She pressed on him, and he was forced to use the bow to hold her back, keep her blades away from him. “How did you—”
“You think she carried you from Dentonhill and up four flights alone? I was there, you fool—”
“Then you would know—”
“I don’t know why she trusted you—”
Veranix dropped and rolled backward, bringing his foot up into her gut as he went. She was flung off to the far side of the roof, landing like a cat.
“It wasn’t me!”
“Who else could it have been? And who killed Cormorant and Sparrow?”
An arrow came from the distance, striking Bluejay in the shoulder.
“I did, you filthy bird.”
A cloaked figure came closer, bow raised. “I gave all of them what they deserved.” The Hunter. It was too dark to get a good look at him, his face covered with the hood. He fired two more arrows at her. Bluejay was ready, blocking both with her blades, then breaking off the arrow in her shoulder.
Veranix had his own bow up, arrow at the ready. “Back away, fraud.”
“Stay out of this,” the Hunter said. “This isn’t your fight.”
“You play at being me, you make it my fight.”
“This isn’t about you. I just want the Bird.”
“I’ll kill you,” Bluejay said. “Both of you!” She leaped at the Hunter while throwing one blade at Veranix. He dodged, barely, as it shaved past his head. Bluejay sliced with the stuck blade, catching the Hunter’s hood as he fired another arrow. Blood flew from his face and her chest. Despite the arrow through her body, she swung two more times at him before he grabbed her wrist.
Veranix aimed and fired, but the arrow missed, short and far to the right. His bow was too damaged.
The Hunter dropped his own bow and took Bluejay by the throat. Despite her face turning beet red, blood pouring out of her chest, she swung her legs up and wrapped them around his neck. But then she went limp, and the Hunter dropped her to the ground.
“Don’t you move!” Veranix shouted, putting up his useless bow and grabbing the rope.
“The world is better without her, like her friends,” the Hunter said. He picked up his bow.
Veranix drew up the rope and shot it out to entangle the Hunter, but only snatched his bow. The Hunter let go of it, allowing it to fly at Veranix while he ran.
Veranix pulled the rope into a coil and caught the Hunter’s bow, ready to use it to take the Hunter down. But when he looked up to take aim, the Hunter was already gone.
“I told them . . . it was you,” Bluejay gurgled through her bloody mouth, her eyes filled with hatred. “The Birds . . . they’ll come for you . . .”
She wheezed a final breath when he heard someone else approach.
“Constabulary! Stand and be held by law!”
Veranix spun, bow raised, to see Inspector Minox Welling up on the roof, his crossbow aimed right for Veranix’s heart.
Chapter 17
“I’M NOT THE one you want here, Inspector,” Veranix said, keeping his aim trained on the man.
“Perhaps not,” Inspector Welling said. “But there’s a dead woman at your feet.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Or Emilia Quope?” Welling kept the crossbow up. Veranix felt his stomach churn.
“The killer slipped away just now, dressed like me. He did them both.”
“How many Thorns are there?” Veranix expected a mocking tone from the question, but it actually seemed genuine.
“Only one,” Veranix said. “But there’s two fakes out there.”
Inspector Welling’s face almost lit up. “I knew it!”
“Then let’s just step away, so you can bring them in,” Veranix said.
“My duty compels me,” Welling said. “Lower your bow and this can go peacefully.”
Sounds came of others coming up to the roof, from two sides, as well as shouts from constables and Princes in the street. Soon Welling wouldn’t be the only one up here. Veranix was going to have to get out of here, and quickly.
“Peacefully is exactly how I’ll go,” he said. He built up a rush of numina and channeled it to his legs. He had already leaped up high in the air when Welling fired the crossbow.
“No!” Welling shouted, and he reached out with his gloved hand.
The rope uncoiled, flying right to Welling’s hand. Veranix snatched at it instinctively, having already launched into the air. Before he knew it, he was towing Inspector Welling along with him.
“Minox!” The shout came from Inspector Rainey, having reached the roof in time to see the two of them fly off half a block.
Veranix landed ugly on the next rooftop, his whole jump thrown off by the extra weight of Inspector Welling. It was just shy of a crash, rolling when he hit the roof to avoid breaking anything. He spun and sprang to his feet just in time to see Welling hurling through the air at him, head first.
The man would be killed if he landed like that.
A quick and dirty rush of numina, he slowed the world and made the air around them thick and liquid. Welling sloshed through, slowing down enough for Veranix to catch him before he broke his neck. They both collapsed in a heap together.
Inspector Welling immediately grabbed Veranix’s wrist and twisted it behind his back, flipping Veranix over face down in the process. Welling put a knee on Veranix’s back, pinning him down to the floor. Veranix was initially too dazed by the fast magic and crash to do anything about it.
“You are bound by law. You will be ironed and taken under arrest. Do you want your charges named?”
Welling grabbed Veranix’s wrist with his gloved hand, and suddenly there was a surge of numina running through him. Veranix’s mind snapped into place, and he willed the rope around Welling’s body, pulling him off.
Veranix rolled back up, attempting to keep Welling bound in the rope.
Again Welling exerted sway over the rope. Their mutual attempt to control it caused numina to spark and storm around them.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Veranix said.
“I think I have an inkling,” Welling said. Suddenly Veranix’s end of the rope swirled around his arm and started to work its way behind his back. “More familiar than you could imagine.”
His hand. Veranix had no idea what Welling’s hand was or why it felt like napranium and dalmatium at the same time, but he could feel it still, even with Welling ten feet away.
He could feel it the same way he could feel the rope and the cloak.
“I’m very sorry about this, Inspector,” he said, pulling in as much numina as he could manage to channel into himself.
Welling gave a confused look, as if he was trying to hear something just out of earshot.
Veranix shoved all the numina he had into that hand. He willed it into a fist, with so much power that the hand itself burst into blue flame.
“How—” was all Inspector Welling managed to say before his own left hand smashed into his face.
Welling went down like a sack, and the rope released. Veranix quickly willed it back into a coil at his belt.
“Terribly sorry,” he said, and took another magical leap off the roof before the man could regain his senses.
“I’m very sorry about this, Inspector.”
Minox considered himself gifted in determining when he was being lied to. Even with the Thorn’s face obscured, every instinct in his gut told him the vigilante—and this was the true one, of that he was certain—was being honest. The Thorn did not wish to fight or injure him.
It was accompanied with a rush of magical power that was unlike any Minox had ever felt before. Even with his untrained abilities, he recognized the sheer power that had suddenly manifested. Minox was surprised enough by this that he didn’t even realize that his left hand had balled into a f
ist and burst into flame.
The Thorn had taken control of his own hand.
“How—” was all he managed to ask.
And then his own hand knocked him in the face.
“Terribly sorry.”
Minox lost track of the moments between hearing that and hearing the rush of boot-clad footsteps coming toward him.
“Minox! Minox!”
Inspector Rainey must be truly concerned if she was using his given name.
She was kneeling next to him, hands on his face, checking him for injuries.
Still dazed, he spoke up before she pawed at him further. “I am largely unharmed, save my pride.”
“What the blazes happened?” she asked, looking around. “The Thorn got away?”
“A singular experience,” Minox said, sitting up. He flexed his left hand, the glove covering its black, glassy appearance now destroyed. He seemed to have full control over it again. At least for the moment. “What did you see?”
“He jumped off, tangling you in that rope of his,” she said. She glanced off, muttering, “I should ask the major about that . . .”
“He did not entangle me. Quite the opposite. I was able to exert control over it, and pull myself along with him.”
She turned back, face astonished. “How did you do that?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” he said. “It was not unlike how I’m able to control my hand. Which might explain how he was able to take control of it.”
“He controlled your hand?” She reached out to touch it, her own fingers hovering a few inches away. Inspector Rainey rarely showed trepidation, but his transformed hand still made her nervous. He could hardly fault her for that. It had been nearly two months since his hand had been transformed, and he still barely understood what it was or how it functioned. Nights like tonight only confirmed that.
“He used it to knock me out,” Minox said.
“Let’s get you off this roof,” Rainey said, taking his normal hand and pulling him to his feet. “We’ll have Tripper and his folks whistle up a group of footpatrol, sweep south. That’s where he seems to be going . . .”
“No,” Minox said. “There is a dead body left over there, and that should be attended to. But more importantly, this encounter has given me much to consider, and has taxed me far more than I can easily bear.”
“So what should we do?” she asked.
“Exactly what you counseled an hour ago, Inspector,” he said. “Let us allow the local Constabulary to handle the body and other elements here. It is their job, after all. We should sign out and go home. The proper sleep will do me good.”
When Colin came to the Turnabout, a bunch of sticks were milling about outside, even nosing around the alley to the basement. For a half a click he thought that they had raided the Turnabout, but that would mean a passel of lockwagons, friends in irons. That wasn’t happening at all. The sticks were too calm, too weary.
Something had happened, but given that he could see the Turnabout was still full of Princes, it couldn’t have been too bad for the gang.
Plus he walked past the sticks to the door, and none of them made a move to stop him. If there had been a scene in the Turnabout, if someone had been arrested from there, that wouldn’t have happened.
All the Princes inside were quiet, heads down. Tooser looked up when Colin came in, but he quickly looked down at his beer. No one was looking at him. Or one another.
“What’s the word?” he asked Kint as he approached the bar.
“Ain’t mine to know,” Kint said. “I just serve, friend.”
“All right, then I need a beer,” Colin said.
“No, you don’t.” This came from behind. Colin turned. Two of the heavies from downstairs loomed over him.
“I don’t?” Colin asked. “How’s that?”
“You need to come downstairs. Now.”
“That’s what I came here for,” Colin said pointedly.
“Then let’s go.” They moved closer to him like they were going to force him. Colin was getting tired of this sewage.
“First hand that touches me is forfeit,” Colin said.
One of them—Iggs, Colin thought his name was—snickered and grabbed Colin’s arm. He pulled him out the back and to the basement. Colin noticed a trail of blood from the back alley door down to the bosses’ card room.
Old Casey was sitting at the front table, with Giles, Frenty, and Bottin. Their glasses of beer were all near empty, a tapped keg sitting in the corner. Colin recognized it as part of the special stash that had been stored away in his old flop with the double-bolt lock. If the bosses were drinking that, they’d have to be celebrating something huge, or really upset about something. Since they all looked ready to eat glass, it couldn’t be the first one.
“Colin, glad you could join us,” Casey said coldly. He was not offered a chair. In fact, Iggs was still holding on to his arm.
“I was here, and coming down. There was no need for this insult,” Colin said. He pulled out of Iggs’s grip.
“We weren’t that sure about that,” Frenty said.
“Oh, really?” Colin asked. “Why the blazes is that? Did I hide or make a run?”
Frenty didn’t say anything. None of them did, but Giles stared so hard and hateful, they could have burned the stars off Colin’s arm.
“I take that as a no,” Colin said.
“Not yet,” Giles said.
“Fine,” Colin said. He quickly pulled out one knife, grabbed Iggs by the wrist and plunged the knife into his hand. Iggs screamed, blood everywhere. Colin kicked him in the knee and sent him crumpling down, while twisting his knife as he pulled it out of the mangled hand. The other goons moved in, but Colin pointed the blade at them.
“I told him—a rutting Prince captain told him—not to lay a hand on me or he’d lose it. If you tossers want to lose something, try me.”
Casey waved to the goons to take Iggs out. With ugly looks at Colin, they picked Iggs up off the floor and pulled him out of the room.
“I’m getting really tired of this sort of treatment, Casey,” Colin said. “I thought we were square this morning.”
“This morning I told you to come to the Turnabout tonight to tell us what you found.”
“And I’m rutting well here.”
“Later than I’d like.”
“And so you have the muscle grab me? That’s a lack of respect, Casey.”
“And, what, you won’t have it?” Frenty asked.
Frenty was a skinny bag of nothing. Colin had no idea how he ever made captain, let alone becoming a Basement Boss. Giles and Bottin had plenty of scrap back in their day, but not Frenty.
“I won’t have it, no. And neither would any of you if you were in my place. Next time you send boys like that for me, be ready for a lot more blood than that.”
“Tough talk from a captain without a crew,” Bottin said.
“I don’t have a crew anymore? You’re taking the ones I kept alive away from me?”
“No, we ain’t,” Casey said, glaring at the other three. “We just want some goddamned answers from you.”
“What the blazes did you think I came here to do, Casey? You said go find things out, and I did that. Don’t act like I’m holding out on you all.”
“Aren’t you?” Giles asked.
Casey waved Giles down.
“So, what did you learn?” Frenty asked. “Did you go and talk to the Thorn’s girl?”
“Yeah, I did,” Colin said. “Talked with the Thorn’s whole crew.”
“Thorn has a crew now?”
Colin regretted saying that. Might as well dive into the creek.
“Yeah, you think he does everything alone? Of course he has people.”
“I told you,” Giles said. “He’s gearing up to make a play!”
/> “Enough.” Casey pounded a fist on the table. “So what happened?”
“Well, there’s not one fake Thorn out there, there’s two.”
“Two?”
“At the same time one of them was killing Sotch and our folks, the real one and the other fake were tussling in that dustup at the Tower. From what I hear whispered from the sticks, and the Dogs and Kickers, that all tracks.” Not that he had actually gone and talked to anyone else about that. But he knew the bosses needed further confirmation. “Here’s what I figure—”
“You’re figuring now?” This was Giles.
“Yeah, I am. You ask me to find things out, be boots on the street, then I’m gonna figure a few things. You wanna hear?”
“Enlighten me,” Giles said, leaning back in his chair.
“The thing we got to worry about is the fake who hit us. The real one, the other fake, that ain’t our problem. At best, they’re each other’s problem, or the sticks’. But we got to shut down the fake who cost us in blood.”
“That’s great, Tyson,” Frenty said. “Glad you figured that out. Anything else you want to tell us about how we should do things?”
“Hey, if you—”
“Here’s what you don’t blazing know, you sewage-spilling prat,” Giles snarled. “While you were figuring with your boots on the street, the Thorn, the blasted, actually real Thorn, killed some bird right here on our blazing roof!”
“What?” Colin was honestly shocked by that. “When did this happen?”
“Less than an hour ago,” Frenty said. “Why do you think all those sticks are milling about up there? Because they tried to grab the Thorn, they’re investigating the girl, and they’re still parked on top of us!”
“I didn’t know anything about that,” Colin said. Had Veranix killed some girl? Or had the Hunter, but these fools thought it was really the Thorn? And who was the girl?
“At least he admits that,” Giles said, mostly to Casey. “He doesn’t know anything!”
“I know what’s going on out there—”
“You didn’t know the Thorn would hit the Turnabout!”
The Imposters of Aventil Page 24