“Aev said, talk to no one.”
“A dark night is falling over this city, Shale. You can be with your people by moonrise if you tell me what I need to know.”
Green eyes flicked from the window to the strips of cloth that held him. A bright instant of calculation flashed across his face. “I…” His voice dropped. He was weaker than he looked. “I was to receive something from Judge Cabot.”
“Yes.” She approached the bed, reeled in by his sinking voice. “What was it? And remember, I can tell if you lie.” Also untrue, but he didn’t know that.
“Don’t know.” He shook his head. “Just a courier.”
“Why did you come into the city? Forty years with no Guardians in Alt Coulumb, then this, putting your whole Flight at risk. What did Judge Cabot have for you?”
“He was going to help us. He’d been dream-talking with Aev for months. Everyone was excited.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.” He was desperate, shaking his head.
“Yes. But we’ll come back to that. Tell me what you saw when you reached Cabot’s penthouse.”
The setting sun’s first shadow fell across Shale’s face, and his body twitched. The knotted sheets held.
“Tell me.”
“Blood,” he said.
“And in the blood?”
His nostrils flared. “A face. Surrounded by bones.”
“Cabot’s face?”
“Cabot. His body broken. Flayed, but he could speak.”
“What did he tell you?”
Shale looked away. She grabbed his chin, and forced him to face her. “Tell me. What did he say to you?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers flex. Silver-blue light crackled between them.
“What did he say, Shale?”
He opened his mouth. Something like a word came out. She leaned in to catch it.
But his mouth was not a human mouth anymore.
Cloth ripped and talons flashed. Beneath her was a creature ceasing to be human: skin now gray stone, muscles writhing and nerves rewiring themselves, whole being condensed in agony as wings unfurled from his back. His hooked beak spread to devour.
Tara fell back, screaming, and white light flashed between them.
*
Cat swam through a sea of need. She sat on the bed next to the vampire, who lay corpse-still beneath the sheets. Blood pounded through her veins, so much of it. She didn’t need it all.
Captain Pelham—no, call him the vampire, that made it easier—lay lost in the predatory dreams of his kind, dreams of chase and capture, not the tremulous scavenger hallucinations of mortal man. Like all beings, his kind had sleeping reflexes. Bring blood to their lips, and they would suck.
There are more important matters at stake than your satisfaction, a tiny part of her protested, small and alone in a cave at the back of her mind. The vampire is in fine condition. No harm befell him during the day. Your mission is fulfilled. Go back to Tara. Do your duty.
Duty was a dry well, and the world a cold promontory. Light, life, and glory waited within his teeth.
She lowered her bare wrist, and slid it between his lips. The inside of his mouth was cold as peppermint, and his fangs pressed against her skin.
Small, and sharp.
She placed her free hand behind his head for support. His hair scratched her palm like a nest of wires.
Don’t do it, that tiny part of her screamed. You’re better than this.
She jammed her wrist onto the tips of his fangs.
15
Tara’s scream did not stop Shale, but the shield of Craft she threw between them managed well enough. His talons raked across its translucent surface, once, twice, three times, scattering sparks that burned on tiles and furniture. She stumbled under the weight of his attack and fell, curling into a ball on the floor, but kept her hands and the shield between them.
Again he assailed her, and again her shield held. Tara gathered her legs deliberately beneath her and rose into a crouch. As she stood, she fixed Shale with the glare of a woman who could strangle gods on their thrones.
He froze for a fleeting moment, and through his eyes she traced the patterns of his thought. He had hoped to kill her quickly and flee to his people before the Blacksuits chased him down. Every wasted second reduced his chances of escape. Did his large ears detect the footfalls of Justice approaching their door?
Shale knew the steel inside her, and knew as well that he could not prevail against a Craftswoman and the Blacksuits together. He glanced over his shoulder toward the barred window. In that momentary pause, she drew her knife from the glyph above her heart.
There was no need to use it. He made the right choice, and leapt backward in a silver streak, somersaulting through the air to land facing the window. Tile cracked and splintered beneath his feet. One large hand ripped the metal bars free of their mooring, and another shattered the safety glass. Fluid as quicksilver, he leapt from the windowsill into space, teeth and claws naked and sharp, wings flared.
He landed with a thud on the fire escape of the building opposite, a God Wars–era pile of iron and red brick. Rusted metal creaked and bent under his weight but did not give. As Tara ran to the window he clamored up the metal frame, not bothering with the stairs. She marveled at him, swift, sure, strong.
But he wouldn’t believe in such an easy escape.
The sunset paled and the hospital lights guttered as she drank in tiny flames of ghostlight and candle. She cloaked herself with darkness and power. Shadows trickled through her muscles and covered her body.
Ten feet from here to the next building over, she judged. Four stories of fall. The hole in the wall was not large enough for a running leap. She climbed onto the windowsill as Shale reached the seventh story of the building opposite. One more level and he would flee faster than she could follow.
Tara leapt.
Empty air yawned beneath her. Arms straight out in front, fingers outstretched. She must have let out a battle cry of some kind, for Shale turned and saw her, almost soaring though she lacked wings. Seven feet. Eight. Reach. You can make it.
The tips of her fingers curled about the iron railing, then let go.
She fell.
She slammed into the fire escape one floor down. Had she not shifted power from her muscles to the shadows that protected her, the impact would have broken her elbow. Wind whistled about her; an iron rail bounced off her ribs. Flailing, she grabbed hold of a banister for a second. The sudden jolt nearly dislocated her arms. Her grip broke, but at least she was falling slower.
The paving stones hit her like a god’s hammer. Light exploded in her chest and behind her eyes. Through the haze that obscured the world, she saw Shale silhouetted against the clouds before he disappeared.
A flight of stone steps a few feet away led to the brick building’s basement door. She crawled to those steps and worked her way down them until she found a shady corner. Crouching there, she drew darkness close as a blanket. Anyone examining the alley from above would see only shadows.
She leaned back against the rough brick wall, and with her fingertips she tentatively explored the shelf of her ribs, her legs, her arms, the back of her skull. Her protective Craft had worked. She had a few bruises, one so deep it would surface slowly over the next several days, but no broken bones.
Her shoulder bag, with its needles and beakers and burners and silk and other implements of Craft, was a greater loss than any of her injuries, but there had been no other option. A savage assailant, hurried and carrying hostages, would not pause to collect their luggage. If the Blacksuits believed the gargoyle who stole their witness had taken her, too, they wouldn’t seek her out, and she would be free to work. Besides, leaving her belongings should dispel any suspicion on Justice’s part that Tara was kidnapper rather than kidnappee.