by Carrie Patel
Johanssen felled a gunman that had knelt just inside the doorway and taken aim. “Fights are breaking out all over the city, you moron,” he said.
Fouchet ducked back into Farrah’s office, yelling through the haze. “And where else would a small army have gotten so many weapons, eh?”
“Your Barracks, that’s where!” Johanssen saw a shadow shift in the doorway and fired into the wall just to the right of it. He was rewarded with a gasp of pain from Fouchet. Johanssen reached for his box of shells and grabbed two more.
“You Municipal scum,” Fouchet muttered, stumbling around the wall and training his sights on Johanssen through the smoke. Farrah was halfway down the passage when she heard two final shots, one the blast of a shotgun and the other the report of a musket.
#
Jane had reached the Spine, where the firing seemed more remote. The flames ribbing the walls burned red, and the distant shouts and rumbles of gunfire furthered the impression of standing inside a great, dormant beast on the verge of awakening. She was alone with fading radiance stones like dying stars, and the emptiness was immense and the darkness barely warded off by the sputtering torches and the reddish glow from the wall.
The tiles appeared molten under Jane’s flying feet in the low, shifting light, but they led inexorably to Dominari Hall and the Barracks. She was running along one of the lower tiers of the Spine, and other than the soaring ribs and floating points of light, she could discern nothing in the darkness above. Her legs burned when at last the towers of Dominari Hall came into view, rising to the surface like the roots of a mammoth tree.
Lights shone from behind windows, and bright torches illuminated the plaza around the Hall. A tangle of shapes ran in every direction across the plaza, and in the patches of shadow and light, it was impossible to tell who was coming and who was going. The only thing evident was massive confusion.
When at last she reached the overhang where Dominari Hall, and beyond it, the Barracks, was perched, she ascended in the shadows. In the frenzy of activity, no one stopped to question Jane.
Inside were fewer people but still running in all directions. The mayhem seemed to defy the ordered, pristine interior of Dominari Hall. Ivory and porcelain-enameled walls rose to chandeliers of gold and crystal that hung over a scene out of a pauper’s opera. With only a little choreography, the leaps over upturned tables and the semi-musical sprints through shattered mirror-glass would have fit perfectly in several productions that Jane had seen in what she already thought of as her former life.
It would have been pointless to call for Fredrick and, in any case, she doubted it would be a good idea to advertise her presence, regardless of the disorder. Nevertheless, searching Dominari Hall from top to bottom would surely take more time than she had and likely bring her to one of her antagonists before Fredrick. Realizing this, she stepped into the path of a woman heading straight in her direction.
Jane made eye contact, or she thought she did. “Excuse me, I need–”
The nameless bureaucrat continued looking through Jane as she galloped along in a beeline, slamming into Jane’s shoulder. Jane crashed against the wall, barely straightening her back again before attempting to hail another clerk mid-flight.
“Hello, I just–”
This time, Jane swung out of the man’s path before he could collide with her, but he paid her no more notice than the woman before him had. If she wanted to get anyone’s attention, she would have to seize it more forcefully.
Fortunately, Jane only had to wait seconds for the arrival of her next target. A middle-aged, bespectacled man sped toward her, the red blooms on his cheeks standing out against his spotless, white shirt. As he reached her level, Jane extended her foot in time to send him sprawling.
Hearing the thud that his body made as he hit the carpet and seeing his confusion and terror, Jane’s first impulse was one of deep guilt and regret. She extended a hand to help the man to his feet, but as she did so, she reminded herself that Fredrick’s life depended on her quick action.
“You! Where did you come from?” Jane attempted to sound authoritative; to her own ears, she only came across as crabby. But to the man she had tripped, she was evidently convincing enough.
“F-from my office. In the north wing.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. But the man only stared at her with a wide-eyed panic that pained and frightened her, and she realized that if she did not maintain some kind of command over the situation, he would bolt like a mare in a fire.
“I’m here to get everything under control,” she said, and saying the words even made her feel it a little. “When did everybody start running?”
The man licked his lips and jiggled the frames of his glasses. “Bombs. And shooting. Then Dominguez came, said everyone was to leave–”
“Did you see a reporter?” Again the blank look. Of course not, she thought, what are the chances that Fredrick would just march into Dominari Hall and announce himself as “The Reporter”, come for the story? Pretty good, actually. “Who’s in charge?”
“Dominguez. And R-ruthers.”
“Are they still here?” He nodded. “Where?”
The man pointed a shaking finger straight down the hall. “East wing. All the way at the end. Brought g-guns…”
Jane was off before she could hear the rest, and she hurried down the main hall toward the offices and reception rooms, where the pack thinned further. In a matter of moments, she was clear of any detectable human presence.
The tumult behind her was only a din, and she reached a grand double staircase that descended further into the heart of Dominari Hall. She could neither see nor hear movement in that direction, but a faint glow spilled onto the bottom steps, and it seemed as likely an avenue as any. Tiptoeing where red velvet crept over white marble, she edged down the stairs.
Emerging into a new hallway, this one more impressive than its predecessor, she slowed her pace. The faces of cherubim emerged from the creamy marble, staring down at her from the shadow of the vaulted ceiling. Below them hung portraits of Recoletta’s long line of councilors, the men and women affecting regal poses within their golden frames. A dim glow reflected off of the smooth polish of the mahogany doors lining the hall, looking warm to the touch.
The only light came from much further down the hall, and Jane’s position was in semidarkness. Picking her way down the hall and peering into darkened corridors, she chided herself for not having thought to bring a lamp but decided that the advantages of stealth outweighed those of visibility. Listening more carefully, she continued.
As she watched the floor for snags in the carpet, something caught her eye: a patch where the velvet carpet appeared to run outside its bounds and pool against the wall. With closer observation, saw that the pool was a good deal darker than the carpet. Blood.
The puddle had spread to just less than six inches in diameter, and it trailed in drops and streaks down a side corridor. She followed the track a few feet down the corridor, around a corner, and into a dim office, sickness and dread rising in her throat. Just on the other side of the doorframe, Fredrick sat propped against the wall. Gasping, she rushed to the slumped figure and knelt in front of his bowed head.
His upper half was bent over his knees, which angled imprecisely upwards and outwards. His right hand clenched something on his abdomen, and red bloomed between the white fingers and knuckles. His face was turned downwards and obscured by limply hanging hair. She lifted his head gently, feeling the sweat that slicked his brow and temples and noticing, even in the low lighting, that he had achieved a dangerous pallor.
“Freddie? Can you hear me?” she whispered. To her unparalleled relief, he let out a low moan, and she had to stop herself from squeezing him in a joyful hug. “Thank goodness, you’re alive.” Watching the listless way that his head and limbs swayed, though, she wondered how long that would be true. She took his hand, feeling more warmth than she expected. “Listen, we have to
go, it’s not safe for us here.”
Groaning, he lifted his head and it lolled out of control, thumping against the wall. “You don’t say.”
“Save your witticisms for later, Freddie, we’ve got to get out of here. What happened to you?”
Fredrick heaved a few labored breaths. “Short. Bulgy eyes, creepy mustache. I came after you’d left to get answers. Whole place in an uproar. Found Ruthers and a few other councilors, said something about hostile takeover.” Fredrick paused, briefly overtaken by a fit of coughing. Jane was pleased to see that none of it came out red. “They asked me who sent me, I said ‘Roman Arnault’, and this guy shot me. Name’s Dominguez, I think.” With his left and relatively clean hand, he reached into his pocket and pressed something cold and hard into Jane’s palm.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a gun. I brought it for a worst-case scenario,” he said, chuckling weakly. Holding it up to the light and, with a little trouble, pushing out the cylinder, she could see that it was a six-chambered revolver, fully loaded. “Cock that little catch on the back to shoot,” Fredrick added. She pocketed it.
Jane hesitated, looking at the bleeding mass under Fredrick’s hand. “I’m going to
need–”
“No.”
“Fredrick, I have to see how bad it is.” She peeled his hand away, and he gasped. The wound was a mess of half-crusted and oozing blood, and Jane couldn’t discern much except that it wasn’t bleeding as profusely as she’d feared. Also, the wound was closer to the side than the center of his abdomen, and while she couldn’t have said what organs were in the path of the bullet, or which had been missed, this seemed like a good thing.
“Can you walk?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Come on.” Jane tore a strip from her billowing skirt and tied it under Fredrick’s chest as he winced. Pulling his arm around her shoulder, she hoisted him to his feet.
“OOOOOOOW, ohpleaseohpleaseOHHHH!” Fredrick squeezed his eyes shut as Jane straightened her legs and stood him upright. She took slow, shuffling steps and he painfully dragged his feet beside her. “Just leave me,” he moaned. “It’s not worth it. You’ll have to go without me.”
She stopped. “Freddie?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
Picking up speed, they shuffled back into the hall. Up the stairs and back the way Jane had come, the din had grown louder. Shouts, scuffles, and gunshots echoed down the hall toward them.
“Not that way,” Fredrick sighed. Jane nodded and directed them away from the stairs, toward the radiance, as the carpet grew ever brighter under their feet. In less than two minutes, they had reached a great rotunda and the source of the light.
A massive chandelier sat in the center of the rotunda, anchored and glowing wanly. The ropes and chains descending behind it from an oculus in the ceiling gave it the appearance of a giant, crystalline spider, its multitude of eyes winking at them. Jane stood, transfixed by the sight and forgetting their danger until she caught the odor of smoke and spice in the air. Standing to one side, his back against the wall, was Roman Arnault.
“They brought it down for cleaning. Interesting, isn’t it? It takes all those ropes to keep it up, but just one to hold it down,” he said, pointing to an anchor in the wall where a lone rope was tied, taught as a bowstring. His voice sounded wearier still than it had earlier in the evening.
“What are you doing here?” Jane asked. He dropped his cigarette to the floor and smothered it in his stride.
“I could ask you the same thing, but it appears that, once again, you’ve been caught in the pursuit of a noble mission,” he said and paced around, looking at Fredrick. The reporter glowered back with all the distaste his pained features could manage.
“How do we get out?” Fredrick asked.
“You don’t. As you probably heard, they came in behind you and are filling the palace as we speak, casing every office, closet, and filing cabinet. Ahead lies a secret passage to the surface, but it would be impossible to crawl through it in your current state of encumbrance.” He glared at Fredrick, as if holding him responsible for their condition. “In a few minutes, Sato and his army will be upon us, and I’ll have more than a little explaining to do. I fear that nothing I can do or say will be enough to save you two. Or me, for that matter. For your entanglement in this, I am sincerely sorry.”
“Sorry?” Fredrick said. “If we’re about to die, at least do us the courtesy of a little honesty. You’re a lying, murderous pig, and you led us into this.”
“Right on the first two counts, Mr Anders, but mistaken on the last,” Arnault said, his wrath rising. “If she’d listened to me, Miss Lin would have safely fled and I’d only be apologizing to you. Instead, she came back. To rescue you.” He snorted. “And this has to be the most inept bandaging I’ve ever seen, Jane. Is this supposed to stop the bleeding or hold his trousers up?” he said. He deftly retied the swathes and added a wad of fabric from his own shirt to improve it. “At least he won’t bleed to death before Sato arrives.”
Fredrick looked down at the fresh dressing as if he expected it to bleed him even faster. “What’s with the ‘us’ anyway? You’re on their side, as I found out the hard way.”
Roman rattled a sigh from somewhere deep in his throat and looked away. “You don’t really expect me to stand by while they massacre the two of you, do you?” His voice rang with annoyance, and Fredrick fell silent.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” Jane said.
“I have unfinished business down the hall.”
“Is that what you’ve been dreading all evening?” She noticed a faint tremor in his hands.
“Run, Jane.” His voice had adopted an unfamiliar quaver. “Hide your friend, and perhaps I can draw them off.”
“Why did they send you here?”
In the pause that followed, Roman brushed a strand of hair from his forehead with a shaking hand. “Locked in the office at the end of the hall is Councilor Ruthers. One of our moles in the Guard left him there, supposedly for safekeeping until the rioting subsided.” He drew a shaking breath. “As a final test of loyalty, my job is to kill him.”
Fredrick recovered from his astonishment and remembered some of his loathing for Roman. “Can you be serious? You, of all people, are worked up because you have to kill someone you’ve been betraying all along?”
Roman’s face was nearly as ashen as the reporter’s as he glared back. “Working against someone and murdering him in cold blood are two different things. It’s true, I share responsibility for the other murders, though I did not commit them with my own hands. While I cannot sympathize with the Council’s actions in the past, I would never have wished for this position. I’m many things, Jane, but not a murderer.” Already a fearsome change took place in him as he struggled to accept his duty. “There’s another thing,” he said, his voice and his eyes hardening. “I cannot forgive Ruthers for what he did to the Sato family, and to many others, but no matter his crimes, it would never be easy for me to kill him. Augustus Ruthers is my great-uncle.” He gave a sad little laugh. “The only family I have left. But Jakkeb will accept nothing less as proof of my loyalty… and in return for your safety, assuming you’ve left. He thinks that once I’ve done this, I’ll be indelibly under his control.”
Jane paused. “Do you have the key on you?”
He fished in his pocket and held up a thick, shiny key. “Our contact in the Guard passed it to me on his way out. A double-betrayal, though I suppose Ruthers deserves nothing less. I know well what kind of man my uncle is.”
“But heaven forbid you should become the same.”
“I wish I had a choice.”
“I know,” she said with real sympathy. “And I hope that you can forgive me for this one day and understand what I’m doing for you.” Arnault looked up at Jane with mild bemusement, which grew to wide-eyed alarm when he saw the small revo
lver she was pointing at him. Meeting his gaze with all but banished regret, she fired.
He fell to the ground, clutching his leg and bellowing in pain. “Are you insane? What have you done?”
“Sorry,” she said. “But I think I’ve got more right to this chore than you.” Rushing to his side, she retrieved the key he had dropped and ran down the hall toward the locked door. Fredrick watched the series of events unfold as if in slow motion, and only the subsiding sounds of Arnault’s gasps and growls brought him back to real-time.
“Oh, shut up,” he muttered, hobbling to the chandelier.
Jane’s own pulse was surprisingly steady as she dashed to the end of the hall, the rotunda disappearing in a final curve. A lone door, gilded and carved masterfully, was set into the left-hand wall. She knocked.
The sounds of stirring reached her through the thick wood. “Sergeant Gorham? Is that you?” The voice was firm and commanding, and she recognized it well from an afternoon at the market that seemed like years ago. She unlocked and opened the door with the stolen key.
The man on the other side of the door looked from her disheveled figure to the revolver in her outstretched hand with open wonder, though not a hint of fear. Those pale blue eyes settled back on hers, daring her to be done with it. Feeling a touch of dread herself, Jane detected something unpleasantly familiar in the cold, malevolent stare, and she fired.
The report of this second shot sounded louder in this small room, but Jane’s hands were still steady on the gun when she lowered it. She took a moment to catch her breath, gazing at the motionless man through the gunpowder smoke, before sprinting back to the rotunda where the ruckus had grown louder. Roman had regained something of his composure and was kneeling awkwardly where he had fallen, having staunched his wound. His eyes met hers with pity. Crouching beside him, she looked at his leg.
“Never mind it.” He took her face in his wide, surprisingly smooth hands and inspected it with sadness and awe. “I never meant for you to be in this position, Jane. What have I done to you?” He brushed a lock of dark hair from her cheek. “I’m so sorry.” Drawing her face closer to his rough jaw, she kissed him.