Principles of Angels

by Jaine Fenn

  Taro, his head reeling, asked, ‘If yer the City, an’ you’ve been the City fer a thousand years, then if you take a nap, that’s a very bad thing, ain’t it? World-endin’ kind of bad?’

  ‘Yes, it’s bad, but not the end of everything, not if someone else takes over. I believe this weapon will be employed by Salik Vidoran, so that he can take my place.’

  ‘You mean that’s what the Consul’s up to? He wants to use this Sidhe weapon to get control of the whole City? Fuck.’ Put like that it sounded completely gappy - or it would have, a few minutes ago. Now, surrounded by the wreckage of buildings and dead and injured people, it made a kind of scary sense. ‘Makes all the shit with the Concord and the Assembly look like pissin’ off a mazeway,’ he added gloomily.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘But . . . how?’ he asked again. ‘Vidoran can’t just use this weapon an’ take yer place, can he? I mean, he’d’ve done that already if he could, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Correct. There is only one location from which control can be assumed. Those who built me into this City put an override mechanism there, to allow one still bound in the flesh to take over if I am incapacitated. There are defences, but the Sidhe will have told Vidoran how to deal with them - that is why he stole your line-mother’s gun. Now the one weapon that can destroy me is active, he will take it to the only place where he can use it and live.’

  ‘It’s the Heart of the City, ain’t it? That’s where he’ll go.’

  ‘Exactly. And you, Taro, must kill him before he gets there.’

  The initial blow knocked Nual onto her back. Meraint saw a flash of silver in the dim light and for a moment he thought she already had her spurs out. If so, the Screamer was in trouble. But when Scarrion straightened, Meraint saw he was kneeling over her, pinning her to the ground. He held a thin curved blade in his hand.

  The Screamer leaned over her and whispered, ‘So you’re the infamous Nual. We meet at last.’

  The Angel lay still, eyelids flickering, blades sheathed. Scarrion gave a dismissive snort. ‘But what’s wrong with you - been at the happy dust? Guess I’ll never know. Makes things simpler, if less interesting.’

  Almost casually, he slashed for her throat—

  Meraint choked back a cry, then blinked, when he saw that the Angel was not quite as badly hurt as she had appeared to be. With a surprising show of strength she bucked the Screamer off her, and as he overbalanced, a look of dismayed surprise flashed across his normally emotionless face. He almost fell - Meraint saw the tip of his knife snag the carpet - but he recovered at once and sprang back into position.

  The Angel already had her knees under her and was edging backwards on her forearms, ready to lever herself onto all fours.

  Scarrion waited in a defensive crouch next to the Angel, rather than pressing home his attack. Meraint wondered why the damn Screamer was hesitating; then he heard a faint chuckle and realised the bastard was so confident that he was playing with her. He hoped the Screamer had underestimated the Angel, or that she was deliberately feinting. And there was another reason he was being cautious, Meraint realised: with her hands flat on the floor she couldn’t extend her spurs.

  Sure enough, as soon as she was on all fours Scarrion sprang forward and kicked her in the face. She fell backwards against the desk.

  It didn’t look like she was feinting; it looked like she was having trouble staying conscious.

  Scarrion settled next to her, leaning low with knife poised, shifting his weight from foot to foot, ready to attack or defend. ‘Dear me, dear me,’ he murmured gleefully, ‘is this really the best you can do? I was hoping for a challenge for once. Perhaps I should just knock you out with my little song? Ah, but where would be the fun in that?’

  The Screamer was focused on his adversary, and had no idea anyone else was in the office. Meraint had to do something; he couldn’t let his enemy kill this Angel.

  As if tired of waiting for Nual to make a move, Scarrion lunged. The Angel ducked his blade, just, but at least the attack got her moving again. She began to crawl away.

  The Screamer started after her, but she kicked out backwards, catching him on the shin. He staggered back with a surprised yelp.

  She used her brief advantage to pull herself upright on the edge of the desk. The Screamer must have broken her nose when he kicked her; blood spattered the lower half of her face and dripped onto the carpet.

  They were both on their feet now, but while Scarrion stood relaxed and alert, Nual moved like a woman in a dream. Meraint was afraid that if she let go of the desk, she would fall, and he wasn’t convinced she’d be able to get herself back up.

  He had to help her. There were knives in the kitchenette unit in the alcove, but he’d have to open a cupboard, and that was bound to attract the Screamer’s attention - and besides, what did he think he would be able to do with a kitchen knife against a Yazil assassin?

  Then, finally, he remembered Elarn Reen’s dart-gun.

  The Screamer drove forward and Nual fell back, out of Meraint’s sight. He winced at the sound of a chair crashing to the ground. It was impossible to tell who was winning, but the Angel didn’t look like she would last long. He drew the little gun. If they would just come back this way, he’d even the odds.

  He heard a blade swish through the air and a grunt from the Screamer. ‘Too slow, switch-bitch,’ he taunted her.

  Meraint raised the gun.

  Another crash, and a gasp of pain that sounded distinctly feminine.

  ‘Now, really!’ said Scarrion, his voice calm and mocking, ‘you should have seen that coming! What is your problem?’

  A couple of seconds later a hunched figure backed into view. In the bad light and dust it took a moment for Meraint to identify it as Nual; her head was down and she had one arm wrapped round her midriff. The other arm, the blade still only half extended, was stretched out in front of her to ward off the next blow.

  Meraint’s finger tightened on the trigger. Come on you bastard. Walk into my trap.

  There was movement from the left.

  Meraint fired—

  —but Scarrion was already halfway across the room, Nual falling in front of him, when Meraint squeezed the trigger, and he knew he had missed even as he saw the tiny dart fly through the space the Screamer had occupied a fraction of a second before. The faint ffssstt! of compressed air as the gun fired was lost in the Screamer’s incoherent war-cry.

  The Screamer had looked sure to floor Nual when he ran into her, but in his haste to finish her off his ankle clipped the fallen chair and he stumbled. He fell into Nual, but she was too weak to take immediate advantage and they swung around each other.

  She didn’t let go; Meraint couldn’t see if she was trying to keep her opponent off-balance, or if she was just trying to keep herself upright by holding onto him. It was getting increasingly hard to keep track of who was who as they spun through the ruined office. He could hear Scarrion’s wild laughter and Nual’s laboured breathing, but as they clung together their figures merged into one in the dim emergency lighting. They were already heading out of his view again.

  The Angel wasn’t going to last much longer. He had to act now.

  He fired a second time.

  At first he thought he had missed again. Then Nual stumbled and sagged in Scarrion’s grasp.

  He hadn’t missed. He had shot the wrong person.

  The Angel slid to the floor. Scarrion stared at her for a moment, confused. Then he straightened and looked around, taking in the rest of the room for the first time.

  Meraint sighted on the Screamer, his finger tightening on the trigger—

  —Scarrion spotted him a fraction of a second before he fired—

  —and Meraint saw the shot go wide as the Screamer ducked and the dart flew over his shoulder.

  Scarrion danced across the room towards him, weaving to throw off Meraint’s aim. Without breaking stride he opened his mouth in a rapid, impossible movement. His jaws snapped shut, and
Meraint felt the sonic wave hit him.

  The gun slipped from his fingers and his knees buckled. Singing pain exploded from the roots of his teeth to fill his head. His bowels, already loosened by fear, emptied. Every blood vessel in his body felt like it was expanding, while his heartbeat slowed to a great unwieldy thump.

  He clawed at the worktop with numb, tingling hands, then collapsed, his body now nothing but a useless lump of meat.

  As the darkness started to close in on him, a detached part of his mind wondered whether it was against the Concord for a Screamer to use his implant on a civilian - as though the rules mattered any more.

  Footsteps approached and he braced himself for the killing blow, but the Screamer ran past, heading for the open back door.

  Well, Elarn Reen, he thought, you’re on your own now, just you and your madness. Then the darkness met in the centre of his vision and he stopped thinking at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Taro steadied himself on the seat edge and bent down to pick up Nual’s gun.

  The Minister lay still. Taro wondered if he’d ever move again. He resisted the urge to close the glassy, staring eyes. After all, it wasn’t like the Minister was really dead; apparently he’d never been alive.

  Taro shivered. The air was freezing, colder than night in the Gardens, and it smelled wrong, as though something huge had died and started rotting beneath the City. Around him the uninjured coves and rollers had withdrawn into frightened huddles. A couple of baton-boys were trying to organise them and look over the casualties, but they had no more idea what was going on than the other topsiders.

  Taro turned away from the empty shell that had once been the greatest power in the City and walked to the end of the Street. One of the pillars supporting the circle-car track had a large crack running up it, but the fence running beneath it was intact and it didn’t look like there was much danger of the track falling.

  He stopped in front of the fence. There was no hum of power now; it was dead and couldn’t hurt him . . . but he still needed to get through it. He pointed Nual’s gun at it and slipped a finger onto the trigger-pad. When it warmed he pulled his finger back, firmly and gently, at the same time sweeping the gun in a slow arc before him. There was no sound, no light, just the faintest vibration from the gun, like the last shudder of a dying animal. For a moment he thought nothing had happened. Then the fence in front of him parted as the links melted and fell to the ground.

  He was used to coming onto the ledge through one of the gaps in the fence at the end of apparently dead-end alleys. Finding a way into the Undertow from a hole he’d made himself felt freaky, in some ways freakier than everything else he’d already lived through today.

  He loped along the ledge until he got to the right area, then slowed and started to pace, stopping every now and again to look into the semi-darkness of the sidestreets for familiar alleyways that marked a place where nets hung from the rim of the City. It didn’t help that he couldn’t see properly. Tiny flakes of white stuff had started to drift through the air, messing with his vision. As he watched, one of them landed on the back of his hand and evaporated, leaving a cold damp patch on his skin. Taro stared at it for a moment, then shook his head. He had to stay focused.

  When he thought he’d reached the right place he stopped and knelt down at the edge, feeling for marker pegs. Nothing. He moved along another couple of paces and tried again. There! A single bolt, just over the edge. He lay flat and felt over the lip until his hand brushed something. He recognised the rope by touch, the way in which four cords had been woven together; this was a route down he had used a lot. It came out near his old homespace.

  He slung the gun over his shoulder, pushed the cloak back to free his hands and eased himself over the lip of the City and into the nets.

  The gun and cloak made the climb harder but his body remembered the route, tuning in to the familiar pattern of the nets under his hands and feet . . . except something was wrong. Part of the net was missing. The shaking had been bad enough topside, where you couldn’t fall off; here in the Undertow it must’ve been terrible. He pulled himself over to the intact part of the nets and carried on.

  Taro had spent his whole life in the mazeways. Now, for the first time, he had to get below them to get a clear view across the Undertow. That’s how he would take out Vidoran as he headed towards the Heart of the City. Taro found himself remembering his flights with Nual; it’d be easy enough for an Angel, but she was gone, perhaps even dead. The thought stung like a fleck to the heart, but he had to put her out of his mind. As he couldn’t fly, he needed another way to get into position. Leaning over the edge of a mazeway was a well smoky option; even if he’d had a harness and tether, he wouldn’t be able to use the gun while dangling upside down. He briefly considered Solo, but even if the alien was willing - and able - to carry him, the Exquisite Corpse was on the other side of the City.

  What else? He had to find a way . . .

  ‘Water-traps!’ he said out loud. They hung below the mazeways, and they were pretty sturdy, had to be, to take the weight of all that water. If he emptied out a big one, he could stand in it and get lowered down that way. And who had the biggest ’traps?

  Water-traders.

  He pulled up the hood of Nual’s cloak and set off hubwards and sunwise, towards Fenya’s - surely she’d let him use one of hers, ’specially when he turned up with an Angel’s gun and cloak.

  The usual murmurous sounds of the Undertow had a panicked edge, and Taro soon came across more damage: torn nets, mazeways out of true or, where the ropes supporting them had snapped, missing completely. The few people he met either didn’t spot him under the cloak or, if they saw him at all, assumed he must be an Angel and quickly got out the way.

  He was making a minor detour to avoid a missing mazeway when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye: a furtive shadow, gone almost at once. A few seconds later a whistle sounded from just behind him.

  Odd time for a meatbaby hunt.

  As he rounded the next corner he saw a section of mazeway about four metres long had fallen. The nets were gone too, though some support ropes still hung from bolts just above head-height and the lower line of bolts that had once supported the mazeway were still intact. The only other route he knew was a long way out of his way and would take him deep into Limnel’s territory. The missing stretch wasn’t that long, and the ropes and bolts were still there. He’d have to chance it.

  He stopped at the end of the mazeway and, careful not to look down, reached up to grasp the first support rope. He pressed his cheek to the vane and edged out with his left foot until his toes found the first bolt. He raised his right arm and grabbed the support rope so he was hanging from it with both hands. Finally he slid his right leg along the vane and eased it in behind his left foot. With both feet splayed out he had a fairly secure, if less than comfortable, perch on the bolt. He let go of the rope with his left hand and slid it along the wall until he reached the next rope. He repeated the procedure until he was standing on the second bolt, hands twisted in the second hanging rope. The third rope was shorter, having snapped just below the bolt, so he’d have to be careful . . .

  He was straddled between the second and third sets of bolts when something hit him in the back, not hard, but enough to send the adrenalin surging through his already stressed-out system. He stopped, quivering. Another impact.

  He turned his head to look back the way he’d come, scraping his chin along the vane, his neck creaking in protest.

  A lag he didn’t immediately recognise stood at the end of the broken vane he’d just left. He had a handful of bolts.

  ‘Shit!’ said the boy, taking a step back. Then louder, ‘It’s him!’ He gave a short double whistle.

  Hidden in the folds of Nual’s cloak Taro had been nothing but a vague outline against the vane. By throwing the bolts the boy had made him turn his head and show himself. Shit and blood! If he’d just stayed still the lag might’ve given up and
left him alone - he obviously didn’t have a gun, just bolts.

  As he watched, the boy turned and ran back along the mazeway. Taro saw him more clearly now: one of Limnel’s general thugs and dog’s-bodies, reporting to Resh. Just what he needed.

  He eased his head back to face the way he was going and carried on.

  By the time he’d got himself onto the third bolt and was reaching for the fourth his ribs were slick with sweat, despite the chill. Any second now he expected to see a gang member with a boltgun step onto the ledge ahead, but it stayed clear. From the sounds of the whistles, he guessed that most of the gang were still behind him.