by Sarah Gailey
And then she saw Houndstooth. Some of the guests had wised up, clearing a path in front of the harpoon-strapped madman who was knocking people down. As Archie watched, her friend reached up and took his much-abused hat off, letting it fall behind him without so much as a backward glance. He strode forward and, as the crowd parted in front of him, grabbed one of the party guests by the shoulder.
They turned around.
Archie stopped in her tracks, feeling her mouth fall open, and stared. The music was too loud for her to make out everything Houndstooth was saying, but she didn’t need to hear a word. Carter caught up to her just in time to watch with her as Houndstooth swept Hero into his arms. The air in the room stilled as he kissed them with the unrestrained fire of a man possessed by months of fear and searching and need and a tenacious, undying certainty that the person he loved was still out there, waiting for his lips to meet theirs.
“Oh,” Carter said.
“Yes,” Archie agreed.
“Excuse me,” came a voice from beside her. Archie moved aside—out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tall, dark-haired woman she’d pushed aside a few moments before. The woman moved past, trailing the sharp smell of sweat and something sour.
Archie glanced back at the woman.
Then she looked again.
“Shit.” She looked back at Houndstooth, who was holding Hero by the face, his forehead pressed to theirs. She looked up at Carter, who was watching the reunion with a familiar smile. “Fucking shit-arsed fuck,” she said, and grabbed Carter by the elbow. She started to pull him after her, following the path of the dark-haired woman. Behind her, she heard Houndstooth calling.
She looked over her shoulder, met his eyes, and nodded. As she turned back, she saw him cast a regretful glance at Hero. She didn’t need to watch to know that he was following her.
“What is it?” Carter asked beside her.
“It’s her,” Archie answered, gathering a length of chain in one hand and tightening her grip on her still-unsheathed blade in the other. “It’s Adelia.”
Chapter 11
Adelia’s head swam. She heard a commotion behind her—but there was no time. Her fever was spiking again, her vision tunneling, and it was now or never.
Burton had to die.
She wove through the crowd, which seemed far too large for a government official’s birthday party. She supposed that Parrish must have padded out the list with whoever he was accepting bribes from. She shook her head hard, trying to jar herself into focusing. None of that matters, she thought as she reached the door to the formal dining room. None of it. All that mattered was killing Burton and getting Ysabel into Hero’s hands before—
A hand on her elbow.
No, she thought desperately. She shook off the hand and shoved her way into the dining room, barreling toward the head of the table. Burton looked up at her, his thick brows furrowed. She grabbed a length of cut twine from the table in front of him and stepped behind him in one fluid motion. A bead of fever-sweat ran down her back as she looped the twine around her palms, slipping it over the old man’s head.
Now.
She heard the impact at first, more than she felt it—a crack from just behind her. She almost turned to look, but then she was falling, and a searing pain was in the back of her skull.
I’ve been shot, she thought. As she landed on the waxed wood of the dining room floor, she reached up with one hand, and felt her unbroken skull.
Not shot, then. She fought to remain conscious and won by the skin of her teeth. She started trying to scramble to her feet, but then hands were under her arms, and she was kicking as she was dragged back through the crowd, away from her only hope of getting Ysabel back.
* * *
“You can’t,” Hero was saying. Adelia tugged at the cuffs that Carter had applied to her wrists. The chain rattled against the chair to which she was tethered, and everyone turned to look at her.
“Please,” she rasped, staring at Hero. “You have to do it. You have to kill him. Please.” She was drenched in sweat, her head pounding—her fever had finally broken, too late to matter. She couldn’t reach back to feel whether her head was swelling where Carter had struck her, but she could guess.
“Why the hop-eared fuck would Hero do a thing like that?” Houndstooth growled, trying to lean back against a wall, then shifting again as his harpoon dug into his back. “This useless bloody thing, I swear—”
“Hero would do a thing like that,” Hero said, making Houndstooth startle, “because it’s the only way to get Ysabel back.”
“And Ysabel is the baby, right?” Carter asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I just don’t understand why Parrish would kidnap Ysabel instead of just hiring Adelia,” Archie said. She was leaning against the plaster wall of the quarters that had been assigned to Adelia ten hours before.
“Because I’m retired,” Adelia said. “He tried to hire me a year ago, and I told him no. And then he tried again, right before the Harriet job, and I told him no. And then he tried to sabotage the Harriet job, so that Burton would look incompetent and get fired, and he wanted me to help him do it—and I said no then, too. I think he went through Travers after that. And … then Travers decided to go through me anyway. I kept saying no, Hero. They kept trying to make me kill, and I kept saying no.” She closed her eyes, wishing there was a way that she could will herself unconscious. “And men like him … they do not like to hear that word.” At least then she would be able to get some sleep before hanging.
She could hear Houndstooth pacing back and forth in front of her with the measured steps of terrible patience. “And you were ‘retired’ when you tried to kill Hero?” His voice was quiet enough to make her open her eyes again—a dangerous kind of quiet that sent a rare spark of fear through her.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Houndstooth,” Hero said. They grabbed him by both shoulders, staring into his eyes. “Adelia didn’t try to kill me. She saved me. Do you understand? That’s why it’s so important that she’s retired. She didn’t kill me. If she hadn’t done what she did—Travers would have killed me himself. I was the one who was setting up explosives in the Harriet, wasn’t I?” They shook their head. “He would have made sure I was dead long before the dam fell.”
“Hero, please,” Adelia said. “None of that matters. Parrish has Ysabel.”
“She’s right,” Carter said. Hero looked at him with wide eyes. “None of it matters. Adelia has killed more men than I can name in an hour. Retirement doesn’t change that.”
“I’ve killed dozens of men,” Hero snapped. “So has Houndstooth, and so has Archie. If you think you’re in the company of innocents, Carter, you’re much mistaken.”
“I don’t have a warrant for your arrest, or for his,” Carter growled back, his finger under Hero’s nose, “but if I did—and Archie’s neither here nor there, you leave her out of—”
“Pardonnez-moi?” Archie’s typically fluting voice was as low and dangerous as the rumble of an approaching avalanche. Carter waved a hand, still towering over Hero.
“You know what I mean,” he said.
Archie took a step closer to him, her arms folded across her chest. “Explain it to me, chérie,” she said, fury simmering in every word. “Perhaps I do not understand. You know ’ow I struggle.”
Carter turned to look at her. “I just meant, you know. Once we’re married and all, I can’t be forced to testify against you, and as long as you don’t get yourself into any more trouble…”
Hero took a quick step backward as Archie’s face went still with cold rage. “’Ow dare you?” Her voice rose with every word. “As long as I don’t get myself into any more trouble?! As long as I—what was it?” She wheeled on Houndstooth, who threw up his hands in a please-don’t-kill-me plea. “As long as I birth a litter of brats and spend my time chasing them away from the fine china, then I can be your wife? As long as I spend all of my time taking care of you and him and ever
y fucking one of you useless men—va te faire enculer! Non,” she shouted, turning back to Carter, to Houndstooth’s evident relief. “You will marry me as I am, you will love me for who I am and for what I am great at—or you won’t marry me at all, Gran Carter.”
“Archie,” Carter said, pleading in earnest now, “please, I can’t … I can’t marry a con. I can’t marry a killer. I’m a U.S. marshal.” He reached for her hands, but she snatched them away. “Please. I’ve worked my whole life for this star—”
He reached up to tap the star on the brim of his hat, but it wasn’t there. Archie shook her head, holding up the stolen star. She’d taken it from his hat without him so much as flinching. “I’ve worked my ’ole life for this,” she said, shaking the star at him. “To be able to do the things that I do—it gives me more than bread, Carter. It gives me life. Just like this maudit star gives you life. I would never ask you to give this up for me, never. And if you think I’ll give up my life’s work just to marry you, you are not good enough for me.”
She slapped his star against his chest with enough force to knock him backward a few steps. Adelia closed her eyes over strange, hot tears. Just finish me, she thought desperately. Fight afterward. You’ll have time. When she opened her eyes, Carter was holding both of Archie’s hands, murmuring something that sounded like an apology. But before Adelia could get a good read on what he was saying, her view of the fight—or the aftermath, she supposed—was obscured as Hero crouched in front of her.
“Adelia,” they said, “I’m not going to kill Burton.” Adelia let her head sag, feeling a last trickle hope drain out of her. “But I will get Ysabel back.” Adelia looked up. Hero was staring intently into her eyes. “I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. Do you believe me?”
Adelia nodded without hesitation. She squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of pain washed through her skull, and when she’d opened them, Hero was gone. Archie and Carter startled apart as the door slammed—Houndstooth pushed his way between them, tearing out of the room after Hero.
Carter stared at Adelia, his hand still resting on Archie’s arm. The fury in Archie’s face seemed to have dimmed, although its ghost was still there, beneath the surface. “How are we going to get her out of here while the party’s going on?” Carter murmured.
“It can wait,” Archie said. She looked at Adelia with something close to pity. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Adelia couldn’t help agreeing. She was so tired—more tired than she could remember being in a long time. She shifted, rattling the chains again. “Archie,” she said, “can I make a request?” When Archie didn’t say anything, she decided to go ahead with it. What did she have to lose? “There are some cabbage leaves on the nightstand there. Please—” She cleared her throat. “Could you please give them to me?”
Archie just stared at her.
“Please? I—what was that?” All three of them looked to the door as another scream rang through the early-evening air.
Carter grabbed Archie’s hand. “I promised,” he whispered, looking between her and the door. “And I meant it. You’re more important to me than—than damn near anything. We’ll find a way to make it work. I’m not leaving you again, I promise. I swear, Archie.”
“Don’t make promises, chérie,” Archie murmured back. “Go. I’ll watch her,” she added with a glance toward Adelia. Carter handed her his key ring, kissed her fiercely, and bolted toward the growing sound of screaming guests. The moment he was gone, Archie grabbed the cabbage leaves and thrust them at Adelia.
“I can’t do it myself,” Adelia said, rattling the chains.
“What do you need done with them?” Archie asked, massaging her temples.
Adelia told her.
“No,” Archie said flatly.
“Please.” Adelia felt a flush of shame—she was unaccustomed to begging. “I have had this infection since a few days after Ysabel was taken, and the cabbage leaves are the only thing that’s helped. My fever has finally broken, but I don’t know if it will come back without—please,” she finished weakly.
Archie pursed her lips. “I will not do this for you,” she repeated. Then she knelt beside Adelia and, with a rattle of keys, freed her hands. “You will do it for yourself,” she continued. “And if you try to run, I will kill you. Is that understood?”
Adelia rubbed her numb wrists in a state of mild shock. “Thank you,” she breathed. Archie pressed the cabbage leaves into her hands, then stood at the door with her back to the room.
“What did he say?” Adelia asked, easing her shirt off.
“Hein?” Archie said, turning her back. “What did who say?”
“Carter. What did he say to make you forgive him?”
There was a long pause, long enough that Adelia almost repeated herself. Then, slowly, Archie answered. “I ’aven’t forgiven ’im. ’E said all the right things, about respecting me and wanting to find a way that we can both ’ave our lives be what they are supposed to be, and ’ow ’e wasn’t thinking straight. So, I’ve decided to give ’im a chance to prove ’imself. I think that’s what love is—it’s not about forgiving or forgetting right away. It’s about deciding to give someone a chance to earn your forgiveness, eventually.”
“And you love him?” Adelia asked.
“More than I know ’ow to express,” Archie replied.
“More than the work?”
“No,” Archie said. “Not more than the work. But I ’ope there will be a way for me to love them both at the same time. And if there is not—c’est la vie. I will live with ’eartbreak one way or the other.”
“We’re not so different, I don’t think,” Adelia ventured as she replaced the old cabbage leaves with the new ones.
Archie barked out a laugh. “We couldn’t be more different if our lives depended on it,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you deserve to suffer.”
“Some people would say it does,” Adelia murmured. She examined her swollen breast—it seemed less red than it had even that morning. The pain in her head was pulsing white and grey, but the pain in her breast had eased. How timely, she thought. Perfect.
“I am not ‘some people,’” Archie said. They both went silent, listening to the sound of screams.
“What do you think is going on down there?” Adelia asked. As if to answer her, a bellow cut through the screams like a steam engine bursting through a snowdrift.
Archie spun around to face Adelia, who froze with her shirt half buttoned. Their eyes met, and a terrible knowledge passed between them as another bellow joined the first.
“No,” Adelia breathed.
“Ferals,” Archie replied. Outside the door to Adelia’s quarters, footsteps pounded down the hall. Outside the window, a long, loud scream was cut short by a wet splash.
Chapter 12
Houndstooth caught up to Hero just as the first feral rammed into the barge.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” they were chanting under their breath as they pushed the doors to the kitchen open. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—” And then, a sound of splintering wood and a bellow of rage blended with the screams of the party guests.
“Hero, wait—” Houndstooth caught Hero under the arms as they stumbled, then immediately stumbled himself. “We have to go,” he said as they both found their feet.
“I have to get Ysabel,” Hero said.
“No, Hero, we have to leave, you don’t understand—”
Hero wheeled on him. “Don’t tell me what I don’t understand,” they snapped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You—I can’t talk about this right now. There’s no time.” They turned back into the kitchen, which was nearly empty save for a sobbing girl with wild red curls and skin so pale that Houndstooth could see a blue vein at her throat. “Hey,” Hero snapped their fingers in front of the crying girl’s eyes a few times. “You, what’s your name? Where’s the chef?” When they received no response, they slapped her smartly across the face. The girl’s sobs only got loude
r.
“Where is the chef?” Hero shouted into the girl’s face over the sound of bellowing ferals. Houndstooth gripped the doorframe to steady himself as the barge rocked. Hero slapped the girl again.
“Where is the chef, tell me!”
The girl shook her head. “She’s gone,” she cried. “She left when the first feral got here, I’m sorry—”
Another bellow from outside—two, three, and then the barge was rocking again. A pot of something that smelled like damn good she-crab soup fell from the stovetop, spreading a fragrant, steaming slick across the floor.
From somewhere in the kitchen came a high keening sound.
Hero straightened. They let go of the girl, who immediately fled past Houndstooth, slipping on the spill. The noise grew louder, until it sounded like a grinding, grating wail.
Houndstooth realized what was going on just as Hero opened a cupboard and knelt in front of it with a cry of relief.
“Ysabel!” they yelled, reaching into the cupboard to retrieve the swaddled baby.
“How did you—” Houndstooth slipped in the stuff on the floor, catching himself on the oven as a new wave of screams rose outside. “How did you know she’d be in here?”
“The chef sent up cabbage leaves for Adelia,” Hero said, clutching the screaming baby to their chest. “That girl with the red hair brought them up. She said that—shhh, Ysabel, hush—they said that the chef had been dealing with an infection like the one Adelia had, just last month.” Houndstooth put a hand on their elbow to help them balance as they made their way back to the door. “It was a long shot, but … Ysabel had to have a wet nurse. If she hadn’t, we would have been able to hear her crying all the way from Port Rouge.” Even as they said it, the baby let out a fresh piercing cry. Houndstooth winced.
“We have to leave,” Houndstooth said. “Please, Hero—it’s not safe, not if the ferals are here.”