Oh yes, it was. ‘Kai, get ready to catch us!’ she screamed. ‘Marble bridge surface, become a hundred times more slippery!’
She launched herself into a desperate skid, and the next tremor tumbled her onto her rear. That only speeded her velocity. Like a child coasting down a hill, she skimmed helplessly and unstoppably down the curve of the bridge, far quicker than if she’d been running. The shuddering stone also pitched her unpredictably from side to side. She hoped that would foil the snipers as she shot forward. From the curses behind her, Vale was just as unable to control his motion, and a scatter of bullets cracked against the stone a few yards behind them.
Kai was standing on the now-ruffled surface of the sunken reservoir, where the end of the bridge met the paving. And he was surrounded by a moving coil of water, which had formed itself into a shield around him. Half a dozen guards were strewn unconscious on the ground, or groaning in the aftermath of being hit by the giant wave. No doubt their gunpowder was as soaked as they were. And twenty yards further on their goal was in sight at last: the metal stairway that had brought them here from Venice, standing upright within the yawning dark chasm that became the Campanile. The metal bridge that spanned that abyss to join the paving lay before them. Kai nodded as he caught sight of them, his posture braced and ready, and as Irene and Vale came skidding towards him, he flung his arms high in the air.
The water came shooting upwards around him, encasing him in a rising pillar of water. Like an unnatural tornado, the water moved upwards towards the far-distant ceiling with a roar that was audible even against the falling stone. Then it stopped, its power harnessed on the edge of breaking. Within its grip, Kai’s hair floated around his head as if blown back by a wind, and the sleeves of his shirt rippled from the strength of the flow.
A wave reached out to engulf Irene and Vale, sweeping them off the ice-smooth marble and holding them in its grasp. Those of the soldiers who could move scrambled for cover, abandoning their guns. Irene screamed as the waters boiled up around them and struggled to keep her head above the wave, her skirt a constricting mass around her legs.
‘Get ready!’ Kai’s voice rang in her ears, even through the tumbling water. ‘I’ll be able to control the beginning of the descent down the Campanile, but probably not the end, so hold your breath!’
The thought This is going to hurt stood out in the chaos. She emptied her lungs and then took in as much air as possible, trying to store as much oxygen as she could. She and Vale were several feet off the ground now, being dragged by the waters towards Kai’s water-spout. Hanging above the ground, she felt a new sense of awe. The immense waves Kai had raised were still dwarfed by the immensity of this prison, which was for much larger, much more powerful entities than them. Things that, even if they won free, could scarcely fit down a tiny staircase - she hoped.
The pseudo-tornado’s waters curved in a high arc over the iron bridge, to rest poised above the staircase where they had originally entered the prison. Then it fell down into the chasm, a twisting stream of liquid darkness that centred on the staircase, making the whole structure shudder and thrum as water hit iron. The sound was so loud that Irene raised her hands to cover her ears, trying to block it out. She could imagine the gush of water as it followed the spiral of the staircase. Jets would spout in all directions through the gaps in the panelling, but the main force of it would surge ever downwards. And as the dark shaft around the staircase narrowed and drew back to the dimensions of the Campanile below, there would be even less room for the water to escape. There would be nowhere for it to go, except down and out.
She hoped that anyone in the way had the sense to run.
Then Kai gestured towards her and Vale, and the waters pulled them towards him, like mere straws caught in an undercurrent. She took a last deep breath, her stomach knotting in pure terror, and then the rush of water swept all three of them giddily up through the air within the water-funnel. She was relieved, because if there was air, Kai was keeping them safe as he’d promised. They swung up and over the chasm in a single smooth arc, like an arrow’s flight, and then they plunged down into the stairwell.
At first the momentum was surprisingly smooth. She curled up instinctively, folding her arms over her head and tucking herself into a ball. The light was gone within moments, as the water swept the three of them round the first couple of curves in the stairs. It wasn’t as nauseating as it might have been. It felt more like the guided sliding of a helter-skelter than anything else, and Kai clearly had it under control. She clung to that thought like a talisman. She was going down an extremely high staircase underwater at high speed in the darkness. But she could trust Kai. He has it under control, she repeated to herself.
Then abruptly it was colder, and the water was no longer cradling her, but simply carrying her along like a fragment of straw. We’ve crossed the boundary into Venice, she thought grimly as she held on to the last of her air. Kai can’t function here, so we’ll just have to get through the rest of it.
The water now thumped her into the outer side of the staircase, banging her downwards like flotsam, spinning her round faster and faster. She hit the staircase again, the panelling, the stairs below her and the bottom of the stairs above her. Most of the blows were to her hips or shoulders, and she kept her head tucked in tightly, her breath burning in her lungs. There was no room for thought, just sheer panic as she crashed downwards in the darkness.
Abruptly it spat her out. The gush of water threw her out through the Campanile’s elegant portico and open gates and into the square beyond. Irene tumbled across the paving for several yards before she came to a halt. She lay there in the draining water, still curled up, the parts of her body that had banged into the staircase aching. Cold water washed past her cheek as she gasped for air. Her head was still spinning and she vomited, throwing up the little in her stomach onto the freshly washed stones.
‘Winters!’ Vale was shouting at her, his voice penetrating the general uproar. ‘Over here!’
She looked around, disorientated. It was full night. Lanterns flashed as they swung madly in the wind, and the square was a churning mess. Like her, others were sprawled in the water as the last of it flowed out across the Piazza. It drained into the shops and public buildings that bordered it, or ran over the paving and into the sea beyond. Uniformed guards around the Campanile’s entrance were also struggling to their feet. The size of the crowd suggested a near-mob - or would have, before one added an almighty flood in the near-darkness. It was definitely a mob now. The dim municipal lighting, combined with the masks most people were wearing, turned the scene into a nightmare.
Kai was lying on his face, groaning. Vale, looking battered but mobile, had one of Kai’s arms over his shoulders and was trying to haul him to his feet. It said something about Vale’s own condition that he hadn’t managed it yet. His arm was bleeding again. Irene pulled on her own mask as she staggered across to join them, her joints protesting with every step, and wedged her shoulder under Kai’s other arm. ‘Get - get to the Train,’ she coughed, tasting bile with every word.
‘You need not belabour the obvious, Winters,’ Vale snapped.
‘Get them!’ Lord Guantes shouted from somewhere in the darkness, his voice furious beyond any semblance of control.
I don’t think I’m going to be invited to the opera again.
Irene hesitated, getting her bearings. ‘Over there, to the right,’ she gasped, pointing with her free hand to where the square led down towards the open water. Her body ached as if someone had taken a carpet beater to it. ‘Keep to the right, as if we were going to the Biblioteca Marciana.’
‘Of course,’ Vale grunted. He was taking more of Kai’s weight than she was. ‘Guantes will think we’re headed towards a library …’
Irene saved her breath and simply jerked a nod. The mob was all round them now, scrambling to get out of the Piazza. She and Vale weren’t the only ones supporting a semi-conscious friend. Even if they were some of the wettest.<
br />
The yells of the crowd behind them suggested Guantes’ minions were rapidly clubbing their way through - so Irene needed to hide their destination. She staggered to a stop with Kai and Vale between two lanterns, just before the square’s exit. Then she took a deep breath, bracing herself. ‘Lanterns, shatter and go out!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.
Her voice carried, even over the crowd, and the lanterns above blew out in a fusillade of glass, their flames snuffed in a single breath. Other smaller lanterns within the reach of her voice fell dramatically to pieces, crumbling where they hung in shop windows or on stalls, or as they were carried along by people in the crush.
The area was abruptly that much darker. And the mob that much more panicked and obstructive, but you couldn’t have everything.
‘Now we run,’ Irene gasped, and they did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
They fled through the darkness, the three of them staggering together. Kai was barely conscious, his breath coming in rattling gasps in Irene’s ear, and Irene herself desperately wanted to collapse for a few minutes. But even if she could have ignored Lord Guantes and his minions in pursuit, there was a feeling in the air that she didn’t like, a febrile edge to the turmoil. They were on the precipice of a riot. Or something worse.
The paving stones seemed to drag at her feet, but she gritted her teeth and pushed on. She wasn’t going to be the one to get them caught.
‘Hurts …’ Kai mumbled.
‘We’re almost there,’ Irene gasped reassuringly, not bothering to check if this was true. ‘Just hold on a bit longer.’
‘No,’ Kai said, a little more clearly now. There was genuine pain in his voice. ‘My feet …’
Both Irene and Vale stopped, Vale jostling her to look down. The paving was rising around Kai’s shoes, seemingly grasping at his feet as it bubbled in an unwholesome way in the near-darkness. Irene looked nervously at her own feet, but it didn’t seem to be affecting her or Vale.
Vale took a deep breath. ‘Let go of him, Winters,’ he instructed. ‘And be ready to clear our way.’ With a grunt of effort, he bent over and swung Kai up onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. More blood stained the bandage on his arm.
Right. That might work. If Kai’s feet weren’t actually touching the ground … They were nearly at the Train. Perhaps five minutes. If they could just make it.
She ploughed her way through the crowd, using her shoulders and elbows to force a passage for herself and the men. Behind her, the shouting seemed louder and more directed, and she tried not to think what would happen when Guantes realized they weren’t actually heading for the library at all. They had to make that train - and Lord Guantes was entirely capable of working that out. And where is Lady Guantes? Irene hoped not knowing wouldn’t prove fatal.
The bracelets that Silver had given her seemed to be vibrating against her wrists, throbbing with their own heat, and her mask pressed against her face like a suffocating hand. Is it a sign that the Ten are looking for me, too? she wondered. They could be looking for anything that’s not native to this place. And there’s only me and Kai here who aren’t Fae or normal humans …
She shoved onwards through the crowd and stumbled into a sudden emptiness as she reached the waterside. Even the crowd had more sense than to push all the way to the edge, where the darkness of the sea stretched into the distance, wave-tops catching the light of lanterns in pale ruffles of foam. The lights of the island beyond were visible as distantly glowing pinpoints, breaking up the long stretch of shadow where night sky was indistinguishable from sea. The Train was a harsh line of light against the darkness, with the bright squares of lit windows shining like an invitation. But, more practically, it was a good hundred yards further along the quay. At least.
The noise of the crowd was changing, and Irene turned to look behind her as a chill of apprehension ran down her wet back. There was something about the way that they were moving - and speaking …
They were all acting in unison. Like a pack of dogs, all slowly raising their hackles as they focused on an intruder, the crowd was staring at them as if one intelligence animated them all. The Venetians’ eyes shone like cats’ eyes in the gloom and they were even breathing together - in an audible whisper that was louder than the shifting water. The air was full of an inhuman attention, a presence that curdled the blood and froze the mind in panic. The Ten. The Ten have found us.
‘Winters …’ Vale said, very quietly, as though afraid that any louder sound would set off an explosion of violence. Do something went unspoken.
Irene quickly rejected multiple possibilities in her head. The Language could freeze water, but she couldn’t freeze the whole lagoon, or even enough to get across to the Train. And confusing the perception of so many people was beyond her abilities.
Even the boatmen in the gondolas were turning to stare …
She was moving before she could think twice, pulling up her skirts and jumping into the nearest gondola. The gondolier wasn’t expecting it, and she rammed her shoulder into his stomach, shoving him overboard while he tottered and struggled for breath. Vale was right behind her and was already hauling Kai into the gondola.
The entire crowd was still staring at them in dead silence. It was paralysing. Irene choked, trying to get her mouth and tongue to work as she struggled with adrenaline mingled with fear, but the words finally came. ‘Mooring rope, undo. Gondola in which I am standing, move towards the Train.’
The gondola was moving before the rope (and all other ropes within earshot) came fully undone. For one terrifying moment it strained against its moorings, still tied to the quay as the crowd came rushing forward with a single, multi-voiced scream of fury. She could see the whites of their wide, expressionless eyes. Seagulls rose shrieking from the rooftops and eaves, bursting into motion in a flurry of pale wings in the darkness.
Then the rope snapped, lashing free as it broke, and the boat jolted into motion. Vale collapsed in a pile with the semi-conscious Kai, and Irene went down on her hands and knees, as the gondola cut through the water like a motorboat towards the Train, the impression so convincing that she could almost believe she smelled smoke.
A nasty suspicion flared in her mind, and she turned to look at Kai. The wood of the gondola was indeed charring and smoking where his flesh touched it, and a matching discoloration was spreading like a rash on his skin. He’s as allergic to this place as it’s allergic to him. There was no way I could have hidden him here and escaped later. She turned back to the approaching Train, with a feeling of mingled dread and irritation at yet one more obstacle - how were they actually going to get into the thing? Still, climbing into a train from a burning gondola, at sea level, was a minor problem, considering what they were leaving behind.
The gondola crashed into the side of the Train and bobbed there crazily, pitching up and down. In mute invitation, the nearest Train door immediately swung open and Vale caught hold of it, steadying the gondola against the side of the Train while Irene scrambled into the carriage. Other gondolas, full of wild-eyed Venetians, were surging through the water towards them, in a dead silence that was almost more horrifying than screams or threats. She pulled Kai by the shoulders as Vale pushed, dragging him into the Train with adrenaline-fuelled strength. She’d barely levered him partway in, when the burned gondola gave way under Vale. He threw himself forward, clutching at the lip of the doorway as the planks sank beneath him.
‘Vale!’ Irene screamed, dropping her hold on Kai’s shoulders to reach for him.
Vale spat out sea water. ‘I can manage,’ he gasped, kicking to raise himself in the water and push himself into the carriage. ‘See to Strongrock!’
Irene tugged frantically at Kai. He was a dead weight, his eyes closed and his body limp, but she managed to drag him fully inside the carriage just as Vale finished pulling himself in too. From the corner of her eye, she could see the crowd banging on the platform-side doors. She ignored them. She didn’t think the Train would let
them in.
The interior of the Train was silent, and they found themselves in a luxurious carriage, all ivory velvet and fittings, which made their soaked, dishevelled clothes seem even more inappropriate. But the challenge now was to flee this Venice before the Rider, or the Ten - or anyone else - could stop them.
It was time. Irene took a deep breath, rose to her feet and said firmly, ‘Train, Steed, Horse … or whatever I should call you, I am here to free you, so that we can escape together. Show me how.’
A scream shook the carriage, too loud to be human, and Irene clapped her hands to her ears before she belatedly recognized the Train venting steam. The noise settled down to a barely tolerable shudder, the wheels trembling in place, but not quite moving yet as the pistons shook in their housings.
‘Why isn’t it moving?’ Vale demanded. He pushed back wet hair from his face.
‘I don’t think it can, until I’ve freed it,’ Irene said. She looked round for any obvious indications and hoped it wouldn’t involve going outside again.
Vale frowned. ‘What did you try before - telling a story?’
Irene suppressed a moment of irritation at Vale telling her how to use the Language, and nodded, assembling a narrative. Right, that was it. ‘And the princess returned from her quest, with the prince with her,’ well, on the floor, ‘and her knight by her side.’ She couldn’t risk leaving Vale out of the story, in case the Train left him behind. ‘And the princess said to the horse, “Where are your bridle and reins, that I may free you from them?”’
Their carriage door swung open into the corridor. And, with a sigh, Vale swung Kai onto his shoulder again, staggering under the weight.
Irene was first through the door - and it slammed shut behind her, nearly catching her fingertips. She could see Vale and Kai on the other side through the carriage windows, but couldn’t prise open the door, however much she wrenched at the handle. ‘Let them go!‘ she shouted, seeing faces in the darkness behind Vale, on the platform outside the Train.
The Masked City Page 27