Ca-chunk!
“What the—” Samantha said.
The lamps above us popped and their filaments quickly cooled. The light faded quickly and left us standing in a well of blackness. It was like watching a sunset happen in seconds instead of minutes.
Everything was silent. Nothing moved. Then came curses and shouts from windows, behind doors, and down the street.
“Argentum,” I whispered, hearing the nervousness in my voice. I blinked but everything was black. I couldn’t see Samantha, I couldn’t see the outlines of buildings. I pulled the Judge from its holster and turned slowly.
It was so dark. A city of levels like Lovat becomes cavernous when the lights go out, the echoes seem more pronounced, and the city feels impossibly dark. I could hear my breath, feel my hands shake.
But nothing came.
“It can’t be him. There’s no way he could rig a whole warren...” Samantha said from somewhere to my left.
I saw flashes, expected to see his metal face emerge from the murk and feel the sharp pain of his blade as he cut into me.
Still nothing happened.
After a few seconds meager emergency lights kicked on with throaty thrums illuminating portions of the street and parts of buildings. Candles were being lit and they glowed from windows.
Slowly the street transformed from sheer black to forms swimming in the penumbra. Buildings rose around me like obsidian monoliths, a few lights winking against their dark faces, walking figures became silhouettes of ebony against dimly glowing streets.
“Stay alert,” I said.
Still something felt wrong. It was like the feeling of being watched, only inverted. I felt a glimpse, but the feeling was... what? It seemed just out of my grasp. My spine tingled with it. Gooseflesh crawled across and up my arms. I shuddered and looked around, still seeing nothing.
“You feel that?” I asked.
Samantha’s form turned and even though I couldn’t see her features I could tell she was regarding me curiously. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something going on, I can just... tell. Maybe not Argentum. But... something...”
It felt familiar, I realized. I’d had similar feelings before though I couldn’t place where or when.
People began coming out of their buildings, moving silhouettes backlit from the emergency lamps. Dauger, humans, dimanians, and a few maero all stood around mumbling to one another and staring up at the ceiling.
“Never seen a brownout last this long,” someone said.
“I have,” said another voice. “Twenty years ago. One of the incinerators went up and took two more with it. Whole city was dark for a day until they got the backups on.”
“I heard the plant workers were talking about going on strike.”
“I heard that too,” said another.
“Can you blame them? Wish I had that kind of leverage.”
“What if it doesn’t come back on?”
“I bet it’s the mayor’s doing!” someone shouted. “This is his way of quelling the rioters. Keeping everyone in line!”
Candles and lanterns sprung up around us, adding a meager glow to the titanic space of the warren. There was enough light now, I could see Samantha’s face. Beyond her it was difficult to make out details.
I looked up and through the cracks between levels I could see other sections of the city still lit. Others seemed to be experiencing the same darkness we were.
“It’s not just us,” I said to Samantha. “It looks like Level Six has power, maybe Five. I bet these are rolling outages. I bet the power’ll be back soon.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glint of something, and my spine shivered. I spun. Argentum?
No. But there was something.
Emerging into a pool of light and then quickly stepping out of it was Janus Gold, the dauger from Kiver’s Auseil party. He was moving through the milling crowd, his golden mask catching the occasional glint of light. He was wrapped in a thick billowing cloak, with the heavy hood I’d seen on other elevated during my trip to the Shangdi.
What was he doing down so low? The elevated rarely traipsed below Level Six, and were never seen down here on Four.
“Hey,” I whispered and thumbed in the direction of Gold. “Check it out.”
Samantha followed my eyes. “Who’s that? You know him?”
“Yeah. That’s Janus Gold,” I said. “Hagen and I met him at that Auseil party.”
“Gold, eh? What’s he doing down here?” Samantha asked, her eyes following his progress. He dipped past a pair of maero holding candles and moved to an alleyway. One of the small emergency lights blazed above him and caught the sheen of his mask for a second before he disappeared out of its glow.
Then, he stopped, not too far from where Samantha and I stood. A portion of his left shoulder and his back was illuminated by the small emergency light. No one else on the street seemed to notice the elevated dauger in their presence.
“Good question,” I whispered. He was thirty or forty yards away and, judging by his body language, he was engaged in a conversation. I edged closer, slipping into a darkened doorway. Samantha moved in behind me and we were pressed together, careful to remain in the shadows.
“Carter’s cross,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth.
A long narrow head emerged from the gloom. The pointy hood, the blank face, robes curling like living shadow.
A gargoyle.
Samantha gasped. “Wal, that’s a gargoyle.”
The thing leaned around the corner to look south. Its pointed hood seemed to drink in the light, and its black cloak enveloped Gold. The dauger said something and pointed back the way he had come. The thing nodded, its hood dipping.
Gold stepped back into the light looking almost like an actor in a spotlight. His hands were on his hips and his head tilted in a way that seemed angry. He pointed down at the ground with a forceful gesture. The gargoyle, still half in the shadow and half in the light regarded him, and then acquiesced.
One blink later, it was gone.
Gold didn’t move. He stared at the empty space now before him. Finally he sighed and let his head loll forward. His shoulders shook. Laughter? Sorrow? Finally, he turned and looked back the way he had come as if waiting for someone.
“What’s he waiting for?” Samantha asked in a hushed whisper.
I squinted in Gold’s direction. “No idea.”
“You meet this dauger at a party where Adderley kills himself and now we find him down here talking to gargoyles? That’s too odd to be a coincidence.”
We waited along with him and I wondered who else would show. I expected to see the umbra, Charles Shain, or the obnoxious maero Caleth dal Dunnel appear. But it was the elevated socialite, Cora Dirch, who appeared from behind a building dressed in a similar cloak as Gold. She glided through the blackness. Behind her a second cloaked figure emerged, and then a third. Now four figures stood below the small emergency light.
“Who is that?” Samantha asked.
“Another one of the elevated.”
“From the party?”
I nodded. “We should get closer. I want to hear what they’re saying.”
Samantha didn’t protest, so we edged closer. Staying low and keeping to the shadows; grateful that the lights had gone out. We crouched behind a parked fourgon, only a few yards away from the little gathering.
“...he’s been getting too impetuous. I doubt we’ll be able to manipulate him much longer. It has to be Kiver,” said a voice. It sounded like Gold. “Who else could it be?”
“So soon?” It was Dirch.
“It must happen tonight. Our hold is tenuous at best. We need another.”
“If we keep going like this there won’t be any others.”
A sigh. “We knew the bargain. For this control to last we must give another.”
Dirch looked away in my direction, and I ducked even though I knew she couldn’t see me. I could feel Samantha tense.
> Gold pressed his point. “You’re more powerful than you’ve ever been, you have more control with the seafood market than anyone else.”
“The cost...” Dirch said, letting her voice drift off.
Gold stepped back and looked at the group. “Henry, you were facing bankruptcy before we started this. Melanie, your family has benefited greatly.”
“We all appreciate what’s been accomplished, but...”
Gold shook his head. “We haven’t lifted a knife.”
“We wield it just the same,” said a man. He wore the same cloak as the others but his face was shadowed beneath a trilby. I assumed he was Henry.
“We beseech. We ask.” Gold looked at Dirch. “Cora, the Bonheurs were pushing you out of business. Your children would have been left penniless if that happened.”
The Bonheurs. My pulse quickened. My discussion with the woman at the chapterhouse flashed through my memory. What a convenient tragedy for Cora Dirch. After all, she was also in seafood. I remembered Caleth mentioning that at Kiver’s party.
“Now your family will lead for generations. This is what we talked about, Cora. You have provided for your children and grandchildren. For generations to come. We’ve all prospered in ways we couldn’t even fathom before.”
“Frank didn’t like it,” said Henry.
“Frank didn’t like anything,” said Gold.
“He was one of us,” Cora said, shaking her head sadly. “One of us, Janus. He stood next to us. He said the words.”
“He was a fool! He could have been running Dyer if he wanted. Instead he chose devotion.” He spat the word. “As if that thing deserves it.”
“He said we were making it angry. That it—”
Gold interrupted her. “He never liked the deal to begin with. Carter’s cross, Cora, he said it was our duty to free the damn thing. Called it the Herald. He said he’d do it himself if I didn’t go along.”
“He still might,” she said softly, folding her arms across her chest.
“With what, his scrawls? His sacrifices?” Gold laughed and shook his head. “No, Cora, no. We still control it. I still control it.” He tapped his chest.
I looked over at Samantha. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth hung open.
“But Kiver?” Dirch didn’t look convinced, her mouth was downturned and the shadows that hung from the folds in her skin deepened. “He’s a friend.”
“What are friends in times like these? We need to move past that. Kiver’s the next logical choice. Remember who we’re doing this for! Five years ago none of us would have been at a party like that. Now we’re kings and queens. We’re family. United in a bond that cannot be broken. Family is forever.”
Dirch stood, staring down at her feet. Her breath came out in small clouds that floated around her head.
“Cora?” asked Gold, his voice kind. He reached out a hand and rubbed her arm. The old woman nodded.
“Come, we must prepare. Caleth will meet us on the way. He’s been in contact with the supplier. We’ll have what we need.”
Gold turned and slipped into the darkness down an alley. The others quickly followed, leaving only an empty pool of light.
“Come on,” I said when they were out of earshot.
“Wal, I was wrong. A First is doing this. It’s killing people. It’s killing the elevated.”
I nodded and looked down the alley after them.
“Wal, what are we going to do?”
“What do you think?” I said.
Samantha stared into my eyes for a moment, then looked away. “Stop them,” she said.
We followed them down the alley, disappearing into the dark.
A few of the lamps had begun to clank back on, but Gold, Dirch, and the others hadn’t slowed. They were easy to track in this part of the city and they clearly weren’t expecting a tail.
They moved in a column, much like a caravan, twisting and turning through back alleys and down side streets. A few more people joined them, their own cloaks billowing behind them as they moved. One had to be Caleth, but I couldn’t tell which. All of them were obscured in shadow.
The newcomers didn’t walk with Gold’s group. Instead they formed their own trailing party and moved at a slightly slower pace. I guessed that they were trying not to arouse the suspicion of police by moving in a larger group.
I’ve tailed people before and it wasn’t difficult for Samantha and me to stay with them. We followed far enough behind and stuck to the shadows. We carefully lingered when they did, and moved as quietly as we could.
When we neared the warren of Denny Lake both groups stopped at a lift stop and talked quietly among themselves. Then the first group of four entered a stairwell and disappeared.
“Now where are they going...” I wondered quietly.
“We need to know what they’re up to,” Samantha said. She tilted her head and regarded the next group. “What about them?”
“We could push past them, maybe. But one of them might recognize me.” I said, wondering if Caleth was in the group that remained.
So we waited, watching the cloaked party as they loitered outside the stairwell. Whenever someone passed, their leader, the tallest among them, perked up. They seemed to be expecting someone.
Eventually a large maero in a dark wool coat with a bowler hat cocked to one side emerged from the gloom. A bag was thrown over his shoulder, its end clutched in his seven-fingered hand. He stopped in front of the tallest figure, looking him over, and then laughed.
We were too far to hear what they were saying, but brief, heated words were exchanged. I glanced at Samantha.
"Down?" I asked.
“Down,” she said, her tone cool and determined.
We moved closer, trying to hear the discussion. The maero in the bowler dropped the bag and gave the tall robed figure a shove. The figure stumbled, regained their footing and held up their hands dismissively.
The guy in the bowler hat laughed. Now Samantha and I were close enough to hear. “You stupid quim. Think you can descend from on high and make your own rules. You’re in Outfit territory now. You answer to us.”
The cloaked figure took something from a pocket and placed it into the hands of the maero. Possibly lira? But in this dark, even only twenty or so yards away, we couldn’t tell for sure.
“It’s all there,” said a voice.
“Yeah? I like to make sure.”
The maero in the bowler inspected it, and then, satisfied, he slung the sack from the ground into the outstretched arms of the figure. Then he turned and strolled away whistling to himself as he went.
The three disappeared into the stairwell shortly afterward. Samantha and I followed, waiting only a few seconds before crossing the street and moving in behind. In the enclosed space we could hear them talking, their voices echoing up from below us as they descended the stairwell.
“He is such an asshole, I don’t know why we deal with him,” said a voice. It sounded familiar.
“Well, they’re the only ones able to get the ingredients.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to be such an ass about it.”
Laughter. “He hurt your feelings, Cal?”
“Shut up.”
More laughter.
They passed Level Three and continued down. We plodded along in their wake.
They spoke of ausca games and business deals and their plans for the summer. Eventually they left the stairs and moved out onto Level Two.
We emerged after them, catching the last of the three disappearing around a corner. We followed down yet another alley between an abandoned mushroom farm and a building that had once sold live chickens. Two hollow-eyed dimanians watched Samantha from the steps of the farm as we followed the three figures.
The lights down here hadn’t gone out like they had on Level Four, but Level Two was never fully lit. Maintenance crews wouldn’t come this far down without a police escort and even if they had one, replacing burned out lamps wasn’t much of a priority.
The three figures disappeared into the gaping doorway of an old tower that rose out of the Sunk below and up into the streets of Level Two. At one time, this doorway probably served as an exit onto a balcony. Now, it opened up on a narrow alley on Level Two. Here the streets hung between the sunken towers like catwalks, not touching the walls. The Sunk splashed up from between the cracks and barnacles clung to the buildings. The air smelled of equal parts seawater and sewage.
“Here we are,” I said, slowing and easing to a stop.
The alley was blanketed by shadows and the open doorway seemed more like a hungry mouth than the entrance to a building.
I drew my gun. Samantha eyed it warily.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “Can’t take any chances.”
“No, I understand,” she said. Then her dark eyes raised to meet mine. She was scared, and I couldn’t blame her. I was terrified. My heart was pounding in my chest and my stomach had leapt into my throat.
I put my finger to my lips and cocked my head towards the doorway. Samantha nodded.
Steeling myself, I stepped forward and we both disappeared into the maw.
TWENTY
AS WE STEPPED THROUGH THE DOOR the scent of dampness and mildew hit us. It was heavy on the fetid air, hanging above something baser. A pair of torches were mounted on the walls, framing the door behind us. They crackled and popped, casting dim shadows that danced in the flickering light.
We stood on a rickety platform that jutted out over a deep hole that dropped its way through the center of the building. The bones of a crane extended out and over the pit, rotted ropes and rusted chains hung from its arm, covered in a gray moss. There was an opening in the ceiling, a viewport into the floor above. Hooks attached to chains hung down and swayed slightly.
We were alone.
The platform creaked below our feet and I crouched instinctively, trying not to think about the age or condition of the wood.
I pointed towards the edge and Samantha and I carefully moved toward it. We dropped to our bellies and looked over. The platform moaned beneath us.
Red Litten World Page 21