“Do you pray for all the boys killed, too, Father? For the people taken by the Inquisition for the crime of worshipping like a Downsider?”
There, that scrubbed the smile off his face. “Of course. I pray the Goddess embraces them, that their next life will be better than this.”
“Well, it could hardly be worse, could it?”
He merely inclined his head and that infuriated me more, that he accepted it. That he seemed to have no burning need, no flame to put that right and only depended on the next life being better. I’d thought differently of him when he’d preached, but this was another side to him, one that left a sour taste and reminded me that, no matter what, he was part of Ministry with all that entailed.
“Did you know any of the boys?” I tried to keep the bile out of my voice, I really did, but some must have leaked through because he looked as though he’d been slapped. “Any of them come here to worship?”
“I don’t know, how could I when no one seems to know, or care, who they were?”
“A boy called Jabol, did you know him?”
“I—yes, there was a boy by that name. He came to see me. He was worried that he was a pain-mage, that he’d be taken and made to do things he didn’t want to. Made to torture people.”
Pasha flinched at that, and Guinto spared him a sympathetic look. “I told him as I told you, Pasha. That he shouldn’t use it, that it’s an unholy thing, and has been used to do unholy work. That he should strive to overcome it and never to use it, even if it seems for good. He should forbear to use it for the peace of his soul. To give in is to be damned. If you would do that, Pasha, would give it up, beg forgiveness, then your path would no longer be full of the obstacles you insist on putting between you and Jake.”
By this point, I was hard pressed not to pick Guinto up and give him a good shake. The only way I managed not to was knowing that he’d say: see, this is what using pain magic does to you. I’d heard this all too often over the last years, while pain magic was banned. It’s unholy, mages are unholy, unclean, not fit to join the rest of the city, and all the while Ministry had been saying that, they’d secretly been using it in ways more unholy than I liked to think of. That Guinto should say that to Pasha of all people, to a man who’d spent his life fighting that usage, who had such a fierce belief in the Goddess—it rendered me almost speechless with rage.
“Damned, my bollocks,” I said when I could. “Was Jabol alive when you last saw him?”
Guinto put out a hand, as though to bless me against what I’d said, then seemed to think better of it. Probably very wise of him. I might have bitten his fingers off. “Well, yes. I had him go to each saint and martyr to beg forgiveness, and then before the Goddess. He promised to try to resist, to do as the Goddess wanted, as scripture demands. I last saw him before her mural, on his knees. A devout boy.”
I made sure not to catch Pasha’s eye. He stood, hunched and twisted against what Guinto had said, and I thought that you don’t need to touch someone to inflict pain on them, to torture them. Soft words were enough, if they were the right words.
“Taban, he worshipped here, too? You gave him all this shit as well?”
Guinto’s face hardened then and I saw some of the fire of his speech fill his eyes. He believed this, he really did. “He worships here, yes. And, yes, I talk to him about using his magic, about what it will do to his soul.”
“Did he talk to you about how if he didn’t, if we gave it up, we’d probably all have died of starvation by now?”
“As the Goddess wills. It’s unholy. And so are you if you embrace it, if you can’t see that it goes against all the Goddess is.”
It was probably a good thing that Pasha grabbed my arm then, a good thing for Guinto at least, if not for my temper. Pasha got me out of the door before I said, or did, anything too rash.
I managed to hold it in until we made it out of the temple, and spilled my bile all over the street.
“Unctuous, snot-wiping, pig-fucking toad! Why do you go there if this is what you get? Temple is supposed to be about—”
“What do you know about temple?” Pasha’s voice was quiet, crushed so that it made me want to shout all over again. “Nothing, that’s what. He’s right. The Goddess—”
“Fuck the Goddess!” Didn’t look like it was our day for finishing sentences. “Pasha, you are, you and Jake—you’re the reason I found anything to have faith in, made me have at least a little faith in myself, what I can do. That I should use it for more than earning cash and getting women into bed. You can’t believe this, that you should deny what you are because She said so. And what was all that obstacles between you and Jake shit?”
“If I try hard enough, if I pray enough, I won’t know, won’t be able to hear…Me and her, it…I can’t. She can’t. We…I want to not hear, Rojan. I want not to know what’s in other people’s heads.”
The old me would have internally given a little whoop of joy at this news. That things weren’t all sunshine and kittens between them. The new me saw the way his face twisted, how he was being pulled in all directions and none of them good ones.
So instead I said, “It was always going to be hard. You’re both fucked up by what my father did to you. Now you’re Upside and things are different. Very different. It’s going to take time, but if you want to, you can make it work. You will. I promise. But you are a pain-mage and there’s fuck all anyone can do about that. You can’t stop being what you are.”
Then I wondered what the hell I was saying. A quick word here and Jake would have been a free agent, ready for me to swoop in. Yet somehow, this was more important. Pasha had, almost without my realising, become a friend, one of the first I’d managed in long years. Realising that made my stomach twist, and also made me see that I’d changed. The old me would have said for the worse, too, and would have sneered. The new me saw that all my cynicism was still there, but now that I saw what the world did to people I cared about, now that I let myself care about them, all those thoughts hit home a thousand times harder. Made those cynical words choke me.
Pasha rubbed a scarred hand over his face. “I’m not sure what I disbelieve more, but I think you saying that comes out a clear winner.”
“I’m not entirely sure I believe I said it myself. Look, you are what you are. You can’t change it, and I can’t change what I am.”
“A prick?”
“Thank you, yes. There’s not a man in five thousand that can do half what we do. Maybe no one else in the city who can do precisely what you do. And if you hadn’t done what you did—all those kids down there, being told they had to atone, had to hurt if they wanted the Goddess to love them, where would they be? Still believing it, like Jake? Like you?”
He flinched as though I’d slapped him and I wished I could take that last part back. To make my own small atonement without anything as tacky as an apology, I said, “Without you using your magic, me using mine, they’d still all be there. Don’t tell me that’s unholy, because I will tell you you’re full of shit.”
That brought back a trace of his monkey grin, but it soon turned wistful. “I don’t want to be different any more. I want to be like them, all the other Downsiders, even if it means the Inquisition takes me.” He waved a hand at the group of buildings ahead that looked as though they were only held up by their neighbours, with spit for mortar.
“I’m going to be, too. Just as soon as that generator is up and running and you don’t need me any more. I—I think I found my parents. I had Dendal send them a message. My whole life has been anything but normal, and that’s all I want. I want people to look at me like I’m a person, not a thing. Like this, I—I can’t. Without my magic, at least Downsiders won’t hate me any more. I’ll have somewhere to be. Me and Jake might be able to…I believe in the Goddess more than I believe in my magic.”
And I couldn’t say a damned thing to that, because who was I to deny what he wanted? Poor bastard had lived a fucked-up life, which was putting it mildly. Hell
, he was so screwed up he even liked me. He deserved a bit of normality. Still didn’t stop me thinking dire swearwords at the Goddess, though. So I changed the subject.
“We need to be at the pain room soon, see if anyone’s managed to salvage any of the equipment. Perak sent to Alchemical Research for one of their guys to come take a look.”
Pasha looked sick at the thought of anyone Ministry in the lab, but it was all the chance we had, and a slim one. No one but Dwarf and Lise knew what miracles they could do with machines, or how they worked.
“Why don’t you go and find Jake, have some dinner and I’ll meet you there.”
He nodded wearily, looking more careworn than I’d ever seen him, and I’ve seen him pretty fucked up. “What about you?”
“Couple of people to see. Maybe Dench, if I can find him. See if we can get someone to keep an eye on Guinto.”
“And Abeya? You haven’t changed that much.”
I grinned at him and was pleased when he managed a monkey grin back. “Oh yes, and Abeya.”
Chapter Ten
I didn’t have to look far for Abeya once Pasha had gone. I stepped back into the temple and there she was, as though she’d been waiting for me. The way she looked at me, I was pretty sure she had been. Always a nice little stroke for the ego.
A rustle of lily-white robes, velvet that clung to her in ways that made some very distracting thoughts flash across my mind, and she was at my side, smelling like an angel.
“I hoped you’d come back.”
The way she looked at me snagged more primal parts of my brain. Sort of naïve, but eager and knowing all at once. Hey, I was a free agent, why the hell not? Had to be better than mooning around after someone who would become available around about the end of the world. Besides which, I needed to find out more about Guinto, and if I could do that while enjoying myself…practical, that’s me. “Who wouldn’t come back, if you were the reward?”
Her smile was reward enough. She took my hand in hers and pulled me to a dark corner. Better and better, though I suspect even I would draw the line at doing that in a templ—
“I hoped you’d come. I wanted to ask you something.”
Oh, ask. Right, sure. I gave strict instructions to the more rebellious parts of my anatomy, which, as usual, they completely ignored.
“Which is?”
One cheek dimpled as her lips twisted in a lush and very inviting smile. I wondered if she realised the effect she was having. My ego was positively rolling on to its back and waiting for a tummy rub.
“Dinner? Oh, no, don’t worry,” she said as my face fell at the thought of trying to make a small bowl of grey mush romantic or indeed anything other than disgusting. Then she said the words guaranteed to hook me. “I have bacon. Don’t ask me where from.”
Bacon! No meat to be had for love nor money anywhere and she had bacon! I could guess where from, too—the only people who’d have any of the meat that had been salvaged from the ’Pit were Ministry. My stomach rumbled painfully at the thought, and I tried not to drown in my own spit. There are times when it’d be handy to have a deity to believe in so you can say something along the lines of “Oh my Goddess”, and actually have it sound sincere. I settled instead for, “You say when and where, and I’ll be there.”
I tried not to feel as though I was taking a bribe, but, fuck it, I’d have done anything just to smell bacon again. Sometimes I’m so shallow I disgust even myself, but food is food. Bacon doubly so.
“Right here,” she said, sounding more like an angel with every passing minute. I didn’t even care about that. “And right now.”
The door was one of those secret recessed jobs that are impossible to spot until someone shows you they’re there. As soon as she opened it, the waft of bacon hit me and pretty much removed all rational thought for a while. When I stopped salivating like a starving dog, I noticed where I was.
A small room, tastefully done, if rather austere. Plain whitewashed walls seemed more mellow under an oil lamp that didn’t give off the stench of rend-nut. A bed with crisply turned corners, a couple of cupboards, a deep squishy sofa, and a low table, with a plate on it. With bacon. If I’d thought a bit straighter I’d have wondered who in hell precisely she got it from, but, shit, you don’t ask questions like that when you’re starving and someone offers you the food of the Goddess.
I tried to concentrate, to remember why I was here—information. Guinto, murders…Hard, though. We were all slowly starving and I hadn’t had a full meal of even grey slop in days. Might not manage to think again until the smell went. Best to eat the bacon first, stop it distracting me. Yes.
Abeya sat me down on the sofa and I all but sank in up to my hips. She sat next to me and the softness of the sofa pushed us together very pleasingly. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been wrong all these years and had died and gone to heaven. A corner of me actually began to believe it when Abeya leant across, her softness a warm pressure against me, and kissed me.
She tasted salty and yet sweet, and I was so surprised I didn’t move for long heartbeats. She broke away, and her hand traced at my cheek. “Your father…” I managed.
She kissed me again, a kiss that matched how I’d seen her in the temple—naïve, eager, touched with something else. It was pretty hard to resist and I’ve always been crap at resisting temptation anyway, at least where women are concerned, so I thought “screw it”, and kissed her back.
I’d figured she was new to this—that naïve look—so when we fell back on to the sofa I made sure I was underneath, not wanting her to feel blocked in. I’m a gentleman that way, plus she was a Downside girl and maybe she had brands.
When we came up for air, it was the first thing she touched on, all hesitant, as though I might turn her away. Not fucking likely.
“It doesn’t bother you, that I’m Downside?”
It was a hell of a nice view from down there, but I swallowed hard and said, “Not in the slightest.”
She bit her lip in what, it has to be said, was a very sexy way, and let her dark hair fall over her face, as though she was ashamed of the tone of her skin, the blue-white pallor under the more usual dusty tones. “My father says you’re a heretic—that you don’t believe in the Goddess.”
That brought a dash of cold water to my brain, and other parts. Her adoptive father, that’s why I was here, to find out more about him. “That’s true. I’m, er, an affront to his Goddess.” Bad enough she knew that, so I thought it best to leave the whole unholy pain-mage thing unsaid. Why ruin the moment?
I didn’t get any further because the door banged open making us both jump, and Guinto strode in. Abeya leapt off the sofa and I did my best to struggle from its squishy clutches. I needn’t have bothered—Guinto grabbed the front of my allover and dragged me to my feet. He was pretty strong under those robes.
“Out.” His voice was quieter than a temple at midnight and chill enough to make my shoulder blades itch. “I know what you’re doing, but I won’t have this. I won’t have her hurt, not by someone who hasn’t even the decency to pretend he believes. She suffered enough Downside. They were unholy and so are you. I’d rather starve than depend on you for food. So out, and don’t come sniffing around my daughter again.”
“Father—”
“Enough. I’ll deal with you later, Abeya. But I will not have this in our house, in the Goddess’s house. Not for this. Not for you.”
It seemed I’d worked my usual trick of pissing everybody off and I wasn’t going to get any more information now, so I inclined my head, extricated my allover from his grip and left with a practised—and hopefully infuriating to Guinto—smile at Abeya.
Guinto looked as though he was about to pop, all red and vein-pulsing in his forehead. Which at least meant he didn’t see me pocket the bacon as I left. Waste not, want not, right?
Chapter Eleven
I’d not been as long as I expected at the temple, so I didn’t go straight to the pain lab to meet Pasha. Thoughts ke
pt scampering round my head and I needed to get them organised. Usually I’d have gone to see Erlat. I’d have had a bath, talked to her afterwards and she’d have made me look at things from a different angle, as she always did. I took a quick detour on my way up, east to the Buzz. Most of it seemed to have made it through the riots intact, though one or two buildings looked even worse for wear than usual.
Erlat’s place looked much the same in the gathering gloom, though there were some new marks by the door. Scorch marks. The riots had made it here, it seemed, even if the bigger fires hadn’t. A whole house full of Downsiders had to be a target. Someone had scrawled something so vile across one wall I didn’t even want to look. I dithered for a bit, unsure of the welcome I’d get, but in the end screw it and do it seemed the best option. At the worst I’d get a new shiner as a pair for the one that was just starting to fade.
I was about to knock on the door when it opened under my hand, and I wasn’t hugely shocked to have a cardinal shove me aside. The fat one from the temple. He looked disgustingly well fed compared to everyone Under, and way too smug for my liking. Behind him, Erlat stood, her face set in her practised look but her hands trembling.
“Are you—”
“If you ask me if I’m all right, Rojan, I will not be responsible for my actions.” One deep breath, and then she was serene again, all elegance and poise. Not even a hint of tremble. “Was there something I could do for you?”
No warmth to it, none of the teasing banter we’d shared before. No one has ever been able to shove me off balance as well as Erlat. I preferred it when she was making me blush, rather than stammer like I was about to.
“I, er, wanted to say sorry.” Goddess’s tits, that was hard to say. It seemed to work though, partially, because she softened. A bit. A hint of the teasing smile.
“Do you know what you’re saying sorry for?”
Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall Page 13