by Tim Akers
“What is that thing up there? The thing holding Emily?”
“Some kind of… machine. A brutal surgeon, Jacob. It’s preparing her.”
“Preparing her?” I clenched my teeth. “Preparing her for what?”
Wilson looked up at the sky. The Angel.
I started up the hill. Wilson put a hand on my shoulder. “Hold, son. Sloane’s got the key. You’re going to want to hunt him down, first.”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“You’re going to want to hunt him down,” he said, quietly.
I gave the Torchlight a look, squinted at the slowly lumbering darkness there, then turned my attention to the hangars. They shivered in the wind, their charges banging against the walls and straining at their moorings.
“Where’d he go?”
“Down there, somewhere.” Wilson was on one knee, reloading a stolen shortrifle. I checked the chamber on the one I was carrying. It hadn’t been discharged, not even once. Wilson stood up. We crept down the stone hill, into the lee of the nearest hangar.
Inside was one of the city’s warships, FCL Thunderous Dawn. It filled the hangar, its battle sponsons grinding against the wooden walls of the long building. As we snuck along the perimeter of the hangar, I loosened each of the moorings that we came to.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Thinking ahead,” I said. “Just keep an eye out for Sloane.”
We made it three quarters of the way around the building when the guards who had been cowering among the derricks put in an appearance. They kicked in the door and began rushing around the tight confines of the hangar. As soon as they saw the free moorings, they rushed the main carriage of the ship. The Dawn was larger than the Glory had been; there were dozens of ways into and out of the ship. The guards disappeared into the warship’s armored interior, spun up the running lights and started yelling at each other as they searched. Wilson and I snuck out.
“How do you know Sloane didn’t do that? Hide in the airship? He could be in there right now, talking to the guards.”
“Could be. I think he went straight through that hangar, quick as he could.” I crawled over to some barrels laid out between the hangars. “He’s not really interested in running from us, Wilson. He doesn’t get paid that way.”
“So where is he?”
“Don’t know. Waiting for us somewhere. We find a good place to hold up, he’ll come find us. He can’t afford to lose us.”
“If that Angel shows up, do you have a plan?”
“I don’t know. Kill it again?”
“You really think this shit out, don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I popped my head over the barrels, tried to get a good sight of the Torch. Too much bad weather, not enough light. There wasn’t much cover between here and there, nothing but the night and the rain. “I’m not waiting around. Let’s go get our girl.”
We went up the hill slowly, squatting and peering into the night storm. There was light flickering around the Torch; not much, just enough to show forms and silhouettes in the darkness. We followed a trail of barrels and supplies that were strewn across the hill, cutting closer and closer to the Torch. When we got as near as we could, I gave Wilson a nod then we both jumped out and rushed the Torch.
Sloane stood next to a massive iron and brass machine, not usually native to the Torchlight. I imagined that it had been brought up from those basements. Probably why they cleared out the cadets. You didn’t want something like this in the public eye.
Installing cogwork takes time. You inscribe the mnemonic engram in the patient’s mind, usually through pattern memorization or hypnosis. Then you inject the foetal metal into the body. The metal latches on to the pattern in the engram, which directs how the cogwork forms in the body. Over time the foetus replaces the natural tissue of the patient with the prescribed cogwork enhancement. For me, it replaced my heart, parts of both of my lungs, enhanced and restructured my bones to serve as conduits and rebuilt my eyes. Even my blood is still flooded with foetal metal, anxious to rebuild any part of my body in accordance with the master pattern. It’s how I heal so fast. Of course, my implants are different, something to do with hidden Camilla and whatever bit of her dissected form ended up in my chest. But that’s how it generally works.
You can also hot-load the foetus. Give it some general pattern to follow and inject it into the patient without any sort of preparation. That’s a much messier way to handle things, because you don’t know how the foetus will interact with the body. Bones can break, skin can burst, but the foetus doesn’t notice.
This is what happened with Emily. She had turned into a tumor of metal and wire. Blisters of metal traced her arms and shoulders. A thin brass cage covered her face, and a contraption of pipes and boilers had erupted from her chest and neck. That device was puffing smoke into the air, a black sooty discharge that smeared the near walls in grime. Her arms and legs were held spread, clamped in metallic shackles that were thick with cogs and pipes. Something was pumping into her blood from a hundred needles, intravenous lines bristling from her exposed shoulder and breast. Foetal metal, slate gray, dripped from the few needles that had pulled free. A belt of leather fit across her ribs and belly, laced shut with chain and a padlock.
Sloane stood next to her, grinning like a knife. He held a pistol to her temple. Above her a slow torsion pendulum twisted. She was dying, being made ready for the Angel’s possession.
“You’re showing a little spark, Jacob,” Sloane said through gritted teeth. “A lot of trouble these last few days.”
“Let her go, prick.” My voice was incredibly tired. “You’ve got us here. Now let her go.”
“Not yet. Hardly yet. Besides, I think she’s getting used to it.” He trailed the pistol down her cheek, touched it against her lips. “And I don’t think she could survive, anyway. I think it’s done too much damage. Would you like to find out?”
“I’m going to cut you, Sloane,” Wilson said. “Cut you and cut you until your blood runs black.”
“You’re a brave bug, Mr. Wilson. I’m a little surprised you survived our visit in the sewers. Regardless, I’m glad you can be with us now. Our friend should be here any moment. The Cog please, Jacob.”
“You don’t need her anymore. You’ve got me,” I said, and took the Cog out and held it up. “And I’ve got this.”
“Ah, but that flying bastard’s still around. And I don’t think he’ll let us go until we’ve come to some sort of… resolution.”
“About what?” I asked.
“We’ve made a deal, him and me. The Cog for Camilla. A very noble bunch, these Brilliant. That’s what the Church calls them, you know.”
“You can’t give him Camilla. You don’t have her. And he can’t live without the Cog.”
“We can guide him, though. Give him your girl here, in her improved form, and he’ll last for years. Long enough to get back to wherever he came from. And certainly long enough to retrieve precious Camilla. As soon as we tell him where she is.”
“You’re going to get him to destroy the Church for you.”
Sloane smiled. “Excellent. And yes, then we’re going to keep the Cog, and set up a new God. More of a factory, I think, than a Church. Very good trade to be made in miracles.”
“Go to hell,” Wilson said.
“Yes,” He said. “Eventually. For now, though, kindly lay down your weapons or I kill the girl.”
“If she dies, you’ll have nothing to give the Angel.”
“Perhaps. But I’m sure arrangements will be made.” He cocked the gun and pressed it against Emily’s temple. “Your weapons, please, and the Cog.”
Sloane’s eyes flashed. Wilson gawked at me, turning slightly, his knife dipping towards the ground. I let my shortrifle drop.
“Very good, Mr. Burn. A good choice. If you’ll be so kind.” He took a step forward.
I only had a lightning flash of his wings, the steel-gray lined in electric blue as he swept down
from the skies. The Angel landed behind Sloane. Sloane’s eyes rolled up in shock, then the Angel’s blade-arms rose out of the man’s chest. He scissored apart like a rag. The Angel looked at me. His blades folded away, and he held out his hand.
“The Cog is mine. Return it, and you will live.”
Chapter Eighteen
Last Flight Down
I DROPPED THE Cog and swung my shotgun around. The Angel’s eyes followed the Cog to the ground. I fired twice before he even remembered I was there. I put my foot on the Cog and fired again. The shot rippled across his body like pebbles striking a pond. Wilson yelped and threw himself forward, knife in hand.
Mistakes; I couldn’t bend to pick up the Cog without letting down my guard. I couldn’t keep firing with Wilson closely engaged. My shotgun was choked down, meaning the blast had put some shot into Emily’s unconscious form. So many mistakes. Wilson’s mistake was worse.
The Angel batted the anansi aside then advanced on me. I kicked the Cog behind me then fell back, firing as I went. The hammer eventually fell on an empty chamber. I dropped the gun and went for the shortrifle at my side. The Angel charged.
I raised the ’rifle across my body, deflecting the blow of his arms. His wings beat across my face, eclipsing the storm and blinding me. The feathers were knife sharp. They fanned across my arms leaving behind superficial cuts and thin streams of blood. I bashed his face with the butt of the ’rifle, kicked his knee out from under him, then lost my balance and tumbled down the hill. My head was resounding with the impact of stone against my skull. I crawled to my knees and peered up the hill.
He was searching the ground, looking for the Cog. I carefully checked the load on my shortrifle, sighted down the barrel and put a slug in his head. He put a hand on the ground to brace himself. A light dust of cogwork poured onto the ground, like sand from a cracked hourglass, hissing as it scattered down the rock. It clumped into the pools of water. He wavered there, staring down at the ground for a minute. Eventually, he resumed his search.
I stood and walked towards him evenly. Every third step I paused, sighted the ’rifle, and fired. His body groaned with each impact, the shot disappearing into the confused cogwork of his body. He was slowing down.
“This is too fucking easy,” I said, then placed the barrel gently against the back of his head. He reached up and crushed the chamber. The shell exploded, peeling back the fingers of his hand and shattering the iron stock. He kept looking for the Cog.
“Jacob!” Wilson yelled from up near the Torch. I looked his way. He waved the Cog in the air. I ran to him.
“What the hell is he doing?” he asked.
“Looking for that. It’s his heart, his pattern. He shouldn’t even be able to hold himself together.” The Angel’s wings were beating slowly. “He doesn’t give a rat’s ass for us. Here,” I took the Cog and looked over at Emily. “I’ll keep his attention. You free her and get out of here.”
“The Badge is swarming,” he said. Down by the launch derricks a whole crowd of graycoats were milling about, staring up at us and the Angel. “We’ll never get out that way.”
“Just get Emily. Meet me down by the Dawn. I’ll get us out.”
Wilson went over to Sloane’s body and started searching his clothes. I watched long enough to wonder at how little blood there was, and how Sloane’s body had fallen in such symmetrical lines. I turned back and saw the Angel looking at me, at the Cog in my hand. I ran down the hill in the other direction, toward the open expanses of the Torch’ and away from the hangars. He spread his wings and followed, the slow beat of those sharp feathers blustering him around in the wind.
There was a little wood on the downslope opposite the city. It was made up of iron-hard trees that grew out of the rocks, their roots pushing deep into ancient cracks, living on the barest soil. Their leaves were pale yellow, and their trunks were thin and springy. They whipped in the storm’s fury like breakers on the shore. I threw myself among them just yards in front of the Angel. The trees knocked me down, and I tore the skin on my knees as I skidded down the hill, bashing into the tough bark of their trunks.
I came to a halt against the bole of the largest of these trees. Its roots spread across a large area, like a carpet of knuckles over the stone. I lay there, insensate, staring up at the beating rain.
“We had a deal, the man Sloane and I.” His voice carried over the storm. I rolled over onto my stomach. The Angel wasn’t in sight. “A proper host, and the location of the one he called Camilla. And then I was to kill you. Eventually, he would return the Cog to me.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I yelled, then quickly moved away. I didn’t think he’d be able to tell where I was just by my voice. The wind was howling, seeming to come from all directions. His answer seemed to come from the sky itself.
“He would never have given it to me. He knew what it was, where it came from. He would have betrayed me, before the exchange.”
“Sounds right.”
“You were about to give the heart to him, though.”
I put the Cog into my pocket. I was out of weapons. I had seen him fight before, knew that I didn’t have a chance. I just had to delay him. I just had to get away.
“Part of my plan,” I yelled over the storm. “I wouldn’t have let him keep it.”
“Because you, too, know what it is.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I wonder. Do you know the power it holds? I know what is in you, Burn. Part of her. I will need to take that, as well.”
“You’re shit at negotiating,” I said.
“I am… not negotiating. But I am offering you a choice. You can live without the Cog. I can not. And you can live without the thing in you. I can show you, make you whole.”
“Let’s get back to the part where you can’t live without the Cog! How do we go about making that happen more quickly?”
A low, rolling thunder filled the woods. He was laughing.
“You are an admirable man, Jacob Burn. Brave. But you have been used horribly by this city and its rulers. Do not let them trick you into dying in their place. Give me the Cog and be done with it.”
I hunkered down behind the tree and stared at my hands. He was right, of course. I was here because of the Council, and the decisions they made. He was going to find me, hiding behind a tree, and when he did he was going to kill me. I took out the Cog and looked at it in the dim light of the woods. It flickered in my hands like solid lightning.
“Sloane, he promised me the girl. The one on the stick back there. Emily. He was going to make her a host for me, until the Cog could be secured.”
“Can you shut up?” I yelled. “I’m tired of listening to you, and I’m tired of this godsdamn Cog!”
He stepped from around a tree and wrapped the fingers of his undamaged hand in my collar. His other hand was a ruin at his side. He was weakening, without the Cogheart. He wasn’t reforming as he should.
“Then give it to me, as you know you should.”
“What happens then? If I give it to you.”
“The girl goes free, and we leave.”
I sagged in his grip. My back was against the tree. I took the Cog out of my pocket and held it in both hands.
“Which girl?” I asked.
“The buried girl. The hidden girl. The girl this city has profaned.”
“Camilla,” I said. He nodded. “She won’t let Veridon go unharmed.”
He almost smiled. “Can you say the city deserves any less? I have been following you, Jacob Burn. I know what has happened to you, what has been done to you. By those you love, and those you counted as friends. And still you protect it. Give me the heart, and stand aside.”
I held up the Cog. “Take it.”
He set me down. As soon as his fingers were away from my throat, I slammed the Cog across his face. He faltered. His ruined hand came up and began its imperfect transformation into blade. I kicked at his feet. We fell, the knuckle roots of the tree digging into o
ur backs. As he struggled to stand I came to my knees and put the Cog just below his eye, all of my weight behind it. His head snapped, cogs clattered away. He was coming apart. I pulled back to hit him again when his other hand, his good hand, tore into me.
I felt the blood across my leg and looked down. The pain was a second away, and I had a good look at the inside of my ribcage before the agony blinded me. His hand had become a thing of scythes and axles, spinning like a tornado. I collapsed, and the Cog skipped away behind me.
“My time is short,” he said, rising slowly. His wings looked thin, and his chest was heaving. The rain that poured off his face fell to the ground black with oil and blood. “But I would do this one thing well. You have defied me at every turn, Jacob Burn.” He slapped me awkwardly, and I fell onto my back. My secret engine was pumping hard to remake me, but I could feel it losing ground. “Every step of the way here, I have run across your people, your Veridians. Your soldiers and your thugs and your gods.” I dragged myself backwards. He towered over me, unforming and reforming. He slapped me again, this time with his bladed hand. My cheek shredded.
“I am tired of your people. I am tired of this horrible city, perched on this rock, dredging up the trash of greater empires. You live on the junk of history, Jacob Burn, and history will wash you away. No one will remember your dreadful empire of filth and misery.”
“I’m starting to take this personally,” I gasped through blood and broken bone. I dragged myself backwards and found the Cog. He looked down at it, glimmering under my bloody hand. His eyes flashed furiously. He reached for it.
I rolled over onto my front, shielding the Cog from his view. I saw that I was on the edge of a cliff, one of the jagged walls that fell straight down into the Reine. It stretched out before me like a flat gray road that led straight down, far down. I dangled an arm over the cliff, jammed the Cog into the root bole of a scraggly tree clinging to the edge of the cliff. He put a hand on my shoulder and flipped me over.