“What were you doing in the Sunk?” Hannah asked.
I sighed and explained the whole fight, Argentum on the lift, the chase, ending up in the Sunk. They stared at me as I finished.
“So you just leapt in?” Hannah said.
“Yep.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep.”
“And a bok found you?”
“Yep,” I said with a nod.
“Aren’t they supposed to be mean? Like near feral?” asked Hannah. “I mean, I’ve never met one, hell, never even seen one, but...”
“He wasn’t. He seemed on the level, even kind. It was his boss who left me spinning.”
“His boss?” Samantha asked.
“Yeah. Says her name is Elephant. I woke up on some cot in a warehouse of hers in Myrtle.”
“Myrtle? That’s Outfit territory.”
“Exactly. Get this—the place was filled with food. Fresh vegetables. Canned goods. Potted meats. Crates of it! She strolled in and introduced herself, said she’d heard of me, knew I was working with Kiver. Said we had mutual goals. She wants to see an end to the gilded murders. Claimed it was affecting her business.”
“Her business selling food to the elevated,” said Samantha bitterly.
“That’d be my guess as well. She heard I was under contract, too. Was really cagey about it, though she did offer to clear it up if I found out what was happening up top.”
“You think she’s Outfit?” asked Hannah.
“She didn’t correct me when I asked. I don’t see why she’d keep it a secret. She let me see the crates.”
“Maybe she hired Argentum,” said Samantha.
“No, I didn’t get that feeling...” I sighed slowly. “So, that’s where I am. A dauger trying to kill me in a starved city. And before you even try suggesting it—yes, I could try to go to the LPD but not only do I not trust them, they’re stretched too thin and have their hands full. Anyway, they’re not too fond of me.”
“Still...” said Samantha, though I could tell she didn’t believe her own words.
“Yeah,” I said.
Samantha looked up at me and realized what I was thinking. “You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
I nodded, feeling that anger surge up inside me again. “I don’t exactly have much of a choice. I can’t be hunting a First and watching my back for this guy.” I paused. “I’ll need to get the Judge, though. Even the odds a bit.”
Samantha frowned.
The doorbell tinkled again. I could hear the door open and close and then the sound of soft footsteps. I wished there was a line of sight from the counter to the door.
Hagen appeared and stopped when he saw me standing behind the counter. He was wearing a long coat that covered everything above his red leather shoes. He had cut his bowler so his one horn could stick out the front like some jaunty feather. He looked stunned. He blinked a few times as if he was unsure whether I was an illusion.
“Wal! We’ve been looking everywhere. You okay? Where have you been? You had us scared!”
“I sent a telegraph,” I said.
“Really?”
“I would have called, but...”
“Yeah, the phone, I know. I should really get that thing replaced.”
“So Wal is being hunted by an assassin,” Samantha said flatly, cutting right to the point. “He was chased to Level Two, escaped in the Sunk, and got help from some Outfit goon who was interested in Adderley’s murder.”
Hagen looked from her to me and then back to her. “What? Really?”
Way to ease him into it, Samantha, I thought.
“He was also at the Cannery Massacre. The one all over the monochromes,” added Hannah.
He looked between Hannah and me then quickly crossed the floor to the opposite side of the counter. He scowled and pulled off his coat, then took off his hat, careful not to snag it on his horn. Finally he looked at me and adjusted his glasses and said, “What in the bloody Firsts—”
The door clanged again and this time I jumped. Who could this be? The mood in the city wasn’t conducive to antiques shopping. My muscles tensed.
Argentum? Had he followed me here?
I pushed close to the desk, and felt in the cubby beneath for a club I knew Hagen kept there. Ever since we had been attacked in Saint Olm, he kept one there as a precaution.
Quick steps pattered through the shelves, and I felt my fingers wrap around the club’s handle.
“Who’s there?” asked Hagen, turning to look at the figure who emerged from the shelves. It was a short anur with bulbous gray eyes and a wide mouth. She padded across the floor in the white uniform of a delivery woman.
I relaxed.
“Hagen Dubois?” she said in a small voice, nervously looking at the four people standing by the counter staring at her.
“I’m Hagen,” Hagen said. “How can I help you?”
“Telegraph for you, from a Mister Waldo Emerson Bell. Sorry it took so long. Conditions are... not ideal.” She pressed the sealed paper into his hand and mumbled, “Thank you for using Lovat Telegraph.” Then she turned and disappeared back out the front door.
“See,” I said, smiling. “I sent a telegraph.”
SEVENTEEN
HAGEN CLOSED AND LOCKED THE FRONT DOOR behind the delivery woman and flipped the sign to “Closed”. He suggested that everyone stay at Saint Olm for the night. That it’d be safer. We all agreed.
We raided what was left of Hagen’s pantry and scraped together a meager meal of boiled beans and dehydrated rice. Afterward we spent some time watching his small monochrome. Another gilded murder opened the news broadcast. It had occurred earlier in the day. The victim was a well-known broker from Level Six. They flashed his picture, a dimanian, round-faced with kind eyes and a pair of heavy horns that drooped off the top of his head.
“Earlier today,” began the voice of the lead anchor as it crackled from the monochrome’s single speaker. “During a press conference with the Chief of Police, the LPD reiterated that there was no apparent connection between the victims in this string of murders in Lovat’s upper levels.”
The screen cut to Detective Bouchard and a couple of other high-ranking police officials at a press conference. A white-mustached human in a uniform stated that each case was being looked into as of today, and that so far there was no evidence connecting the deaths. The officers seemed to look at one another awkwardly as reporters hammered them with questions. I could sense Bouchard’s fury boiling beneath his professional demeanor. His smile was too tight, his words too clipped.
The lead anchor reappeared, a human with dark skin, pale hair, and a wide smile. He introduced a segment about the protesters. There were recordings of people marching down streets, fires burning in dumpsters, and looters running off with stolen goods. Then a cut to reporters standing outside government buildings, visibly shivering in the cold and recounting stories about the arrests of suspected Breaker leaders and the rush to trial that the mayor’s office had demanded.
The camera panned to show Paramount Square in front of City Hall where a crowd of protesters had been camped for days. Starting with a handful, their numbers had swelled to thousands. Angry protesters chanted together and raised signs demanding food, the end to the Grovedare blockade, and the release of the Breakers.
In the back of the crowd, I noticed a suspicious looking but distinctive figure. The same billowing robes I had seen before, the same tall pointed hood. Another gargoyle. I ran my hands through my hair, and let out a puff of breath as I asked, “Did you see that?”
The camera began to pan away. I rose from the couch, pointing at the small screen. Samantha jolted and leaned forward, a small cry escaping her lips.
“See what?” asked Hagen.
“That wasn’t...” Samantha said, her words fading off.
The gargoyle was gone, lost beyond the edges of the monochrome. I turned and looked at Samantha. I looked from her to the others and back.
“You saw it?”
Samantha nodded.
“Saw what? What did you see?” asked Hannah.
“Well...” I said, rubbing my face. “That makes five, three in the last few days. I saw one shortly after I left here two days ago, then again at the massacre.”
“Saw what?” Hannah asked, annoyed.
I took a deep breath. “Gargoyles. I’ve been seeing them for days.”
The room went silent. Hannah’s mouth dropped open and she turned to look to Samantha, then back to me. Pain flashed in her bright green eyes, then fear. She gripped her wooden hand with her real one and pushed off the floor and began to pace.
“Here, in the city?” she asked, speaking rapidly.
I nodded. “Yeah. Not sure how many are here, but they’re active. Could be they’ve been here a while. Could be they just arrived. I’ve seen them four times in person. Once before we met Kiver, once after, twice since I left you guys, now this one on the monochrome. That’s five.”
“And this is the first time you thought to tell us?” Hannah said on the verge of shouting. “You let us walk into Kiver’s flat to look at his Aklo-stained murder scene without letting us know you’re seeing gargoyles?”
“I... I wasn’t sure what to make of them.”
“You should have told us, Wal,” said Samantha.
“No shit,” said Hannah. She glared at me.
“Look, I wasn’t sure... I just—”
“But you’re sure now?” Hannah asked, her voice venom. She had been the first to spot the creatures. They had been just shadows then, specks along the Broken Road, with their tall pointed hoods and black billowing robes. We had believed them bandits at first, and discovered later that we couldn’t have been more wrong.
It was easy to mistake them for cultists. Mystics throughout the scrape dressed in similar garb. However, when you got close, it was clear those were people in a capirote, eyeholes cut out so they could see, fabric sewn together. Gargoyles were different. They were blackness, they drank in the light, blotted it out. They were faceless, they had no eyeholes, their hoods poured over the curves of their blank faces like settled tar. There were no seams in their robes or the fabric that always seemed to billow about them.
“I’m sure,” I said. My voice sounded pressed, like I was holding in a deep breath and struggling to talk without letting it go. “You’re right. I should have told you.” I sighed and ran my hands through my hair again. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” I looked to her, to Samantha, to Hagen. It was time. I had to do this. I fought past the tightness in my throat as I spoke. “I know this. The last two times I faced a First I tried to go it alone.” I looked at Samantha. She stood with her arms folded across her chest. Her lips were set in a severe frown. “I tried to carry it all. Tried to pull the whole damn wainload myself and... well, it’s never worked out. I need you all. I need my friends. I should’ve told you about the gargoyles, and I should’ve told you about Argentum. I’m sorry. I’m telling you now. I need your help.”
I stood, arms hanging at my sides, meeting each of their eyes. There wasn’t much more to say.
“It’s strange to hear you ask for help,” Samantha said with a small laugh. I turned and looked at her. She smiled. It wasn’t especially warm, nor was it forgiving, but it was genuine. “But, I’ll gladly give it. All you ever need to do is ask, Wal.”
I smiled weakly and nodded.
“So,” Hannah said after a few moments. She turned to Samantha, avoiding my eyes. “You saw it as well?”
“Just like before. Just like on the Broken Road,” Samantha said.
“So, that settles it,” said Hagen, his voice cracking the tension. “You said they were basically servants, right? Servants need a master. We’re dealing with another First. Aren’t we?”
I nodded. “All signs point to yes.”
We sat in silence listening to the drone of the monochrome. Each focused inward, realizing what this meant.
Samantha was the first to speak. “I did some research on them.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yeah, I couldn’t get them out of my head. There was something strange about them, outside the obvious. They moved so fast, and they were afraid of guns even though bullets didn’t hurt them. Remember? They went right through them. So I looked into them.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Well, there’s not much out there, at least about them in their current form. Pre-Aligning texts do account for their role. Alhazred mentions them throughout his work. As do scribes from later centuries. Usually they go by the name servitors.
“Some modern cults like to call themselves servitors because they believe they’re serving a First. But there’s a significant difference between a servitor and a worshipper. Worshippers can come and go, servitors are bound for life. They were created to be slaves. Many are mentioned, and they come in all manner of shapes, but there’s no written mention of specific servitors in tall pointed hoods with no faces.”
“Maybe they’re something else,” Hagen said. “There have been cases of devoted members from the outer faiths becoming mindless drones. Mystics often preach about this sort of thing. A true surrendering of the self.”
“Ah, but these things aren’t mindless drones. They’re something else. I spoke with some colleagues at the seminary: Father Olima and Mother Kaewa. Olima has an encyclopedic knowledge of the creatures in the old tomes. When I explained what we saw he suggested they might be shaggs. Well, that’s the new word, the original is much too difficult for native Strutten speakers.”
She said the name, the sound coming out of the back of her throat. It was like bubbles bursting underwater. I grinned despite the seriousness of the topic. It always made me happy to see Samantha talk about her research, even if I couldn’t always keep up. She was good at it. It was amazing watching the way she wielded knowledge.
Somewhere inside I cared for her deeply, I realized. But I had learned. And I wouldn’t leave Essie behind. I’d fight for her. She had understood me. I needed to figure out how to see her again, so we could talk things out, see where we stood.
I snapped back to the topic at hand. Samantha was still talking.
“...looked into shaggs and that didn’t seem to fit these guys at all. Shaggs seem almost beast-like whereas our gargoyles can think, reason, and act. Shaggs are more like drones. Like worker ants following their instincts. Also, there was no evidence of shaggs changing form and the gargoyles do that.”
“So what was the other option?” I said, eyeing Hannah out of the corner of my vision. She had stopped pacing and now sat on the floor next to the couch, staring down at her hands.
“Well, there’s no name for the other option yet but it seems closer. This was Mother Kaewa’s suggestion. Some call them masses, others call them spawn. They’re described as creatures without shape, formless. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Curwen, remember how you said he could change sha—”
“I’m sorry. I can’t keep talking about this,” Hannah said, rising. “Hagen, I’m going to crash on your bed.”
“Okay,” Hagen said dumbly.
“It’s just, look...” Hannah frowned and shot me a glare, then rubbed her lips. Her hand was shaking. “Look, I’m sorry.”
We watched her turn and disappear into the small room near the back of Saint Olm and close the door behind her.
“She going to be okay?” Hagen asked, already knowing the answer.
“She just needs some time alone,” Samantha said.
“She’ll be okay,” I said. I hoped.
Hagen looked over his shoulder towards the bedroom.
Samantha continued. “So the spawn change shape. Most of the time they were described as black masses, beings of pure chaos.”
“Mini-Curwens,” I said.
“For lack of a better description... yeah. Anyway I found out more. Some old pre-Aligning tome called Legends of Commoriom. It talks about the spawn at great length. They
lived in these huge bowls within temples as a liquid, then they’d rise up and do their master’s bidding.”
“Their master being a First.”
Samantha nodded, and then seemed to realize what this meant.
I mentally went through what I knew: There were the murders with the messages written in blood. There was the rise in gilded murders. There was Elephant, and her interest in the murders. Her connection wasn’t making much sense but she was awfully concerned about Adderley. The gargoyles, potentially these spawn, servitors for some titanic monster. They were no doubt carrying messages to and fro. And finally there was Argentum, the rogue piece in this game. Where did he fit?
I rubbed at my temples. “Ugh, there’s so much to this. I don’t know where to begin.”
Samantha yawned. “We’re all tired. We’re all hungry. It’s hard to think straight. Maybe we get some rest and start fresh in the morning?”
“That,” said Hagen, rising from his chair and moving to a closet. “Is a good idea.”
He opened the door and pulled out an armful of patchwork quilts and blankets. Samantha nodded. “I’ll crash with Hannah in your room, Hagen. You two fight over the couch.”
She rose and stretched and I could hear her spine crack.
I looked at the lumpy couch and then at the carpet on the floor.
“I’ll take the floor,” I said to Hagen.
“You sure? You’re the wounded one.”
“Mighty chivalrous of you,” I said. “But I learned long ago how to sleep well on hard ground.”
“All right. I’m not going to ask twice, if you’ll excuse me I need to use the restroom,” Hagen said. I watched him turn and disappear behind the door opposite his bedroom.
I laid out a makeshift bedroll on the floor of Hagen’s living space. I squatted down, extending my right leg so my knee wouldn’t have to bend. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Samantha watching me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Your knee still bother you?”
I realized how long it had been since we had seen each other. Up until tonight our encounters had been brief.
I twisted, feeling my back pop. “A little, stairs are still the worst, and the cold hasn’t been too fun. But it’s not like it used to be. Why?”
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