Free Inked by Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, Yasmine Galenorn, Marjorie M. Liu

what they do yet.”
    “I thought you were looking for your boyfriend?”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “I’ve noticed that with you. But no, no wolves.” And that settled that. Because Caleb would know. He didn’t usually work in the Dungeon, but he’d been there for three months since his injury. And he was the kind who paid attention.
    “Thanks. Uh, and can you let patrol know that there’s a body in that drain off 91?”
    “Another one?”
    “Yeah. Tell them to bring a baggie.”
    “Lia…” He sighed. “Just be careful, all right?”
    “Aren’t I always?” I hung up before he could answer that, and went to collect my guide.
    He was taking photos for a family, but dropped the camera when he saw me emerge from the wash. I waited until the tourists drove off, then crossed the street. He looked a little pale. In retrospect, I probably should have used the handkerchief on my face before making it into a bandage. Oh, well, too late now.
    “What…what…”
    “You were right. Those kappas are a bitch. Any other mysterious new monsters suddenly turn up anywhere?” He shook his head, wide-eyed. “How about wardsmiths? You know any of them?”
    He blinked. “Like personally?”
    “Like any way.”
    “There’s lots in the tunnels. Everybody’s making wards now.”
    Yeah, like the idiot who had done the protection ward on the cave. But the charlatans getting rich off people’s wartime paranoia weren’t who I needed. Becoming a master or even a journeyman wardsmith took decades of training. No fly-by-night con man had made those wolves.
    “I’m talking about someone good. Someone professional.”
    “If they were good , they wouldn’t be in the drains. ”
    Normally, I’d have agreed, but I didn’t think the guys who attacked me had had the money to buy those wards. And no local, licensed wardsmiths had been robbed. So whoever had made the wolves either wasn’t from around here, or wasn’t licensed.
    “I guess we’ll just have to stay here, then,” I told him. “And clean out those kappas.”
    “There’s a guy who hangs out at Tilda’s Place, over by the Tropicana,” Dieter said quickly. “They say he’s pretty good.”
    I smiled. “Let’s go find out.”

7
    I peered into the dark drain dubiously. “There’s a bar down there?”
    Dieter nodded. “Tilda’s. It’s been there forever. The dwarves like to drink at her place, so they cut her a deal on the rent.”
    “Dwarves?”
    He scowled. “Yeah. Nasty little fuckers. They run the market.”
    I peered into the maybe eight-by-six tunnel again. I spotted cockroaches, spiders and a few creepy orange crawfish. But no people—of any kind. “There’s a market down there?”
    He shot me a pitying look. “You don’t know much, do you?”
    “Lately, it doesn’t feel like it.”
    “It’s one of the biggest in Tartarus. And they know it, too. You wouldn’t believe what they wanted to charge me for a booth. So I tried just walking around, hitting the entrances and stuff, you know? And they still wanted to charge me! Like, I wasn’t even sitting down and—” He stopped abruptly. “You know, come to think of it, there are probably other wardsmiths if I ask around.”
    I grabbed him by the back of the shirt as he started off. “Let me guess. The dwarves don’t like you, either.”
    “They might have said something about not coming back.”
    “For how long?”
    “Like, you know. Ever.”
    “Then we’ll do this quick.”
    The tunnel curved after half a dozen yards, blocking out the rectangle of light behind us. Smothering blackness came crushing in on all sides, and the ward hiding the market had no telltale light leaking through to help me zero in on its location. I could feel it, buzzing somewhere up ahead, but couldn’t quite—
    A skinny young guy with spiked red hair came barreling out of a wall on a wash of light, pushing an overloaded shopping cart. He skidded to a halt, the cart’s wheels making tracks in the muck.