Shadows clustered around the trash bins ahead, and a rank stench rose from the open midden to their right. She turned on her heel to face him. “You get something from the deal, too.”
“You think I need your blood? Shit, look, not every vampire is a wrinkled-leather leech like those kids you score off in the Pleasure Quarters. Some of us have good relationships with the people we drink from. Some hunt. Some retrain, or drink off animals. Don’t make assumptions to soothe your grungy little addict’s ego.”
Outrage widened her eyes, and words of rebuttal strangled one another in their rush to escape her throat. Fortunately for them both, the muggers Cat had noticed lurking in the alley before she left the main street chose that moment to attack. The first, a beefy young man with garlic on his breath, grasped Cat’s neck from behind with massive hands, and was quite surprised when she grabbed him by the groin and used his own momentum to throw him into the midden. His three comrades had already jumped forward, blades out, and had no chance to flee.
Ten seconds later, Cat held one mugger in a painful arm lock, while Captain Pelham stood between the remaining two unkempt men, immobilizing both with the pressure of his hands on the back of their necks. Their swiftest comrade lay moaning in the filthy pit.
Cat’s captive twisted in her grip until she cranked his arm, whereupon he let out a high-pitched whine and ceased struggling. She glanced him over: long, elf-locked hair, several days’ stubble, three earrings in his right ear and one in his left. He wore a brown wool shirt that, somewhere in the mists of history, had once been yellow, and a pair of leather breeches more breach than leather.
He had been ill used recently, not just by Cat. Stripes of burned flesh raked across his face and chest, beneath sharp tears in his shirt. No natural fire had caused such damage. This had struck swiftly as a whip, not lingering long enough to catch his clothes aflame. “Hello, boys,” she said. “We’re looking for the young lady who gave you those scars. Dark skin, five-seven, curly black hair, curvy, freckles. Last seen surrounded by a halo of flame?”
“We dinn’ see nuffink,” Cat’s captive gargled through the blood that gushed from his nose and mouth.
“Let’s try again.” Cat applied more torque to the mugger’s arm, and something in his shoulder crinkled like crushed foil. “Tell us where our friend went, and we’ll go away. Otherwise, we’ll stay right here.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. His eyes were wide, and scared.
She smiled. So did Raz.
*
As night deepened, the crowd beneath the Sanctum swelled. The original protesters were so diluted by the new arrivals that they vanished like drops of ink in a pool of clear water. Patient silence replaced the earlier fearful, angry cries. The Sanctum pointed like a confused compass needle into the clouds, and the people of Alt Coulumb stood or sat or knelt beyond the cordon of Blacksuits and watched the black tower’s pinnacle in hope.
Following Ms. Kevarian down the Sanctum’s front steps, Abelard recognized, or thought he recognized, a few faces within the crowd: a Crier they had passed that morning, a candy seller from his excursion into the Pleasure Quarters the previous night, a young woman from the Court of Craft. Even a few Northsiders had come in their suits and ties to watch, and wait. Before, the crowd was unified by anger. Now they stood as individuals, together.
He was mystified by their change, and when he realized this he felt ashamed. He should not have had so little faith in the city, or its people. They were passionate, yes, and powerful, but also wise.
Many in the crowd held candles, and the flickering flames cast their faces in shadow and light.
Ms. Kevarian’s boots crushed the white gravel of the Sanctum’s parking lot.
“There’s a traitor within the Church,” he said. After his rescue Abelard had breathlessly recounted his discoveries in the boiler room, but Ms. Kevarian only listened, and asked brief questions when his story was not clear. When he ran out of breath, she told him about her talk with the Cardinal, but did not comment on his tale. He tried again now to get some reaction from her, stating the problem as directly as he could. “A spy. A saboteur.”
With a raised hand Ms. Kevarian summoned one of the carriages loitering near the Sanctum gates. The horse regarded crowd and Blacksuits alike with suspicion as it approached. “Indeed.”
“They’ve been stealing power from Justice for months.”
“It is a wonder,” Ms. Kevarian replied, her voice dry.
“You expected this?”
As the carriage rolled toward them, she turned to Abelard. “It was a possibility. Your organization is large, and not especially secure. It would surprise me if the system had no leaks.”
“Will that hurt our case?”
“Ordinarily, it might, but there are special circumstances at work.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know enough to say. I need more information.”
“Is that why we’re in such a rush?”
The carriage pulled even with the foot of the stairs. Its rear doors opened, though no hand touched them. “We, dear Abelard, are in a rush for different reasons. You are in a rush because you need to find Ms. Abernathy.” She produced a string of beads from a jacket pocket, the last of which was crudely carved in the shape of a woman. “The tracking rosary will lead you to her. Tell her everything. The secret room, the dagger, the monster, all of it. Relate my conversation with the Cardinal exactly as I told it to you. Be clear, precise, and do not exaggerate.”
“What about you?”
She entered the carriage. “I go to a far worse fate. I have a date, my Novice, with a serpent who fears neither fire nor sword.” She grimaced at Abelard’s perplexed expression. “I have a business dinner. It would be impolitic for you to attend, which is just as well. Your search for Tara is more important. Do not fail to find her.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take care.” She closed the door and the carriage pulled away.
He stood statue-still, abandoned before the crowd. They watched him. Reflected candle flames shimmered in their expectant eyes.
The tracking rosary dangled from his fingers. “What,” he said to it, “am I supposed to do with you?”
The string twitched, twirled in his grip, and came to rest extended taut in the direction of the waterfront.
Abelard looked about for another carriage.
*
Tara fell through shadow, slashing about with the flaring blade of her knife. By its glow she saw the basement floor moments before she hit. Ribs creaked and her head bounced off stone. The door through which she had fallen closed automatically above her, and she was trapped.
Trapped, and not alone. The click of talons and the rustle of stone wings echoed off nearby walls. The cellar smelled of dank earth and unfinished rock, of new-forged steel and burned silver. Gargoyles, looming figures in the dark, watched her with expectant emerald eyes.
If they wanted her dead, she would be dead. If they wanted to capture her, torture her, they would have moved already, rather than let her recover her balance. She eased into a crouch and stood, testing her bones. No bad breaks. A rib cracked, at most. Good.
What were they waiting for?
With a twirl of her fingers she absorbed the cold lightning of her knife back into her system. A gesture. I come in peace.
She was alone in the black. No lies would avail her. Once again she stood before the tribunal of the Hidden Schools, but this time she wasn’t here for a fight.
“I want to help,” she said.
Soft light bloomed around her, and she saw. This basement room had once been a dry cellar, perhaps thirty feet to a side, roofed by a lattice of pipes and rafters and copper wire. The remnants of decades-old cargo barrels, lay piled in corners. Broken hoops, rusty and sharp as wasps’ stingers, jutted out from long-since rotted slats. A clean bedroll leaned against one wall, surrounded by bits of metal, religious effigies, and personal effects.