Smoke and Summons (Numina Book 1)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  She silently thanked her father for teaching her how to swim as she continued sidestepping through the darkness. It went pitch-black for a moment, and Sandis’s heart began to race, but she followed the sound of Rone’s movements, and gradually new wisps of light lit up another chamber of the sewers, identical to the last.

  When the sewer branched ahead, Rone led them to the right. “This part will be less pleasant. Watch your step. You don’t want this in your mouth. Or eyes. Or other holes.”

  Sandis cringed, thinking of what other holes the wastewater might contaminate.

  “Don’t worry—this is the cleaner stuff,” Rone said, voice low, but it sounded like he was laughing. “Chances of us getting some horrible disease are much lower than in the west sewers. Higher elevation here. The wastewater hasn’t been sitting for as long.”

  Sandis slicked her hair back from her face. “How much farther?”

  Rone sighed and looked ahead. “A ways.”

  The tunnel narrowed, and the walkway vanished. Sandis stepped into the water, following Rone’s movements exactly, cringing when something solid brushed by her leg. The water started at her ankles, then moved up to her calves, her knees, her thighs, her hips . . .

  She could barely make out an archway up ahead, its crest only a foot above the water. Rone pushed off the wall of the sewer and swam toward it, his chin grazing the water’s surface as he sliced through it.

  Pinching her mouth firmly shut, Sandis followed. The water slowly receded after that, and they were able to walk on a concrete platform for half a mile before the ceiling got painfully low. Sandis hunched with her face inches from Rone’s backside—or so she imagined, for the dim light came and went. Rone lifted her into a dry but rank tube—“It’s for winter overflow”—and she crawled on knees and elbows until the skin on both was raw and threatened to tear. Then they swam through another underground canal, walked, swam, walked, crawled. Rone checked a couple of covers on the way. When he finally climbed up a rusted ladder to another and said, “We’re here,” Sandis could have kissed him. He dropped back down to another platform, barely large enough to fit both of them, and opened his bag.

  “Can’t do much for the smell, but you won’t leave a water trail this way.” He handed her a change of clothes from the sack.

  Sandis waited for him to turn before getting dressed. It was dark, yes, and Kazen often undressed her before summoning Ireth. But she still had some semblance of modesty. More importantly, she couldn’t let Rone see her script.

  She quickly dressed, keeping her back away from him and out of the light trickling through the manhole cover. Because of that, she caught him when he started to turn his head to peek. She grunted her protest, and he whipped his face forward as if nothing had happened.

  The tips of her hair were still dripping when she climbed the ladder and crawled out of the sewer. The first thing she noticed was that the cobblestones here were much wider and paler than they were elsewhere in the city. Lamps, bright and burning, illuminated the courtyard with tawny light. The buildings around them stood clean and tall, their architecture much more aesthetically pleasing than the factories and flats that crowded the smoke ring. Eaves were thick and long and angular, fences with fancy balusters wrapped around well-maintained walkways, and the windows had geometric panes and were rounded on the top. There was even a fountain nearby, though its water was stale.

  Sandis crept toward it and washed her hands and face as best she could.

  “This way.” Rone moved into the shadows of a long white single-story building. There was a tablet above its front door, but it was too dark for Sandis to read. They didn’t go far—their destination was next door, a three-story structure much less glamorous than its neighbors. In the light, it looked rectangular and brown, with fewer windows and no special design.

  Two men entered the courtyard, walking and chatting. Scarlet uniforms. Policemen. Sandis pressed herself against the stone wall.

  Rone pulled out a shiv of some sort and crammed it between the door and its frame. It opened with a soft creak.

  Sandis guessed this was the back of the building, for the door was unremarkable and somewhat small. She slipped inside the moment Rone opened it, and he followed, carefully closing the door behind him.

  “Security should be light in here, if not nonexistent. Few people care about stealing genealogy.” They were in a stairwell. He paused for a moment before climbing up. “Come on, hurry.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered after him.

  “Just hurry.”

  Rone assessed the first floor they reached, then led her up to the next, changed his mind, and hastened her back to the first. He paused in the stairwell as footsteps sounded nearby. Sandis held her breath, waiting for them to fade.

  Silence descended upon them like heavy snow.

  Rone reached for the door handle.

  “Rone.”

  He paused, glanced back at her.

  She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Why did you go to Gerech?”

  It was dark, but she saw his lips press into a thin line. He pulled the door open an inch, then eased it closed again. His voice was so low and hushed she could barely pick out his words. “My mother is there.”

  Shock prickled outward from Sandis’s chest and into her shoulders. His mother, his family, was in that horrible place? When Sandis was a child, her parents had used two frightening stories to encourage her and Anon to behave: one about misshapen demons—numina—hiding beneath the city and the other about scarlets carting bad children away to Gerech.

  “I made a mistake, and she’s paying for it,” he added, not meeting her eyes. He eased the door open. “Let’s go.”

  Rone got several steps ahead of her before Sandis found the strength to urge her own legs forward. Gerech. What would she do if her mother were in that terrible place? Sandis had been bitter for a long time after her mother’s selfish passing, but living with the grafters—losing Anon—had broken her hard feelings into dust. Were her mother alive, Sandis would stop at nothing to free her, even if that was an impossible goal.

  Bright white light exploded to her right, and she winced, eyes tearing. The scent of kerosene filled her nostrils.

  Her heart quickened before she realized it was just a lamp.

  “This way.” Rone moved forward with the newly lit lamp, which he’d taken from the wall.

  Once Sandis cleared her vision of spots, she saw Rone had brought her somewhere that looked very much like a library—rows of shelves and drawers, trees of information spotting mostly bare brick walls. She noted words on the end of each aisle—last names, sometimes solitary letters. Her heart quickened as she read them. Ls, Ks, Js . . . Gs.

  She hurried ahead of Rone and began picking through the bins that filled the shelves. Scanning them, she paused at the second-to-bottom shelf. Gwenwig should be in this one. She knelt down and pulled the entire bin from its place on the wall. “Bring the light closer,” she whispered.

  Light dusted the records. Near the back, she found the first Gwenwig.

  A small sound like an airy squeal eked from her throat. She pulled the file out. Santos Gwenwig. That was her paternal great-grandfather. She pulled out another, then another. She found her father’s record—it was outdated, listing that he only had a daughter. It included her mother’s name and the date they were married.

  The next name jumped out at her like a fish out of water. Talbur Gwenwig.

  Her breath caught.

  “You found it?” Rone crouched beside her.

  Sandis pulled the file from the bin and arranged the papers in the direct light of the lamp. She wasn’t practiced enough to read speedily, but she pushed herself over the words.

  Though she had no memory of Talbur—or his name—the family tree in the file indicated he was her father’s uncle, the half brother of her grandfather. So there was still blood connecting them. Sandis smiled.

  She pressed her finger to the information, dragging it down as she re
ad. Birthdate . . . he was sixty-eight years old. No death date listed, but of course he’d still be alive if he recently traded at the bank. Male, of course. No marriage record or children, and—

  Her finger stopped. Oh no.

  “What?” Rone pressed his shoulder to hers, trying to see better, but it blocked out the light. Sandis pushed him back.

  “It says he lives in Thaughtez.”

  Rone glanced at her. “That’s about two hundred miles out.”

  Sandis shook her head. “He can’t. He wouldn’t travel clear from Thaughtez to make a gold exchange at a bank in Dresberg. The record is outdated.” Just like her father’s.

  She sat back on her heels.

  “You’re sure?” Rone took the record and read it himself. “Hmm, yeah. This stamp says the last entry was seventeen years ago. Whoever keeps these needs to be fired.”

  A dead end. Hope dribbled out of her body and puddled on the floor.

  She sucked some of it back in. At least she knew who the mystery Gwenwig was—her great-uncle. At least she had that. She opened her grandfather’s record and skimmed over the family tree—there was Talbur’s name, written a few lines below her father’s.

  She glanced back at the bin. Fingered through it. Frowned. Opened her father’s record.

  “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “When do they start records for citizens?”

  “When they’re born. Why?”

  She searched one more time. “I don’t have one.”

  Rone paused, brows skewed. “Please don’t tell me you’re under seventeen.”

  “I’m eighteen. I’m on this record, here.” She pointed to her name on her father’s record. “But I don’t have my own file.”

  Rone looked over the record himself, then searched those in the bin. “Huh, yeah. I bet it was stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  Rone shrugged. “You’re Kolin, yeah? Kolin citizens can’t be sold as slaves. I wonder if your master or whoever had it taken so you couldn’t be traced.”

  Sandis’s lips parted. She’d never considered the idea. Did the government think she was dead? Did they know she existed?

  Did they care?

  Sandis closed the records she’d opened and carefully returned them to their cradle, then shoved the bin back onto the shelf. What would she do next? Where else could she look?

  Rone stood. “We should go.”

  She nodded and followed his light. As she passed the shelves, something caught her eye.

  She moved toward it as if mesmerized. Rone groaned and hurried after her. Yes, it was a Noscon symbol, painted on a book spine—what it said, she couldn’t be sure, but she recognized the art of it. As Rone neared, his light illuminated a few more ledgers beside it, crammed together inside a small bin, which bore a Kolin label. Sandis sounded the words out in her head: Noscon records.

  “We need to go,” Rone whispered.

  Sandis nodded, but let her fingertips touch the ancient script.

  Her eyes exploded with fire.

  Hot air pressed in on her from all sides, crushing her until she couldn’t breathe. Need. Hurry. Need. Emotions that weren’t hers crawled along her skin like centipedes. The pressure increased, then built in her skull, pushing outward. She grabbed her head.

  Ireth, stop it. Stop it!

  The pressure built until Sandis felt she would crumple like old paper. A single pulse of fire blazed from her crown to her toes. Fear.

  Sandis turned around and saw two slitted eyes like hot iron bearing down on her. Hot darkness engulfed her. Living shadow. The smell of burning flesh filled her senses—the smell of Heath.

  An earth-shattering roar pierced her ears and rent her to pieces.

  Sandis screamed.

  Chapter 9

  Her scream echoed between shelves and walls, threatening to shatter glass.

  “Sandis!” Rone hissed as she fell backward. He grabbed her by the shoulders, then yanked his hands back, palms burning. Sandis collided with the floor. She stared upward, unblinking like a corpse.

  Her hair steamed.

  Rone’s stomach dropped to his knees. Cursing, he crouched at her side. “Sandis? Sandis?” He carefully touched her arm—the heat had receded, but it was still unnatural. He took her face in his hands and gently shook it. “Sandis? The hell? Sandis!”

  She blinked, her eyes coming into focus, then rolled over and coughed as though her lungs were full of tar.

  Sweat broke out along her skin. Her entire body trembled.

  This was no sewer disease.

  He slapped her back a few times. Once she caught her breath, he grabbed her shoulders. “Are you all right? What happened?” He glanced at the records. But no, it couldn’t have been those.

  What had those grafters done to her?

  She pressed her palms to the floor and pushed herself onto her knees. Breathed heavily. On the fourth exhale, she muttered, “Kolosos.”

  Nonsense. “What?”

  She shook her head. Sat up and pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I . . . I’m sorry. I’m . . . fine.”

  Rone flexed his hands, pulling the burned skin tight. He stared at her. How . . . ?

  He heard footsteps on the floor below. God’s tower, anyone in the courtyard would have heard her.

  “We need to go.” And figure out what the hell just happened later. “Come on.”

  He took her elbow and hefted her to her feet. Was she always this light? His own fear was probably fueling his muscles. He reached for his amarinth, hoping he wouldn’t need to use it.

  They went back the way they’d come—the way Rone had already mapped. He didn’t like going into things without some knowledge of what he was doing. Sandis faltered once on the stairs, but otherwise kept the pace.

  “Come on. Hurry.” He opened the door. Peeked out. Sprinted for the manhole cover. Lifted it and ushered Sandis down the ladder.

  He scanned the area one last time before jumping in. A shadow moved by the science building. The glint of eyes, then the man turned away and vanished.

  Rone stiffened. A witness. And if he was moving away instead of coming toward them, it wasn’t security or police. But how could the grafters have followed them here? Even if they’d found his flat, they couldn’t have tracked them through the sewers.

  Unless they knew Sandis was searching for her great-uncle. Then they might plant a solitary lookout. One who would have heard her scream.

  They had to hurry.

  He could ditch her after this, right?

  The question spun in his mind as he pushed himself through knee-high water, trying not to splash Sandis as he went. He’d done his part. He’d gotten her to the records. It wasn’t his fault the information had been lacking. It was very much her fault that the rats of the city may or may not have been pursuing them.

  Had he been overconfident? Could the grafters know the literal underground so well? It was a big city, and a lot of people were employed in sewage. One of them could easily be a grafter, or sympathetic to one. Or enslaved by one.

  But if this Kazen guy was so interested in recapturing Sandis, why would he have let her out of his sight in the first place?

  He didn’t have time for this.

  There were no streetlights over the nearest manhole, only cloud-filtered moonlight. Running his hand along the wall to feel for a ladder, Rone trudged toward it, frowning when his fingers found nothing but slick concrete and mold. The manhole wasn’t terribly high; if he jumped, he could dislodge the cover.

  “What are you doing?” Sandis asked behind him.

  “Can’t go back the way we came. There was a lurker in the courtyard. If we’re lucky, it was a thief.”

  He didn’t bother to say, If we’re not, for the small gasp Sandis made told him she understood completely.

  Good. They had no time to talk about that. Or about Sandis’s maybe stroke. Rone launched himself up and pushed both hands into the manhole cover, knocking it askew. Jumping again, he got his f
ingers over the lip of the manhole and pulled himself up.

  Apparently it had rained only enough to tar the cobblestones with sludge. Not that Rone wasn’t covered in something similar. He checked for his amarinth, wrung out his sodden clothes as best he could without taking them off, then lay on his stomach and lowered his hands into the sewer.

  Sandis’s fingers slid down his as she tried to get a solid grip. Water splashed up when she fell back down. Come on, come on. He couldn’t ditch her in the sewer. Even he wasn’t that despicable.

  He thought of his mother and felt sick.

  Sandis’s hands found his, and he grabbed them tightly enough to cut off blood flow. With a grunt, he hauled Sandis up until she got an elbow onto the street and could pull herself out the rest of the way. She slicked hair back from her face.

  “Wring out, hurry.” Where would they go? He thought of a few places, including a tavern he’d holed up in a couple of times when jobs got too intense. He didn’t have his wallet on him, though. Would they take credit?

  Sandis stood, her wet clothes sticking to her and making her look like a drowned mouse. Rone put a hand on the back of her shoulders and pushed her down a nearby street. He reached the end of it before realizing he’d forgotten to close the manhole cover.

  He turned down another street, but Sandis grabbed his shirt and stopped him, shaking her head.

  Rone stifled a groan. “There’s a guy I know who—”

  “That leads right into Grim Rig’s territory. He hates beggars, and we don’t look much better.”

  The name rang a bell—one of the local mob bosses. Rone nodded and chose a different way—a curving street with no rhyme or reason and a lot of foul-smelling garbage bins. There had to be a butcher nearby. Rotting meat had a very distinct and stomach-churning smell.

  Rone guided them down another road, his footsteps slowing when he neared the end of it. He didn’t know this area very well, and the darkness made it that much worse. Lack of lamps, lack of homeless . . . this wasn’t a good sign.