by wildbow
“You’re thinking about it now,” Mary said. “You can barely contain your glee.”
That prompted another weak chuckle. As his life leaked away, this massive figure was starting to seem more like a child.
“The letters,” the Devil said. “If I don’t send out the letters, then the house…”
He chuckled.
Mary slapped him. He didn’t seem to feel it.
“If you don’t send the letters, then the house?”
“The house of cards. I might lose, but nobody wins.”
Taking a cue from the Academy, are we? Mary thought.
“Those letters, those letters,” Mary said. “Tell me about the letters.”
“I don’t want to tell you,” he said. He almost sounded like he was regressing in age, his tone becoming more infantile. Ashton’s influence would be part of that. So would the drugs he’d taken. “I want to keep it a seee-cret.”
“Such a good secret,” Mary said. “You could rub it in my face. You’re dying, Mr. Devil. You’re dying, John Colby. Soon the lights will go out.”
He blinked, as if trying to regain some measure of focus.
“You’re dying,” she hammered him with it. She had to push herself to be less of a Lamb, more of the Lady. It was like an old set of clothing that she was putting on after many, many months, and she was surprised it still fit, that it was still easy to move around in. More emotion in her voice, more vulnerability showing, less… combativeness. She leaned forward over him, her forearms resting against his chest, hands at his collarbone, her hair hanging down around his face.
He winced at the movement of the hair. He looked up and focused enough to see her face. The eyes that were wide and pleading, not dangerous.
“A hint,” he said. He chuckled. “All the letters. They’re people I have under my thumb. People who worked for me, some corrupt people and some people I corrupted. I knew they wouldn’t always side with me, so I prepared to destroy each and every one of them if they tried to cross me. Blackmail, and drugs that only I can supply, because only I know what they are. Now I die, and the house of cards, it all comes tumbling down.”
“Oh no!” Mary said, feigning upset.
“Oh, yes!” the Devil said, indulging in his victory. “My pawns will spread the right information if they don’t hear from me, and other people will never get the information they need. They’ll lose their minds, if they don’t die. Important people.”
“Unless someone finds your paperwork.”
“They won’t. They can’t. The letters are in a safe and the safe is in my headquarters, which the little brat burned down.”
Mary nodded. Corrupt officials, officials that had allowed themselves to be corrupt, and people who had conceded to work with this madman.
Would it really be a loss, if their lives were utterly destroyed and they were removed from the picture?
Lillian wouldn’t want to be quite so cutthroat, but there was a reason she had suggested that Lillian leave before initiating this line of questioning. If there was nothing that could be done, then Lillian would be upset over nothing. If there was an option, then she could tell Lillian after, and they would find a solution.
A cold part of her, deep inside, wondered how hard she wanted to dig to see if there was an option.
That part of her identified well with Sylvester, and the very reason it was as easily felt as it was likely because Sylvester was on her mind. When they had been in Warrick, hunting the Baron, she had known that she was influencing Sylvester, and Sylvester influencing her. They had, how had Sylvester and Nora put it? They had danced, and they had ruthlessly danced over a number of people along the way.
That wasn’t exclusive to Warrick or that mission, either. He had been an influence all along.
She had paid close attention to that from the beginning. ‘The beginning’ being the day he’d arrived in her life and had informed her that Mr. Percy held the strings that controlled her.
She had been aware when Sylvester had relinquished his control, stepping back to let the other Lambs reach out to her.
Gordon had helped her feel like less of a puppet and more like a girl.
Lillian, though. Lillian was her friend and her heart. As a stand-in for her own heart, she often thought about what Lillian would want and do.
“Unrecoverable,” she said.
“Un-re-coverable,” the Devil said. Then he smiled, “Nooo. But they would have to dig all day and all night to get it. When the seasons change and the mess gets cleared up, long after the damage has been done, they’ll find my cellar and the papers will tell of what’s inside. The story will be told all over again, rubbing salt in wounds, give truth to sus-sus—”
He stopped.
“Suspicion.”
“Suspicion, yes. And the name of the drug that I used to control Robert, John, James, William and—”
“They’ll find it where?”
“My headquarters. I liked my headquarters. Oh, my more timid self was so upset that it burned. Book collections, tidbits and trinkets from his travels. He would be so sad to know he died like this. As the monster within.”
“Where is the headquarters?”
“The winery. It—”
He stopped as she lowered her knife to his face and started cutting.
“Oh,” he said.
Was this you, Sylvester? Did you anticipate this part of it? The Devil’s schemes, the countless measures we’d have to take into account?
Why? What are you planning? How far does this scheme go?
Since the beginning, Sylvester had manipulated her. He was kind about it, encouraging her to grow. A part of her had craved more, because it was what she knew. She had, in nascent adolescence, seeing him as a boy and herself as a girl, invited him into a closet while she’d been wearing only her underclothes, because she wanted him to pull her strings. He had refused to, in the end.
She was better for it, she knew. But now things had turned around. Sylvester was on the other side, and the manipulations were revolving around her in the form of Devils and children and a city turned upside-down.
She finished cutting, and she peeled the skin of the Devil’s face away.
The blood loss from that was enough that he was barely there by the time she was done. She doubted he was capable of seeing anything, let alone focusing on anything. With a flick of the knife, she severed the man’s jugular, then sprang to her feet.
As she made her way up the stairs, she folded the bloody mask, placed it between two pieces of paper and then put it into a small scroll case, tucking the case into a belt at her thigh.
Only a few of the Lambs were still at the top floor. As Mary arrived, Emmett put the scrap of cloth over top of the rope and jumped, sliding over and down to the next building.
Only Lillian and Lara remained.
“Can I stay?” Lara asked. “I can hide. I’ll catch up with you after. Or you can come back for me. The police will have left.”
“No, honey,” Lillian said. She spotted Mary, then returned her focus to Lara. “If you stay, you’ll spend the entire time scared and upset you aren’t with us.”
Lara stood there, anxiously processing, trying to figure out a way. Blood had soaked through much of her clothes. Luckily, little to none of it was hers.
“There’s less fear this way,” Lillian said. “It’s even kind of fun, but I understand if a fear of high places is one of your innate fears, but like the other innate fears, you have to fight past them sometimes. Like when you and Nora fought back.”
“It’s not that,” Lara said. She looked up, then winced as she got some sun in her eyes. “It’s not one of my innate fears. It’s a normal fear. That’s why I don’t want to jump. Because I might get used to it. Then it won’t be a normal fear anymore.”
“You want to be afraid?” Lillian asked.
“Yes. Sometimes. To feel what others feel.”
Lillian looked at Mary, helpless.
“Go,” Mary
said. “We need to keep moving, and if the Crown police come around to look in this direction…”
She leaned over the edge. It looked like the rubble of the fallen scaffolding had left relatively few people on the ground over here. None were really looking up.
“Or if more come, they might see us.”
“We’ve been timing how we go over, so they’re less likely to spot us,” Lillian said. “You’ll bring Lara?”
“Of course.”
Lillian nodded.
Mary took on the responsibility of checking to see if anyone was looking up as Lillian got her braided scrap of cloth out and put it over the top of the rope.
“Go.”
Lillian slid down and over along the rope-line.
Mary turned to Lara. Lara flinched, backing away.
“You’re going to grab me and force me to go,” Lara said. “Except I might claw at you.”
“I won’t,” Mary said.
Lara looked skeptical.
“Did you know, once upon a time, I hoped to become a teacher?”
“A teacher?”
“I would have trained the next generation of the puppeteer’s clones, I would have educated and instructed them, so they could be more effective tools.”
Lara nodded. “Then you joined the Lambs.”
“I’ve been teaching Lillian things. I’ve talked to Nora, too.”
“She told me. She transcribed some. But she didn’t always transcribe all of it, and I think that’s part of why she’s becoming different.”
“One day, when things are quieter, I’ll sit you both down and go over everything. We’ll learn some self defense, we can talk about your philosophies and about mine, and I think you’ll both end up on the same page in the long run.”
Lara looked a little less unhappy at that idea.
“For now, let’s talk about fear. You want to hold on to fear to feel more like a human?”
Lara nodded. She was paying attention now.
“If you want to experience human fear, then you should experience overcoming it. What it feels like after.”
“I dunno.”
“There will be more things to be afraid of in the future. I’ll make you a promise. Come over with me, and we’ll make it our own mutual mission to find something else that scares you.”
“I don’t know if there is one,” Lara said.
Mary bent down, and she picked up Lara, who didn’t resist. “I guarantee there’s something. It’s a spooky world out there.”
“Very spooky,” Lara said, and that seemed to be the admission that helped her make the leap. She wrapped her arms and legs around Mary. Mary could feel the claws and the spikes and blades within Lara’s shoulders that still hadn’t completely receded from her assault on the Devil.
The edges pressing against her skin, some even lightly piercing or scratching it, reminded her of her early childhood, working with Percy on her concealed carry of knives, poisons, and tools, figuring out where everything went so it would be comfortable and available.
Nostalgic. She felt a twinge of fondness for Lara, in the wake of it. An odd choice for a little sister.
Mary put the cloth Lillian had provided over top of the rope, checked the coast was clear, then stepped over the edge.
She dropped, hard, before the rope was taut enough, and then she moved at a diagonal, wind rushing against her face and through her hair while she felt the sensation of her stomach continuing to plummet to the ground. They crossed the alley, then reached the rooftop on the other end. Mary set her feet down, coming to a running stop.
She set Lara down.
“Bleeah,” Quinton greeted them.
“Yes. Bleeaah. Poor little Quinton,” Lara said, quiet. She was shaking a little from the adrenaline.
“Poor Quinton?” Abby asked, sounding mildly alarmed.
“Having to spend so much time around Nora, without me near to make things better. What a wretched few minutes that must have been.”
“The only wretched thing here is you,” Nora said. “Look at you. You have half the blood on your clothes that I do. How hard did you really fight, coward weakling?”
“Hush, hush” Lillian said, intervening between the two, putting an oversized hand on each of their heads. “Play after. We still have to carry out our mission.”
“We’ve been talking while we wait,” Duncan told Mary. “The general feeling is that Sylvester isn’t going to have left yet.”
Mary nodded.
“We know about the orphanage. Even if he is planning to run for it and leave this city, maybe he’ll still be getting ready to leave?”
“He’ll have packed things to be ready at any moment, if that’s the case,” Mary said. Lillian and Helen nodded.
Duncan frowned.
“But he won’t have left yet,” Mary said. “I think he’s still around. He wants to tease us. When he leaves, he’ll let us know where he’s going.”
Duncan nodded, “Alright. Then the consensus was, if we wait too long, Sylvester is going to be too prepared. It’s best to catch him off balance. My group can split up, I’ll go get my dogs, we’ll each handle one of the gates, get them to call Hayle or something to give us some legitimacy, then my group will gather together after to figure out how to rescue the nanny. Lacey can come with us, so she isn’t underfoot for you four. The twins, Emmett, Abby, Lacey and I go, while you, Lillian, Ashton, and Helen go after Sy now.”
“I can help with the nanny, I think,” Mary said. She reached under her skirt for the scroll case and handed it over. “Here. A piece of the Devil.”
“A piece?” Duncan asked. “Wait, I’m not sure I want the details… especially if it leads to me thinking about the size of that scroll case.”
“It’s recognizable,” Mary said. “If they still balk, then tell them we know where the devil keeps his secrets and notes. If they cooperate, secrets stay secret, and we’ll pass them the information the Devil has that they want to know.”
Duncan looked even less sure about his ability to handle things as she gave him the instructions, but he nodded.
“Ashton’s coming then,” Mary said.
“I’m mostly spent, but I’ll have one or two puffs ready soon,” Ashton said. “And I want to see Sylvester.”
“And when Ashton says he wants something,” Duncan observed, dryly, “He really wants it quite a bit.”
Mary nodded. The plan made a degree of sense. They’d never really planned to use the new Lambs as anything but bait, not really. The hope had been to flush Sylvester out of hiding and draw his interest.
“What about Emmett?” she asked.
“Emmett is new,” Lillian said. “He doesn’t know all of the gestures, he might interrupt our flow.”
“Interrupting our flow against Sylvester is a good thing,” Mary said. “It disrupts him too.”
“But,” Lillian said. “Remember that Sylvester could try getting the drop on Duncan or Lacey. He might want to incapacitate us, remember? To bog down the pursuit by making us drag someone with us.”
Mary frowned.
She liked Emmett. Emmett did what he was supposed to, and he was disciplined on a level that extended to his whole personality. He was the youngest, if the vat-grown weren’t counted, and yet he was amazingly mature.
She wanted to train him, to bring out the best he was capable of, and she suspected that the desire was at least partially informed by her experiences with Sylvester. She didn’t know to what extent, or even how to draw the line between what part of it was what Percy had instilled in her in nurture and nature, and what part of it was Sylvester’s hand.
“Not Emmett, then,” Mary said. “He can serve as a bodyguard.”
I’m not sure how effective a guard he’ll be for them.
“Ashton might throw Sy off,” Helen said.
“Ashton’s someone Sylvester got to know on some level,” Mary said. “But I don’t want to stand around debating. Every second we take is a second we’re giving
him.”
“Good,” Lillian said. “Let’s go.”
The groups separated. They made their way down from the squat building to the road, and Duncan’s group headed northwards, while Mary led the group east, back toward the city center.
Just the Lambs, none of the last minute additions. No Duncan, no Lacey.
She could still sense that general trap in operation around her. A greater mechanism, the rows of buildings on either side of her like jaws of a blunted bear trap, waiting for her to step on the pressure plate. People were potential landmines. Sylvester’s allies, or manufactured enemies in service to the Devil.
She knew on a logical level that her knee had healed. They’d given her the best doctors, and even had a few professors that hadn’t performed surgery in ages in the lab to offer counsel. She should be as good as new, with no lasting damage, but she still felt the damage there.
We’re coming, Sylvester.
They made their way, jogging, checking constantly to make sure they wouldn’t get the attention of the local law, before Ashton pointed out a police wagon. The back portion looked it was meant to hold warbeasts, with filthy blankets within. The people who had manned it had no doubt headed to the tower.
Mary climbed up to the driver’s seat, while Helen and Lillian jumped on the sides. Mary checked they had good handholds before getting the horses moving.
The cages had been covered with black cloth, and Helen and Lillian worked to drape the cloths, to better hide the ‘police’ markings that had been painted on the sides, as well as the crowns of gold and the stripes of blue that marked it as a police vehicle.
With only the black showing, the gold and blue mostly covered, it looked more funerary. Mary intentionally took a route that would put them more out of sight, so they could lose the cages.
One by one, the cages were disconnected from the wagon, allowed to slide off the back and tumble into the street.
“Keep one,” Mary suggested.
“For Sylvester?” Lillian asked, and she laughed.
“No,” Helen said, before saying, “Careful.”
Lillian had to climb back out of the way to not be clipped by the last of the three cages.
“No need for cages,” Helen said. “You have me.”