“And the shops that serve the neighborhood closed up,” Minox said, noting a block of stores and restaurants that were all dark. Not even the lamplighters were bothering here. “So even more people leave the neighborhood, because they have to travel ten blocks just to buy food.”
“I don’t understand why the city doesn’t make an effort—” Dayne stopped. “Well, no, I understand, especially with this latest election.”
“I suppose,” Minox said. “I’m not familiar with the city aldermen who represent this side of the city. Or my new one.”
“I didn’t think there was much change in the Council of Aldermen.”
“No, but our house was in the thirteenth district, and now it’s in the ninth. I’ll confess, examining the details of local government has not been my priority.”
“Get on that,” Dayne said, striding toward the large brick building that sat at the corner of Holmes and Mudgett. Like most of the other places around, the windows were boarded up, but two oil lamps hung over the main door.
“It’s definitely not my priority in this moment,” Minox said.
The faded sign over the door read “The Kittrick Hotel,” with fresh paint scrawling “Under new management” in red and black over it.
“This is his style, certainly,” Dayne said. “I haven’t heard any church bells—”
“If there are any we could hear in this area.”
“But I don’t think it’s nine bells yet.” He opened the door. “So we’ve jumped his first hurdle. There will be more, Inspector.”
“Noted,” Minox said, going in.
The lobby of the hotel had likely been warm and inviting at one point, but now most of the furniture had been stripped away, the carpet chewed by rats, and the lamp sconces hung loosely on the walls. But someone had recently swept and dusted, as there was none of the expected detritus on the floor.
“Oh, excellent. Customers.”
An older man stood behind the counter, wearing a suit that looked like it was last in style when the hotel had closed. Given its holes and loose threads, it likely had been sitting in a closet somewhere in this hotel all this time. The man smiled at them, but at the same time, he was trembling with nerves.
“I’m glad to see you both made it on time,” he said. He chuckled nervously. “Yes, very glad indeed.”
“Who are you?” Minox said, coming up to the counter. “Where is Sholiar?”
The man nodded. “Yes, your rooms are ready. I’m sure you’ll be anxious to go up and get settled in.”
“We aren’t going to do anything of the sort,” Minox said. “You’re going to tell us what’s going on. Where is Sholiar? Where are Joshea Brondar and Jerinne Fendall?”
The man’s brow was drenched in sweat, and it visibly dripped down onto the ledger in front of him as he pushed it to Minox. “If the two of you could just sign in.”
“Where are they?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss other guests of the hotel, sir,” he said. “Surely you understand.”
“Do I have to arrest you?” Minox asked. “Is that what I have to—”
“Minox,” Dayne said gently. “His leg.”
Minox looked over the counter and saw. The man’s leg was shackled to the floor. Not merely shackled: it seemed to be clamped on with some sort of bear trap device that threatened to chop his leg off if it released.
“He’s as much a victim as us,” Dayne said. “Do you need help, sir?”
“I—” The man’s voice broke, and for a moment he sobbed pathetically. Then he composed himself best he could. “I need to check you both in, explain the rules of the hotel.”
“Of course,” Dayne said. “Go ahead.”
“Sign here,” he said. “Those last two spaces on the ledger.”
Dayne started to write, and then dropped the pen.
“What is it?” Minox asked.
Dayne pointed to the names on the ledger, thirteen of them. The first seven were the same as the original Gearbox victims, all of them marked as “checked out.” The next six were all names Minox recognized: Jerinne and Joshea, as well as Hemmit Eyairin, Lin Shartien, Maresh Niol, and most surprisingly, Ezaniel Rencir.
“Rencir?” Minox said out loud.
“Who is that?” Dayne asked.
“He writes for the South Maradaine Gazette.”
“A friend?”
“An acquaintance,” Minox said.
“Another tool to turn your hinges,” Dayne said. “Just like my friends on The Veracity Press. Are they here as well, sir?”
The man nodded. “If they aren’t marked as checked out, then they should still be on the premises. But the . . . the checkouts haven’t been updated tonight yet. As far as I know.”
“Let’s get on with it,” Minox said. He was in no mood for any of this. He had arrived, that was enough of playing Sholiar’s game. He was of half a mind to magically tear the building apart, brick by brick, until everyone was found. On the desperate look of the man, he picked up the pen and wrote his name under Joshea’s. Dayne took the pen and wrote his own.
“Here are your room keys,” the man said, handing them over. “Up the stairs, right at the top. It’s crucial that you each go into your own rooms, and at the same time.”
“We won’t switch,” Dayne said quickly. Clearly in one of his previous experiences with Sholiar, Dayne had attempted to subvert the rules of the game.
“One more thing, Mister Welling.” The man reached under the counter and came up with a gauntlet, like the kind worn by knights centuries ago, but with a lockbolt of iron shackles at the wrist. “I’m afraid you must put this on.”
“You want me to wear that?”
“Those are the rules, Mister Welling. It was—it was made very clear to me that you had to put that on.”
“Of course it was,” Minox said. There was no value in arguing these things. He pulled the gauntlet on his left hand, covering the glove that kept the blackened thing hidden from sight, and then on the old man’s encouraging nod, he shut the lockbolt. Now without the key, he couldn’t remove it. And he immediately felt the effects, which were exactly what he expected. The gauntlet must have been made of the same material as mage shackles, but even more effective. His hand went dead inside, his connection to it numb. The rest of his magic was just as muted.
“Is that all?” Dayne asked.
“Weapons,” the man said. “But I was told you can keep the shield, sir.”
“Well, that’s something,” Dayne said as Minox placed his crossbow and handstick on the counter.
“That all?” Minox said.
“All,” the man said, gesturing to the stairs. “Please enjoy the hospitality of the Kittrick.”
* * *
“You need to make one thing clear to me, Trick,” Corrie said as they crossed the great bridge to the rutting north side of the city. It was a quiet night, almost eerily so, which surprised the blazes out of Corrie. But maybe the past few days had been so crazy the whole city needed to take a moment to breathe. The two of them weren’t quite running, but they were walking as fast they could without breaking into a sprint. Corrie wished they had horses under them.
“I’ll try,” Tricky said.
“Which of the bastards are we going after right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what case is this? It’s not the rutting Parliament case, right?”
“Not directly,” Tricky said. “It’s sort of the missing kids, but sort of the Parliament. And maybe that all ties to this Sholiar character.”
“Saints and sinners,” Corrie said. “You’ve been around Minox too much.”
“Maybe so,” she said with a wicked grin. “But I found that trapmaster who saved Nyla because of a bakery package.”
Corrie didn’t even know what to make of that
. “This is why I’m not going to be made inspector.”
“You never know. It’s in your blood.”
“It’s in Minox’s blood. I’m just an angry cuss who doesn’t quit.”
“That’s Minox as well.”
“That was our pop,” Corrie said. She thought about what Minox had told her, that he had taken the transfer to far westtown to keep Minox from there. The job that killed him. “Saints hold him close.”
Tricky stopped walking, getting her bearings, and looked back at Corrie. “You all right?”
“Nothing,” Corrie said, wiping away the hints of moisture that were threatening to become tears. “You think Minox is all right?”
“I hope so,” Tricky said. “He won’t underestimate Sholiar. Though Sholiar kidnapped the only other person whom Minox would tear the city apart to rescue.”
“Right,” Corrie said. She was glad Minox had found Joshea, that he had someone to talk about magic stuff with. He had no one in the family, really, save Evoy. She knew she hadn’t made herself available to him about that. That was a mistake that led to this stupid rutting Inquiry. Now he was going to be stuck at a desk when he should be working the streets with her. “So where the rutting blazes are we going?”
“There,” Tricky said, pointing out one of the buildings on the dock side of the street. Run-down-looking place, but there were a few lamps burning in the windows. But that was all Corrie could see through the windows, the flicker of the lamp flame. They had covered every window with butcher paper or something to keep prying eyes out.
“Well, that place looks suspect, all right.”
“It does indeed,” Tricky said. She moved down the street, her attention away from that building. She looked out in the distance, holding up her hand like she was lining up a shot.
“What?”
“You can see the Parliament from here, and that building, between here and there, is one of the stationhouses for the King’s Marshals.”
“That supposed to be significant?”
“Maybe,” she said cryptically. “I’m going to check something else. Stay here, keep an eye on that, and wait for the writ.”
“Presuming Kellman comes the blazes through with it.”
“He damn well better,” Tricky said. “Eyes sharp, ears up.”
“You too,” Corrie said. Tricky went off around the corner.
Corrie looked back to the HTC Imports building. Through the shadows on the butcher paper, she could see that someone definitely was in there.
Maybe they’d do something that would give her cause. Then she wouldn’t even need a writ.
She pulled out her crossbow and waited. Just in case.
* * *
“Why do we split up?” Minox asked as they reached the two rooms at the top of the stairs.
“Because that’s the game we’re supposed to play,” Dayne said. “If we have any chance of catching Sholiar . . .”
“I doubt we even have that,” Minox said. He mostly hoped to bring Joshea out safely, as well as the others. He also hoped that Inspector Rainey had been successful in her plan to free Nyla from her trap. Or, failing that, that the deal Sholiar laid out had proven true: by coming here and following the terms, her safety was ensured.
“Either way, let’s do this,” Dayne said. He put his key in his door and tried to turn it.
It didn’t budge.
“What’s wrong?” Minox asked.
“It doesn’t move,” Dayne said, the muscles in his massive arms straining. He stopped trying. “The key would snap before it turned.”
“It’s the game,” Minox said, putting his own key in. “To keep us honest, it’s probably rigged that we have to turn both our keys at the same time.”
Dayne muttered some invective under his breath. “Let’s to it then. On my count?”
“Go ahead.”
Dayne counted, and they turned their keys together. This time, they both turned smoothly and easily.
Trapdoors opened up beneath them.
Minox barely had time to register this as he fell down a metal chute, sliding through it and bursting through a metal grate that shut behind him when he landed.
As soon as he was on the ground, the clicking sound of gears and chains surrounded him. Something had just started moving, activated by his entrance.
“Dayne!” he called out. “Are you here?”
“Yes!” Dayne’s voice echoed from every direction, no way to determine where it was coming from.
Minox took a moment to get his bearings. A dim hallway, lit by oil lamp globes on the low ceiling. Along the hallway walls, chains were cranking along, pulled by unseen gears. In the distance down the hall, more sounds echoed and reverberated. The was a regular constant clang, heavy and hard.
Then a scream.
Minox ran down the hall.
He emerged in a large chamber—impossible to tell what it might have been in the original architecture of the hotel—but now it housed another of Sholiar’s atrocity machines. It resembled a large printing press, slamming down with great force every few seconds. Three people—Rencir and Niol and Miss Shartien—were shackled around their necks, the chains pulling them into the press. They struggled to stay clear, but the slow, relentless pull of the chain brought them closer and closer.
Iron bars separated them from Mister Eyairin, who was locked in a cage. Dayne came running over from the other side of the iron bars, able to reach Eyairin’s cage but not the man himself.
“Help! Welling, help!” Rencir shouted. The press slammed down again, and began its slow crank back to being open. Minox’s first instinct was to reach out magically and snap their shackles, but his power spurted and fizzled. The gauntlet blocked him.
Dayne was frantically trying to open Eyairin’s cage, but he wasn’t succeeding. “Get them out of there!”
Minox looked around for anything he could use as a tool to break their shackles, but there was nothing remotely usable. He spotted three control levers, accessible only from Eyairin’s cage.
The press slammed down again.
“What are those levers?” he asked Eyairin.
“I don’t know,” Eyairin said. He grabbed one and pulled it down.
Rencir’s chain slackened, and he was able to pull himself a few feet away from the smashing maw of the press. Eyairin screamed out in pain and let go. The lever snapped up and Rencir was drawn in again.
“What happened?” Dayne asked.
“Hot!” Eyairin cried out. “Scalding!”
Niol and Shartien were dangerously close to the press as it slammed down again.
“Do it again!” Shartien called out.
Eyairin tried to pull his sleeves over his hands as he pulled down the next lever. This released Niol’s chain enough to get him away from immediate peril of the press. He got farther than Rencir before Eyairin screamed again.
“It’s too much!” he said.
“Please!” Shartien said. The chain had now pulled her over the lip of the press, which was almost to the top of its cycle before it slammed down. Minox grabbed hold of her waist and pulled as Eyrain pulled down the third lever, yanking her out of harm’s way as the press slammed down. Eyairin screamed again.
Dayne tried to bend the bars of Eyairin’s cage, but he couldn’t get any purchase.
Eyairin’s hands were smoking, tears streaming down his face. “I can’t do any more, I’m sorry.”
“You bought us time,” Minox said.
“What are you doing, Welling?” Rencir shouted. “Get us free!”
“I’m thinking,” Minox said. They only had moments before Rencir and Niol were in deadly peril again, and Shartien moments after that.
He looked at the machine. Followed the gears, the chains, the pattern. He couldn’t see the mechanism that pulled their chains because it was
behind the press, as were whatever Eyairin’s levers controlled. It had to all connect somewhere back there—probably with a steam pipe that heated the levers.
Minox just needed to get back there. Rencir and Niol were already being pulled back into the press. “Dayne! This is Sholiar’s game, so what are the rules?”
“There’re no rules,” Dayne said. “It’s just cruelty!” The press was about to slam down again, and despite his struggles, Niol was about to be smashed by it.
But there were rules. Minox had to put on the gauntlet, block his magic. Dayne was allowed to keep his shield. This had to be for a reason.
“Dayne! Shield!”
Dayne seemed to understand exactly what Minox meant, and tossed him the shield through the iron bars. Minox caught it and wedged it in the lip of the press as it came down. It jammed the press before it could crush Niol, but the chains pulling all three inside didn’t relent.
Dayne tried to reach through the bars of Eyairin’s cage, get at the levers himself, but they were too far away.
The shield started to buckle.
Minox darted into the press, crawling through it to the machinery on the other side. It was challenging, with one hand numb and unresponsive, but he pulled himself through.
“Pull the levers again, Hemmit!” Niol shouted.
“I can’t!”
“Minox, get out of there!” Dayne yelled.
From inside, he could see the gearwork. It didn’t make much sense to him, but he could see what he presumed were the release controls of the chains. That lever was glowing red hot.
“The shield is breaking!”
Minox swung his left arm so his numb fingers in the gauntlet wrapped around the hot lever. The metal sizzled and stuck, which was good enough. Minox pulled as hard as he could.
The chains released completely, and the machinery stopped. Eyairin’s cage popped open. Two of the iron bars separating Minox’s side from Dayne’s fell down, leaving enough space for someone to pass through.
“Well done, well done.” Sholiar’s familiar voice reverberated around them. “I’m quite impressed by your teamwork, gentlemen, including your sacrifice, Inspector.”
A Parliament of Bodies Page 32