City of Storms

by Kat Ross

  “I remember things before that,” Kasia objected.

  “Barely. They are more like the impressions of an infant. Colors and sounds with no meaning.”

  “I have a peculiar memory.” She frowned. “You did dig through my head. Well beyond the sweven!”

  “I warned you I might.”

  Kasia eyed the desk in front of the door. “I suppose I’m your prisoner now.”

  “Only until the Wards come back.” The Pontifex smiled unpleasantly. “But you will not be leaving the Arx anytime soon, Katarzynka Nowakowski.”

  “That’s my thanks for warning you of the cardinal’s treachery?”

  Feizah was silent for a long moment. “I am not convinced it is treachery, though he will be dealt with for acting without my authorization. But you . . . I think you have been using the ley for far longer than a day.” Kasia opened her mouth to protest and the Pontifex held up a hand. “Not with conscious awareness. But how else do you explain your talent of cartomancy?”

  “I did suspect the ley was involved,” Kasia admitted. “But I didn’t understand the mechanism. I still don’t.”

  “Nor do I. Yet it is telling that Massot Turned in the very midst of his reading with you.”

  “I know.” She met the older woman’s eyes. “I thought the same, Reverend Mother.”

  Feizah relented, her stern demeanor softening. “I will see what can be done about Bryce. Now help me gather up these papers.”

  Kasia obeyed, trudging through the cavernous room to collect the scattered pieces of parchment. Like Falke’s library, it was lit only by several large candelabra. The decor was stuffy and rich and had probably been exactly the same for centuries.

  They’ll never let me go now, she thought disconsolately. I will grow old and gray within the walls of the Arx while Feizah tries to figure out how my brain works. Kasia’s eye lit on the darkened Ward above the door. Though they will have a time of it trying to keep me.

  “Reverend Mother?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Natalya didn’t mean any disrespect when she said you snapped up all the pretty ones. She says things like that all the time . . . .” Kasia trailed off when she realized that the Pontifex was paying her no attention and it had grown very quiet in the corridor.

  “Guards?” the Pontifex called. “Sor Dvorak?”

  No answer came.

  Feizah rolled up her sleeves. Abstract geometrical designs ran from forearm to wrist, thick dark lines and whorls. She knelt and pressed a palm to the floor. The Marks flared to life.

  “Hide, girl,” the Pontifex snapped. “And stay silent.”

  Something thudded against the door hard enough to crack the oak.

  Kasia ran to a tall wardrobe at the far end of the apartment and parted the white robes hanging inside. She stuffed herself into the gap just as another resounding blow shattered the lock. The door opened an inch and struck the makeshift barrier. A second later, the desk screeched across the floor like a toy kicked by a petulant child.

  Kasia managed to get the wardrobe mostly shut, though it wouldn’t latch and a slice of the chamber was visible through the crack. She pressed back into the darkness, pulse spiking. It had to be Malach. Who else—

  An elderly man in a tweed suit stepped through the splintered doorframe. Frizzy white hair crowned a dark-skinned face with bright green eyes. The Blue Flame of the North Marked his neck, but it was inverted. He carried a shoebox. At his side loomed a bearded giant holding a sword. Both of them were barefoot and bloody, like something out of a Dark Age horror novel.

  “Feizah,” the old man rasped, his voice tight with hatred.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A mailed fist to the kidneys brought Malach to his knees. A clout to the ear knocked him flat. Boots pinned his arms and legs to the stone floor.

  “I don’t doubt you would prefer death,” Cardinal Falke said, “but that would be a tragic waste. There are so few of you now, I can’t afford to throw any away. You can still serve the Via Sancta.”

  He produced a scalpel from his robes, the edge glinting in the candlelight. “I’ll leave your manhood intact. Without hands, though . . . you’ll never touch the ley again.” He sounded weary. “Think of it as a compromise.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” Blood thundered in Malach’s ears. “I already—”

  Falke’s eyes narrowed. “You already what?”

  I’ll never tell them about you. No matter what they do to me.

  “I already told Beleth everything. And when I don’t come home, she’ll bury you all.”

  The cardinal gazed down at him. There was no emotion in his face. Nothing but calm conviction. “I’m afraid this will hurt. It’s fortunate you enjoy pain.”

  A sharp whiff of antiseptic hit Malach’s nose. Something cold swabbed the skin of his wrist. Pressure, and a brief sting as skin parted beneath the scalpel. It was so sharp he barely felt it, though he would once the blade reached tendon and bone.

  He could speak her name. If he kept their bargain, Falke might spare him. Malach didn’t really believe what he’d told her. The Curia would not kill Nikola Thorne. They would keep her as a brood mare.

  Falke seemed to sense his hesitation. The blade paused in its work. Malach drew a ragged breath. His mouth tasted of hot metal.

  “A scalpel won’t get you through the bone,” he spat.

  “Not to worry,” the cardinal replied serenely. “I have other tools at my disposal. I’ll do my best to make it quick, you have my word.”

  Malach regarded the man he hated above all others, the man who had spared his life when he was just a child and now thought to use him as a prize stallion. His memory of the time was hazy, he couldn’t have been more than three or four, but he remembered that moment with perfect clarity. Both parents buried in the rubble and a tall knight standing over him with a sword. He expected to die, but the knight raised his visor, a troubled expression in his dark eyes, and sheathed the blade. Run, he commanded gruffly. Run, boy!

  “I never meant to give you a child,” Malach said in a venomous whisper. “I would have killed it myself first.”

  A muscle feathered in Falke’s jaw. “That is unfortunate. But you will now, Malach. You’ll give me whatever I ask for.”

  He bore down with the scalpel. Malach had seen the severing done to others and knew exactly how bad it would be. He gritted his teeth but refused to look away. Suddenly, the blade vibrated like a tuning fork. In the space of a single heartbeat, the room filled with ley. It surged through Malach’s palms and into his Marks. They flared like a dying sun.

  Falke reared back. The scalpel clattered to the floor. He was a man hardened in combat, but his voice was not entirely steady as he ordered his knights. “Keep him restrained—”

  Lines of red fire traced the Mark called Summoning the Storm. On Malach’s left thigh, the Red Warden opened his pitiless eyes. On his right biceps, nightmarish scenes flickered across the surface of The Dark Mirror.

  And in the skies above the Castel Saint Agathe, black clouds roiled. Lightning stabbed the spire of the basilica. The wind rose to a primal howl, spinning the weathervane atop the keep.

  Death flowed from him like blood from an open wound.

  He tore an arm free and seized the scalpel, jamming it into Falke’s thigh. The cardinal grunted and staggered back. Malach reached for the nearest priest and clamped his hand around a hairy calf, releasing a flood of pain and hatred. The priest’s eyes bulged. Blood trickled from one ear. With a snarl, the man drove his blade toward the one pinning Malach’s right arm. The priest spun away and it sliced across his cheek. A pitcher shattered as the pair locked together, staggering across the chamber in ferocious combat.

  The third and fourth leapt back, wary. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the door. Each held a broadsword. Malach ducked under a whistling slash. Behind him, he heard a fading scream as one of the others fell from the narrow window to the courtyard below.

  “C
ome closer,” he coaxed the knights, holding out his hand. A steady drip of blood pattered like rain on the stone floor. “That’s it. Just a little closer . . . .”

  * * *

  Malach surveyed the three bodies sprawled across the chamber.

  The one he wanted most had fled. No fool, Dmitry Falke. But a scarlet trail led into the corridor and Malach would find him.

  A quick slice with the scalpel produced a length of cloth to bind his wrist. Falke hadn’t gotten far in his work and the slash was superficial. With one foot, Malach rolled over the priest from General Directorate. He divested the corpse of its black robe, putting it on himself. Malach yanked the cowl up and strode from the chamber. A char in gray ran past him down the corridor. Malach ignored her. He had no quarrel with the Unmarked.

  But their masters and mistresses . . . .

  Halfway down the spiral stairs, he came face-to-face with two vestals. Before they could react, his hand shot out, lightly touching the nearest on her wrist. She rounded on her companion with teeth bared. He left them rolling on the ground, trading vicious blows.

  The blood trail was thick and dark and led straight to the main doors where, to Malach’s fury, it vanished in the torrential rain. He stepped outside, short dark hair whipping in the gale. Lines of cars moved towards the gates. The bells tolled and tolled. Not a single Ward shone in the night. Knights poured out of their garrison, rushing in the direction of the Pontifex’s Palace.

  This was not for him. So what had happened?

  Ley swirled at his feet, swift and deep. It had been rising for days, yes, but enough to blow all the Wards at once? Such an event was unprecedented.

  Or could it possibly have been Lezarius?

  If it was indeed the man who had made Void, Malach doubted he would die so easily.

  Still, he was having second thoughts about Falke’s claim. Spirit a Pontifex away to some far-flung asylum and install a puppet in his place? For what purpose? At face value, it was ridiculous.

  But the very improbability almost made Malach believe it. In fact, he could think of several reasons. Lezarius might have Turned and it was too much of an embarrassment to admit he’d gone mad so the Curia hid him away. Or one of his rivals could be behind it.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  What he really wanted was to tear the Arx apart, stone by stone, until he found the cardinal, but revenge would have to wait. Malach pulled his hood up and ran to intercept one of the cars, waving his arms. It slowed. The driver’s side window rolled down.

  “What is it, brother?” The priest behind the wheel was young, with the milky skin and dimpled cheeks of a farmboy. When he saw the Golden Bough on Malach’s cassock, he sat up straighter. “Ah, I mean Father.”

  “Where’s everyone going?”

  The boy cast him a strange look. “We’ve been called out to restore order. The Invertido are loose, Father.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  He shrugged. “A surge of the ley. The Wards will be back soon enough.”

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know, Father. An hour or so.”

  Malach leaned down. “Get out of the car.”

  The boy stared at him. At the Broken Chain glowing forge-red along his collarbone. A dagger appeared from his cassock, but Malach caught his hand mid-strike. The boy’s eyes dilated to black holes. A choking sob tore from his throat. A sound of utter hopelessness and despair. He twisted toward the passenger seat and drove the blade into his partner’s chest, six rapid blows, then sheathed it in his own heart.

  Malach dragged the bodies from their seats and rolled them into the bushes. The dagger was still inside the car. He set it neatly on the dashboard. He threw the gearshift into drive and floored the pedal, humming tunelessly.

  It was a lovely night for a bloodbath.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Deep below the Arx, the water was rising.

  It sloshed around Alexei’s knees as he used Kasia’s hairpin to pry at the lock of his cell. He’d been scratching away for hours with no progress. The heavy chains around his legs would drag him down when the flood peaked. He’d called out for the guards, but either they couldn’t hear him or they had gone.

  Alexei jiggled the hairpin, but he had only a superficial understanding of locks and a prison cell would hardly be simple to crack, even with the proper tools. He gave a hard, frustrated twist and the pin slipped from his fingers. Alexei dropped to hands and knees, fingers groping across the slimy stone, but it was gone.

  The last torch died. Even the phantoms had deserted him.

  Someone gave a dry chuckle. It took a moment to realize it was himself.

  Alexei listened to the rush of water, trying to calculate how long it would take before the level overtopped the bars. The rise had been slow at first, a few centimeters an hour, but it was faster now. Would they bother to collect his corpse, or would it be left to drift in the cold and black like the bloated cargo of a shipwreck?

  The Ward on his manacles gave off a glimmer of light, though it failed to penetrate the darkness pressing in on all sides.

  I will make my peace before I go.

  Alexei closed his eyes. Battered as his faith might be, it was all he had left. He ran the pad of his thumb over the corax and the words engraved around the edge. Foras admonitio. Without warning. The motto of the Beatus Laqueo.

  Saints, watch over my brother. If his end must come, make it swift and painless.

  Blood thundered in his ears. The sound grew louder and he realized it was not inside his head at all. He hooked an arm around the bars, bracing for the wall of floodwater that must be racing down the corridor. The Ward above his cell winked out, followed by the Ward on the manacles. Utter darkness descended.

  Something swept through him like a fresh breeze on a humid summer’s day. The knot in his gut loosened. Despite his circumstances, Alexei felt pleasantly relaxed. A surge of the ley. It had to be. He’d never experienced it before because the Curia always released the excess power before it could overtop the Wards.

  He smiled. Heads would roll for this. And for once, it wouldn’t be his.

  The dull roar receded. Alexei drew ley into his Marks as if he’d crawled across a desert to find a sparkling oasis. He did not try to touch the abyssal ley again. Never again. But he bathed in the violet light of the liminal layer, letting his need flow outward into the rushing current.

  After a time, distant splashes echoed on the stone walls.

  “Hello?” Alexei yelled. “Is someone there?”

  The glow of a torch appeared. It was two priests he knew from General Directorate, though not well. Both were low-ranking aides. His mind had cleared enough to recall their names, Zsolt and Kelemen.

  “You’re being released,” Zsolt said. “By order of the Pontifex.”

  It was what he’d prayed for, but the liminal ley rarely operated in so direct a fashion. “Why?”

  They glanced at each other. “There’s a problem at the Institute. You’re to report to the kennels immediately.”

  His pulse skipped. “What problem?”

  Kelemen stood against the far wall of the corridor, silently watching, while Zsolt unlocked the cell. They’d placed the torch in a bracket. Reflected flames danced across the black water.

  “A mass escape when the ley surged.” The priest withdrew a second, smaller set of keys. “Turn around. I’ll unlock your leg irons.”

  Alexei hesitated. “Where’s Fra Spassov?”

  “Waiting for you at the Tower of Saint Dima.” He made an impatient gesture. “Turn around.”

  Kelemen stepped into the cell, standing just behind Zsolt. His hands were hidden in the sleeves of his cassock.

  The bitter taste of adrenaline flooded Alexei’s mouth. “Did Archbishop Kireyev send you?”

  “Just turn around. Did you not hear me? You’ve been released!”

  Alexei started to turn his back. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kelemen’s ungloved hands come u
p. Alexei spun, driving an elbow. The priest staggered back, blood spouting from his nose. Alexei reached for the iron bars as a thin cord fell around his neck. It tightened until blackness throbbed behind his eyes.

  Zsolt’s breath panted against his ear. “I have him.”

  The cell bars receded down a narrow tunnel. Alexei scrabbled wildly and managed to get a hand over Zsolt’s. He bared his teeth, drawing ley directly from the priest’s own Marks. Zsolt screamed. His feet slipped in the water and they tumbled backward, Alexei landing on top. A snap like a twig breaking and the body beneath him went still. He tore at the noose and rolled away, coughing.

  Zsolt sat against the wall. His neck was twisted at an odd angle, eyes half-closed and glassy.

  A one-in-a-hundred stroke of luck.

  “Demon,” Kelemen spat.

  Alexei leapt at the priest with savage ferocity. He got him in a hammerlock and forced his head under the water. When Kelemen began to weaken, Alexei released him. The priest sputtered while Alexei dug through Zsolt’s pockets. No keys. They must have fallen. He focused on the spot he’d been standing when they entered the cell, methodically sweeping his fingers through the dark water. Just where the cell bars met the corridor, he brushed metal.

  Please, don’t let it be the hairpin.

  The current almost had it. Alexei licked his lips, taking infinite care not to push the object out of reach. He doubted he would ever find it again.

  At the edge of vision, he saw Zsolt slowly slide down the wall and come to rest on his side in the filthy water. His eyes were fixed on Alexei.

  I killed a priest. It was no accident. I made it happen. Saints forgive me . . . .

  Numb fingers closed around the keys. He unlocked the manacles and leg irons. Kelemen was unsteadily gaining his feet when Alexei limped from the cell and slammed the door shut. Happily, Zsolt had left that key sticking out of the lock.

  “Pray the storm breaks soon, brother,” he said coldly.

  “Wait!” Kelemen reached through the bars. “Don’t leave me.”