by wildbow
I nodded.
We could have killed the aristocrats, but that was another sort of problem that swelled up and became a larger issue. Especially if the man was scheduled to play music.
“D,” Jessie said, while the Doctors were still gone.
I frowned.
They arrived with the stretchers and body bags. Jessie and I climbed in.
“If there’s a question or any small problem, just wink,” I said. “If there’s a larger problem or if the wink doesn’t work, then take us to the nearest safe place. Otherwise, our best destination is Lab One.”
“Lab One, got it.”
I lay down on the stretcher, arms at my side, and let them do up the front of the bag, sealing me in.
I closed my eyes and counted the steps. I hadn’t counted the steps from the staircase to the small lab, but I had a sense of it. Generally speaking, my instincts were good.
“Pride goeth before the fall,” the voice was deep, but it wasn’t the sheer bass of it that made me shake so much as it was the clenching of my teeth, my desire to stay still, when we had to be within a few paces of the young aristocrat.
I’d been dreading the voice.
“Where are you going with those?” I heard the aristocrat asking.
There was silence.
“I… see,” he said. “Carry on.”
Carry on, I thought. Carry on. Move forward, don’t dwell, the dwelling is the dangerous part.
Carry on, the most pretentious, desperate way to sound as though one was in control of the situation, when said like the musician aristocrat had said it.
I couldn’t gauge how much ground we were covering as we were carried up the stairs. The footsteps on stairs were too much of a jumble, the pace weird.
I was very aware, however, when we stopped moving, and we didn’t start again.
The crash of glass and the thud of a body striking the ground near us marked ‘F’.
I could hear the initial nervous titter of laughter, maybe a panic response, followed by a more natural laughter. They’d clued in. Sooner than expected, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The sooner they fell into the stride of this, the sooner they would get used to the violence.
That was the good. The bad was that we’d missed our first window.
I could hear the whispers. The doctors that held us were communicating.
This would be the worst time for a betrayal, I thought. I could imagine them simply carrying us up to the main hall, where the vast majority of our guests had already assembled, and revealing us.
“This is macabre,” the musician said, very close by. He’d followed us up. “How am I supposed to play anything in the wake of this?”
“You would have to ask Professor Ferres, sir,” a Doctor who was carrying us said.
“I might just. Excuse me,” the musician said, saying those last two words in the least polite way possible.
“We can talk,” one of the Doctors whispered. “Very quietly.”
“What’s happening?” Jessie asked.
“Professor Ferres is in Lab One, entertaining some people. The aristocrat is talking to her now. She doesn’t look pleased to be interrupted.”
“Listen,” I said. “On I, the big cloud, you let us out, alright?”
“On I? Got it.”
“Sy, we can go out, we can plant the hook, but if we can’t get back—”
Planting the hook. We had invited certain people. Whatever I’d done in… wherever the second orphanage had been, where Pierre and Charles or whoever were keeping our rescued mice safe, we were doing it here. A hidden hook and rope. I’d snagged Lillian like a fisherman. The people we’d invited were supposed to be located at key seats, but there were no guarantees.
The trick, the key, was using one window of opportunity to place hooks as close to key targets as possible, sinking them into spaces in the floor. The next window of opportunity, combined with clamor, noise, and distraction, would let us steal them away. With luck, people would be out of their seats, the crowd would be a jumble, and these individuals wouldn’t be missed.
If we couldn’t do it flawlessly, we wouldn’t. If we could, we’d remove some key players and, ideally, we’d turn some of the defenses and measures they’d brought to use against us against them, by co-opting the people in charge.
These were the preliminary moves.
I waited, tense.
G, H, and then I. It was the countdown. Jessie was better with timing, but I couldn’t look her way for cues.
“Your headmistress certainly brooks no nonsense,” the musician said.
I didn’t like that he was back.
I liked it even less that Jessie spoke, despite the fact that she was supposed to be a body in a bag. Her voice was soft. “Take us back.”
“Did you say something?” the musician asked.
“No,” the Doctor said. “If she’s in a bad mood, we won’t get in her way. Excuse me, sir.”
“Excused.”
We weren’t even all that far down the stairs before Jessie whispered again, “Out.”
They laid us down on the stairs and freed us. Jessie stood, and gave me a hand, as I was on less even footing.
“The timing is screwed up,” she said. “We need eyes on this.”
I looked at the Doctors. “Is the musician alone?”
“They sent his entourage down the other way,” the Doctor said.
“Then go up the stairs, make a small crowd, blocking Ferres’ view of the musician.
“You’re sure?” the Doctor asked.
“Please,” Jessie said, with a rare note of urgency in her voice.
We followed our group up again, coordinating with signs, the stretchers and body bags behind and below us. The moment the group had blocked the view of the musician, Jessie and I knifed him.
We pulled him to the ground, my hand finding his mouth at the first opportunity, and we stuck him with knives repeatedly.
I could hear the conversation, though I couldn’t quite make out words, and my heart sank.
This wasn’t when people were supposed to be having hushed, intense conversations in the midst of hundreds of Nobles, aristocrats, Professors and Doctors.
We edged closer until we could peer over the stairs at the scene.
It was a man in a black lab coat, his beard was long, full, and more appropriate to a wizard of myth than a man of science. He was stooped over, his hands out to cup the face of one of our actors. One of the early letters.
I could see the family resemblance, the expression on the older man’s face, the alarm and fear on the face of the student.
We’d asked each and every last one of them twice, thrice, and then a fourth time, if there was the slightest chance that anyone might be in attendance who might recognize them.
“Blood always runs through,” the Infante murmured in my ear, his voice deep.
Previous Next
Root and Branch—19.6
“Your boy?”
It was a noble lady who had spoken, addressing the Professor with the long beard, who was so emotional, his face contorted in anger, that his head shook.
“He’s my blood, m’lady,” the Professor spoke, and the act of speaking despite the clenched muscles and the tension in his face made each word something he produced with flecks of spittle. His son flinched at each utterance. “He is not my boy.”
Blood. The word echoed the Infante’s to the extent I worried that this might be the moment where the monstrous figure next to me would cross the gap to the extent that he overlapped with me, and I would cease to be.
I worried he would say something more, and it would also reverberate and resound, finding echoes in the world around me, and so would the next thing, and the next, and the next.
Jessie took my hand, squeezing it.
Doctors and Professors I took to be the bearded Professor’s companions stood from their seats.
“My lady, Worrel’s son turned rebel last year,” one of the companions
said.
There were murmurs throughout the hall. I could see the tension on just about every student present. Many of the ‘dead’ were standing now, Bea among them. The crowd was eyeing them. It wasn’t hard to draw conclusions.
“That boy?” the noble lady asked.
“I do believe so, my lady.”
“I was—was! But only for a short time!” the boy called out. His father had shifted his grip, the cradling of his son’s face becoming something closer to strangulation, and in response to his son’s words, he shook him with enough force to rattle his brain. “I—please, my lady! Father—”
“I am not your father!”
“I was a rebel, but only briefly! They forced us to go with them, I left as soon as I was able!”
Good, I thought. This is a good approach.
I leaned close to one of the doctors who had accompanied us, and murmured in his ear, “Go to Ferres. Tell her there’s an incident. She should send in the great wolf. See if we can’t use it to fake-kill the kid, if warranted.”
The doctor nodded, hurrying off.
“I tried to reach out and let you know, but—”
He stopped as his father shook him again. He was thrown to the ground, sprawling as he landed. His father kicked him, hard, before he had even stopped reeling.
Not a single Professor, Noble, or aristocrat present spoke against this.
The kid was left coughing, and his first attempt at getting onto his hands and knees failed. He remained on his side.
“I—”
More coughs.
Jessie was just as tense as I was.
“I talked to Ferres. I told her about the rebels. She didn’t think—”
He looked up at his father as he tried to get to his hands and feet again, and something about the way he’d moved made him start coughing again.
“—She didn’t think it would lead to anything.”
It was good, the direction he was taking, using the information he had, making the pitch, leaving things open ended.
The only problem was that he’d named Ferres, specifically. Better to leave it more open, to refer to other Doctors and Professors. If he could’ve named ones who we knew weren’t in attendance, better still.
That might have been asking too much, especially when I couldn’t have done it. He was doing well, all considered, with everything on the line. I would’ve liked to know his name, to do better by him if we came out of this alright.
I allowed myself to peek into Lab One, and saw a glimpse of Ferres making her way up the stairs.
“That doesn’t absolve you, you imbecile. You’ve betrayed the Crown. A hanging is the kindest justice you can hope for, and I’ll tell you this… I won’t be advocating for a hanging.”
“I served the Crown loyally, father, I—”
Professor Worrel kicked him again. His voice was barely audible, more intended for his son than the audience. “I shouldn’t have to correct you more than once.”
The kick hadn’t been the sort to incite coughing by hitting the ribs or diaphragm or whatever the first kick had done, but the movement in reaction to the kick did. The boy took a second, then tried again. “I served the Crown loyally, Professor.”
“You left with them. Others managed to run, others were left wounded and nearly dead because they fought and resisted. They served the Crown loyally. Your schooling, your upbringing, your tutors, all paid for by me, your learning and shelter for the past thirteen years was provided by the Academy and Crown. You have not come close to paying back what you received, you have not come close to reaching the point where you can claim proper loyalty and service!”
Worrel was back to spitting with each word, now. The student couldn’t maintain eye contact, and stared at the ground, looking galled.
“If I may?” Ferres asked. She’d arrived at the top of the stairs, and she had the Wolf with her.
I could see her posture, the way she held herself.
It was the summation of what I’d seen a week ago, when she’d been in the lab, given her new arms and leg.
I squeezed Jessie’s hand harder. “We might’ve lost her.”
“Ferres?”
I nodded, quickly, my thoughts turning to what we needed to do to cut our losses.
“I need a mirror,” Jessie said. “Anything really reflective.”
I patted down my pockets, one eye on peering through the gaps in the screen of our entourage, who stood further up the stairs.
“Allow me to settle this for you,” Ferres said. “That young man and I had no such conversation.”
If the room had been tense before, it was something worse now. There were murmurs of conversation, a handful more people standing from benches and chairs. The boy was tense now. His father moved toward him, as if to kick him again, and he scrambled back and out of the way. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he practically collided with the railing, from the way it reverberated. His father didn’t pursue to lash out again, instead remaining where he was, glowering. He had bushy eyebrows to go with the beard, and it made for a damned menacing glare.
I could hear rather than see Ferres walking, with the people in the way and my angle of view on the scene.
I could only hope that Ferres would at least hold to the ruse. She had reasons to obey us—if she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have put her up there, but she had reasons to turn the tables on us too. She wouldn’t ever be in a better position than this.
One of the doctors pulled a head-mounted reflector from a pocket, holding it out for Jessie. She let go of my hand to take it, but she didn’t use it for anything.
“Tell me if it’s unsalvageable,” she whispered.
“I think we’ll know when it’s unsalvageable,” I whispered back.
One of the doctors who’d carried us up in the stretcher gave me a look over his shoulder, very clearly alarmed.
Which was entirely appropriate.
The murmur of conversation was dying down.
“A sword, anyone?” Ferres asked. “Is anyone able to oblige me?”
“One second, Professor,” a young voice said.
Jessie met my eyes, then changed the angle of the mirror, catching a ray of light from the outside. She set to angling it, aiming into one part of the crowd.
“We should question him first,” another voice from the crowd said. “Find out who his friends are.”
“I know exactly who his friends are,” Ferres said. “He has quite a few.”
I bit my lower lip. Whatever Jessie was doing, she’d need it to work fast.
The boy ran, sprinting away, closer to us. Ferres whistled, and, following two more strikes of shoe on floor from the running boy, the Wolf rammed into him.
This would have been a good time for Ferres to use the trick. One of the stunts the Wolf had been taught was to seize someone and shake them violently, like a dog did a toy. The trick was that the Wolf’s mouth was large, and with the right grip on a target, the shake would only break and dislocate limbs. For the ‘actors’ Ferres had created to go up against the Wolf, the limbs were strong enough to withstand breakage, and so it was only a relatively painless dislocation.
I was sure our target would be happy to have his limbs broken and to be summarily unconscious than the alternatives Ferres was presenting.
“Did you have any idea, Ferres?”
“I entertained the idea. We received a swathe of students from other Academies earlier in the season, and with the black wood claiming much of the region around us, verifying details was difficult. My failure.”
“You said he had friends?” someone asked. “Should we be concerned?”
“Yes,” Ferres said. “You came with others, didn’t you? Why don’t you tell our audience?”
Our audience. That was the death knell, as much as her not using the Wolf to fake his murder. This, as much as anything, was Ferres on her stage, indulging in her show.
“I came alone,” the student said.
I could hear the sword
coming free of the sheath. I saw a glimpse of Ferres, stalking toward the boy and Wolf. The Wolf moved its paws, and I saw the boy, partially pinned down by a paw that rested on the length of his lab coat.
“No,” Ferres said. “You didn’t.”
She put the sword through him.
My heart sank.
Jessie was holding a hand up, palm out. She had dropped the hand with the mirror.
The room was relatively quiet, with rustling. I could see the tension of students throughout, the avid disinterest of many of the Nobles at the main table, and the irritation and restlessness of the more prominent Professors.
There would be no ruse, no saving him. Not with dozens upon dozens of eyes on the scene, fully aware of the particulars of anatomy. Not with the Wolf being a better and more convincing alternative to sell the kill.
“You keep a messy house, Professor Ferres,” one of the other Professors spoke.
“With plague and black wood sweeping over the Crown States, refugees and other Academies clamoring for a place in my institution, mess is inevitable,” Ferres said.
“How many?”
“A dozen,” Ferres said.
A dozen.
“We all know who the Beattle traitors worked for,” Ferres said.
Jessie moved her hand, signaling.
This was Ferres’ play, her gambit. She would claim she only wanted a dozen conspirators. It was, to all Lamb-aligned rebels in earshot, an offer. Play along, and she would only go after us. Maybe our lieutenants. She was offering the out, the escape from a situation that was clearly out of control.
“The Lambs are here!? That’s not a messy house, you stupid bitch, that’s—”
A student at the edge of the room dropped her tray of tea. It crashed into a counter filled with things that one of the guests had brought to keep their experiment companions in working order. Or so the setup had been.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorr—”
The chemicals, tools, and machinery reacted to the hot liquid, and the entire setup billowed with noxious smoke. It got worse before it got better, multiplying as it reached the table.
Someone had a gun drawn and started opening fire into the smoke, targeting the student.
That was going to be how it was, was it? Too many smart, intelligent people in the room, who were too suspicious with the Lambs so recently mentioned. They were willing to shoot at a student who might’ve simply made a mistake or an error in judgment, where others might have hesitated.