Needle Rain

by Cari Silverwood

  “Oh. Shh.”

  Before long it was clear that Drager wasn’t downstairs packing up his treasures. Heloise dragged Sonja aside.

  “That’s an Immolator down there. What do you make of it?”

  Sonja shrugged. “Sounds like they’ve gotten him working for the wrong side. Impressive. The woman down there – I’d say she was the lever.”

  “That’s what I thought too. When are the enforcers getting here?”

  Sonja shrugged. “No idea. If we wait much longer they’ll be dead from the way things are going. Heloise, we can take them.” She polished the pommel of one sword with her palm.

  “An Immolator? Sonja...”

  “You been listening, love? They’ve chained him down. They’re scared of him. He’s on our side. First thing I’d do? I’d let him go. Then see them run.” She grinned. “You know what – the Imperator himself will come and shake our hands for doing this.”

  The Soldiers of Money, thought Heloise. Could they do it?

  She ran through a last assessment, cataloguing their assets.

  Nonchalant Sonja, leaning on the wall, with her hands on her swords.

  Bull. An army in one burly package of man.

  Finn wearing his spectacles of dark glass to protect his eyes.

  Tinman with his gheist weapon, Toad.

  Rabbit, buck-toothed and scrawny, who was reputed to be better than Sonja with a sword, on his good days.

  And Marty, the oldest, and armed with enough knives and batons to equip a kitchen battalion.

  They lined the edges of the hall, where the timbers would shift the least, waiting. Waiting for her decision. This could go so wrong, but it needed doing.

  A wayward cockroach – attracted by the light perhaps, droned about the ceiling lantern, bumping against the glass. A few mosquitoes had found a way in and one by one they sizzled in the flame.

  The Immolator below screamed.

  Leonie squeezed her hand and murmured, “Heloise?”

  The girl’s father was in this up to his neck. A traitor if what she heard was true. She squeezed back. “Bull, will the thumper get through this floor?”

  He grimaced then nodded.

  “Then set it up there. Finn, Marty, Sonja – the stairs. We go as one. And you, Honey.” She went down on her knee. “Stay here out of the way.”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt my dada?”

  Heloise opened her mouth but the words stuck. No. She couldn’t lie. Not this time. “We’ll try not to, but he’s done something very bad.” Leonie’s face screwed up and her eyes glistened. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.” She stood. “Stay here. You must not move. Please. Please, promise me.”

  Leonie nodded slowly.

  No, she wasn’t doing this anymore. Uncle could have her resignation tomorrow.

  Sonja mouthed words at her, quietly. “I think they’re killing them.”

  The moment. Now. It had to be. She drew Dogrose, the dartzinger, with her right and slipped the knife free with her left. Bull looked at her and she said it: “Go.”

  The eight legs of the thumper hit, the air whoomphed, and a square of the floor vanished.

  They jumped down, screaming, loud enough to wake the undead and all the minions of hell. Or near enough. It was a textbook entry. Rule Thirteen: Make the Customers Fear You.

  These men hadn’t read the book.

  She hit the floor and stumbled to her knees from the impact. Lucky, because a sword swished overhead. She raised the dartzinger as the sword returned on the backswing. A man, teeth bared. She shot him in the face. The dart waggled there on his lip. Sound rushed back, expanding in her ears. Screaming, bellowing. Finn stabbed the man through the chest.

  A wasted dart. A wasted dart, all she could think. The Immolator lay, splayed out like a sacrificial slaughter, limbs to four corners, his eyes tracking her, mouth agape. Sonja – true to her word, rushed for him, swords flourishing. Two men collapsed, headless, armless, in her wake, she reached out with a hand for a manacle and a knife sprouted from her forehead. Sonja wobbled, held the edge of the table, and went down in an untidy mess of legs and arms. Her eyes closed.

  Sonja!

  There were more than four men down here. Too many. Heloise frantically surveyed the room. Marty was down, clutching his stomach. Bull fought in the corner, methodically flailing. Men tumbled. A Sungese man came for her. She snatched up a sword, parried, shot him with the dartzinger, where she didn’t know, stabbed him when he blinked. He fell back, clutching an arm.

  The Immolator yelled at her.

  “What? What?”

  “Release me!” he screamed.

  She scrabbled for the release point, slipped and slid on liquid. Blood? Something on the manacle snapped under her fingers and, and Drager was running up the stairs. While the Immolator fumbled to release his other limbs she guarded him, trading blows of the sword with the man she’d wounded. The dartzinger, blast it, slowed him not at all.

  Finn and Rabbit, back to back, fighting two others. The Immolator sprang loose, rising like a gargantuan monster from beneath a sea. In one sweep he felled the man she fought, but where was he going? Finn was down, writhing, on the floor. Another man fled up the stairs, following Drager. Roaring, Bull fought on, staggering, blood streaming down his face and neck. The Immolator ignored them all and knelt above a figure on the floor. Was he kissing her? No. That must be wrong. She screamed at him to get up and help and he ignored her.

  And Tinman, cornered, bloody, brought to his last alternative, swung up his weapon and pulled the trigger on Toad.

  Blue projectiles spun and buzzed across the room, finding targets. A Sungese, howling, sliced at Tinman and Tinman crashed sideways, his gun continuing to fire, stitching blue across the air.

  It wasn’t until sometime afterward that Heloise deduced what had happened in that moment...that Leonie had been killed.

  C H A P T E R S E V E N

  Needle Master - an acupuncturist who can use magience.

  *****

  The enforcers arrived a thousand years too late. Heloise watched their legs file past her in the corridor and go down the stairs. One of them stopped.

  “Are you alright, miss?”

  She stared at him.

  “Are you alright? Is she?”

  Heloise looked down at the child lying across her lap. She was cold, her lips blue, her hair draped in a tangled mess across her face. The pigtails had been blown apart by the blast shock.

  “Is she dead?” the man asked.

  The worst of it was that Leonie’s father had gone. Drager. Did he even know? To think that she’d been attracted to that man. If he’d left through the back door, he might not know. Sonja was dead too. And Marty and Tinman. Finn might lose his eye but was otherwise lucky. Everyone had a wound to show, except for her. Well, most of the blood was somebody else’s.

  Heloise let her head go back until it hit the wall with a dull thump. She closed her eyes. All those dead and she was to blame.

  Someone stood over her. She could see the shadow through her eyelids. Another enforcer.

  “Miss? I’ve been told that you’re in charge. Are you? Because I need some sort of report. This will be going straight to the Imperator. There will be Immolators here soon. I need facts. Miss?”

  Gently, she shifted Leonie’s head until she rested on the floor, then Heloise unfolded bit by bit, sliding her back up the wall, until she stood. Her mouth was sticky. She was dreadfully thirsty.

  “Sir.” She straightened her back some more. “This has been a disaster. I have three people dead, four including the child, and you have a renegade Immolator on the loose. His woman – fiancée, lover, whatever she is – she’s alive and conscious. Why don’t you ask her some questions? Because –” She prodded the chainmail on the man’s chest. It hurt her finger. “Because...I don’t know what happened here except that the man who owed lots of money has gone, and...and you were way too late arriving.”

  “Heloise. Heloise! Come w
ith me.” It was Bull. He took her hand and towed her away, further along the corridor.

  He looked at her and wrinkled his nose, which on his flat, broad head was like a boar sniffing. Every time she saw him she felt like running her hand across the bristles of his hair. Even now. Crazy. He would be affronted if she did. It struck her how lonely, how lacking he was, without Sonja by his side.

  He held his arms out wide. “Don’t know about you, girl, but I could do with a hug.”

  “Oh, Bull.”

  They hugged each other, his arms wrapping round her and she felt warm and safe for the first time in ages. They stayed that way, breathing in time with each other. The tension in her body dissolved and for a while the world was outside the space where the two of them existed.

  ****

  The enforcers took possession of the bodies then two Immolators arrived with twenty or so Imperial Guards. The entire property was sealed off. Everyone was searched before they were allowed to leave. Along with Bull, Finn, and Rabbit, Heloise found herself outside on the street. Someone flagged down a cart and they made their way back to the office. No one spoke.

  For two hours Heloise waited in the downstairs dining room while staff padded about eating breakfast. The usually rowdy clink of cutlery and plates was subdued. People already knew what had happened and few would meet her gaze. That was okay with her. She didn’t think she ever wanted to talk to anyone again. The bug-spotted ceiling was the most exciting thing she wanted to contemplate but the night’s disaster refused to go away. She couldn’t stop replaying Sonja’s death and the moment when she discovered the child. Despair, anger, and guilt pummeled her, repeatedly.

  Bull and Finn sat nearby drinking cup after cup of coffee. When at last Uncle began to call them in, Heloise found she was the last to be summoned.

  He sat on his leather chair behind his desk. His eyes seemed sunken into pits of dark skin. A full cup of cold tea sat in one corner of the desk and stacks of paper covered most of the rest of it. A dagger was buried in the timber in front of Uncle Bruno. It hadn’t been there the day before.

  If she hadn’t been numb already, the dagger might’ve alarmed her. She’d accept whatever judgement he made.

  “Heloise, please, be seated.”

  She pulled up a wooden chair and sat gingerly. Outside, a bird warbled a morning greeting from the balcony. Uncle held finger and thumb over the bridge of his nose, bowed his head and closed his eyes. He opened them.

  “Heloise. I have reports in from enforcers and the Imperial Guard, Orders of Secrecy, and many other documents and pieces of information. What is your assessment?”

  She cleared her throat. “It was a disaster. I take responsibility for it.” She spread her hands. “We should have held back and assessed the situation better.”

  “Bulldust. I left Sonja and Bull with clear instructions to take over if you made a bad decision. You’re not to blame.”

  “You did? I disobeyed orders and, well...I still should have...”

  “No! You’re only twenty-one. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. Now.” He sat back and heaved a sigh, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  And so she told him of the events the night before. He listened without commenting, even when she faltered, allowing her time to recover. When she finished talking, he put up both hands and ran them through his hair then down his face.

  “Right,” he said. “That’s done. Unless the enforcers or the Guard want to ask you questions, that’s it. I had to pull some strings to keep you all out of prison. You cannot talk about this. Drager and this other man, Kengshee, are still out there. Heading for Sungea on that boat most likely. The navy has ships out chasing them.”

  “Sir. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “What?”

  She shifted on the chair. “I can’t do this.”

  “I can understand that you might feel that way, but this is the worst situation my company has handled ever. Ever. I won’t tell you that you have to stay.” He reached out and pulled the hilt of the dagger toward him then let it go. The dagger waggled back and forth. “If you go, well, I’ll help you, but don’t decide quite yet. Let time do some healing. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you.” She rose to her feet. Sadly, Uncle’s sympathy didn’t change anything. She was no less weary or devastated than when she’d entered the room. “But I won’t change my mind. Um, there’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “When the funerals come round, make sure I get told. Especially the girl’s.”

  “Drager’s daughter?” He halted, as if he’d thought better of what he was about to say. “I’ll make sure you know. Um, there’s a prayer dedication tomorrow for Sonja, Marty and Wallace at the Higher God’s chapel.”

  “Uh. Wallace?”

  “Tinman. That’s his real name.”

  “Oh. Wallace?” He had a real name. Once upon a time, that would’ve been a point of amusement – something to tease him about. Now it was merely a sad fact. “Really? I’ll be there.”

  She turned and left. Funny, but the girl’s death haunted her more than Sonja’s or Marty’s or Tinman’s. At least Sonja had chosen what she did, as had the others. Leonie was far too young to know who she was, let alone what she wanted to do. When she thought of the lost years of her life...the feel of her small hand and the cold, forever stare in her open eyes.

  Heloise teared up. Head down, she stopped with her palm propped on the wall to her left, blinking to clear her vision. If anyone saw her weakness, she didn’t care. Leonie had trusted her. Someone should be at her funeral. Drager wasn’t ever going to turn up.

  ****

  Exiting out the back door of the clinic, Thom had realized that Kengshee was following him. Luckily the man spooked and hung back when a band of late morning revelers staggered past him through the street.

  Thom had hidden in the shadows and backtracked to completely lose him. He suspected almost anything would have deterred Kengshee at that point – he’d just lost all his men to a raid by debt-collectors. It would have been hilarious, if people hadn’t forfeited their lives.

  After he’d stopped at his house to get Leonie the funny side of things waned. She was gone. How and when and where she’d gone...he had no idea. No clues at all. He collected a less ostentatious wardrobe and changed into brown trousers, a white tunic, and slip-on leather shoes. A backpack came in handy for storing dried snacks, a small knife, some coins, and twenty-five fine needles. The needles were the only reminder of his profession and he couldn’t bear to leave them. He needed to find out what had happened to Leonie then they’d head north and somehow survive.

  Go north far enough and you hit Bloodmen Territory, where somm came from. It wasn’t just that though, he told himself. It was one of the least patrolled borders. The Bloodmen’s territory had been a protectorate for many years.

  He wouldn’t leave the city until he found out about Leonie, but finding out anything was almost impossible. He was an outcast, a traitor, and a man with no trustworthy connections to anyone who might know anything. He watched his ex-assistant’s house for half a day, to make sure his daughter wasn’t there. Of course, she wasn’t. Then the addiction began to take its toll.

  How could he think logically when the need coursed through his blood?

  Taking his coin wallet out of his pocket to check the number of grints he possessed, left him staring at his shaking hands. The shaking brought on some sort of fugue state and an indeterminate amount of time washed past. When he recovered from the episode, he found himself squatting with a wall at his back. The wallet was missing. Someone had stolen the coins.

  He’d make do. He had to. He’d steal if he had to, to survive.

  Where was Leonie?

  The second night, the cravings reached a crescendo. He needed somm. He needed somm so bad. The twitching took over his body. But he never forgot Leonie. The second night, he lost the backpack, luckily the needles were in his pocket, next to his skin. He needed to feel the b
ox. The needles were him, his identity. Without them he would evaporate into the void. He took to staring upward at the sky. Beautiful things were there.

  It took a week for him to discover the most important fact.

  He’d wandered close to his clinic and found two enforcers patrolling.

  In a lucid moment, he heard one of them tell his partner about the night all hell descended on the clinic. The Night of the Debt Collectors, he called it. When ten people had died and an Immolator met his match. It sounded grand and Thom leaned against something-or-other chuckling and twitching – the twitches were becoming most inconvenient. And then the guard added one to the dead.

  “Oh, and a girl died, the daughter of the clinic owner.”

  They both deplored the loss of young life and moved on. Thom found his mouth was open. He closed it. The daughter of the clinic owner? Who was that? Distantly he knew it was important. A tear trickled down his cheek. He lifted a begrimed hand, whose he wasn’t sure, and tasted the tear. Salty. Like fish.

  The face of a young woman floated into his mind. She was talking without sound, sneering at him, babbling on and on. Red anger prickled under his skin and inside his head. He wanted to hit her. She was to blame! Her!

  Leonie was dead.

  Dead.

  Staggering, half-blind with fury, he bumped a wall with his elbow and turned to pummel it over and over with his fists. When he forgot why he was doing it, he stopped hitting the wall, put a knuckle into his mouth, and sucked away the blood. Yes, salty. Fish.

  It must be ten o’clock, he decided, when the fish shop threw out the scalings and guttings. Free food. He ambled in a zigzag fashion up the street. Somewhere that way was the fish shop.

  C H A P T E R E I G H T

  Samos sat huddled underneath Tunamen’s Pier with a rotting stump for a seat and the hood of his stolen cloak pulled up. High tide had been and gone and the mud layer on the sand was sticky but bearable. Only some blue-back crabs and a few of the neighborhood children ventured under here with him. Though the children gave him a wide berth to start with, once the cheekiest of them came over to say “hello” and he grinned back at the boy, they lost their fear of him. He ended up being the “ogre on the rock” in one game.