Crucible Zero (23 page)

He scrunched his face up in what almost looked like a wince. “No. Well, yes, but no. There will be weapons where we're going.”

“Where are we going?”

He tipped the canteen up, swallowed, then tipped it down again. “Coal and Ice.”

Two pieces! That's what I was missing. There might be more than one thing needed to kill Slater. Unfortunately, I have no idea what either thing could be.

—W.Y.

I
spent the rest of the drive through the tunnel peppering Abraham with questions about Coal and Ice. There was no counterpart to it in my world, unless I counted Sallyo's underground black market and smuggling ring.

But Coal and Ice wasn't just a black market for goods, though Abraham cheerfully informed me that smuggling made decent money. It was primarily a loose collective of spies, thieves, and assassins looking for jobs that all funneled through one man: Binek.

I didn't know why talking about a crime lord made Abraham feel so relaxed, but I supposed it was because Coal and Ice was his home ground. It was where people like him, and even those unlike him—galvanized or not—had a common goal.

Kill or be killed, and remember to factor a ten percent profit for Coal and Ice's coffers.

The other thing Abraham seemed more than willing to share was that Binek had his ear to the ground and would have the information we needed to get into House Fire and stop Slater. If we played our hand right, he might even kick in the weapons and other equipment for free.

“Warlords don't do anything for free,” I said.

He shrugged, and I noted his left shoulder looked like it still wasn't hinging quite right. I should probably offer to look at it, but after the last time I'd gotten too close to him and ended up kissing him, I decided it could wait.

If it was hurting him, he couldn't feel it anyway.

“I'm sure he'll cover his interests in the deal,” Abraham said.

And, frustratingly, that was all he said. He spent the rest of the ride staring out at the darkness and nothing, until he finally closed his eyes and fell asleep, knees bent and arms resting across them like a soldier accustomed to catching z's before a mission.

The back of the van was not a comfortable place to ride. Even though the tunnel road seemed smoother than cross-country, I thought cushions and springs might be nicer for my bruised butt. So I crawled back around the bench seat and sat up by Foster.

“Hello, Matilda,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. “Nice driving back there, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Abraham's sleeping.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to drive? He said neither of you slept much.”

“No. Rest. I will drive.”

I glanced out the windows, which were filthy with blood and fluids I didn't want to think about. We were inside a tunnel. I thought it could have once been a subway line, but it wasn't any I was familiar with. For all I knew, it could also have been an underground access for bomb shelters or a throughway between shopping centers.

Whatever it had been built for originally, it made for a fairly smooth roadway. There were no lights, but the headlamps on the van were more than enough to light the road ahead of us and also the walls, which were set far enough to our side that I could tell this was a two-lane tunnel.

I heard the echo of at least one other engine besides ours out there. The mercenaries, or at least some of them, were following us.

“How much longer until we get there?” I asked.

“An hour. Rest. Daylight will come soon.”

But I was still a little too restless to try shut-eye. “You know I lived a life in a different time than this, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“You were there too in that time. You had a very dear friend. His name was Welton Yellow. You helped raise him when he was a child, and you became more than just his bodyguard. You were family to him, his best friend.”

Foster remained silent. He didn't even glance my way. I didn't know if he believed me or even wanted to hear about this. But I had promised Welton I'd let Foster know he loved him. And I followed through on my promises.

“In that time, my original time, you and Welton were very close. Are you friends with Custodian Welton in this time?”

“No,” he said after a moment's pause.

“The Welton I knew, Welton Yellow, was a good man. Clever. Too curious for his own good, but he wanted what was best for people. He wanted what was best for you and did what he could to make your life better. I saw him recently. I . . . um . . . slipped over to that timeway, and he was there.”

“When?”

“In the apple orchard. What I want to tell you, what he asked me to tell you, is that he loves you. Still. Even though you're not alive in that timeway. He wants what's best for you. In this timeway. I promised him I'd tell you that. Even though you're not the you you were then now.”

Foster still didn't say anything.

“Did that make sense? Does any of this make sense?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good, because it confuses the hell out of me.” I leaned my head against the window. “I can't kill Slater until I destroy some piece of the Wings of Mercury machine Alveré Case built. That machine didn't survive in this time, did it?”

“No,” he said. “Broken, burned, buried. Nothing but ashes, like all dreams become.”

I rubbed my eyes, which stung from sweat and soot.

“Well, I wish something out of that time and experiment had survived. Something of Alveré's. It'd make my life easier.”

“We survived,” he said.

“Yes. But we're not things. We're breathing, living people.” I yawned, the events of the night finally catching up to me. “Maybe I should go rest.”

“Yes,” Foster said. “Rest. I will think on this.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Let me know if you come up with anything.”

I stepped back to the bench seat, pushed the coil of rope to the floor, tucked one of the knives into my belt, and pulled the blanket that had held all the weapons over me as I lay on my side, half curled.

I slept fitfully, waking up in a series of panicked starts as nightmares pressed bloody fingers around my sleeping mind.

After the third or fourth time, I decided I'd had enough not-sleep and kept my eyes open, listening to the echo of engines passing to our left and the hum of the tires against the road.

Also, Abraham's snoring.

Man was loud.

Finally, finally, Foster tapped the brakes, slowed, and then took a sharp turn to the right. The incline was pretty steep and pushed me into my seat.

It must have pushed Abraham too. I heard a
clunk
, a curse, and then there was no more snoring.

“Warning, next time?” he demanded sleepily.

“We are climbing,” Foster said. “Abruptly.”

Abraham just grunted.

The van finally leveled out, and I squinted in the pale light of morning. I didn't even think the sun was up yet, but after the thick darkness of night, and the thicker darkness of the tunnel, the predawn lightening of the sky seemed intense.

My eyes quickly adjusted, and I sat, pushing the blanket off to one side. Abraham made his way up to the front of the van, sliding around to where I sat with a quick nod to me before he settled into the front seat.

“Morning, sunshine,” I said. “Sleep well?”

He gave me a grin. “Good enough. Are you ready to meet the man?”

“If meeting him will get me closer to killing Slater, then I can't wait.”

The road looked like it got a fair share of traffic. The hills around here did not appear to be farmed, and there were no apple orchards or really much else. I didn't know what the main resource might be in this area, other than the wink of a rather large river that I caught a glimpse of now and again.

I was expecting Coal and Ice to be some sort of city set behind walls, and I was not wrong. Except whereas House Earth's compound felt like a place where one could build a life and raise a family, this place looked like the kind of thing one might want to remain a part of only if one liked living in a battle fortress.

The walls were thick, concrete and metal, with slits for windows useful for sniper rifles. Strangely, the front gate was wide open.

We were headed to the intelligence center for mercenaries, killers, and others who took life one bloody, illegal opportunity at a time, and they didn't even have a weapons check at the door.

“Not much for precaution, are they?” I asked as we rolled down the streets.

“Don't have to be,” Abraham said.

The streets were hard-packed dirt, which must turn into a bog hole when the winter rains came. The buildings had a sense of impermanence, as if they had been put up quickly and could be abandoned at a moment's notice.

The number of saloons, bars, and other sorts of pleasure houses was boggling.

The people who walked the streets—and there were a lot of them—seemed to have taken their fashion from the same page that Abraham and Foster subscribed to.

Basically, hearty clothing, accessorized by as many weapons as one could bear to support.

That put the open-door policy into perspective. Everyone was armed; therefore it didn't matter what kind of person strolled into the town. Visitors weren't a potential danger to the town; the town was a potential danger to visitors.

Coal and Ice was also much smaller than Compound 5. I estimated it to be a half mile by a half mile in acreage, and built on a grid, so it seemed even smaller than that.

Foster pulled up to a building that could have once been a church, steeple and everything.

It was painted navy blue with deep maroon trim, the door rounded at the top and gunmetal gray.

“This is our stop,” Abraham said.

“A church?” I asked.

“Binek's office. Come on in. I think you'll like him.”

Abraham stepped out of the van and took the time to remove his jacket while he waited for me to get out. I didn't know why he didn't want his coat on. But then I noticed the people on the street, and more people in windows across the street, who were studying him. One after another, they looked away, stepped away, and went about their business.

And I knew why. With his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, the thick, black, distinctive stitches on his arms and wrists were very evident. Add the blood and gore that covered him, and he made for an intimidating man. No, he made for an intimidating galvanized man.

Someone who even these hardened criminals would rather not mess with.

Well, that said a lot for how the galvanized were seen here.

We walked up the stairs, and Foster opened the door, which we all strolled through.

Apparently, one didn't need reservations to meet the big man.

The interior of the building fit my assumption that this had been a church. Polished wood everywhere—walls, ceiling, floor, all of it set together in long blond and toasted brown strips. The ceiling vaulted up at a sharp angle. A set of stairs leading up to our right, double doors in front of us, and a single door to the left.

We went left.

Foster opened that door. Nothing here was locked; no people were guarding the doors.

After House Earth's security setup, it was sort of odd.

A hallway took us deeper into the building, which I realized was a lot bigger than it seemed from the outside.

Still no one here. The place had the sort of hushed reverence of silence filling it.

At the end of the hall was another door. It was open.

I shook my head at the sheer lack of locks, guards, and fear. Abraham, walking beside me, smiled. He stopped in front of the doorway and knocked on the doorframe.

“Do you have time today?” he asked.

I couldn't see into the room past the mountain of Abraham filling it, but I knew the voice that answered.

“Abraham,” the man said. “Come in. Of course. Come in. Tell me how things went.”

“They went well.” Abraham stepped into the room. I walked in behind him.

There, sitting behind a desk covered in papers and books and rolled maps, was Oscar Gray.

I was so happy to see him, I pressed my fingertips against my lips so I wouldn't say something stupid.

“Hello,” he said, looking at me through the small round glasses perched on the end of his nose. He was so much the same as how I remembered him from my timeway, I couldn't help but smile. Short, curly hair gone gray, round face, and stout build. He didn't wear the mix of jackets and scarves he'd sported in the world where we'd first met. Here he was dressed in a clean white shirt under a pinstripe vest and jacket.

If I'd never met him before, if I didn't know him from my timeway as the head of House Gray, or from this time as, apparently, the head of the Coal and Ice, I might think he was a jovial accountant or a friendly uncle.

I wanted him to be the same kindhearted man I'd met in what was only over a week ago, to my memory. But just as Abraham wasn't quite the same, nor Quinten, Welton, or even, in many ways, I myself, I tried not to hold too much hope that Oscar would be the generous man I had known.

He was, after all, the head of all the criminals, assassins, and killers for hire.

“Hello, Oscar,” I said, taking my fingers away from my mouth.

“Oscar?” Abraham said. “Is that it? Is that your first name?”

“That,” Oscar said shortly, “doesn't matter. I am curious as to who told you it might be.”

“I just thought . . . I must have heard it from Abraham,” I said.

“No,” Oscar said. “You did not. He doesn't know my first name. No one knows my first name.”

“Not even your parents?” I asked.

His round eyes curved into crescents as he laughed. “Really. I must know. Who told you?”

“No one,” I said truthfully. “I . . . guessed.”

He studied me, his eyes bright. “You must be Matilda Case,” he said. “The girl who knew the future. Is this lovely young woman Matilda Case, Abraham?”

“It is indeed what she tells me, Binek.” Abraham strolled over and sat in the wide leather and wood chair on one side of Oscar's cozy office. “Or should I call you Oscar?”