Dead of Veridon (Burn Cycle)

by Tim Akers

  Veronica walked to the table and flicked a sheet aside. A young man, a masculine version of her, his face white and empty. She looked down at him softly, then up at me. Not as softly.

  "Maybe he won't be able to make it today. I suppose I'll have to stand in his place."

  "Veronica, I'm sorry. I had no idea. You can't go to a Council meeting when your family has just been... when they're all..."

  "That's all I can do, actually. Staying here isn't going to make it any better." She walked up to me, her cold eyes burning into my face. "Besides, I want to take my new friend Jacob Burn with me. Introduce him to all my old friends."

  I felt the iron on my wrists and looked down. Realized I was blinking away tears as the cuffs clicked into place.

  "There's a warrant for you, Mr. Burn. We can talk about it on the way. And you better talk well, because I'm not really in the mood for clever boys."

  Chapter Twelve

  Old Names, Old Ink

  THE RAIN BEGAN to come down in earnest, long before we got to the Council Chamber. Veronica and I sat in opposite corners of her carriage, looking out the windows. She spent a lot of time folding and then refolding a pair of long, satin gloves in her lap. There was a box on the floor between her feet, and she kept moving her leg to check it was still there, like a child looking for comfort from some icon. We had guards, lots of them, running alongside us in the rain. It slowed us down, but the Lady Bright was clearly in no hurry to get to the Council.

  "How many have there been?" I asked.

  "Dead brothers? Just the one."

  "You're awfully flip about this," I said, shifting in my seat to face her. "There were a lot of bodies in there. How many of them were family?"

  "Everyone under my roof is my family, one way or another." She put her hands on top of the gloves and sighed. "Should I mourn them less if they were only a friend, or a servant? Should my father's brother's third daughter mean more to me than the man who poured my wine every night for the last eight years?" She looked at me and shrugged. "People die, Jacob. These people just died quite suddenly, over breakfast."

  "You're out of your fucking mind."

  "Oh, love. You have no idea."

  I squeezed against the side of the carriage, trying to put as much space between us as I could. She sat as comfortable as you please, looking out the window, her hands folded demurely in her lap. Her toe tap-tap-tapped against the box.

  "I meant, how many attacks have there been? I know the Council is hiding them from the public. I don't know exactly what happened at the docks, but what happened and what the Badge says happened are two very different things."

  "Six," she said, finally, as we came around the last bend before our stop. "Six attacks. Most of them very isolated events. Isolated is the wrong word. Very precise events."

  "They were targeted," I said.

  "Yes. Targeted." She cocked her head like an animal. "But not logically. No real pattern. It was like the murderer is singing a song in a language none of us know. The pattern is lost on us. What you said about the docks." She paused and then turned her head to me. "What happened there?"

  "You're kidding, right?"

  She shook her head. "I felt there might be some connection. It seems unlikely that a fire could cause so many deaths. So many, in fact, that no one who survived has reported a fire at all."

  I settled myself against the seat. What to tell her? What to be honest about, and what to hide?

  "The Badge says they have witnesses who will swear that I set off a device, and that device started the fire." I gave her a hard eye, trying to weight her reaction. "There was a device, but not a fire. And I didn't set it off. I delivered it."

  "To whom?" she asked.

  "The Fehn. That was the contract."

  "It seems unlikely to me that a device delivered to the Fehn could then cause a fire on the docks. There is a great deal of river between those two places." She stared distractedly out the front of the carriage. "Tell me, who contracted you to do this thing?"

  I thought of Crane, up in the tower of Angela's grand home. What would this industrialist do with that knowledge?

  "I don't really know, not yet. The guy who hired me, he was probably a ruse. Just passing the thing on to me. I'm sure there's someone above him. Just trying to figure out who it is."

  "Could it be someone in the Council?" she asked carefully.

  "Seems to me that there's not much that goes on in this city that doesn't get touched by someone in the Council."

  "That's a very roundabout way of saying that you don't know, but that you intend to find out." She smiled. "And if anything I've heard about you is even vaguely true, you will find out by knocking people over and kicking them until they tell you what you want to know."

  I snorted. "I like to think I'm a little more subtle than that," I said.

  "I don't think you are, Jacob. I think you're a blunt instrument, accustomed to bloody work." She held up a hand when I frowned. "Don't get me wrong. I think there's a place for that. But I think that this matter may be a great deal more nuanced than you are prepared to manage."

  I was quiet for a minute. We were making terrible time toward the Massif. It was in sight, but we were crawling toward it. I stared out at the guards who surrounded us. They were paying special attention to a nearby alleyway, and talking among themselves. I looked that way.

  "These six attacks. How many of them were like this morning?" I asked.

  "How many of them involved the wholesale butchering of a family of the Council? None," she answered. "Like I said, Jacob. Too blunt. Like the rent house, or the docks. They were attacks on properties that didn't seem to be connected to any special thing. There was no pattern."

  "It wasn't an attack on the docks. It was an attack on the Fehn. And if they're so wildly different, how do you know they're all from the same attacker? Veridon can be a violent city. To say that the horror of your rent house, or the cog-dead crawling up from the river and sinking a boat, or even the madness that's afflicting my father are all..."

  "So your father is going mad? We've been wondering."

  I folded my arms. Always politics. Always stories told or untold, and secrets held.

  "Does it matter, really?"

  "He holds one of the few Founder's seats remaining on the Council. Every one counts. If they lose him, they lose much of their ability to influence the Council. So, yes. It matters. Besides, he's your father. Shouldn't it matter at least to you?"

  "This from the woman whose family was just killed en masse, and who doesn't seem to give a damn."

  "Jacob, we've covered this. I'm out of my fucking mind," she said stiffly, then clenched her hands in her lap. "Or I've spent my whole life learning to carry on in the face of tragedy, and doing whatever is necessary to advance the family. To put the strong face forward, no matter what. Which is its own sort of madness, isn't it?"

  I stared her down. I honestly couldn't tell if she was finally opening up a little bit, or just being crazier. Strange girl. Strange family, what was left of it.

  "What does the Church say about all this? If anyone's going to see a pattern in something, it's those old apopheniacs."

  "I think you made up that word," she said. "But I like it. The Church of the Algorithm has been quite silent on this one. None of the attacks have touched them, that we know of."

  "But they could have."

  "Of course. They lie as well as us. After all, they're hiding an angel in their basement, aren't they, Jacob?" She smiled at me. No one believed my stories from two years ago, especially not the industrialists. They could afford not to believe me. "But we have agents. I think we would know."

  "Do you know the guy living in the Manor Tomb? Up in that old tower on the west side?"

  She squinted at me, trying to make a decision. Secrets to tell, secrets to keep.

  "That has something to do with the balance of power in the Council, Jacob. Are you sure you want to know about it?"

  "I asked. I co
uld knock you down and kick you until you tell me what I want to know, if you'd rather."

  "Not really to my taste," she said, smiling wickedly. I decided right there and then that I never wanted to find out what was to this girl's taste. "Fair enough. There has been a rumor circulating that the Patron Tomb is finally dying. And not just in the process of dying, but really, nearly dead. You know he's been on the Council since before the Church rose to power? Before the Artificers Guild was disbanded and its leaders strung up, even."

  "How could I possibly not know that, Lady Bright? I'm the son of a Founder, remember."

  "So easy to forget sometimes, what with your rough and tumble ways, Mr. Burn." She looked down at her fingers, preened away some bit of dust from her nails. "But yes. The Patron is dying. And that's what makes your father's condition so interesting. Because if the Patron dies, Burn becomes the premier Founder seat."

  "What does this have to do with the guy in the tower?" I asked.

  "That's someone the family has brought in to sustain the old man's life," she answered. "Someone from outside the city. An expert. Of what, no one seems willing to say."

  I felt my heart sink. I began to suspect what kind of expert he was.

  "Anyway," she continued. "There are two ways this plays out. First, the Patron dies. Per the terms of their contract, the Patron's death will move the Tomb Right of Name on to the Family Verde, who bought it from him all those generations ago. And the Tombs are out of the Council."

  "Seems like Angela would do everything she could to prevent that."

  "Yes. Unless..." she held up a second finger.

  "Unless?" I prompted.

  "Unless the Family Burn is declared incapable of performing their duties. Say, if it was shown that their seat was held by a madman, with no declared heir. Angela has positioned herself to be declared the ward of that seat, in perpetuity. The Tombs would maintain their position in the Council."

  "And if the son were reinstated?" I asked, the barest quaver in my voice. "What then?"

  "The son?" she asked. "You mean the criminal, the murderer, the thug who takes rides with dangerous girls, who is wanted for conspiracy and theft and, oh, a thousand other things? That son?"

  "I see your point."

  "Maybe. But that son would still have a legal right to the seat. If he were reinstated, of course." Her eyes glittered and she leaned closer to me. "And he didn't get himself killed in the process."

  "I really can't tell if you're threatening me, or offering to help."

  She laughed. "Such a blunt object, Mr. Burn. It's going to be a joy, watching you crash through the Council. Assuming you take up your father's letter and claim your right in the Massif."

  "How do you know about that?" I asked, sternly.

  "Like I said. We have agents."

  "Sure. Your agents are everywhere, all seeing. That's why you know about the wall of dead cutting this city off from the rest of the world."

  "Wall of dead? You're being dramatic, Jacob."

  "Wall of dead. I was under the city, I saw them. There's an army of the cog-dead standing watch on the shores of the Reine, keeping even clever boys like me inside today. Tell me," I looked back out the window, at the looming hulk of the Chamber Massif. "Is that part of your Council-ordained curfew?"

  "It is not," she said carefully.

  "So. Maybe you don't have all the cards."

  "Maybe." She unfolded the gloves one last time, then pulled them on her thin fingers. "But I have you."

  We were getting very close to the Chamber, now. I shifted nervously in my seat.

  "What's the warrant on me for?" I asked.

  "Murder, conspiracy, insurrection." She laughed with her eyes. "There's something in there about our black-toothed friends. They're holding you responsible for a lot of this trouble."

  "Do you think I did that stuff?"

  "Not at all. But I think the Founders would like to see the Family Burn raised up or gone forever. Either one works for them. And I guess you're the key to that." Again the smile, hopelessly dead of normal emotion. "What with your father and all."

  "Is that why you're turning me in? Something to do with getting back at the Founders?"

  "Who said I was turning you in, Jacob?" She pounded her fist on the carriage wall, and we stopped. The Chamber wasn't more than a block away. It was a dark shape, sketched in light from the windows, barely seen through the driving rain. It was still early in the day, but the storm had brought an early night. "I'm giving you a choice. You want to know what's going on, I know. You wouldn't have risked coming to me, otherwise. Come with me, risk arrest, and see what's going on in the Council. Or get out of the carriage, and never show your face in this city again."

  "Hell of a choice," I said.

  "Hell of a choice," she agreed.

  I stared down at the old building. The Chamber Massif was a dangerous place, especially for a guy like me. What were they going to do? Arrest me. Try me right there. They had that kind of power. And someone in that room was keyed in to what was going on in the city, not just the curfew, not just the attacks. Answers inside, and nothing out here but the rain and a chance to get away. Hell of a choice.

  "Can you do something about these?" I asked, holding my wrists in front of me. "And maybe get my revolver back? Don't want to go in naked."

  She smiled nastily. "Cuffs, no. Revolver, yes," she said, producing the weapon from the folds of her riding dress and tucking it backwards into my vest pocket.

  "Well," I said. "Thanks for the ride, ma'am."

  I popped the door and stepped out. It was coming down, cold and hard. Veronica Bright tutted at me as I stepped into the rain.

  "Jacob, you disappoint me."

  "Yeah," I yelled over the driving rain. "That happens."

  I ran to the alley, getting some cover from the rain in the sloped walls of the building. The carriage door closed behind me. A few moments later the engine clattered back to life, and they continued on. I watched them disappear into the Massif's covered barbican. Hell of a choice.

  "Took you long enough," Wilson said. He stepped from the shadows, knives in his hands.

  "I really thought they were going to see you," I said. I had been following his shadow from rooftop to alleyway since we left the Manor Bright. I raised my still-shackled hands. "Something you can do about this?"

  "Maybe. Why are you here?"

  "I'm done running, Wilson. I couldn't do it. I mean, seriously, I couldn't do it. The docks were all closed. But once I realized I was stuck here, well. I guess I realized a lot of other stuff. Like maybe there's more to being a hero than -"

  "Shut it," Wilson said. He bent to the cuffs and had them off in a second. "Nothing I hate more than a thug who thinks he's a poet. What's the plan?"

  "Do you honestly think I have a plan?"

  "I think you have an idea. That's enough for me."

  "Well then." I rubbed my wrists and looked longingly at the bright lights of the Massif. "Here's my idea."

  THE MANOR TOMB hunched under the storm clouds, rain sheeting off its slate roof like a waterfall. The lights were on, all of them, glowing through the gloom. Wilson and I huddled across the street, counting the guards and the intervals of their patrol.

  "Usually have more time to plan this kind of stunt, Jacob," Wilson said. He'd been grumpy ever since we left the Chamber Massif without stabbing or shooting a single person. He liked my idea less and less, the further we got into it. "Not the kind of thing you do off the cuff."

  "That's what makes it interesting," I said. "Not something they'll expect."

  I looked up at the tower. The crows were all inside or flown away. There was a light on, and shadows moving behind the curtains. Crane was close.

  "Whatever he's planning, I have to believe that having the Council meet in the middle of the curfew is part of it. Angela called the session." I turned to Wilson. He was looking up at the window, whetting his knife on a stone. "Don't know if he's doing her bidding, or the other w
ay around."

  "Don't know that it matters," Wilson said. "Let's get to it."

  "Yeah." I turned my attention to the gate. Tired of counting intervals. Tired of waiting. "Let's."

  I was across the street and climbing the fence without another word. Wilson followed, then passed me. He was over the gate and into the guards before I was to the top. I meant to say something about not hurting the guards because, hey, they were just guards. Just guys drawing a paycheck. I'm not sure if it would have mattered to Wilson, anyway. He laid into them, fists and knives. Didn't even shrug out of his coat to get the spider arms involved. They went down like dropped meat.

  "You didn't have to kill them," I said, landing heavily in the muddy yard.

  "Probably not," he answered. "They didn't have to fight back, either."

  It didn't look like they'd done much fighting back. Matter for another day. We double-timed toward the house, avoiding the main door and looking for a kitchen entrance, or servants' gate. Halfway across the garden, Wilson's handiwork was discovered. The cry went up.

  "Can I kill them now?" he asked. I didn't answer. He had that look in his eye. Didn't matter what I said.

  There were surprisingly few guards, and those that there were we just avoided. They didn't really seem to be guarding anything anymore. Mostly creeping from bush to bush, pillar to shrub, weapons out. Skittish. They spent as much time looking back toward the house as out into the perimeter of the estate. Something had them spooked.

  "Guess with Angela gone, there's not much inside to guard."

  "There's the Patron," I said. "And, you know, generations' worth of accumulated wealth. Nice furniture and stuff."

  "Not a good day to steal furniture. Ruin the upholstery."

  "Good point." I ducked as one of the skittish patrols crept past us. Never even looked our way. The two guards bee-lined for the wall and, as we watched, hitched over the gate and out into the streets.

  "Jacob," Wilson said. "Unless I'm mistaken, those gentleman just fled the scene."