Chapter Three
WORDS IN METAL
A man was waiting for me, one of the servants. He introduced himself as Harold, personal attendant to the Lady Tomb. He had high white hair, thin on the sides. He nodded to me as I stepped out of the roaring applause and turned, walking down a hallway, deeper into the estate. I looked around, but no one else left the theater. There must be other exits, though, someplace for the performers to rest and retire without troubling the guests. Harold got ahead of me, so I hurried to catch up.
Though there were no windows this deep, I could tell it was still raining. The air smelled like water and lightning. The lightning might have been the frictionlamps that glowed along the tight, immaculate hallway, but who knows. The whole place smelled like bad weather. The polish of the dark wood flashed as I walked along it, shinier than silver.
High and White led me to a parlor, a room carpeted in deep blue with walls of dark wood and old metal fittings. The Lady was waiting, faced away from me. She was still in her black and gray, but in this empty room the get-up looked unnecessarily fancy. The room might have once been a library or shrine. There were walls of shelves and glass display cases on three sides, but they were all bare. Nothing but dust and the Lady. She held a glass of wine and gazed at a plaque on the wall. There was another glass on a shelf by the door, condensation beading on its side and running down the fragile stem. The servant nodded to Tomb and left, closing the door behind him. I took the wine and went to stand by her.
“Did you enjoy our show, Mr. Burn?” she asked. Her voice was soft, none of the mocking formality from earlier.
“I did. It was chosen well.”
She nodded absently. “I thought Mr. Valentine might send someone, eventually. When I saw your name on the guest list, I thought it might be you.” She took a drink of wine and turned to face me. “Is it?”
“I can’t visit my childhood haunts? Have dinner with some of my old Corps mates? See a show? You offered me an invitation. I accepted.”
She snorted and looked back to the plaque. It was old brass, set in a stone that had probably been hauled here from Veridon in secret. It was the Tomb Writ of Name. We had one too, somewhere. I hadn’t seen it in years.
“It doesn’t seem like much, does it? Just metal and words.”
“Metal, words, and power, my Lady.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We do many things for that, Angela. We do what we must.”
She turned her head to me. “So why are you here then, Jacob Burn? Here to visit old friends?”
For a moment I wished it was true, that my visit was just social, that my invitation had come from her, rather than Valentine. I gave her the music box. She opened it, glanced over at me as the music filled the room. She set her wine down.
“Well,” she said, quietly. She placed the music box on the shelf by her head and stared at it absently. “Such a thing. Not what I was expecting. I suppose I see why they sent you.”
“Pardon?”
“Oh... it’s nothing. A bit of nostalgia. Someone is playing a bit of a trick on me.” She closed the box almost sadly, then turned to me.
“It is good to see you again, Jacob. Even in these circumstances.” She leaned casually against the plaque, her fingers brushing the ancient metal. “Even if you are on the job.”
“Good to see you, too. How are things in the Council?”
“More interesting than they’ve any right to be. You should visit more often. The Families, I mean.” She giggled quietly. “I can’t imagine you wanting to visit the Council sessions.”
“Not someplace I’d be welcomed, anyway.” I smiled. Angela and I had never been that close, but it was nice to be remembered.
“Yes, your father. And those horrid factory people, buying out so many of the Families. But I’m glad the Burns have stayed with us.”
“Well. None of my doing,” I said. She shrugged.
“Perhaps. Will you be staying the night?”
“What, here? I hadn’t known it was that sort of party.”
She laughed again, and years fell away. She suddenly looked overdressed, like a noble daughter in her mother’s finest, awkward.
“It’s not, not yet. We’ll see how things end.”
“I can’t stay. Business in the city. But perhaps some other time. It’d be good to spend some time in the country again.”
“Hm. Yes, perhaps.” She closed the music box and took up her glass of wine. “You’ll forgive me, but I have a party to attend. Um.” She paused as she crossed to the door. “Perhaps you should stay here for a bit. You know, for propriety.”
“Of course.” I drank from my glass of wine and nodded.
She left the room by the same door I had entered. I waited, listening to her tromp down the hallway. I looked again at the music box, shrugged, and drank my wine. When it sounded as though the Lady Tomb had left the immediate area, I nodded my respects to the lonely plaque, left my wine glass on a nearby shelf, and went into the hallway.
I walked quickly, anxious to make my exchange with Prescott. I was lost in thought, my mind on the strange man in the theater and trying to decide how to make the deal with Prescott discreetly so I could get the fuck off this mountain and back to Veridon, when Harold slipped silently from a side passage and began walking beside me. He was carrying something under his arm.
“Mr. Burn. Was your meeting satisfactory?”
“I suppose. I’ll be needing transport down to the city at the earliest convenience.” I wanted to get back to Emily, find out what else she might know about the deal with Prescott. “I need to be in Veridon within the hour.”
“I’m afraid that will be impossible, sir. The storm has grounded the fleet. Not even our private ships are willing to brave it, sir.”
“I’ll take a cab. I trust the roads are still open.”
“Perhaps. But other arrangements have been made, sir. The Manor Tomb has been opened for the evening. The party will be staying the night, to return to Veridon in the morning.”
“Just arrange the cab.” I turned to go, to find Prescott and make the drop. Harold put his hand on my elbow.
“I have just this moment spoken to Ms. Angela. She insisted that no one would be leaving tonight, sir. Assuming that I could get a hold of a cab at this hour, it would take most of the night for it to get here and return to the city. You will get home sooner if you stay the night and take a zepliner in the morning. With the rest of the guests, sir.”
I sighed and settled my hands into my pockets. I didn’t like it, but he was right. And it gave me more time to make the Prescott deal cleanly, without rushing. Maybe even look in on Mister Blue Eyes.
“Fair enough. Rooms are being provided?”
“Of course. As soon as the accommodations are ready, you will be shown your room. In the meantime, refreshments are being provided in the Grand Hall.”
“Swell,” I said. I tried to leave for a second time.
“One more thing, sir.” He held up the package. It was about the size of a professor’s book, wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied with twine. The paper was soaked. “This came for you, on the same zep that brought the... entertainment. I would have had it to you sooner, of course, but things have been hectic.”
I took the package. It was heavy and solid, wood or metal under the damp wrapping. My name was written in smooth ink across the front.
“Sure, no problem. You have some place I could open this with a little privacy?”
“Certainly, sir.” His eyes twitched, delighted for a little intrigue. “This way, sir.”
* * * *
The room he led me to was empty except for a dusty old table and a window without drapes. Lot of empty rooms in this place. He shut the door and I set the lock before putting the package on the table.
The paper was damp, had been much wetter at some point and had time to dry. The ink of my name was a little blotted. It fit with the story, that this had arrived on the last zep up.
I cut the twine with my pocket knife and unwrapped the paper. Inside was a well-kept wooden box, with a hinge and a clasp that was made for locking but was presently unsecured. There was no note. A small steel plaque in the middle of the lid was blank. I opened the box. The interior was velvet-lined and custom built to hold a pistol. It was a Corps service revolver, intricately decorated with brass engravings. There were a dozen shells, each held individually in velvet notches beside the weapon. I picked it up and examined the chamber. Five shells were loaded, one chamber was empty. I closed the chamber. The handle felt very cold and slightly wet, as though the mechanism had been over-oiled. Across the barrel was engraved the pistol’s provenance. It read FCL GLORY OF DAY.
It was the pistol from the crash, the pistol I had used to shoot Marcus, retrieved from the river. I stared at it in dull shock, then loaded the empty chamber, pocketed the extra shells and closed the box.
Who had sent it? That guy, the one who had jumped at the last second? Was that really him, out there on the stage, dressed as an Artificer? Everyone else was dead, weren’t they? Had he seen me shoot Marcus? And what the fuck did this mean, sending me a pistol in a box?
I crossed to the window, cranked it open and squinted into the storm. The sky was tremendously loud, hammering into the room with a demon’s roar. I hurled the box and its wrapping out the window, down the cliff and away. Then I closed the window, unlocked the door and went out. I needed a towel, and a drink, and a deal. And while I was at it, I was going to have a little talk with shifty blue eyes. Maybe the pistol would come in handy after all.
* * * *
I sat at the bar and thought about the gun, about what it might mean. Was there another survivor from the ship, part of the crew who had seen me shoot Marcus? If so, what would they care? He was responsible for the crash, he was dying from that belly wound... it didn’t make sense. And if there were other survivors, where had they recuperated, and why were they revealing themselves now, and in this manner? And how had they gotten the gun? I had lost it in the crash, assumed that it had gone down with the Glory to the bottom of the Reine. I had trouble believing that guy had survived his jump. It had been a long way down, and the Reine was a cold, dark river.
But if it wasn’t a survivor, then who? I had been out for days after they’d dredged me out of the Reine. I didn’t remember that time, other than a few brief glimpses of white walls and machinery. I might have talked. I might have said anything while the fever in my blood burned through me, repairing me, consuming and re-creating me.
There were people who lived in the river, of course. People might not be the right word. The Fehn, we called them. Some of the folks who disappeared under the Reine’s black surface came back later, breathing water and gurgling worms, talking like they had been gone a thousand years, had seen the foundation of the city, and were coming back. I had a friend down there, a Wright of the Church. Old friend of the family. Maybe I should ask him.
Who would have cause and opportunity? That’s where to start. Not many people knew I was here. Lady Tomb, obviously. Prescott, and whatever connections he might have. Valentine and Emily.
My first thought was Tomb. The package had appeared shortly after our conversation. She could have given it to the butler to give to me. That would explain her sudden insistence on letting me stay, if she was going to plant some kind of evidence or accuse me of a crime. She might have arranged it in anticipation of the meeting going badly. But what did she know about the events on the Glory?
Valentine? This mission had come from him, originally, so he obviously knew I was here. And he was fond of cryptic messages. The man was a puzzle himself, and he liked putting his people in difficult situations, to test them. Made for a tight organization. But again, I could see no purpose behind it, nor how it would be tied to the Glory. I wasn’t getting anywhere.
None of it made any sense. If it was a threat, either from some hidden survivor, or Tomb, or gods forbid Valentine, it was too obscure for me. If it was a clue, again, I wasn’t even aware that there was a puzzle. Too many things about tonight’s deal didn’t line up, and the more pieces I stumbled across, the worse things got.
If I’d talked about shooting Marcus while I was recovering, anyone might know it. Maybe not the specifics, but enough to know that producing a service revolver from the dead ship would rattle me. But whichever way I thought about it, everything came back to the last flight of the Glory of Day.
Which meant it had something to do with that artifact Cog. Right? That made sense, more than anything else tonight. The Cog. I’d left it with Emily, down in Veridon, and now I was worried about her, concerned that I’d exposed her to some danger without realizing. I stood up from the bar, took my drink and walked around the hall without talking, without even seeing. I kept a hand on the pistol in my jacket pocket, running my finger over the cool metal of the engraving on the handle. Nothing I could do, right now, and I didn’t like that. I preferred active solutions to passive responses. The fastest way down the mountain was to just sit here and wait for the weather to clear. Unless I stole a carriage from the Tomb livery. Surely they’d have a garage. I stood by the fire and thought about that one, hard, weighing the anger that would earn me from Angela and her family against the perceived danger to Emily.
I didn’t really know there was anything actively dangerous going on, did I? Might just be a coincidence that guy looked like one of my dead fellow passengers. And whatever relationship was forming between the Family Tomb and Valentine’s organization was fragile. Borrowing a carriage could tip that balance, which could put me in a world of trouble with Valentine, trouble I didn’t need.
I discarded that idea, got another drink and found a quiet corner near the windows, thought about the peril Emily might be in.
Who knew that I had given the Cog to Emily? No one. Who even knew that I had it? Marcus? He was shot, burned up, crashed and drowned. But someone knew, the pistol in my pocket said that clearly enough. And if they knew that... it was no good. Sitting here, all I could do was worry and drink, and that wasn’t solving anything. Best to not worry, then. Probably best to not drink, either. Still had a deal to do.
I found Prescott with a tangle of other officers near the fireplace. I found an appropriate room, one with doors that led to the Great Hall as well as the service corridors that ran down the spine of the house, then spoke to one of the hiregirls Tomb had brought in from the local village. When the girl brought Prescott in a few minutes later I showed her to the other door and gave her twenty crown.
“Anybody see you?” I asked once the girl had left.
“Of course they did. She was insistent and rude.” He adjusted the cuffs of his coat. Looked like the girl had dragged him in. “You have the drugs?”
“I have no idea,” I said, and handed him the envelope. He sniffed the paper and grimaced. He disappeared it, produced another envelope and handed it to me. Felt like paper, folded over and over again. I put it away, next to the pistol.
“You aren’t going to check it?”
I shrugged. “People don’t cheat Valentine. Smart people, at least.”
“Well. I suppose not. We’re done here?” He motioned to the door. I shook my head.
“You’re with a whore. Give it a little time, unless you want everyone making fun of you.” He frowned, then sat on the bed, folding his hands across his knees. “You’re new. Never worked with you before.”
“No, I’m not. But you’ve never worked with me because this isn’t my usual thing.” I put my hands in my pockets and leaned against the wall opposite the bed.
“Drugs?”
“Talking to people.” I grinned.
He shifted uncomfortably and looked away.
We sat like that for a minute, long enough that he was on edge.
“What do you know about five bullets in a gun? Five bullets and an empty chamber?” He jumped, but not in the way I was hoping.
“Sorry, I don’t understand. Is that some kind of threat?”
“Twice tonight, people have asked me that. Twice. All the years I’ve been doing this, you think people would know when I’m making a threat.”
“So... so it’s a threat.”
I sighed and flipped my hand at the door. “Long enough. Get out of here, Register.” He nodded sharply and got out. I locked the door behind him, in case some other affectionate couple thought about using the room immediately. Wanted a few minutes before I returned to the hall. I had just turned from the door when the knob rattled, very quietly. Someone trying to open the door without making a racket.
Drawing the pistol, I turned and backed to the other door, the one that led to the service corridors. I opened it as quietly as I could and stepped inside. This hallway was plain and warm, but the floor was thickly carpeted to allow butlers and maids to slip through the house without bothering their betters. There was no one around at the moment, so I pulled the door nearly closed and waited.
Whoever was trying to get in was insistent. When the door didn’t immediately open they hesitated. A second later there was a scratching sound, and the knob began to hum. That was a keygear, tumbling the lock hard. These doors weren’t made to withstand that kind of attention and it popped in no time.
The door slid open, just a little, just enough to reveal a sliver of face and an eye, cloud blue. His hand rested on the doorknob. The cuff was dark blue; an Artificer’s cuff. He looked around the room, saw that it was empty, and disappeared. I stayed long enough to see an officer enter a minute later, each arm around a girl. I left them to it, pocketed the pistol and crept down the service corridor, eventually returning to the hall by way of the kitchens.
I made a slow circuit of the main hall, looking for my light-eyed admirer. Most folks were milling about, talking in tight clusters or roaring drunkenly at the bar. The Corpsmen were the worst off; the night was in honor of a dead zep, after all. They were nervous, and making up for it with drink and song. I understood. I had spent a fair amount of time lost in drink. Less song, but that was my merciful side showing.
He was nowhere to be seen. There was no one in an Artificer’s uniform anywhere in the room. I thought he might have dumped the outfit, so I paid close attention to people’s eyes. That almost started a couple fights. I still came up empty, and now the night was winding down, drunks wandering off to their rooms and servants scurrying about to clear the detritus.
“Councilor Burn, is it?” A voice behind me asked.
I turned. There was a man standing against the wall, a glass of whiskey in his hand. The ice in his drink had melted and separated, the thin amber of the liquor at the bottom, water at the top of the glass. The man’s suit was impeccably tailored; all black, with velvet cuffs and links of silver polished white. It was civilian garb, but he held himself with military precision. His eyes were dark and his head was bald. When he smiled it was without emotion; it was like watching a puppet smile.
“I am not,” I said. “Though my father holds that title. And you are?”
“Apologies, sir.” He tipped his head and offered a hand. He was wearing thin leather gloves, soft as a lady’s cheek. We shook. There was surprising power in his grip. “I am Malcolm Sloane. Your father may have spoken of me? No?” he said, without waiting for a reaction. “Perhaps not. But we are acquainted. You must be his son, then. Jacob. The interesting one.”
I adjusted my coat, flashed a bit of the pistol, enough to let him know he was talking on unfriendly ground. His smile became genuine.
“My. Yes. Interesting one, indeed. I must say, Mr. Jacob, I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I was invited.”
“Of course. I mean, just,” he waved his hand at all the people around us, most of them in uniform. “You’re not a very popular man with the Corps. You don’t worry about that?”
“I should worry?” I asked.
“Well, I mean. A lot of young recruits, all of them drinking. You aren’t worried that one of them will drink a bit much. Talk too much, maybe dare too much? Try to start a fight.”
I snorted. “Fights start sometimes. I can handle myself.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. Still. It’s something to think about.” He smiled coldly and looked out at the crowd. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe none of them have the balls.” He said that word strangely, like a very proper man trying to swear to fit in with the rough crowd. “But maybe they do something cowardly, hm? In the dead of night. A gun.” He turned back to me. “You are, after all, a very unpopular man.”
“How did you say you knew my dad?”
“Acquaintances. Old acquaintances. So.” He set down the glass of liquor and patted my arm. “Just be careful, Mr. Jacob Burn. There are some desperate people here, I think. Ah,” his eyes narrowed as he looked across the room. “You’ll pardon me.”
I turned to see where he was looking. Angela Tomb was making her way through the partygoers, trying to wrap things up for the night. When I turned back the strange Mr. Sloane was gone.
I sighed and finished my drink, then found Harold and plucked at his sleeve.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Those Guildsmen, the Artificers. Did they already head home?”
“No, sir. They’ve been made comfortable.”
“Where?”
“Sir?”
“Where are they staying? What room?”
“The, uh. The entertainment, sir, does not usually mingle with the guests.”
“Just tell me what room, okay?” I slipped the only hard currency I had brought with me into his palm. “Let’s just say I’m a curious guy.”
“Of course, sir. They are housed in the servants’ quarters, near the zepdock.”
“Stairs down somewhere?”
“Near the kitchens, sir. Just this side of the theater.”
“Thanks.” I cuffed him on the shoulder, then headed to my room. Didn’t want to look too anxious.
The storm kept going, maybe even got worse. Angela had given me a third floor room with a window. Not a benefit on a night like this. The room had been closed up all winter, only opened hours earlier by the servants. The air was stale, and the sheets smelled like dust and cobwebs. The heavy curtains gusted with the storm outside, evidence of drafts in the old walls.
I lay in bed, fully clothed, until I figured everyone else was asleep or passed out. I took the pistol out from where I’d hidden it, checked the load again, then snuck out into the hall.
The lights in the hallway were dimmed. The carpet swallowed my footsteps as I crept downstairs. I got down to the servants corridors without anyone seeing me. It was quiet down there too, and dark. No windows out, just cold stone floors and wood paneling. I crept along, quiet as a cat. There were a lot of doors down here. Perhaps I could have gotten a little more detail out of Harold for my money.
I didn’t have to look long. They left the lights on, and their door open. It was around a corner from the main stairs, away from the rest of the servants. Not unusual... people got nervous around Artificers. All those bugs and their history of heresy. I came around the corner and smelled it, that heat-stink of fear and shit, like a slaughterhouse. I took out the pistol and thumbed the hammer up.
They were dead. It happened quietly, no mess, no fuss. They had been sleeping, the Guildsmen all in one room on tiny bunks. The master was in a different room off to one side. Each had a stab wound, straight into the heart. I didn’t check them all. I got the idea, after the first couple. There was another room, opposite the master’s bed, where the Summer Girl had slept, probably. She was gone. Signs of a struggle in here, piss on the floor, some blood on a broken bottle. She had swung at her attacker. Probably woke up while her keepers had been breathing their last. Tried to defend herself. Where was she now? And why kill all these folks? Not like it was self-defense.
I went back into the main room. It smelled in here, more than it should. I went back to the tidy bodies, checking each one. It was the fourth one. He’d been dead for a while, maybe two weeks. And he wasn’t an Artificer.
His bloated chest strained against the buttons of his military jacket. Square cut, the cuffs braided in the traditional knots of the Air Corps. But he wasn’t a Pilot. Patches were torn off his sleeve and chest, the threads dangling. His buttons were iron and stamped in the double fists of the Marines. Assault trooper. Heavily modded, his bones and organs sheathed in metal cuffs, iron plates welded just beneath the skin. A little engine so he could walk longer, march harder, fight until the bullets ran out. What was he doing here? And why had the Guildsmen been lugging around a two-week old dead body?
I stuck my hand into his jacket pocket, fished around. Bits and bobs, dirt, some pictures of a girlfriend or something. Finally, an ID card. Not the slickest murderer, whoever had done him. Took the time to strip his jacket of unit patches, but left his ID card in his pocket. Sergeant Wellons. The card was worn and dirty, the edges ragged like a favorite book. I didn’t recognize the unit, and he listed no ship. Maybe a garrison assignment, somewhere? Still. I pocketed it and left.
I was getting a little worried about Harold. People were going to find these bodies; people were going to ask questions. Eventually Harold was going to say something about how I was asking where the Artificers were staying, and then maybe people would be coming to ask me questions. I would have to have a word with Harold. Clear things up, before they could get messy. But first, I had to find out where my friend was. Why he’d killed these nice people, and what he wanted with me.
Wasn’t Prescott a Register? Yeah, he was in charge of unit assignments and personnel. He might know this Wellons guy. Might at least be able to find out where he was stationed. Seemed like a golden opportunity. I’d drop by Prescott’s room, give him the ID card and a way to contact me, and I’d go and find Harold. Then I’d find my friend, and we’d straighten out our differences. Prescott was somewhere near the main hall, probably near my own room.
I found it, sure enough. Again, his was the open door. This time there was more blood. Plenty more. The window to his room was open, too, and the storm was gusting in. I went in and shut the door, then secured the window. His tablelamp was humming quietly, next to an upturned book of erotic poetry.
Prescott was sprawled across his bed, his fingers curled around a gun belt that still held the pistol, peace-locked in place. I pushed him over carefully. His ribs grinned up at me. I let him settle back onto the bed. There was blood all over the floor, thinned out by the rain that had blown in the window. Blotchy footprints circled the bed, but the wind and rain had disfigured them significantly. The mess was all over my feet.
I was seriously freaked. I didn’t want to talk to Harold, didn’t want to find my creepy friend. I wanted to get the fuck out of this house and down the mountain back to Veridon. Nobody heard anything? It happened fast. A lot of drunks in the rooms around us, but still. Whoever killed Prescott had done it quick, and quiet. I wiped my feet carefully on Prescott’s bed sheets, turned off his light, and then snuck out into the hall. Back to my room, so I could collect my coat and the stuff Prescott had given to me to deliver to Valentine. I was going back to town, even if it meant walking.
I almost got to my room before I ran into the guards. I ducked into a draped windowsill, just deep enough to hide me if I held my breath and thought skinny thoughts. They were sneaking up to my room. Ten of them, maybe more, with rifles and truncheons. They were Tomb House Guards.
They settled around the door to my room, checked the loads on their guns, then nodded among themselves. One of them, a sergeant, stepped forward and pounded on my door.
“Master Burn! By the authority of the Council of Veridon, spoken for by the Lady Tomb, we have a warrant for your arrest and detention. Please open the door!”
He waited half a breath, then put his shoulder into the door. I hadn’t locked it when I left, and it burst open. I got a good view of my empty room. They milled about in the entrance, poking their rifles at the bed and under the covers, talking loudly. I started to go. Something caught my eye.
There was a sudden hard scrabble against my window, like hail or teeth on a water glass. I watched the window burst. The storm disappeared, to be replaced by a complexity of darkness and metal. There was a man standing, or nearly a man. His clothes were sodden and torn, the skin beneath like a dead man’s skin, ivory and shot through with black veins. He had one hand on the sill, jagged glass snagging the flesh, and one of his feet was already in the room. Behind him flat planes of oiled metal shifted and ruffled, shiny leaves flexing against the buffeting winds. Wings. He had wings of coiling metal.
He came into the room, clenching his wings to fit through the window. Wet hair hung in ringlets around his face, a jaw line like a storm front, lips and skin that were porcelain smooth. And his eyes, blue so light that it looked like the thinnest clouds over sky.
The guards panicked. They fell back before him, rifles raised, yelling. He ignored them. He looked out the door into the hallway. Right at me.
“You are Jacob Burn,” he said. His voice was a trick, tiny pistons and valves pushing air through the long hissing whisper of organ pipes. I raised the pistol and fired over the heads of the guards. The report was enormous; it filled the hallway with sharp smoke. The shot went into his chest, and my second took him just below the throat. He winced, bent forward like he’d been punched. When he straightened again his face was smooth. He raised a hand and it flickered, skin and bone shuffling away in a lethal origami, replaced by smooth, sharp metal. His arm became a knife. There was already blood on it.
The guards looked at me. Some of them turned to make that arrest they were talking about earlier. The rest kept their eyes on the angel. The close ones crowded around me, trying to keep me boxed in.
“Gentlemen,” I said tensely and dived into their ranks. “Pardon.”
They reached for me, would have taken me but the Angel crashed through after me. Two of them fell, their bones cracking like fireworks as he tore through them. There was shouting and I ran.
I took the first stairway, even though it led up and every exit was down. Panic. The next floor was closed, but I popped the door. It was quiet here, smelled like mold and linen. Footsteps hammered on the floor below, crowds mustering to the disaster. There was gunfire and the dreadful sound of bodies snapping. I walked quietly to a bedroom and slipped inside.
The room was empty, just a heavily worn rug and a window. The storm continued. The sounds of fighting had slowed, though they may have been masked by the wind and rain at my back. I knelt and fumbled two new shells into the revolver. I stayed there, breathing hard. It was quiet now, just the rain pounding the glass. I shifted to be able to watch both the window and the door.
I looked down at the gun. Had he sent it? He was on the zep, he might have known about Marcus. But if he intended to attack me, why arm me? Then again, the shot didn’t seem to hurt him. I checked the cylinder, to see if the rounds that had been loaded were tricks, some kind of stagecraft mummery. I emptied them into my palm, turned them over with my thumb as I examined them in the dim light from the window. The dull brass cylinders looked real enough.
There was a rattling in the hallway. I caught my breath, and started reloading the gun as quietly as I could, the bullets slippery in my sweaty fingers as I struggled to slot them home. Footsteps, and the dry-leaf scraping of his wings on the walls and ceiling. I looked up, saw that I had forgotten to lock the door and dropped a bullet. I scooped it up, dumped the whole handful of loose shells and the revolver into my jacket pocket and ran to the window. He was outside the door, and the window was storm bolted.
I threw my shoulder against it and the glass splintered, the lead panes bending like a net. Again and a couple panes snapped, slicing my coat and my skin. He opened the door smoothly and hurtled in. I hit the window, he hit me, and we both burst out into the storm.
Tumbling down the slate roof, I kicked out and made a lucky hit. We separated and I hooked my arm around a chimney. There was blood leaking out of me, damage from the window and whatever brief contact there had been with the angel’s wicked arm. I scrambled, trying to find him, finding nothing but the roaring storm. Something was wrong with my shoulder, and I felt my grip going away. A flash of lightning and I saw wings, diving. I let go.
I slithered down the roof, just clearing the chimney as he hit it. There was a dull thud above me. Splinters of slate shot past and the roof shook. I dug fingers into the flooding shingles, slapped at chimneys as they flew past. A bump and I was over the edge. I was falling and screaming the shredded air from my lungs. As I fell into a crash my legs collapsing and then something popped and became a rain of glass and more blood and tearing and falling.
I ended up in the Great Hall. I was bleeding red and black, the oil of my deepest heart mingling with my common blood. High above I could see the fractured skylight and a thin column of rain coming through. There were wings crouching, flashing past. He started to come through, unfolding as he emerged.
I stood. There was a lot of business at the other end of the room, a lot of voices and movement. Most of the Corpsmen were there, standing by a hastily constructed barricade that cut off the wing that held my former room. They were variously dressed and armed, very drunk men in pajamas wielding hunting rifles and croquet mallets. When they saw me, several of them formed a firing line. They couldn’t see what was above, what was coming down.
Just a flash, but I saw several Councilors standing nearby, their faces cold and terrified. Angela stood with them, still in her complicated dress, her knuckles white across the barrel of a shotgun. She looked at me and blanched. The Corpsmen were getting closer.
“What did you summon, Jacob Burn?” Lady Tomb yelled, her voice shrill. “What darkness followed you into my house?”
I shot a look at the Corpsmen and their rifles, then up at the angel. He was almost through, his wings unfolding to descend. I couldn’t see his face or his body, just the swirling mass of wings. I jumped, hit the balcony door and rolled outside. My bones were screaming with pain. Maybe I was screaming too.
I kept my eyes up, but the rain was too much. I couldn’t see anything, not even the roof. I stumbled across the deck until my hand brushed the rough stone of the railing. I crouched and started to follow it. For now I just wanted to get away from the main house. Whatever the thing hunting me might be, I’d rather face it alone than worry about getting shot in the back by some sloshed Corpsman.
I turned to look at the house. The glass windows looked like a fogged aquarium, little more than shapes moving across the bright field of the Manor Tomb. As I watched a form fell from the ceiling, spreading out as it descended into the Great Hall. The Angel. The storm swallowed any sound, but there was a staccato brightness, gunshots, and tiny cracks appeared in the window. I was up and running, found the stairs to a lower balcony. They were narrow, with a small gate separating them from the balcony. I vaulted and clattered down the steps. Maybe the Corps and their rifles could manage the angel. Maybe not, but at least they’d buy me some time.
The central window shattered outward, spilling glittering glass and light out onto the balcony. A dark figure scurried out, disappearing into shadows. A line of Corpsmen appeared, bristling with rifles. They began to drag furniture and torchieres into the Manor’s newest entrance, shining light into the storm.
I kept moving. These stairs were rickety, clearly not meant for running down in the rain. The ground fell away below me, and I got the feeling I was moving between terraces. I lost sight of the Manor, though I could hear voices yelling out into the darkness. They hadn’t finished the thing, that’s for sure. It was still out here. I was shivering with damp and adrenaline.
The stairs led to a small ledge, with a shed and a steep set of stairs leading down. A maintenance area of some kind. I kicked open the shed door and went inside. It was a gardener’s storage shed, all right. A tiny frictionlamp clicked on as I opened the door, the mainspring sparking up. The light glittered off a wall full of tools, blades and shovels and spikes. I doused the light and took a hammer, then went back outside. I had just started on a downward stair when the thing landed, impacting the ledge hard. I froze, the hammer in my hand. Without looking at me, he rushed the shed, tore it apart. In the noise I clambered down, falling as I went. I ended up in the broad garden I had visited earlier that night. I ran for the path that had brought me here the first time.
The lawn was very wet, a spongy green plain. Up the hill I could see broken light from the Manor, wondered if the Corps would venture out into the dark to hunt me or help me. Plenty of people in that room wouldn’t mind seeing me dead, people who might take advantage of the current chaos to put me down. I looked up at the sky, found a trace of moon among the jagged clouds. The storm was breaking down the valley, though rain still fell hard on the Heights.
He was waiting at the broad stone path that snaked up to the balcony above. I had the pistol in my left hand, the hammer in my right. I thought about running, but his wings were clenching and unclenching above his shoulders, like a giant fist waiting to strike me down. He looked at the pistol and shrugged. I raised the hammer.
“You are Jacob Burn,” he said.
“Yes.” Water was streaming down my face. The flooded lawn was reaching muddy fingers between my toes. I felt ridiculous and cold, and I was too tired for a game of question and answer. “And you?”
“They are looking, Jacob Burn. They are waiting for you.”
“Who is?” I gestured with the pistol. “Is that what this is? Some kind of warning?”
He shook his head, slowly, once. He reached across the space between us, stepping forward until his open hand was near my heart.
“Give it to me, and this will end. I thought the man Marcus was the end of the chain, but it has come to you.”
I listened to the rain hammering against my shoulders, watched it form a puddle in the shallow cup of his palm. The artifact, the Cog, sitting on Emily’s desk.
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
I smirked and shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Yes,” he said, gathering my collar in his fist. “It does.”
I swung the hammer in a short, tight arc, keeping my elbow bent. The metal head buried into his temple. His hand fell from my coat, and he staggered backwards. I raised the pistol and got two shots off, pounding slugs into his right shoulder, before he lunged at me. We rolled across the lawn, hydroplaning on the grass, ending up side by side. I lost the pistol.
He screamed and came to his knees. It was an inhuman sound, a boiler bursting, metal torquing. His face was shattered in pain. He raised an arm and hidden mechanisms whirred, the hand folding and collapsing. I didn’t give him the chance. I brought the hammer around, swinging wide, smashing at his wrist and knuckles again and again. Metal popped and bent, gears and pistons tearing apart as axles came out of alignment and tore the machine apart. Then something else broke, meat cracking under the hammer and his hand hung limply at an awkward angle. His scream changed, pitching through agony and frustration into animal terror. He put his other hand on me, but I elbowed it aside then drove the hammer’s claw into his cheek. There was blood and bone, his skin came off in lumps that hit the wet ground and scurried away.
Shocked, I backed away. Half its face had crumbled, but there was something else behind it, pale white and bleeding. He threw himself at me, clubbing me with the ruined stump of his arm, the iron fingers of his other hand around my throat. I fell backwards. Twisting, I was able to get the hammer hooked against his chest. There was resistance, then blood, and I flung him over me. I struggled to my knees, gasping for air. When I looked up, he was throwing himself at me again, the wings beating and flailing, falling apart as he rushed me. I met him with the hammer, again and again, stumbling backwards as I struck, just staying out of reach of his hand, the whirring bloody machine of his stump, the hammer arcing back and forth, head then claw, head then claw, each blow hard and wet with gore.
The end was sudden, like a light being switched off. He fell to his knees, then his hands. His whole body seemed to pour off him. A glittering tide plunked into the water of the drowned lawn and swept out, tiny smooth shells like a ripple in a pond. When they had scurried away, they left behind a body, a girl. I turned her over with the hammer’s claw, red blood smearing across her white dress. It was the Summer Girl, the performer, her mouth open. The delicate machines of her mouth were clenching in the rain.
I fished out my pistol and headed back to the Manor. The lights were still on, the Corpsmen running around shouting and pointing rifles. I snuck along the side and went to the carriage house. I stole one of the
Tomb’s cogdriven carriages and crashed the gate, rumbling down the road, the long way to Veridon.