by wildbow
“And you, Dog, and your Bruno are all short to medium range combatants, if that flame contraption is anything like what I’ve seen elsewhere. They’ve got the range advantage on us and a choice hostage,” I said.
Dog made a noise, a low, long, steady sound, the sound of a broken, dilapidated motor trying to purr, or a very large canine trying to growl with something stuck in its throat.
“You’ve lost, Catcher,” I said. “I may have lost too, because of it.”
Jamie seemed so very far away. I was aware of the red flowers everywhere. That Tentacles was infected, too, and that the knife would have to be taken to Jamie shortly.
I was so angry about all of it.
I closed my eyes. I focused on my mental images of the Lambs. I put Gordon in my position. I watched how things played out.
I put Mary through the paces.
I thought about Evette, in my shoes.
When I opened my eyes, I was glaring. I didn’t look away from Arthur, Arachne, Jamie, or the Bruno goon as I gestured. Danger. Walk. Time.
Jamie started to gesture, but Arthur grabbed his wrist, stopping him. Another possible point of infection. Jamie used his other hand to make the gesture, before Arthur grabbed that wrist too.
“In ten seconds, you’re going to release me, Catcher. Make it look like I freed myself. He’s going to choose me as a target. That gives you three time to find cover. If he doesn’t have me as a target, he’ll shoot you.”
Catcher turned his head to look at Dog.
In that instant, Jamie’s hand, wrist gripped by Tentacles, moved.
A flicker, not even a full gesture.
Lie.
Because he wasn’t sure, or because he didn’t want to risk that Catcher would see and realize that Jamie had been lying?
I counted off the remainder of the ten seconds in my head. Four. Three. Two. One.
I reached for the mechanism that would send tranquilizer into my neck. In that instant, Catcher released the head from the pole. Grabbing the mechanism, holding it in one hand, I bolted.
The danger-walk-time gesture. Earlier, Jamie had counted off the steps, based on distance, that the bullet would have to travel. Sanguine would see the direction I chose to move, lead, and fire. One step. One moment of movement, then a lurching stop, feet skidding on a puddle.
There was a bullet, but it wasn’t Sanguine’s. The Bruno raised his gun and fired, and the shot was a miss. I found traction underfoot and ran for the alley. Belated, Dog and Catcher started after me.
I would duck between buildings, turn a hard right, and head to the brothel. There were allies there.
Arachne, much as predicted, gave chase. Not straight for me, but into the alley.
And, slow because he was hurt and his hostage was hurt, Tentacles began lurching away, dragging Jamie with him. In the opposite direction of the brothel. Taking my friend away. The Bruno with the gun remained with them, guarding Tentacles and their captured quarry.
For the time being, there was nothing I could do about it.
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Cut to the Quick—11.14
What day of the week was it? I had no freaking idea if it was a Monday or a Saturday.
My memory was worse than it had been. I knew it, I admitted it fully. Jamie’s version of the Wyvern formula was harsher, the consequences heavier on my mind. Literally so.
The Wyvern formula rendered my mind liquid, more akin to a newborn child’s in its ability to take in new ideas, new actions and skills, and in how it could adapt to the people and environment around it. The old, Academy-provided formula was refined, allowing me to augment what I needed to while sacrificing what I could afford to lose, with some measure of control over the process. The new formula was cruder, more a shovel than a scalpel. I didn’t mostly sacrifice the memories I could afford to lose, I sacrificed memory. I didn’t solely gain the skills I wanted to adopt, I gained skill. I felt less like I had control and more like the grooves and paths for that particular adjustment were worn into my brain already.
When I imagined the Lambs now with that crystal clear, nearly-real clarity, I imagined them with faces. I hadn’t before, still fresh on the last dose of Academy-provided Wyvern. I gained skills, but I was losing memory of important details I used to be able to hold in my head. Familiar people, places, things, and events. Details about my enemies, and, to a lesser degree, details about my closest allies.
No, if my subconscious was directing this more than my conscious, it might have been responsible for me clinging harder to the people closer to me than I had been, even now that we were separated by a chasm. I’d managed to hold on to the Lambs with enough clarity to imagine them, and reinforced those imaginings with regular mental exercises. I remembered Jamie, Mary, Lillian, Helen, Ashton, Evette, and Gunther. No problems there.
That was a joke. A little joke to myself, as I ran full-bore through streets that should have felt more dimly familiar than these ones were. My lack of memory made this familiar ground feel unfamiliar. My recollection of the people who were chasing me wasn’t as on point as I would have liked. I felt like there were small details about Arachne that I should have held on to. Something beyond the spider observation. Something about how she’d dealt with Arthur or how she behaved.
It didn’t help that it was dark, the rain obscured the little details, and the spreading case of builder’s wood was snaking its way up the sides of buildings, finding leverage where it could, and turning the right angles where the road met walls into very organic, rounded slopes.
Dog was the first one to catch up, tearing out of a side street behind me with enough force that he brought a short tide of garbage and other debris with him, having clipped a storage bin or something as he passed it. flesh and metal claws skidded on the road as he found traction, facing me head on. Considering the limp and the slightly damaged back claw, Dog was moving at a good clip.
A street back, I could just make out Arachne. The Iron Maiden. The woman-spider. She wasn’t as fast, but from what I could tell, she moved like something mechanical. Or more mechanical than Dog, even. Tireless, relentless, with a kind of eerie repetition to her stride, as if it was precisely measured, even optimized. The only thing that threw her off balance or changed the nature of her running pace was the fact that she dragged her axe behind her. As it bucked or kicked off against a cobblestone or something, it would lift into the air, and her upper body would shift a little to compensate for the change in balance.
Both looked like they might catch up to me before I reached the brothel. I needed time to get inside, too. My initial head start was meaningful, but their ability to cover ground and chase their targets were Academy-augmented.
I checked my pocket. Knife. Lockpick kit sans most of my picks. A fold of Crown bills with a clip around it.
I drew the picks from my pocket. It was a leather sleeve with a cover that folded over, and individual inserts for each pick. At the leftmost side, near where the cover folded forward or back, there was a piece of chalk. Useful for safecracking, or making a note while I worked on a more complicated lock, like the ones I’d found at the galleries near the Theaters.
I drew out the chalk, holding it in one hand while holding the kit in the other. Holding the chalk in the one hand, I applied pressure until it broke at the middle, then squeezed to break the individual pieces. I began viciously grinding the pieces against one another.
Dog would catch up with me first. After that, I would only have a few moments to plan for Arachne. I could feel the heavy footfalls and the metal-on-stone noises as Dog stampeded toward me.
I pulled a bill from the collection in my pockets, and turned a hard left, into the nearest street. I might have hoped for a narrow alleyway, but the houses here in the Boatyards were crowded close together, as if to earn landowners more dollars per square foot. There were streets wide enough for a small carriage or three people to walk side by side, and there were wide streets where multiple carriages could pass by one another. This particular street
was narrow, with an arch overhead, connecting the buildings on either side.
Rounding the corner, I could imagine how Dog would move. The delay as he stopped, skidded, and then plunge down the street, where he would have me.
I made myself stop running, turned, and faced the arch.
I had to trust my read of Dog. To believe that, if pressed, Dog would prefer to work with me rather than seize me in his jaws or kill me. Having Arachne at his back would be a factor, given the animosity between the groups.
So, inspired by a kind of madness, I stood my ground and watched as Dog appeared, skidding on the road to come to a stop, so he wouldn’t slam into the building as he rounded the corner.
I gestured, and tested my luck by choosing some unfortunate phrasing.
“Play dead,” I said.
I could see him drop his head, like a bull lowering his horns in anticipation of a charge, drawing in a breath, a glare clear in his eyes.
“Please,” I said.
He let his injured back right hind leg and his right forelimb crumple, and collapsed onto his side. He maintained the glare as he lay there for a moment, then sagged, letting his head rest on the road, and closed his eyes. A great beast felled.
I picked out the large pieces of chalk from my hand, and cupped it, holding the powder I’d made by grinding it up. Not quite as much as I might have liked. With my other hand at my side with the bill, I folded it up.
Without much ceremony, Arachne leaped up. She perched there, crouching, the butt end of the axe and both feet planted on Dog’s ribs. I would have thought she was staring at me, but the empty eye sockets couldn’t do anything of the sort.
While she watched, I brought the folded paper over to my cupped palm, and tapped it out, as if depositing more of the white powder into my hand.
She leaped, covering more ground than I would have thought possible, and I stumbled back, bringing the hand to my mouth and fiercely blowing out.
She retreated as fast as I had, moving back out of the way of the cloud I’d made. In the damp air and the rain, it was fairly paltry.
I shifted my stance, preparing another handful. But something told me that she’d seen the ruse, that she could tell there wasn’t that much powder. She waited as the remnants of the puff of dust I’d made disappeared, shifting her grip on her axe so she held it ready to strike with.
And Dog rose, mouth yawning open. As it reached its limits for opening wide, the mechanism which joined the metal lower jaw to the bone upper one straining and creaking, Arachne half-turned.
The mouth slammed shut. Had she not moved when she had, it might have severed the upper half of her body from the lower. As it was, only her already damaged left arm and shoulder were caught in the bite, along with her shoulder and one or two of her ribs.
She didn’t seem to feel pain. She swung her axe, and Dog raised his head so the axe struck the metal of his jaw instead of his face. It sank in deep, all things considered. The edge of that axe was sufficient to leave an inch-deep notch in worked steel. A second swing in the same general place might have cut clean through Dog’s lower face.
For her second swing, Arachne cleaved off the thin strings of tissue that dangled between her ruined shoulder and Dog’s mouth.
I knew what her next move was. She would turn and come for me, one eye over her shoulder for another attack from Dog.
But that hesitation on her part was a chance for me to cover more ground. All the more so if a fight broke out between them.
“Thank you, brother,” I said, voice low, knowing that Dog’s ears would pick it up. “Don’t get hurt on my behalf.”
What day of the week was it?
Some of the lads and ladies from the brothel went out on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the groups differing depending on the night. They were supposed to keep their keys with them, but so very often, one of them would end up staying out late, or they would split up, and it would get complicated to figure out who should have the keys. If it was the first group, then they had to stay up and keep an eye out for the late arrivals. If it was the late arrivals, then the first group didn’t have a way of letting themselves in.
All of that in mind, they had taken to leaving the keys behind, in a hiding place. The Madam of the house would have been apoplectic if she figured it out.
I’d found out when I’d run into a group of the ladies returning from a night at the theaters. The same night I’d noticed Shirley’s withdrawn nature and resolved to fix it, now that I thought about it.
Yes, I could remember my allies.
Please let it be here. I don’t want to take the time to break in.
I dipped my finger into the space where a branch in the original construction hadn’t quite grown cover the gap between bricks. I found the key. I let myself in the back door, and locked the door behind me.
“Madam! Marv!” I bellowed.
She’d been in the parlor, and in the next instant, appeared at the far end of the the hallway that stretched down the middle of the house, from the front door to the back door.
“Sylvester?” she asked. She looked hostile, to a degree I hadn’t expected. I’d intruded, entered by way of a door that should have been locked.
“Gun!” I shouted.
I saw her hesitate.
“Get guns! Get Marv! I know you have the guns. The—”
The axe punched through the door. A foot followed, shattering the area of the door around the handle.
I turned to face the door, backing down the hallway, while the madam disappeared. There were girls from upstairs and ones who’d been having tea with the madam who peeked at the scene.
“Stand back,” I said.
Arachne was missing the arm, shoulder, and surrounding area at one side of her body, but she didn’t bleed, not really. I could see the raw, glistening architecture through her arm hole as she turned to pull the axe free of the wreckage of the door. Nothing resembling a human body in there.
“Sylvester,” Shirley said, looking in from the living room.
“Stay out of this,” I said. “There’s not a lot you can do.”
“But—”
“You’d just get hurt. Just hoping a gun does something,” I said. “If your madam would just hurry up—”
Arachne turned to me, and she began moving down the hallway, axe resting on her good shoulder.
I stood my ground, backing up. As she moved, bringing the axe down, I threw myself back. I landed hard, the top of my head hitting the front door, back striking the floor. The axe came down between my feet, biting into floorboards.
She moved forward as she hauled it out. I pulled back and away, but without much room to maneuver, the bottom of the stairs to my left, the parlor with the girls to my right, I was helpless to get out of the way as the upper tip of the axe’s blade sliced the skin from bellybutton to shoulder.
She held it aloft, ready to take my head. That same head worked through possibilities, trying to figure out the best path forward. Gordon would push for the attack, but what was her weak point? I wasn’t sure her knees would be a good point of attack, given how she was put together. I couldn’t reach the gaping wound in time.
I heard the gunshot. I saw Arachne react, having to move a leg to catch her balance. I could see the scratch at the side of her face where the bullet had hit her but hadn’t even cracked the porcelain part of her mask-like face.
She turned to face the Madam, who stood at the top of the stairs, next to one of her ‘girls’, who had her hands clamped to her ears.
“I’ll attend to you after,” Arachne said, in her eerie voice.
Calmly, methodically, the Madam reloaded her gun, aimed, and fired again. The second bullet didn’t have any more effect than the first.
She was made, almost head to toe, of the same material that warbeast armor plating was made of. The sort of thing that only cracked in the face of cannon hits and explosives.
And Dog bites, apparently.
“Bullets don’t work.
Can I pay you off?” the Madam asked. “Depending on your price, I’d like to buy the safety of myself first, my girls second, and him third.”
“I can feel the love,” I said.
“No money,” Arachne said. “Only blood.”
“Favors?” the Madam asked.
“Won’t work,” I said. “She—”
Shirley appeared at the other end of the hallway. She held a grown wooden chair with metal reinforcement at the legs.
Don’t, I thought. But there was no signal I could give that wouldn’t endanger her. I prepared myself to leap up and throw my arms around Arachne, buying Shirley time to run.
I wasn’t sure what would happen after that, but—
No, absolutely no idea what would happen after that. I hadn’t expected her to be so resistant to guns.
“She doesn’t care,” I said, feigning that the hitch in my voice was emotion, despair.
In the next instant, Shirley attacked. She drove the legs of the chair at Arachne like they were some thrusting weapon. I could tell what her aim was, pushing Arachne away from me, toward the corner that separated the entrance from the parlor. But Arachne was pushed a mere step in that direction, before her leg went out and caught her. Shirley changed tactics, pushing in another direction, hoping to catch Arachne off balance again, but the woman’s legs were strong. All of Shirley’s body weight and muscle didn’t match up to the stability that Arachne’s calves, ankles, and foot placement offered.
“Stupid girl!” the Madam cursed. The epithet was punctuated by the sound of the chair being destroyed by a strike from Arachne’s good arm and the shaft of the axe.
I was on my feet. I kicked hard at the back of Arachne’s knee, and wasn’t surprised in the slightest when it didn’t cave forward like knees were supposed to do when kicked.
I threw my arms around her, grabbing my wrist with one hand, hoping to buy time. “Run, Shir!”
I both heard and felt the gunshot. It rattled me enough that I dropped to the floor. I stared up as Arachne turned, slowly, and the Madam made her way down the stairs, reloading for a fourth shot. Her descent matched Arachne’s slow turn, keeping her in position to aim the gun at the gaping hole in Arachne’s side. Shirley’s assault had turned Arachne in the right direction, and a fourth bullet made the Iron Maiden topple over, falling to the floor.