Okay. At least we knew where we stood. I picked up the ziplock bag and walked out.
• • •
I WALKED THROUGH the doors of Kadam Arms at half past nine. The smithy occupied a sturdy building in the southeast part of the city. Seven years ago, when I came here for the first time to buy a blade, it was just Arnav and his son, Nitish, and daughter, Neha. Over the years, the business grew and the smithy grew with it. As I stepped inside today, I saw two journeymen, one showing a blade to a customer, the other restocking a shelf. An apprentice, barely fifteen, ran up to me to ask me what I wanted. I asked for Nitish and five minutes later was shown to the back, where Nitish was quietly examining several blocks of steel.
Nitish glanced at me. He was an average-size man, with thick dark hair, bright dark eyes, and a smile that lit up his whole face. Nitish’s family came from Udaipur city, in India, the district that had supplied Mughal rulers with weapons of war since the sixteenth century. Koftgari was in his blood. It was a precise art, especially when it came to lettering. Even the slightest change of a curve in the Arabic inscription or the wrong angle of a stroke in a Celtic rune on the blade could alter its meaning. Nitish was the best in the city.
I unwrapped the kindjal and put it on the table. The smile died. He reached over and quickly threw the cloth over the blade.
“This is one of yours,” I said.
Nitish shook his head.
“It is,” I told him. “That’s your koftgari on the blade. There is only one smithy that does work of this quality and I can tell by the pattern it’s not your father’s. Who was it for?”
“This is not a good conversation,” he said quietly.
“I know the buyer was a man, probably a follower of Islam.”
Nitish shook his head.
“My friend is missing. I found it in his office. I know it’s not his. He was going to get married.”
“I am married. I have children, too,” Nitish said.
I pulled the cloth back, revealing the dagger. “I just need a name. It won’t get back to you. Somewhere my friend is still alive. He is a good person and his fiancé lost her arm protecting a pregnant woman. They deserve the chance to be happy. I just need one name.”
He didn’t look at me.
“What if it were Prema who was missing?” I let the name of his wife lie there between us like a heavy rock. I would go straight to hell for doing this to him. “Nitish, I wouldn’t have come to you if I had a choice.”
Nitish pulled the cloth back over the blade and leaned closer. “Come with me.”
I picked up the dagger and followed him through the smithy, past the heat of the forge and the sound of hammers, to a room in the back. He swung open a heavy door, flicked on the lights, and closed the door behind us. Four walls filled with weapons looked back at me.
“I don’t know his name,” Nitish said quietly. “But I know what he buys.” He pointed to a knife on the wall.
Eleven and a half inches long, the single-edged blade started straight at the hilt and then curved ever so slightly to the right, tapering and curving back to the left at the point. The tip of the dagger, triangular and reinforced, was almost needle narrow at the very end. Wicked sharp edge. Strong spine so the blade wouldn’t break. Plain hilt, bone wrapped in leather. A pesh kabz. It was seventeenth-century Persia’s equivalent to the armor-piercing round. That reinforced tip parted chain mail like it wasn’t even there. It would slide in between the ribs, and if you angled it up, it would hit the heart. Crap.
We looked at the blade quietly.
“No watering on the blade,” I said softly.
“No. He doesn’t usually want Damascus. This is oh-six steel,” Nitish said, his voice flat. “A bitch to grind.”
The 0-6 was tool steel. It held its edge forever and would outcut the best Damascus every time. It was also untraceable. He’d chosen tool steel because that was what this knife was, a tool. This blade wasn’t made to hunt monsters. It was meant to hunt people. It belonged to a man killer.
Nitish stepped forward, took a big, three-inch-wide folder from the table, and leafed through the pages. He paused, showing me the page. Throwing knives. Not the fancy blades, but utilitarian, simple strips of steel, ten inches long, inch and a half wide. Thick enough so the blade wouldn’t bend, double edge at the point for the first inch and a half, then single edge. No treatment on the hilt, just plain steel. Contrary to what movies suggested, killing a person by throwing a knife was really difficult. Even if you managed to sink a blade in, it would be unlikely you’d hit anything vital. Most of the time knives were thrown to piss the opponent off so he’d do something stupid, to distract, or just to bleed him and cause some pain. These knives would go into the body like a hot knife into butter and they’d be hell to pull out.