The Monstrous Citadel

by Mirah Bolender

Laura knew that. Escaping at all in the middle of Rex was a wonder; everything had gone remarkably well up to this point. Even losing someone now counted as lucky: one instead of two or three lost, escaping with everything they’d come for. Logically, they’d succeeded. It didn’t feel like a victory.

  Laura pressed hands against her eyes. “I told him I wouldn’t let anything like the Sullivans happen to him again. I can’t—I didn’t—”

  Zelda didn’t reply immediately, and when she did, her tone softened. “I told him to meet us at the clothes store we were at earlier. That shop is right around the corner. If he’s still free, he’ll come find us.”

  Doubtful, as far as Laura could tell.

  Zelda returned to the cab; the seat there must be more comfortable. Laura dragged Clae closer to the canvas flap and sat next to him, holding one of his crystal wrists in one hand. She hoped this would ground her, give her a sense of purpose. It worked well enough, she supposed, and here she could keep an eye on the end of the alley while Zelda presumably watched the other side.

  What now? Is there any way we can help him? she thought, trying to prompt something from Clae the way she had with the Gin. If he had passed on his will to Eggs, and picked and chose who could touch him, surely he could reply like that? But he didn’t. No ghost of words, no implication or shared mental image. Magic hummed under her fingers like a mock pulse, but it was muddled. Incomprehensible. She might as well be looking for meaning in a patch of mud. She hung her head with a flat laugh.

  “I miss you.”

  The gold flickered some, but there was no other response.

  One thought hung over her with awful clarity. What if Okane never comes back? What if that’s the last time I’ll ever see him?

  It hadn’t been so bad with Clae—his death had been so sudden, so lost in other events, there hadn’t been time to agonize over possibilities. This was awful. She gripped Clae’s hand, trying to draw some kind of comfort. Magic shivered under her fingers. She inhaled deep, remembering Gustave’s Moon. Clae, so present and alive it seemed he could never be erased.

  Still going back for other people.

  Her eyes snapped open again.

  Thank you, Laura Kramer.

  Was this communication with Clae? Gin made its own words and plucked at multiple memories on the rare occasion it had a point to make. This had been one solid impression, less a conversation than a recollection. Did she imagine support because she wanted it? The more she looked at Clae, the more she realized it didn’t matter. She couldn’t just sit there and wait if Okane was in danger. She jumped out of the truck and circled to the cab. Zelda sulked in the driver’s seat, and raised a brow at the sight of her.

  “Did - - - see something?”

  “I need you to watch Clae and the Gin,” said Laura.

  “To watch—Wait, where do - - - think - - -’re going?”

  “To find Okane.”

  “Oh, no,” Zelda snarled, kicking open the door. “I didn’t risk my life smuggling a set of idiots through high security and get shot at just so some ingrate can skip back into danger!”

  “Okane’s already in danger.”

  “Forget him! He knows where to find us—”

  “He knows the store name. That’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Laura. “How many people and stores are in this city? And how many people are actively looking for him? There aren’t any maps, and it’s not like he can ask for directions.”

  “Just trust him to find his way!” said Zelda.

  “It’s not about trust! This is about being there to help, because he shouldn’t have to do this alone!”

  “Well, I’ve stuck my neck out far enough,” said Zelda. “If - - - want to go running off into Rex, it’ll be alone.”

  “You don’t have go with me,” said Laura.

  Zelda faltered. “What?”

  “I can’t go back to Amicae without Okane, but I can’t risk having Clae or the Gin falling back into their hands. If I don’t come back, I want you to get them out of here.”

  Zelda blinked at her. Her lips tipped up, her head ducked, and she laughed. It wasn’t a kind sound. Her head stayed down even after she’d finished.

  “I kept thinking I’d escaped them, but I’m not that different from a Rexian Sweeper after all, am I?” she murmured. “I didn’t think twice about letting him go. When it comes down to it, I thought he was expendable, too.” Laura didn’t know how to respond to that, so stayed quiet until Zelda finally looked up at her. “What are we planning here, exactly?”

  “I’m going to try finding Okane.”

  “- - -’ve mentioned.”

  “The city’s huge, and even if I knew where I was going, Okane didn’t. I can’t plan on where to find him. I want to have enough time to properly look and try getting back here, but we can’t wait forever. How long would you give us, before it’s too late to escape?”

  “They’re not about to stop unloading Sweepers,” said Zelda, drumming her fingers on the car door. “They might close down a few exits, but it’ll be easy enough to find the operating one. If only one’s operating, the line will be longer and it’ll stay open longer. If they just bump up security on all gates, it’ll be over fast and we’ll miss our window of opportunity. I’d give us five hours at most.”

  “Honestly, I expected less,” Laura chuckled. “Okay, if I’m not back before five hours are up, leave the city and bring these back to Amicae.”

  “What if Okane returns and - - - don’t?” said Zelda. “He’ll try to pull this exact same maneuver.”

  “Remind him that Rex doesn’t have any incentive to keep me alive,” said Laura.

  What little mirth Zelda had drained from her face. “- - - realize that’s a valid argument, right? If they figure out who - - - are, they’ll kill - - -.”

  “I knew that when I left Amicae.”

  Zelda shook her head but didn’t argue. “And what am I supposed to do when I reach Amicae? They won’t let a Rexian through the gate, let alone let me bring these to wherever I need to. They might just shoot me there.”

  “See if you can send word ahead,” said Laura. “Directly to the police chief, but even better, if you can reach Byron Rhodes, they’ll hear you out. Byron’s been following the Sweeper situation ever since the Falling Infestation, and he knew something weird was going on with our new boss. I told him everything I knew before we got chased out of Amicae. If you share your side of the story, and if you bring back what Juliana sold, he’ll support you.”

  “He’ll support me,” Zelda murmured. “That makes it sound as if I’d be there a while.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?” said Laura. “You’d be out of Rex’s reach.”

  “Ha! Maybe. I’ve got to say, that wasn’t the reward I was expecting.” Zelda swung her leg, tapping Laura with her toe. “Fine, I’ll go with that. - - -’ve got five hours. Best get going while - - - can.”

  “Thank you,” said Laura.

  Zelda simply waved her off. Laura took the hint and ran.

  The identical streets of Rex flashed by as she tore through with amulet-enhanced speed. Left, right, left, up the ramp to the Quarter they’d left, and she kept on into the maze with no clue whether she was even going the right way. The street names meant nothing if she didn’t know where they led. Few people walked the streets to ask (nightly curfew, she remembered from the Carmen film), not that she would’ve. If she asked too many suspicious questions, she could bring the Black Guard down on her head. Of course, the sight of a strange girl running around after curfew might bring them down on her anyway.

  She paused at a corner, the streetlight glowing overhead as she tried to calm herself down. Panic would just give her tunnel vision. Calm. Calm, Laura, for the love of god. Would there be any clues to Okane’s location? None came to mind. She couldn’t listen in on any chatter from whoever currently chased him. She didn’t know how to find them any easier, and she doubted they’d allow anyone to follow them, citizen or not. She
wished she had something like the statue in the Amicae banks: a single touch, to signal I’m here to someone else. But something else gave a similar signal, didn’t it? The armory had sent a signal to their rings. If all the Sinclair rings were rigged in a single system for the armory, surely there must be a connection from ring to ring?

  She pulled off her glove, pressed the ring to her lips, and tried to focus. She thought of Okane, of his ring, of the way those Gin amulets had remembered Clae.

  Take me to him.

  For the longest time there was nothing. And then, miraculously, she felt pressure at her heels. The amulets pushed her. She choked out a startled, wondrous laugh, and followed.

  As she ran, the amulets plucked out implications in the back of her mind. They came more vaguely than usual, not words but the distinct sense of being closer, closer—STOP!

  On a stab of instinct Laura changed course, darting down an alley and stopping short. The amulets’ push had stopped. Wary, she looked around the corner.

  She’d reached the outer edge of the Quarter. It wasn’t unlike Amicae’s terrace: a wide space beyond the line of buildings, the edge a sheer drop over stone sides. If Rex had Underyear fireworks, this little plaza would’ve made a good viewing platform; even in the evening gloom she could make out the shadow of mountains unsettlingly dark along the horizon. Five people occupied the open plaza. A tall, striking man in a black overcoat, with the medals on his chest and the gun at his belt, had to be a member of the Black Guard. Three Sweepers flanked him. They all looked at a man crouched on the ground, dressed in the ragged garb of the slaves she’d passed in the fields. His wide-spread arms shielded the last person from view, and Laura realized with a jolt that this last person was Okane. He lay on his side as if he’d fallen; he’d drawn the Amicae gun at one point, but it now rested a foot away from him. He wasn’t moving. She couldn’t see his face. Fear rose in her throat, so overwhelming she hardly heard them speak at first.

  “Stay back!” cried the man in rags. “Leave this man alone! He’s not a Sweeper!”

  The guard laughed, icier than the January air. “Do you think you can order me around? And here I thought they’d already declawed you.” He stepped forward, slow and steady like a beast sure of its kill. “I’ll have to reiterate your earlier lesson, with a bit more insistence. So long as we preserve the most vital parts, the program won’t care if there’s damage. You two, pin him down.”

  The Sweepers circled in obediently, drawing their blades. The man shook.

  “No Rexian hand will touch him,” he hissed. “Not while I draw breath!”

  That was their only warning.

  The man tackled a Sweeper to the ground before they could react. They rolled, snarling, the Sweeper’s magic popping. The man grabbed blindly at the Sweeper’s belt and snatched up a red Egg, held it overhead like a rock.

  “Get him immobilized,” the guard snapped, pulling out his gun.

  The second Sweeper swung her blade but the man saw it coming. He rolled himself and his victim so the blade missed and wrought sparks from the pavement. Even before the sparks died, he’d smashed the Egg into his victim’s face. The Sweeper screamed.

  Laura wouldn’t get a better distraction.

  She ran out from under cover, rolled Okane onto his back, put her fingers down his collar, and felt a pulse. He wasn’t dead yet, thank god. A shout made her look up. While all Sweepers had gathered by the man in rags, the guard had spotted her. He stepped toward them, face twisted in rage. Laura lunged for the dropped gun. She had no idea if it held any bullets, but the gun still hummed gold when she pulled back the hammer; probably a good sign. The guard was at nearly point-blank range. She pulled the trigger. The pictographs flared as the hammer pitched forward, but there was no flash of kin. The gun simply clacked and wheezed. She barely had time to feel betrayed before the guard descended on her. He yanked the gun from her grip, but rather than threaten her with it, he tackled her. The breath whooshed out of her lungs and her head knocked against the pavement so hard she saw stars. The guard pinned her there.

  “Stop right there!” he bellowed at the Sweepers. “Paragon, if you dare—”

  The man in rags rose on his feet, eyes flicking for an escape route. His victim floundered up. With the Egg inactive it hadn’t torn very deep into his skin, but glass shards and the metal casing had left their mark, and he blinked madly to try washing crimson kin from his eyes. He wrenched a gun from its holster.

  “Stop!” the guard barked, but it was too late.

  The gun fired, but it didn’t hit its mark. Maybe the partial blindness ruined his aim, maybe it was because the man ducked, but a red flash exploded from one of the other Sweepers. She doubled over with a horrible wheeze, and the other two froze.

  “I told all of you to stop,” the guard snapped. “Paragon, if you want this woman alive, you won’t resist.”

  The man in rags looked at her. He stilled, and she could see the numbers sloping, red and distorted, on his left cheekbone. His gray eyes flicked again, from her to Okane, and slowly he raised his hands. The uninjured Sweeper moved in, wrenching his arms behind his back. Now that all seemed under control, the guard smiled again. He shoved Laura’s head harder against the pavement and stood, the Amicae gun gripped tight in one hand.

  “That’s a good pet. All of you, such good pets.”

  The wounded Sweeper straightened. The bullet had scorched clothing even now staining red, but she looked at them with an impassive, if pale, expression. “It is our honor to serve Rex.”

  “On to the four corners,” the other two chorused. “Raise pure blood.”

  “Only the purest, and only the most loyal.” The guard gestured the gun at the Sweeper who’d been blinded. “Is loyalty the act of ruining our tools?”

  “No, sir,” said the Sweeper. “I will carry out the punishment to redeem my failure.”

  “See that you do.”

  With that, the Sweeper raised the gun and pressed its barrel against his head. Laura closed her eyes as soon as she realized what was happening, but she couldn’t close her ears to the gunshot, the spatter, the thud. When she dared open them, the angle only gave her a look at his boots. She was glad she couldn’t see more. The Sweepers looked on this as commonplace, and the man in rags had his mouth pressed into a thin, morbid line.

  “So many tools defective these days,” the guard sighed. “We only want the optimal pieces in our machine. Anything that threatens Rex’s advance must be eradicated. Remember that lesson, paragon. Escape your cage again and you won’t be considered necessary.”

  Laura sucked in a harsh breath. The guard had turned on her, and she found herself looking down the barrel of Clae’s old gun. Something Puer-green glimmered in its depths as the man in rags began to struggle.

  “- - - said - - -’d keep her alive!”

  “And let her help you a second time? I think not,” said the guard. “That’s a weakness of yours, paragon. Rex would never breed such gullibility.”

  “Only Rex would breed such perfidy,” the man spat.

  “Words,” said the guard, and pulled back the hammer.

  The sides of the gun glowed still brighter, and with it the insides. No. The insides weren’t supposed to be that luster, and certainly not green. A bullet sparkled in the barrel, stuck from her earlier misfire. Regular gun failures could be disastrous. She didn’t want to think what would happen with extra firepower. She glanced at Okane.

  Away, she thought, and her amulets hummed in anticipation. On my mark, away.

  “You can’t escape so easily,” said the guard, guessing her intentions. “You run, I follow. There’s nowhere to hide.” He looked at the man in rags again, bared his teeth savagely. “Maybe this will be lesson enough for you, paragon. You err, and others suffer.”

  His finger tightened. Laura’s amulets squalled. She skidded across the ground as if flung, and only barely managed to bring Okane with her. As they tumbled toward the Quarter’s edge, the gun exploded. Shrap
nel shrieked out with a shower of blinding green and gold. The initial explosion was bad, but the heat and magic caught the other bullets and the din quadrupled. Sparks shot thirty feet in the air and skidded along the ground, hot enough to scorch pavement in its wake. In the midst of it all, the guard screamed. The man in rags bucked. His captor scrambled to subdue him, snapping, “Rectify this!”

  The other Sweeper lunged. Laura rolled out of the way just in time. The machete clanged down where she’d been. She sprang to her feet and slammed her shoulder into the Sweeper. She caught the Sweeper in the midsection, pinning the other’s arm between them. The impact jarred her enough to drop the blade, made her stagger, but she didn’t back down. Her eyes flashed vivid, verdant green as she shoved back. They grappled, stumbling and clawing at each other. If Laura saw such a scene in a film she’d scoff at such childish behavior, but now she was scared out of her wits. Her hands were already slick with her opponent’s blood but the Sweeper kept on undaunted. Was it a Magi trait? Rexian training?

  The Sweeper pulled her off balance, tried to twist her arm for painful leverage. Laura lashed out desperately with her free hand. She caught the injury with full force, and this time the Sweeper balked. Laura bared her teeth and kept punching. The Sweeper’s composure cracked fast. Laura could see a switch even without words: the Sweeper’s eyes narrowed, from panicked pain to something resolute and beyond it. She pushed Laura further off balance and kept pushing, stumbling faster and faster. They headed toward the Quarter’s edge. Neither could survive the fall, but the Sweeper knew that. She’d kill herself as easily as her teammate had.

  Laura kicked out and tripped them both. They came down hard, barely inches from the edge. But the Sweeper hadn’t given up. She pushed all the harder. Laura tore the skin of her hand as she scrabbled for a handhold. She grabbed at the Sweeper for lack of anything else, and her stomach dropped as her body tipped. Halfway over already, and vertigo hit her. The Sweeper bared her teeth in macabre victory, shoved an arm under Laura’s back, and sent them both reeling over the Quarter’s edge.

  The spires and rooftops of the outer wall whirled, wrenching up and then sharply down in her vision before something snagged at her coat. She spun the right way up with a violent jerk, whatever hook sliding from her shoulder to sleeve before finally catching her cuff. The jolt made her screech in surprise. Whatever had caught her didn’t catch the Sweeper. Too late the Sweeper tried to adjust her spin to double her grip and haul Laura with her. The last Laura saw, the Sweeper plummeted, eyes like acid and face more monstrous than an infestation. For a moment Laura felt separate from the earth entirely, buffeted by the wind and suspended by one stinging arm hundreds of feet above the closest building.