The Traitor and the Thief

by Gareth Ward

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  “If you join us, you too may die, but your sacrifice will save the lives of millions. COG does not fight for the Empire; it fights for humanity.”

  Discovered thieving at Coxford’s Corn Market, fourteen-year-old Sin is hunted across the city. Caught by the enigmatic Eldritch Moons, Sin is offered a way out of his life of crime: join the Covert Operations Group (COG) and train to become a spy.

  At Lenheim Palace, Sin learns spy craft while trying not to break the school’s Cast-Iron Rules. Befriended by eccentric Zonda Chubb, together they endeavour to unmask a traitor causing havoc within the palace. After an assassination attempt on COG’s founder, Sin realises that someone close to him could be the traitor. Sin is forced into an alliance with the school bully, Velvet Von Darque. But can he trust her? And will COG try to bury him with the secrets he discovers?

  CHAPTER 1

  THE STOLEN NECKLACE

  Sin shadowed the steamtram, hiding in the clouds of vapour spurting from the machine’s giant pistons. He couldn’t afford to get caught. Not now. Not today. The Fixer would never forgive him. He crouched lower. Built short and stocky like a pit bull, with a temperament to match, he wanted to front up to the Red Blades, not run and hide. But the Fixer said you had to pick the fights you could win, and he was alone on the other gang’s turf.

  Sweat trickled down his angular cheeks, leaving pale tracks. He’d run three blocks with the tram and his lungs burned from the steam and smoke. He brushed a tangle of sooty black hair from his eyes, and tried to pick out the Gothic stone archway that offered sanctuary. The tram slowed, then shuddered to a halt. With a near-deafening hiss, steam billowed from beneath the carriage. Sin darted through the clouds and into the covered market.

  Russet iron columns spiralled skywards, supporting the Corn Market’s unique and much acclaimed flurohydrous roof. Created by the eccentric inventor Nimrod Barm, a turquoise solution swirled between ironglass sheets providing an ever-changing vista.

  Sin skulked through the market, checking over his shoulder, but this was the Fixer’s patch and the Red Blades wouldn’t dare follow him here. His nerves calmed; he took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. The smells of science wafted from the booths: the sulphurous results of chemical reactions hanging in the air like a pungent perfume. He coughed and the secret harness containing his brassanium keeper pulled tight against his chest. The Red Blades had tried to take it, but it was worth more than his life. It was his life: his only clue to his abandonment as a baby fourteen years ago. It held a mystery that he was determined to solve. With a final glance behind him, he pushed into the crowd gathered around Phileas Pines’ Technological Timepieces, the press of warm bodies a fleeting moment of companionship. Soft velvet and wool brushed his bare arms, the expensive fabric’s touch exquisite compared to his own rags.

  From the booth, the top-hatted Phileas Pines held forth. “Ladies and Gentlemen, witness the chronological magnificence of our new ‘Radiant Active’ watches. Crafted with the finest uranium, these luminous masterpieces are to die for.”

  A saggy-faced punter in a tweed suit jostled past and Sin felt a promising bump from the jacket pocket.

  The world quietened, drowned out by the thump of his quickened pulse. Time slowed. Something Phileas Pines would have declared impossible. Sin couldn’t control it, but often, when he most needed it to, the world around him seemed to pass at a snail’s pace. Sin’s hand glided beneath the punter’s jacket. His fingers touched metal, sensing the shape of the fob watch, before exploring for a securing chain or pin. None found, he grasped his prize and eased his hand clear.

  The bustle of the market returned, the sounds, colours and smells jarring his heightened senses. He thrust the watch into his pocket and hurried away.

  Weaving through the market-goers, Sin inspected his prize. The glass fitted poorly, the hinges squeaked and the patterning was stamped, not engraved. It wasn’t one of Phileas’s artisan masterpieces as he’d hoped, but a cheap imitation, mass-produced in a steam press in one of the new tenement factories. The Fixer wouldn’t accept it as payment. He’d laugh, then beat Sin seven shades of purple, then laugh some more.

  Sin prowled past more stalls. Normally, the sounds of Coxford’s famous craftsmen working leather and metal into technological wonders filled him with a sense of awe. But today every hammer fall was like the tick of a clock, slicing away the little time he had left before his debt was called in. He’d gambled and he’d lost. He needed to find another crowd.

  Doctor Donodroid’s Mekanikal Marvels was always a popular attraction. Coxford’s finest would stand enthralled watching the humanoid automata clunkily navigate the booth, making pots of tea they would never drink and cutting geometrically perfect cucumber sandwiches they would never eat. Sin’s attention was drawn to an imposing lady in a corsetted brocade dress. A large ruby set in a platinum pendant nestled in the lady’s cleavage. Sin’s fingers twitched; it would easily pay off the Fixer. Lifting the necklace would be tricky but given ample distraction, feasible. He scanned the market for Sheriffs and prepared to make his move.

  A dandy in a scarlet leather coat and bowler hat cut across Sin’s path and insinuated himself alongside the woman. A vertical scar bisected the man’s right eye, lending him a roguish air. Scarface tapped the woman on the shoulder and smiled disarmingly. “Forgive me, my lady, but as the sun sets you may wish to direct your eyes heavenwards.”

  A steamwhistle shrilled. In the market’s cellars hidden pumps whirred to life and violet fluid flooded between the roof’s ironglass plates, forming hypnotic eddies and whirls.

  The lady craned her neck, peering upwards at the unfolding spectacle. The gentleman moved his hand to the back of the lady’s head and with a tender touch guided the direction of her gaze. “See the glow at the apex. The chemicals luminesce as they mix.” His hand moved lower and unfastened the necklace.

  With a pop and a flash, the entire roof burst into light. The woman gasped, holding a lace handkerchief to her lips and, in that moment, the man snaked the jewellery from her neck and into his pocket.

  Sin twiddled the brassanium hoop in his ear as he stalked Scarface through the bustling market. Thieving from a thief was never a good idea, but he needed that necklace.

  He ducked down a side aisle and approached one of the market’s newspaper hawkers.

  “Evening Press. Teutonians preparing for war,” shouted the boy.

/>   “Lend us a paper, Jordie,” said Sin.

  “What for? Ye can’ae read.”

  “Don’t matter. I just need one.”

  Jordie reached below his barrow and retrieved a folded paper. “Ye can ’av yesterday’s, an’ ye owe me.”

  “You’re a gent, Jordie,” said Sin, taking the paper and hurrying back in pursuit.

  The lithographic image on the front of the news-sheet showed a platoon of pointy-helmeted Teutonians digging trenches. The headline said something about war but the other words meant nothing to Sin and he wasn’t bothered anyway. It wasn’t his problem. He flicked to the back of the paper, where the lithograph showed a picture of a horse, and he folded it in half.

  The crowds thinned and Sin picked up his pace, getting ahead of his quarry. At the next intersection, he slowed to a dawdle and studied the paper. Timing it perfectly, he stepped into the junction and collided with Scarface. Time slowed. His fingers slid inside the thief’s jacket, brushing across a shield-shaped coin before alighting on the necklace. He clasped the jewel and chain, then withdrew his hand and normality returned.

  “Careful, youngling,” said Scarface, “my old bones aren’t so strong these days.”

  Sin doubted this was true. The impact had been surprisingly firm, like hitting a wall.

  “Sorry, guv’nor. Lost in the racing results. Bloody nags will be the death of me.” Sin doffed his cap and thrust the necklace into his breeches.

  “Oh, I doubt it will be the horses,” said Scarface.

  Sin darted away, the hardened edge to the man’s parting words sitting uneasy with him.

  * * *

  Industrial smog choked the streets. Sin pulled a tattered neckerchief from his pocket and secured it over his face. The thin fabric was a poor substitute for a proper filter mask that according to the advertisement billboards chemically scrubbed every breath clean, but it was all a street urchin like him could afford. At least the greasy smoke would hide him should Scarface or the Sheriffs come looking.

  He drifted down Magpie Lane, his footfalls muffled by the fog, his eyes scanning the shifting shadows. Something clattered on the cobbles behind him and his heart jumped as a figure emerged from the gloom.

  “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself when we bumped into each other earlier,” said Scarface. “I’m Eldritch Moons and I believe you have something of mine.”

  Sin didn’t question how the man had found him. He just ran. Nobody knew the alleys and backstreets, the sneakways and cut-throughs, better than him. Eldritch had found him once but Sin was damn sure he wouldn’t find him again. Not in this pea souper.

  Sin pelted down Crooked Row, his feet hammering the cobbles. A sharp left into Tanner Street then hard right into Crosses Court and he slowed to a trot. Sucking in air through the neckerchief, his chest falling and rising like a blacksmith’s bellows, he approached the ancient monument at the square’s centre. Chemlights hanging on rusted chains coloured the smog into wraith-like apparitions.

  A shadow flitted behind the stone cross and Sin froze. It couldn’t possibly be him. He glimpsed a flash of scarlet between the stonework then his pursuer stepped into view. A leather and brass respirator obscured the lower half of Eldritch’s face, but Sin could tell he was smiling.

  This was wrong. The man wasn’t even out of breath. Eldritch should be shouting and swearing, sweating and panting, not acting as if it were all a game. He was like a cat toying with a mouse, letting it run away, thinking it would escape when there was only one possible ending. Well, Sin wasn’t a mouse. A rat maybe, and rats were cunning. Sin shuddered and a trickle of sweat ran down his ribs as he surveyed the court. To his left and right stone arches lead to two of Coxford’s historic gates.

  Sin sprinted across the square and bolted through the left-hand arch.

  Eldritch’s voice, muffled by the respirator, followed him. “That way’s a dead end.”

  The towering facades of Archimedes College boxed Sin in on both sides and ahead, at the street’s end, Patriot’s Gate blocked the way. Standing over twenty feet tall and fashioned with cruel thorn-like barbs, it seemed impenetrable. However, you didn’t survive for years on the streets without picking up a few tricks. Sin gripped two of the gate’s vertical bars and twisted. They spun easily, as if oiled, and, thanks to the metal’s geometric curve, a narrow gap opened up. Like a circus contortionist he squeezed through, before returning the bars to their original positions.

  Eldritch emerged from the fog, whistling a tune behind his mask. “With you in just one moment, young fellow,” he said. From the folds of his coat he pulled a brassanium hemisphere and secured it over the gate’s lock. The device’s internal clockwork clicked and clanked and the gate began to shudder.

  Sin stared at Eldritch and backed away. He wasn’t scared. Definitely not scared. The streets belonged to him, not this swaggering dandy.

  The device gave a final loud crash and the gate swung open. Eldritch stepped through and stopped. His expression hardened. “This is the part where you run.”

  Carved stonework, brick walls and concrete slabs flew past as Sin navigated a meandering path through the grey-fogged city. He leaped wooden fences, negotiated sharp iron railings and pushed through hedges, determined this time he would be impossible to follow. Legs and lungs burning, he dropped onto the towpath of the Cherwell Canal that divided the city’s industrial district. Exhausted, he slunk into the black recess of the Ashmole Tunnel and rested his back against the sooty curved brickwork. He pulled the neckerchief away from his mouth and sucked in the damp tainted air. He’d not run like that since the big dust-up with the Barrel Lane crew. He’d been stabbed in the arm that day and had leaked claret all the way back to the Fixer’s lair.

  Eldritch stepped onto the canal bank, silhouetted in the tunnel’s entrance. He rotated a dial on his bowler hat and the rim illuminated, bathing him in a column of light. “Most excellent work, my young thiefling. You lead me a right merry dance, but for you the game is lost.”

  Sin looked for an escape route. Eldritch blocked the entrance and stumbling further into the pitch-black tunnel would be futile. That left only one option. It wasn’t a good option, and possibly a fatal one, but it was an option all the same. He took a deep breath, pinched his nose and plunged into the canal. The dark oily waters closed above his head. His feet sank into the sludgy bottom, the mud cloying at his boots, threatening to trap him. Panic seized him like a fever. His legs thrashed wildly and he surged upwards, chasing the bubbles escaping from his mouth. With flailing arms, he breached the surface and splashed his way to the far bank.

  “That was either very brave or very foolish, and really quite unnecessary,” shouted Eldritch across the canal.

  Sin hauled himself onto the towpath. The acrid taste of the canal water burned the back of his throat. He rolled his tongue over his teeth and spat. “Nearest bridge is a mile. Don’t reckon on you taking a dip in your swanky pants suit.”

  “Indeed not.” Eldritch unbuttoned his coat and reached inside. The garment issued a loud hiss then hidden seams within the leather ballooned and hardened, turning the coat into a set of bat-like wings. Eldritch stretched out his arms, grasped the wings and kicked his boots together. Smoke billowed from the soles and he glided over the water, brilliant blue flames spurting from his heels.

  Sin knew he should get up and run, but the icy water had sapped the last of his strength. Besides, there was no way he could escape from this strange techno-thief. He retrieved the pendant from his pocket and held it out to Eldritch. “Take it. It’s yours.”

  “No. Actually, the jewel, it is mine,” said a voice from the dark of the canal tunnel. The woman from the market stepped into view. Her pale skin shimmered in the light from Eldritch’s hat. She hooked the chain with an elegant finger and secured the necklace around her neck.

  Eldritch tipped his hat. “May I introduce my colleague, Baroness Lilith Von Darque.”

  Lilith fixed her hypnotic blue eyes on Sin. “Well d
one. You are the most elusive urchin we have ever hunted.”

  Sin shuddered. Lilith’s stare was colder than the sodden clothes clinging to his body. He’d heard stories of the Hunt, all the gangs had, but he hadn’t really believed them. It was crazy to think someone was hunting and killing street kids for sport.

  “You’ve got the necklace. I ain’t got nothing else. What say you just let me go?”

  In an instant, Lilith was alongside him, her fingers encircling his throat, forcing his head backwards. “It wasn’t the necklace we were after.”

  A sharp pain needled Sin’s neck and he slumped to the bank, unable to move. A pleasant warmth spread throughout his body and his world darkened. If this was death, then it wasn’t so bad. Far away, he heard voices.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think it’s him.”

  CHAPTER 2

  FRIEND OR FOE

  Sin’s vision blurred in and out of focus and his head throbbed. He’d never given much thought to the afterlife, but he’d expected more clouds and angels and not so many fish. Overhead, a neon-striped specimen drifted past, its flared tail undulating. Sin’s stomach churned and a wave of nausea hit him. He blinked, beads of sweat pricking his brow.

  “Here, drink this,” said Eldritch. He eased the rim of a teacup to Sin’s lips. The warm liquid was sweet and flowery but not unpleasant. It was certainly preferable to the taste of canal water that lingered in his mouth.

  “It’s Earl Grey,” said Eldritch. “I find most things seem better with a good strong cup of tea.”

  “Am I dead?” croaked Sin.

  “The simple answer to that is yes, no and maybe.”

  His head clearer now, Sin eased himself upright. He sat on a luxuriant bed in a room where the walls and ceiling were decorated with gigantic round aquariums. Teak and polished brass surrounded the tanks giving the impression of portholes in some elaborate undersea craft. His sodden street clothes had been replaced with a set of soft pyjamas. His hand went to his chest; his keeper was missing. They’d stolen from him! Taken the only thing he had, the only thing he cared about. A snarl formed on his lips and he lunged forwards.