him distract you.
“What are you selling?” he demanded.
Arliss smiled, though Christian noted, again, that the smile never touched his eyes. “A man could make a good life topside. Even a killer like you.”
“You need money to live topside. Food is expensive up there. Dwellings cost rent.”
“Indeed they do. That’s why you would need to leave here with a great hoard of money, enough to last your lifetime.”
Christian looked up sharply, and Arliss leaned forward, his eyes bright.
“What would you say if I told you that we could fix a fight, boy? One fight, only one, but on that one fight we could make enough money for us both to retire.”
Christian blinked. “You want me to throw a fight?”
“Would that be so hard, boy? Surely you’ve won enough.”
“I’m not a boy. I’m twenty.”
“Listen to me,” Arliss growled. “The odds on your fights are now astronomical. Up in the Gut, they’re talking about closing out bets on you altogether. We go long, and both of us make a killing. We could wipe out half the books in the city.”
Christian frowned. Arliss was right. He had won so many fights that no one doubted his gifts anymore. So why did he feel as though losing a single bout would mean that he had lost everything?
Because you have nothing else.
Ah, that voice. Lazarus or Christian, it didn’t matter . . . that voice knew him well. He had never lost a fight, not even in the early days, when he was a child pitted against older children. On the worst days of his life, when all else was up in the air, he had always known that he would never lose, and he clung to that knowledge as moss clung to stone . . . or, perhaps, as a hanged man clung to the rope.
“Why do you need to fix a fight?” he demanded. “Don’t you make a fine living already, stringing out girls in the Alley?”
“Ahhh.” Arliss leaned forward, and the keenness of his gaze made Christian uncomfortable. “Someone special over there, boy? Mother? Sister? Friend?”
“No!”
“We could get her out too, you know. An ordinary whore? We could make enough to buy her clear as well. Use a blind broker, and the price stays good and reasonable. You and your special girl, out of this cesspool.”
Christian remained silent for a long moment. He did not trust this poppy dealer, with his thick boots and world-sized promises. But a deeper part of his mind was already working over the man’s words. If he could get Maura out as well . . .
This is what the dealers do, the voice in his mind spoke up suddenly. Sell dreams, but at the end they’re only nightmares.
And yet this admonition, too, seemed the voice of cowardice, of the boy who still clung to the Creche as the only world he knew. Arliss was right; he could not go on winning forever. The money would not allow it. Things must change, whether he wanted them to or not.
“Why are you leaving the tunnels?” he demanded.
“Christ, boy, do you think I enjoy peddling the needle to people who trade in children? I don’t, no more than you enjoy the slaughter. I am not a good man, but I am not a bad man