“Not yet,” I said, trying not to act surprised at her presence. “The collector seems to have disappeared.” It was the truth. In our hurry to follow Gold and his cronies Argentum had slipped my mind.
“Little bit of a frenzy, eh?” she said, looking out over the crowd.
“Friends of yours?” I asked, motioning with my chin to the pair of goons that lingered behind her.
“Associates,” said Elephant casually. She seemed remarkably calm amid all this chaos. “You’ve met Allard...” she said, gesturing to the dimanian.
I nodded. “I remember.”
“And this is Vaughn.” She gestured to the other. “Boys, Waldo Bell. Hank’s charity case.”
They glanced at me, grunted, and continued to eye the crowd warily.
“Who’s the broad?” asked Elephant. She motioned towards Samantha with a tilt of her head.
“Priestess Samantha Dubois,” I said. “Samantha, this is Elephant.”
“Hi,” said Samantha. Her voice lacked warmth.
“Pleasure. Reunified?”
Samantha nodded. “You’re the one hoarding all the food,” she said.
A few heads snapped in our direction. People studied the three of us for a moment, realized we didn’t have any food and then returned to their protest.
Elephant laughed. “I am a businesswoman, thank you. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I prefer to think of myself as an... opportunist.”
“It doesn’t make it right,” said Samantha.
“Moral fluffing bores me,” Elephant said, rolling her eyes.
“There are children starving. You’re keeping food hidden away—”
A few of the crowd had broken free and were coming closer.
“What’s that?” one asked.
“Food?” said another.
“Someone have food?” said a third.
They pressed closer and Elephant cocked her head, motioning her two goons near.
“Back off,” drawled Allard, the dimanian. He gave one of the crowd a shove.
A maero next to him moved to leap at him, but Vaughn was next to him in a heartbeat, shaking his head slowly.
“Let’s get back to the down-with-the-mayor chants,” said Allard with a sly smile. “No need to fight among ourselves. Eh, brothers?”
The hungry Lovatines regarded the two goons and Elephant for a moment before returning to their space in the throng.
“You might want to keep quiet, Mother Dubois.”
Samantha stared daggers at the woman.
“Look, we don’t have time to argue,” I said. “Kiver’s in trouble. We need to get to him. Warn him.”
Elephant’s grin broke and her face grew serious. A threat on Kiver’s life was a threat on her whole business. He was her link to the upper reaches of the city. He needed to remain where he was, for her sake.
“Is he home?” I asked.
“Of course he’s home. These days every elevated asshole in the city is home. Cowering. Maybe you haven’t noticed but the streets are a bit dangerous, especially for the rich.” She waved a hand at the crowd.
“We need to get to him,” I said again.
“What’s going on?”
“The gilded murders. Kiver’s next.”
“What?” Elephant nearly shouted. “How do you know this?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, lifting my voice over the sound of the crowd. She noticed my edge, and looked from me up to the length of the Shangdi. “And if I help you?”
“If you don’t, you’re out a client.”
“Your... supplies will rot,” Samantha added.
“Bound to happen soon, anyway. The Breakers were successful in the South. The Purity Movement went running this morning and the caravans are rolling. Some maero broke the blockade and is leading the wagons here. It’s all over the papers.”
Wensem! It had to be him. If things weren’t already chaotic enough I would have beamed. He had done it! He had broken the blockade and was now leading a lifeline back into the city. He’d be hailed as a hero.
Elephant looked at me and then up at the tower. “I can get you there, but I need something in return.”
I looked around. Ashton could already be here. Could already be stalking his way through the crowd and towards the tower. I didn’t want to find Kiver on the floor of his flat, I didn’t want to see his name added to the list of the dead. Ashton had to be stopped. Gold’s control over the First had to be severed once and for all.
“I’ll owe you,” I stammered out.
“Wal!” Samantha said.
“You already owe me, Bell. It was my bonesaw who hauled you out of the Sunk. You’ll owe me double.”
“Wal,” said Samantha again, her voice heavy with warning.
I looked from Elephant to Samantha, and then back again. Samantha was right. She generally was. It wasn’t wise to owe a debt to someone like Elephant. It’d be even more foolish to owe double.
But time was short, and I had little choice.
“Fine,” I said, glancing around and looking for Ashton’s wide smile among the crowd. I didn’t see him. “Double. But we move now.”
Elephant spat in her hand and held it out. I repeated the gesture and we clasped hands. Her grip was firm, carrying with it the weight of command and confidence. She smiled. “Great doing business with you.”
The entresol between Level Seven and Level Eight was different from the ones in the mids. As Lovat had risen, modern engineers and architects had begun to use the space in various, more efficient ways. Air ducts, pipes, and electrical lines were better grouped and easier to access. The spaces felt more like well-lit and low ceilinged corridors.
Allard and Vaughn had led us down an alley and into a padlocked hatch that was built into the street. One of them had a key and had unlocked the door and hurried us down a steel ladder.
Narrow strips of white neon hummed along the upper edge of the space giving the interior of the entresol an antiseptic feeling. A city worker in a yellow jumpsuit stared at us as we descended, and then held out her hand as Allard approached.
“On assignment from Elephant,” Allard said.
“Even in this crowd?” she asked.
He grunted in the affirmative and palmed a few lira into the woman’s outstretched rubber glove. The maintenance worker stepped aside and flashed a flat smile.
Allard chuckled, gave her a friendly slap on the shoulder and motioned for Samantha and me to follow.
“We get along with maintenance,” he said, moving along the tunnel in a slight jog. We paced him, our boots clanging on the white painted floor.
Small directional signage had been sprayed in blue stencil letters along pipes and tubes that ran along the walls, directing those in the tunnels to various towers. Among them was the word ‘Shangdi’ next to a little pictogram depicting the tower’s dagger shape.
“They see nothing and as a result we move beneath the city unmolested,” explained Vaughn from behind us.
“How far is the tower?”
“There’s no straight walk in the entresols. It’s a twenty-minute walk from the entrance we took. We’ve got another five minutes or so.”
We twisted around another corner and ducked beneath a gurgling sewage line that crossed the small tunnel. The roar from the crowd leaked down through the street above us and shook the white floor beneath our feet.
“Shangdi is this way. Just a few mor—hurk.”
The dimanian froze midstep and I nearly collided into him.
“Bell,” came a low hissing voice. It sent a shiver down my spine.
A gargoyle was standing before Allard, dominating most of the space in the corridor. Its pointed hood was bent back by the low ceiling. Its left hand was embedded in the dimanian’s chest up to its forearm. Blood was leaking out around the wound and dripping to the floor in a heavy wet pat, pat, pat.
Allard made another noise and then he shuddered violently and went limp.
The
gargoyle regarded him, then turned to Samantha and me before turning to Vaughn, who stammered in place.
“W–what the fu—” said Vaughn.
“You son-of-a—” Samantha began.
I drew the Judge.
“You will go no further,” said the creature. It slid its hand free from Allard’s chest with a slurping sound. His body crumpled to the floor. The gargoyle regarded my gun. “You tried that once on me before,” it said. “Near Methow, in the Kadath. Do you... remember?” it asked in an almost gentle tone.
In the Kadath. I remembered. We had first met the gargoyles in that cursed mine. This was one of those? One of the things we faced in that mineshaft? The gun wavered a bit in my hand.
“We’re going to the Shangdi,” I said.
“Wha—” Another gagging sound. Another wet slurp, followed by a body collapsing to the floor behind me. Vaughn.
The gargoyle laughed.
I looked over my shoulder and saw two more of them in the small space behind us. Vaughn’s body lay at their feet. A pool of crimson was forming beneath his corpse. One of their hands glistened with his blood.
“What are you?” Samantha demanded with a gasp. In Ashton’s lair the gargoyles were nothing more than a nuisance. Here, they’d killed two of Elephant’s men.
“We told you once, priestess,” said the third.
“We do not like to repeat ourselves,” said the first.
I swallowed, and kept my gun trained on the nearest. I saw Samantha’s fists clench into balls. Behind me the two gargoyles sounded their eerie laughter. The one in front tilted its head but said nothing. We were running out of time.
“Kiver,” I said, looking at Samantha and then at the gargoyle in front of us.
“Gold’s sacrifice,” said the second gargoyle.
“Ashton will be pleased with him,” said the first. “He will do. For now.”
I hoped Samantha understood what I wanted her to do.
I flipped the Judge around in my hand and grasped it by the barrel, my brown knuckles paling as I gripped the metal. Then I took a deep breath and lunged.
TWENTY-THREE
MY SHOULDER CONNECTED with the creature’s chest. I felt something pop and I was driven to the ground alongside the creature. I felt a breeze above me as Samantha sprang over our tangled forms and sprinted down the hallway.
Below me the gargoyle howled. Its curled fingers clawed at my skin. Every time it touched me I could feel its cold leak through my coat, my shirt and into my chest. I pulled myself so I sat astride it and brought the grip of the Judge down on its face like a hammer. The strange black face collapsed inward and then reformed as I repeated the assault again and again, bringing the Judge down. It was like thrashing at water.
In a moment I was lifted and dragged backward. The gargoyles struggled to hold me, but what they lacked in strength they made up for in determination. My feet slipped on the blood that oozed from Elephant’s two dead goons, and I dragged wet stains across the white neon-lit floor.
My father always said I was built like a chest of drawers. I think it was a compliment. I’m not tall like Wensem, nor am I thin like Hagen, but I do have a low center of gravity which is handy in a brawl. Especially with opponents like these.
My feet slapped against the floor and I pushed myself up. I lashed out with the Judge, swinging it like a club and catching one of the gargoyles in the belly. It collapsed backwards. As I pushed off I twisted and threw the last gargoyle into a low-hanging pipe. It connected with a throaty clang. I didn’t slow. Didn’t pause. I grabbed it and slammed it into the pipe again and again. Eventually it evaporated in a cloud of black smoke.
By this time the first gargoyle had scrambled up. Its blank face leveled at me, its back bent forward, and its hands curled like talons.
“My, you’re tenacious,” I said. My breath wheezed out of my lungs.
“We serve the will of the Mizra. He wants nothing of his uncle’s fate.”
“So now you’re thugs?”
“We are...” began the first.
“...what the Founders will us to be,” completed the gargoyle behind me.
“Fair enough.”
I flipped the Judge around in my hand and emptied the cylinder into the first gargoyle’s face. Its taloned hands clawed at the fabric that covered its face as it scrambled backwards. When the gun clicked empty, I dropped it and spun, dropping low to avoid a blow from the second. The thing had swung at me and missed, its hands hitting only air. Off balance, I pushed upward, my shoulder connecting with its stomach and throwing it backwards.
The second gargoyle cackled as it went sliding through blood, and I turned to see the first recovering. I expected an attack, but the thing just stood there. Five gunshot holes stared at me like eyes from its blank face, small bits of torn fabric floating in the air of the tunnel. “You have the protection but you do not have the touch.”
I picked the Judge from the floor and slipped it back into its holster. I wondered if Samantha had made it to the Shangdi. I hoped she was okay. I looked back at the nearest gargoyle. “What happened to your friend?”
“Friend?” the second asked. I could hear it rising behind me.
“You lack the wisdom.”
“You are like the last Guardian.”
“Yeah? What happened to him?” I asked.
“Her,” said one of them. They had begun to circle me now, like wolves.
“She went... mad,” said one.
“They all go mad eventually,” said the other.
One was across from me now, the other behind me. I pushed back, slamming the one behind me into the white wall of the tunnel and pinning it with my body. I reached up and wrapped my hands around two random pipes and jerked down. A stream of steam and a spark of electricity burst from the pipe and pummeled the creature in front of me.
It screamed, a strange blood-curdling sound, and clawed at itself as it disappeared in a whirl of fabric and smoke.
Only one left.
I spun, grabbing it by the throat and slamming it into the wall again and again.
It only laughed.
I only got angrier. Eventually my hands were coming away bloody and I blinked, realizing the thing was gone. It had vanished.
I was alone.
I looked down at my bloody knuckles. I swore I could hear them still, whispering in the distance. Watching, waiting.
Where did that come from? They hadn’t been that powerful before. They hadn’t been able to stop us on the stairs in Methow. Why now did three of them present such a problem?
I had to catch up with Samantha. I had to warn Kiver. Stop Ashton. I flexed my fingers, and ran down the tunnel, hoping I wasn’t too late.
The lobby of the Shangdi was as impressive as when I first visited. Only this time the security forces looked even more on edge. They all stood with their arms folded, their hands in their pockets, or their fingers wrapped around cups of coffee. Occasionally one of them would peek through the narrow slits in the boards that had been hammered up over the exterior windows. They would exchange worried looks at the swelling of the crowd outside. The fervor. The chanting.
“Why doesn’t he just capitulate?” asked one.
“He’s scared. That crowd will tear them apart.”
“LPD is out of control,” said another. “Killing people in cold blood? It’s no wonder...”
“The mayor will figure it out...”
Murmurs all around.
I stood near the exit of the stairwell, my hands caked with drying blood. My hair tussled. One of my eyes felt like it was swelling shut. I probably looked like I had been trampled. I wasn’t the sort of elevated type these guards would normally see.
If they noticed me they didn’t seem to care. Their focus was on their nervous conversation or mob outside. They were scared, and rightly so. There were enough people out there to destroy these towers. Any of them could fall, their inhabitants thrown from the windows. Too many angry people and not enough loy
al cops in the city. The bloodshed, the hunger, the outrage all boiled together to make one volatile and unsavory stew.
The shouting drowned out my footsteps. It made sneaking past the guards easier than I had expected. I slipped towards the bank of elevators that occupied the center of the building. I wasn’t sure how much time I had spent in the tunnel trading punches. I had no idea if Samantha had gotten to Kiver, no idea if Ashton or Gold were up there already, or what I would face in Kiver dal Renna’s sun-lit flat.
The elevator dinged and upon entering I thumbed the button for Kiver’s floor. The doors closed and the lift began to rise.
During the ascent I reloaded the Judge and tucked it back into its holster. Drew it. Checked it again. Returned it. The noise of the crowd grew more and more distant as the elevator rose.
When the elevator slowed, my breath seemed to stick in my chest. My heart thudded a staccato rhythm against my ribs. My hands felt clammy and I wiped them on my jeans as the doors dinged and then finally opened.
Around me, the building still trembled.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE ELEVATOR DOORS OPENED on the small atrium. This time it was devoid of worried party guests. I saw nothing, but that didn’t set me at ease. I held the gun out in front of me, elbow locked, my left hand cradling the right. I moved slowly, taking corners carefully. My breath was tight and controlled.
The heavy door that lead into the flat was ajar. Not a good sign. I moved from the atrium, easing it open gently. Nothing waited beyond but the foyer entrance and beyond that a small hallway. It led down towards another room, where a sliding door allowed me to enter a kitchen. The kitchen was clean and empty, with only one other exit. Through the door I could see a record player sitting along a glass wall. It warbled a tinny instrumental version of that same song that I had heard so many days earlier. My mother’s voice once again welled up from my memories, as the lyrics rolled though my head.
...when I die, when I die please bury me,
in my big black wide-brimmed hat.
Red Litten World Page 24