Babylon Steel (43 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” they said, and saluted.

It must have been something in my voice. Sometimes these things come back to you.

I went up to the door. “Hey, Previous.”

“Babylon.”

“Everything smooth?”

“So far. What’s going on?”

“Act like I’m telling you a rude joke, or something, okay? There may be eyes on us and we need to look normal.”

Her eyebrows flicked briefly upwards and then she gave a staccato, not very convincing laugh.

I told her about Denarven, and she swore, then laughed again, worse than before, to cover it.

“Seen someone hanging about, the last few days. Might have been him,” I said.

“Purity mask?” she said, not taking her eyes off the street.

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Thought they were just keeping an eye on the place in case any of their worshippers went off the straight and narrow. So it’s that slinking administrator,” Previous said. I could see her grip tighten on her spear.

“That’s the one.”

“Cold bastard.”

“Yep. Is Flower out back?” I said.

“The Twins.”

“That should put him off. On the other hand, it might encourage him. Those two are walking sin if I’ve ever seen it. Right, this is the plan. We make it sound like a ruckus upstairs, you run in, the Twins do the same, take up stations just inside, out of sight of the doors and windows. Make a lot of noise upstairs so it looks like you’ve all been pulled in to cope with that. If he’s watching for an opportunity, he’ll slip in then. All right?”

“‘Plan’?”

“I had to think of this on the run, all right?”

“You’re the boss.”

“That’s me.” I went inside and told the others, stationed myself at the shadowed end of the upstairs corridor. A scent of bittersweet smoke in the corridor; Laney, preparing some potion or other. Whatever it was, it would be nasty. Good.

A few minutes later, there was a yell from upstairs, running feet, and Previous and the Twins came charging in.

I watched while Previous slipped to one side and stood out of sight of the still-open front door. The Twins based themselves by the kitchen and the foot of the stairs. Flower was in Laney’s room; everyone else was scattered hither and yon, eyes open and at the ready. Luckily we’d no clients to deal with, not on Twomoon.

I wasn’t expecting Denarven to be armed, but if he was, and things got nasty, I thought I could deal. He was an administrator, not a soldier.

The minutes shuffled by. I couldn’t see out the back – where were the millies, and the Chief? Was the Chief all right? I’d never seen him all the way into his Change. How much control did he have?

And was Denarven really crazy enough, or desperate enough, to try and sneak in? Was he even here? Or was he at Mirril’s place? Or had he got wind of the chase, and tried to get passage on a boat out of the docks, through the portal, to spread his poison on another plane?

The sky outside the windows began to darken. Flower and Laney were still yelling and making slamming-the-furniture-around noises, but in a pause I heard the Twins whispering to each other. Previous, who’d had plenty of experience of guard duty, was standing immovable as a stone and still had her eyes fixed on the door. Ireq was watching the back. I shifted my feet.

He wasn’t coming. I began to worry about Mirril and her daughter. And the other houses, and the freelancers... it had been stupid to assume he would come. He was probably in some dingy little room now, with his hands on the neck of some fragile girl. I’d wasted everyone’s time. I sheathed my sword. Better make sure the Chief was all right.

I heard a noise and started to turn; the mask came straight at me, like some grim revenant, out of the dark corridor. His grey robes flickered around him like smoke.

I didn’t have time to wonder how the hells he’d got in before he slammed right into me and almost had me off my feet. I went down on one knee, got an elbow in his ribs. I heard a crack, didn’t slow him at all. Pushed myself up, grabbed his arm, tried to spin him round, get him down on the floor. He twisted out of my grasp.

I’m a foot taller and a sight stronger, but he’s burning with some kind of dreadful energy, baking off him like a fever. I can hear him, a chopped up hiss, fragments of words; sin and darkness and whores and hate. Mask against my face, cold, the beak of it digging into me. I get him down on his knees, but he’s eeled out from under me again, hands around my neck. Black flowers blooming –
no.
After what I’ve lived through, I’m damned if I’ll die here, at his hands. Get his wrist, haul back; feel/hear something break in his wrist, slam his arm against the floor. He’s
still
trying. Get a knee under him. Thundering sound, screams.

Weight’s gone off me, all at once. What?

The mask flying backwards along the corridor; hard to work out what was happening, but something had Denarven by the back of his robes.

I could hear him beginning to choke, the mask hanging askew, making him look as though his neck were broken.

I could hear something else, too: a low, raw growl.

I saw the eyes over Denarven’s shoulder: luminescent green. Claws sunk in Denarven’s arm and thigh.

“Chief! Hold up!” Damn, that hurt, that little bastard had really dug his fingers into my throat. “Chief?”

He’d backed into a corner. Denarven was clawing at the neck of his robes; the mask cracked, then broke open down the middle, showing his face.

I’m not sure he even knew the Chief was there. His gaze was rigidly fixed on mine. The neck of his robe tore, and he reached out his hands, those hands he’d tried to scrub clean.

There was blood trickling from his arm and leg, soaking his robes. Even I could smell it, and it would be going straight to the Chief’s gut.

I could hear the others behind me. Previous had shot up the stairs after the Chief, and was hovering at the top of them. Someone – Flower and Laney? – at my back. I could hear tight, frightened breathing; lots of them, maybe the whole crew. I didn’t dare look to see where everyone was, didn’t dare take my eyes off the Chief.

“All of you, back off.”

“Babylon...”

“Do it. I’m all right. Chief, come on. We’ve got him. There’s enough of us to hold him.”

Laney said, “That’s right. We’re all fine, Chief. Why don’t you let us take him, now?”

There might have been words in what the Chief said next, but I couldn’t get them. It was mostly growling.

“Chief, you can’t kill him. He has to go to trial. Him and the Vessels both. Come on, now.” I moved forward, slow. “Chief, you can’t kill him. You’re still on duty. This is my fault, I should have made you go home. But you and me, we take responsibility for our actions, don’t we? And I don’t want to see you on trial when it should be him and those who could have stopped him. You kill him and they’ll weasel out of it somehow, you know that.”

Of course I’d wanted Denarven dead, the second I knew he was the one who’d killed that girl, but he wasn’t worth the Chief’s career. He wasn’t worth the dust on the Chief’s feet.

“Come on, Chief. Let him be. We can take care of him. We’ll see him dealt with. We can even give him to the Twins, how about that?”

I heard a kerfuffle downstairs and doors slamming, more footsteps and someone yelling, “Chief! Oh,
shit
...”

The Chief’s head turned, just for a second. I dived forward, grabbed Denarven under the arms and rolled backward, hearing a ripping sound, slinging him past me, putting myself between him and the Chief.

The Chief’s head snapped round, and he roared.

Somewhere a million miles away I heard a high sweet note, like the trill of a bird, and a muffled groan. Laney said, “There.”

I didn’t dare move my eyes.

I was on my back, looking up at the Chief. His eyes glowed, and his claws, still bloody from Denarven, flexed. His shoulders were hunched like a mountain range. Ragged bits of cloth still clung to him. He’d a tail, now, and it was flicking back and forward; it brushed the floor. I could hear it, because everyone else had gone intensely quiet.

Then he dropped his head, and nudged me in the shoulder. Hard. He lowered himself until he was lying in the hallway like a sphinx, and gave a sort of groan.

I sat up, slowly, and patted him on one huge shoulder. “C’mon, Chief. We’ll make you comfortable. Come with me.”

He was still tensed like a bowstring, I’d felt it when I patted his shoulder. We passed the collapsed shape of Denarven, his split mask lying either side of his head like an open oyster shell, his slack face its poisoned pearl.

The Chief’s upper lip rippled over his teeth, but I managed to persuade him down the stairs with one hand in his mane.

We’d got to the bottom when I realised we’d been joined by Roflet, who was glaring at me like I’d murdered his favourite grandmother. “Chief?” he said. “You. Steel. What happened?”

The Chief snarled.

“Let me just get him safe, Officer,” I said. I led him down to the Basement. He looked at the great thick door with its barred window, and looked at me. Then he nudged me again, and went inside.

I closed the door, and stood blinking at it for a moment.

Cruel and Unusual came up, and locked the door with an iron key the length of my forearm.

“Babylon,” Cruel said. “Hey, Babylon.”

“Hmm. What?”

“Here.”

She put a glass in my hand. It was golden. I took a gulp; it burned like several hells going down, but after that, it helped.

“Right,” I said, sounding as though I’d been yelling orders in the field all day. “Make sure he has food and water.”

“Yes.”

“Bedding. Blankets.”

“Yes.”

“Steel.”

I was aware of Roflet standing behind Cruel, with his arms folded. I said, “We can look after him here until Twomoon’s over, unless you’ve got secure transport and somewhere for him?”

“I’ll send someone to fetch him.” He obviously didn’t trust me. I was vaguely sorry for it, but great leaden waves of weariness were beginning to come over me and I was in no state to do any bridge-mending.

“Right. Laney? What’s happening with the arsehole?”

“Wandering the shadow,” she said, from the top of the stairs. “He’ll stay that way a while, I think, but can we please get him out of here? He makes me feel ill.”

Ireq, stolid as ever, began to sweep up where the millies had tracked mud in. Previous came in from the back, white as Flower’s apron. “I found where he got in. Out back, where the pipes run from the scullery. So small. I meant to look, when you told me about that boy, but I never did... Gods, Babylon. I’m so
sorry.
”

“What?”

“Remember the boys who got in? There was one not long ago, I said I’d find the place. Denarven must have been watching even then. Maybe he saw one of them get in.”

“Don’t take it on, Previous,” I said. “It’s my fault, I should have checked. I’ve been unbelievably stupid.” In more ways than one, I thought, resting my hand on the door of the room where the Chief was pacing up and down.

Flower, with the look of someone handling a full bucket of puke, scooped up Denarven and trudged down the stairs with him slung over one arm. He dumped him at Roflet’s feet.

“That him?” Roflet said.

“That’s him,” I said. “He doesn’t look like much, but watch him if he wakes. Make sure he’s secured. He’s...” I blinked, shook my head. “Crazed. Berserker type, you know?”

“Right.”

Roflet started snapping out orders. I realised he had half a dozen other militia with him. They bundled Denarven away, like rubbish. I slid down the wall, because somehow it seemed easier to do that. In fact, the floor felt really comfortable. I’d just stay there a while, keep an eye on the Chief, until my head cleared.

I could still hear him pacing the floor behind me. I laid my hand back on the door as though it might be some comfort to him.

“Babylon. Babylon!”

“What?”

“You can’t sleep here.”

“I can’t sleep at all. I have to go...” I had to go somewhere. I had something that needed doing. But I couldn’t remember what it was.

I was vaguely aware of someone – Flower, probably – getting a hand under my arm and half-carrying me to my room, and then I wasn’t aware of much else for a while.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Day 7

First Day of Twomoon

W
HEN
I
WOKE
up it was late morning, bright pale sun falling through the gap in the curtains. I was still in my bloodstained clothes.

Things started dropping into my head like big jagged stones. Denarven,
in my jalla,
among my friends. The Chief.

I raised a hand to brush blood-bristled hair out of my face, and my ring caught the light.

Oh, sweet All. The ring. Tiresana.

I got up, feeling every bruise, and pulled back the curtains. The moons were both visible high in the blue: Inshallee like the ghost of a rose, Beriand like the memory of a spring leaf. I wondered how Enthemmerlee was doing this morning; her change must be well on its way by now.

The Chief had no choice about his, but she’d chosen hers. She’d taken it on, because she thought it needed doing.

I washed hastily, pulled on a robe and went downstairs.

Unusual was just on his way up from the cellar. “Morning,” he said. “How are you?”

“Bruises. Sore throat. How’s the Chief?

“Millies came for him this morning.”

“Oh. How was he?”

“Touchy.”

“Ah.”

“S’all right. No one was hurt, they just had a bit of a struggle getting him into the coach. You seen the coach they use for that sort of thing? It’s something. Like a strongbox on wheels, built of iron thick as a door. Takes six horses to pull it.” His eyes were gleaming.

“Unusual... what would
we
use it for?”

“I’m sure I could think of something. Anyway, they got him in. He kept trying to get upstairs, for some reason, but they made it eventually.”

“Right.” I yawned so wide my jaw creaked. “So long as he’s okay. I need some breakfast.”

Flower was waiting in the hall, with his arms folded, his apron as clean as virtue, his tusks gleaming. Laney and Previous were ranged to either side, Laney quivering with indignation so that the feathers on the neck of her gown fluffed up like a hen’s, Previous turning her dented helmet over in her hands and scowling fiercely.