by Jaine Fenn
He had just leapt from the final bolt, grateful to have a mazeway under his feet again, when he heard a familiar shhwoop! and ducked without thinking. Someone swore and Taro looked back to see the boy who’d found him and an older girl standing on the mazeway behind. The girl was just lowering her boltgun, looking pissed off. That’s right, thought Taro with relief, you don’t have the range.
But there was no reason to think other hunters weren’t already on their way round to cut him off. Taro took a deep breath, spoke a prayer he knew the City wouldn’t hear, and ran into the mazeways. .
Elarn wasn’t sure how she had managed to find her way back to the Street. As she stood in the mouth of the alley it took her a moment to register that the damage - people lying on the ground, a crashed pedicab, a spray of dirt and flowers from an upturned planter, cracks in the façades of some of the buildings - existed outside her own head.
Somehow, she had caused this. She remembered little after submitting to Nual’s probe but she knew that the scream - the chaotic force hidden in her soul by the Sidhe - was responsible for the devastation around her. She had always thought Salvatine notions of possession little more than symbol and psychobabble . . . the irony of discovering that it really could happen, and worse, that it had happened to her, an unbeliever, almost made her laugh. But a laugh could so easily turn into a scream—
Control, control, control. She must keep control. The scream was dormant inside her for now, though she had to keep gulping to make sure it stayed there. She needed to act quickly, before it rose up her throat again.
She frowned at the sky, trying to get her bearings. The orange of the forcedome was scabbed with irregular dark patches but the thin needle of the central spine was still distinct against it. She needed to head away from that.
As she stepped out onto the Street she almost walked into an elderly man holding a cloth to his bloody face. He looked at her, dazed but not hostile. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. He muttered that it was all right, but he obviously didn’t know what she was apologising for. ‘No, really,’ she said, ‘this is all my fault, you know: everything. But I know how to stop it getting worse.’
He stared at her for a moment, then hurried away. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her. The infernal buzzing in her head made it hard to know whether she was really speaking out loud or just to herself.
The cold was bitter and each step jarred her vision. She found herself crying, tears leaking down her cheeks to drop onto the ground.
The end of the Street was still blocked by a fence. Fine, there were other ways. She turned around. Was that movement, someone coming towards her through the wreckage? She felt her lips part and forced them shut.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something - steps? A way up: that was what she needed.
The steps were covered in debris and she had to pick her way through with care. The effort made the buzz rise to a roar and she could feel the scream rising with it. Lia must have let it out when she had tried to see what the Sidhe had put in her head. She had only been trying to help, but she was probably dead now. And soon we will all be dead, unless I can destroy the scream before it escapes, she thought sadly.
Control. Keep control. Just a little longer now and it will all be over.
The barrier at the top of the steps had collapsed into a pile of plastic and metal. As she heaved herself up onto it her cloak snagged on a jagged edge. She pulled and it tore, but held. In desperation she unclasped it and half-slid, half-fell down the other side. On the far side of the barrier she stopped to catch her breath and wait for her pulse to stop deafening her.
Snow had started to fall, possibly just in her head, but still she found herself smiling at this incongruous detail: snow at the end of the world. How peculiar.
The platform was divided by the circle-car track, but the bridge over the track was more or less intact. The far side was wider, with an air-taxi pad off to the side. There were a few people on the platforms, but most looked to be injured, or helping those who were. Elarn crossed the bridge to the far platform and found another fence at the edge. For a City that was meant to be dangerous, they did their best to make the environment safe, but there was a small gap, where the pylon nearest the air-taxi pad had buckled and torn the chainlink. That was where she needed to go.
‘Medame, kindly keep away from the edge.’
At first she assumed the voice was in her head. At least her hallucinations were giving sensible advice now, even if she had no intention of following it. But this was a man’s voice, vaguely familiar.
So, not a hallucination. She glanced over her shoulder to see Salik’s bodyguard standing on the bridge between the platforms. What was he doing here? She didn’t have time for this creepy psycho now. She reached for her bag, before remembering that both bag and gun were long gone. She said nothing, but he seemed to consider the fact that she was no longer walking towards the fence reply enough.
‘That’s right, medame. Come back here.’ The Screamer continued to walk towards her. She didn’t turn, but kept watching him over her shoulder. He looked as beaten up as the City, and wore the same wary look as the old man she had tried to speak to earlier. A killer like that regarding her with a caution amounting to fear was quite disconcerting. ‘Sirrah Vidoran is very concerned for you, Medame Reen.’
‘Oh.’ Now why did the vile assassin have to mention Salik? Things were so much simpler if she avoided thinking about him.
‘Why don’t you come back over here and wait for him? He’ll look after you, medame.’
Elarn found her head filling with images of Salik; of his elegant hands, of the way his mouth quirked when he smiled, of . . . other parts. If only he had been the saviour she had wanted him to be, not the liar she now knew him to be.
Without another word she turned away and began to run towards the fence. The gap was bigger than it had first looked, and it wasn’t far.
She was nearly there when something landed on her back and she slammed into the floor, winded, her nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of sweat and blood.
She shrieked and raged, but she was pinned fast.
A shadow entered her vision and a figure crouched next to her. Salik. Despite herself, she found hope entering her heart at the sight of him. ‘Make him let me go! Salik, he’s hurting me!’
He said, his eyes full of pity, ‘Let her get up, Scarrion.’
The weight decreased and he held out a hand to help her. She got as far as sitting before giving up.
‘Oh Elarn,’ he said, ‘you have suffered so much.’
‘Yes, yes, and I deserve it all!’ she cried. ‘You have to leave me alone, let me break the vessel, so the scream can’t use it.’
He crouched down beside her. ‘What vessel?’
He was doubting her. The same fear that everyone else viewed her with was creeping into his eyes.
‘Me, me,’ she tried to explain. ‘They made me a vessel for the song that kills. The scream, it’s in me, trying to get out. I have to kill myself, or I’ll find I’m singing it and then everyone will die.’
‘I love you, Elarn.’ He reached out to stroke her cheek.
Now, finally, he was telling her. She fell silent, looking into his eyes. She loved him too, of course. She was about to tell him when he interrupted her.
‘That’s why I can’t let you do this.’ He leaned forward, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her but instead he blew something into her face and sense flew away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The hunters’ whistles were all around him now.
Taro trailed one hand along the vane, using the other to fend off support ropes as he ducked under them. Running in the Undertow was a gappy idea at the best of times. At midday, with the sun blotted out by the City above, and with large chunks damaged or missing completely, it was downright suicidal.
But it sure-as-shit beat getting shot in the back.
This mazeway was long and straight, with a lot of exits - too m
any ambush points - but once he reached the end it was just a dogleg through another enclosed mazeway, a small netted gap to leap, and he’d be at Fenya’s.
Light flared ahead as an old woman emerged from the opening to a homespace. She was moving slow and steady, looking back over her shoulder, talking to someone inside. He was going to run into her.
‘Shift it, sister!’ he yelped.
The woman looked up, alarmed. As she started to duck back into the homespace, Taro glimpsed another figure, carrying a boltgun, near the end of the mazeway.
Shit.
Turning coming up. Taro grabbed the corner of the vane and swung himself round, his feet scrabbling for purchase. His mental map adjusted itself. Short stretch of close-netted mazeway leading onto a large open area, a four-way junction like the one outside the Exquisite Corpse, only a bit smaller, and fully netted. Far side of that he needed to bear left, the long way round, but there wasn’t much choice.
He broke out into the light. Something was wrong - no mazeway! - but he was a fraction of a second too late.
He started to fall.
He landed at once, but relief gave way to panic when the surface under him started to tip. He flailed for balance, but he was already leaning over too far to recover. He landed face-down on what felt like a stretch of mazeway.
When the stars stopped dancing in front of his eyes he raised his head.
He was on a mazeway - the very one he’d been expecting to take. Unfortunately, it was no longer attached to the rest of the Undertow. He reckoned it had been shaken loose from its vane and caught by the nets, then he’d landed on it and his weight had unbalanced it, starting its slide out of the nets. By landing face-down he’d stopped it moving. For now.
So, here he was, lying on a bit of mazeway in the nets. It could be worse.
The piercing whistle came from just behind him. Despite himself he glanced back over his shoulder, cursing as the nets started to swing. Resh was standing on the ledge Taro had just run off the end of, holding a vane-cutter. He looked down into the nets and grinned. A cutter was a close-combat weapon; he had no chance of reaching Taro with it from there. But he didn’t appear bothered. ‘Yer dead, yer ungrateful little shit,’ he sneered. Two more gang members emerged behind him.
Taro ignored him and put his head down again, to take full advantage of the cloak. He had another edge they didn’t know about - Nual’s gun - but he needed to move it round to reach the trigger.
‘Nice cloak. Girlfriend give it ya?’
He raised his head to see Limnel standing on the ledge in front of him. Taro looked away. ‘Not now, Limnel.’
‘Sorry?’ said Limnel, his expression ready to tip over from humour to anger any moment. ‘Din’t quite catch that, neh?’
‘Listen to me,’ Taro said urgently, ‘whatever was between us before, whatever business you got with me now, we gotta put that aside. There’s more at stake here than our feud.’
‘Like what?’ Limnel drawled.
‘Like all our lives. That ’quake, the shakin’: the City’s in the shit. We’re all in the shit. Someone’s tryin’ to bring the City down an’ I gotta stop them.’
‘Yer sayin’ this,’ Limnel indicated the damage around them, ‘is just the start of somethin’ worse? That unless I let ya go, we’re all gonna die? That right?’
Taro nodded. ‘Aye. I have to—’
‘Shut up! Even if we’re in fer more shit - an’ it looks to be pretty much over to me - d’yer really think one useless little waster is gonna be able to do anythin’ about it? Taro the whore, saviour of the City? Now that I’d like t’see.’ He started to laugh.
‘You got no idea what’s goin’ on here!’
Limnel looked hard at Taro. ‘An’ y’do, neh? What about yer Angel friend? Why ain’t she flyin’ to the City’s rescue? Why ain’t she flyin’ to yer rescue fer that matter?’
Taro called back defiantly, ‘Who says she ain’t?’
‘Don’t think so. Reckon she’s abandoned ya, pretty boy. What a shame. But what’m I sayin’? I don’t give a shit about ’er, about any of them crazy killers who do their murder fer the rollers.’
Taro suddenly saw how much Limnel envied the Agents of the Concord, and how much he hated the fact that his own small atrocities went unnoticed next to their actions.
Limnel carried on, ‘But yer’ve caused me too much pers’nal grief. I ’ad the chance at real power; found meself some prime new friends, topside movers and shakers who need downside agents. But I haven’t ’eard shit from ’em since ya crawled off last night. I’m thinkin’ yer escape may’ve caused ’em to figure I’m too smoky fer ’em. So, whatever ya think, yer comin’ back with me and yer’d better hope they still want ya, ’cause if not I can’t think of no other use fer you ’cept as extra protein.’
While Limnel had been sounding off, Taro had shifted his shoulders and eased one hand behind his back. The angle made his shoulder joint pop and he didn’t dare move too fast in case someone guessed he was up to something, but he’d managed to get the gun into more-or-less the right position, though the strap fell off his shoulder in the process.
More because he needed to keep Limnel talking than because he wanted to know, he asked, ‘An’ what if I do come back with you?’
Limnel laughed again. ‘Once our Screamer friend’s finished with ya, ya can go back t’workin’ fer me. Assumin’ ya still can. Depends on how much ya pissed ’im off, don’t it?’
Taro clamped the gun to his body with his right arm. He needed to get his forefinger under the trigger-guard, then he’d have to lever himself up with his left arm and swing the gun round so it was pointing in the right direction - a tricky manoeuvre on a surface like this. Meanwhile, Limnel was waiting for his answer. He could lie, but he was done bending over for the likes of Limnel. He looked up at the gang-boss.
‘So lemme see. You gave Scarrion the weapon that killed me line-mother, you sold me to the Screamer an’ yer too dumb to see that there might be somethin’ bigger goin’ on here than yer pathetic little gang. So I’m afraid I’m gonna decline yer kind offer, you slimy, treacherous, shit-sucking ratfuck.’
Limnel sighed. ‘Thought ya might say somethin’ like that.’ He called over Taro’s head, ‘Cut the ropes.’
Taro almost had his finger under the trigger-guard. He tensed his left arm, ready to push himself up the moment the pad warmed, wincing at the twinge from his dislocated little finger.
Behind him, rope twanged and parted.
The vane started to slide out from under him. He threw himself forward.
His hand brushed rope and he closed his fingers on the knot between two strands just as the broken mazeway shot out from under him. The gun slipped and he grabbed for it, catching it by the strap as the nets bucked and sprang upwards. The mazeway slid free, but Taro, grasping the knot, held on grimly.
When the ropes stopped twitching and hung slack again, Taro found himself stretched along the nets, his feet braced on a single strand. On the plus side, the gun lying next to him was pointed in approximately the right direction now.
Above him Limnel swore and shouted, ‘Bring the damn cutter over ’ere, arseholes.’ Though Resh had cut all the ropes he could reach, the nets had been anchored on all four sides and he’d only managed to take out part of the side behind Taro, leaving the other three sides still attached.
But not for long.
Taro picked up the gun and crooked his leg to support it on his knee. He fumbled for the trigger. Just one shot, that was all he needed. Take out Limnel with an Angel’s weapon and the others would run. Then he could climb to safety.
Limnel grinned down at Taro. ‘Be with yer in a moment - unless ya wanna save us th’effort an’ let go now?’
Taro, busy trying to keep the gun out of sight under the cloak while he got into position, ignored him. He’d lifted the gun too high: his hand wouldn’t reach under the trigger-guard. He wriggled, lowered his leg a little.
‘Nothin’ t’say, T
aro?’
He’d moved his leg, but now the problem was the strap. He’d have to let go of it to get a finger under the trigger-guard, and just hope the gun stayed put. Even if he did manage to balance it on his leg long enough to get his finger on the trigger he’d only get one shot. Better make it count.
‘No matter. Ah, here we are,’ Limnel said, satisfaction in his voice.
Taro looked up. Resh, now standing next to Limnel, ceremoniously handed his boss the vane-cutter. Limnel crouched down and thumbed the control and a tongue of blue flame sprang to life.
‘Last chance, pretty boy.’
Taro released the strap and slid his finger under the trigger-guard, keeping his grip as the gun shifted, though his wrist complained at being twisted at such an unnatural angle.