Scar Night (15 page)

Above him, the planetarium tilted. Stone and mortar crumbled, showered past. And then the whole huge brass globe came loose.

Mr. Nettle pressed himself tight against the wall. Heat slammed into him as the planetarium roared by. It struck the tenements below, smashing into eaves on both sides of the lane with a thunderous boom. Clouds of dust and burning embers bloomed skywards. But the globe itself was wider than the lane. It had lodged there, pinned by iron façades, eighty feet from the ground. Spine scrambled away from it as chimneys toppled. Landslides of slates slipped from roofs into the lane below.

Mr. Nettle grinned. He had her now.

Then his grin faded.

Still blazing and wrapped in the tight steel net, Oberhammer’s planetarium let loose a mighty groan and pitched forward, smashing roofs on either side and crumpling eaves and dislodging gutters, and began to roll along the top of Cage Wynd down towards the dockyards.

T
he impact knocked Rachel from her feet. Every facet in the globe exploded, and painted shards of glass rained down on her. She fell through a square gap between adjacent brass struts, one leg dangling through the enveloping steel mesh. Far below, glass tinkled on cobbles. Rachel winced as Carnival howled with pleasure.

Shit.

The fall could have killed her.

Fortunately the planetarium was wide enough to get trapped above Cage Wynd, the lane’s iron-plated façades proving strong enough to support its weight. They had fallen only thirty feet from the summit of the clock tower. Rachel eased her leg out from the mesh of net and lay back gasping. The globe was still on fire, and she was still trapped inside it with Carnival. She had to get out of here.

Then came a groan like the cry of a wounded god.

The whole structure began to roll.

Shit shit shit shit.

The viewing platform, chairs ablaze, tipped vertically, then rose higher till it loomed overhead like a burning ceiling about to collapse. Still clinging tightly to the net, Rachel followed it up and over. She looked down to see Carnival hovering six feet above the brass curves now shifting beneath her. Through the smoke, Deepgate seemed to be tilting towards Rachel, rising up to fill her field of vision: crowded alleys of iron-clad tenements, a labyrinth of rain-soaked roofs, the temple…

The shipyards.

Cranes loomed over spaces large enough to swallow airships.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

Rachel held on grimly. The globe revolved over and down again, crunching through slates and eaves on either side. When the metal structure beneath her levelled, she pushed herself upright and hopped from strut to strut like a rat in a wheel.

Carnival thumped her chest. “Come on.”

Rachel closed on the angel, brought down her blade, and swung it hard to the right, anticipating deflection. But Carnival merely backed away, laughing, making no effort to push inside the assassin’s reach. Now Carnival was behind her.

Unable to stop moving but vulnerable at the rear, Rachel ran even faster. She scrambled up the inside of the planetarium, gripping the steel net, and lashed back savagely with her blade. The blow hissed an inch in front of Carnival’s chin, halting the angel’s attack. Rachel kicked out and caught her opponent in the belly, sending her tumbling away.

The flames! She must be almost blind in this light.

Oberhammer’s folly blazed. Burning brickleweed whined and popped and whirled through the turbulent air. Rachel picked herself up and ran. The viewing platform surged overhead again and back down towards her. She leapt onto it, sprinted along an aisle between burning chairs, and jumped down off the other side. She grabbed the net and pulled at its steel links, using all of her weight. Her muscles bunched, strained, but the net would not break. She held on. The globe rolled faster, bumping and pitching as it hurtled down Cage Wynd.

Carnival had by now recovered. The scarred angel took to the air again, pounding her wings to keep well in the centre of the globe, away from its spinning walls. Rachel slipped beneath her, rose up on the other side. Debris rained down: pieces of a broken chair, burning leaves and snarls of branches. Flames whipped and roared. Deepgate reeled across the heavens—cobbles, gas lamps, brickwork, chains—while stars raced underfoot.

Picking up speed now.

The force of spin pushed Rachel back against the net. She arced once more under Carnival, up one side, overhead, back down. She struggled to move but the impetus held her firm. Her bones felt brittle, ready to snap. Faster and faster—now she was directly above the angel. The planetarium struck something solid, jumped, and for a heartbeat Rachel was weightless.

She kicked away from the net with every shred of strength she had left.

Carnival twisted to one side, but she wasn’t quick enough. Rachel’s sword clipped the angel’s knee, drew blood, and then the assassin collided with the net below. The globe smashed back into the eaves above Cage Wynd, lurched forward faster.

Carnival launched herself at the spot Rachel had occupied moments before.

But the assassin was already above the angel again. She ripped a knife from her sleeve, threw it. The blade sank into Carnival’s shoulder.

Carnival shrieked, tore the knife free. “Spine,” she snarled, her voice murderous, “I’m going to come for you when it’s dark. Do you hear me? When it’s dark, when I can see, I’ll find you and rip your fucking heart out.”

Rachel doubted the angel would get the chance to act on this threat. The globe was spinning so fast she herself could hardly move. And it was getting faster: each jolt punched her in the ribs and whiplashed her neck. Her leathers were singed from the flames, her hands blistered; she smelled her hair burning. Loose embers and burning feathers whirled and looped and spun. One instant Carnival was there in front of her, the next below her, the next upside down. Rachel felt sick. She pulled at the net behind her, tore at it desperately, kicked it. Though of steel, the mesh was thin. Any Spine Adept could have broken it apart.

Any Adept except her.

She focused, heaved herself at the net, muscles screaming.

Nothing happened.

Rachel Hael collapsed against the net, making no effort to quieten her breathing. Carnival was somewhere overhead, or behind, or below. It didn’t matter now: she couldn’t fight her, couldn’t stop her. She had never been ready to confront the angel. Now she never would be. There was nothing more she could do. Her tenure with the Spine ended here.

And then she spotted the hole.

In a facet four feet away, the steel mesh had been shredded and hung in tatters. She hadn’t noticed it before because of the flames.

Half the net must have been ripped away. Gods below, I’m lucky I haven’t already fallen through.

Teeth clenched, the assassin dragged herself towards the gap. She could hardly breathe. She seemed to be climbing and falling all at once, didn’t know which way was down or up. Flames spun and howled and tore at her exposed hands and neck.

“I hear you,” Carnival growled.

Rachel caught a glimpse of the angel: eyes screwed shut, wings smouldering, face livid with scars. Then everything around her was smoke and fire.

With a final push, she heaved herself through the gap, through the severed net, and out into fresh air. Cobbles and stars swam before her. The city wheeled drunkenly, rings of light and darkness. She felt Carnival grab her foot, kicked out at her, and then she was free and falling.

One moment she was sinking towards the heavens, the next towards grey slate roofs. Blissful silence but for the rush of wind, and so cool, the air silken. Exhaustion enfolded her, wrapped soft arms around her body. Rachel closed her eyes.

She hit something solid, felt her hip jar, but distantly…heard a crash, then she was falling again. Another collision, then more falling. Finally she landed with a thump in something soft. Grit pattered against her face.

“Mother!” The shriek sounded as though it came from another world. “Mother, a woman fell through the roof!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Another voice, this one from even further away.

“She’s here in my bed!”

“Get to sleep. I won’t tell you again.”

The Spine assassin smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. The second voice was right: she desperately needed to sleep. And nothing was going to wake her until the morning.

W
hy are you doing this to me?” the girl pleaded.

Devon stopped reading to glance at her. The poor thing was a mess: her eyes were red and choked with tears, her face much paler now, almost translucent, but slick with sweat and veined with inky hair. She still wore her blue and white striped scullery apron, now sprayed red up one side from his struggle to get the needle in. Purple bruises bloomed darkly on the white of her arms where he had manacled her to the chair, and again on one wrist where he had inserted the tube that leached the blood from her.

“I am looking for God,” he said.

When the girl started crying again, Devon wondered whether he ought to administer more sedative. The bottle sat to one side of the scattered pages on his desk, the syringe still protruding from its top. The flask at her feet was almost two-thirds full of blood, so he decided against it. There was too much at stake and sedation would only extend the purification process further. He could not afford to spend any more time on this. The previous flasks were set to one side against the wall, deep red and safely out of reach. He’d moved them there once she’d started kicking.

Beyond the heavy shutters, Scar Night’s darkmoon would be rising over the city, and Carnival would be out hunting vermin in the cold streets. But here in Devon’s study it was bright and warm. Rich with waxed wood and oil wicks smoking behind crystal, it had been transformed into an ad hoc laboratory. Firelight played across a clutter of glass receptacles, the steel distillers, and the brass clamps and stands that crowded every surface. Several gilt-framed oil paintings of long-dead scientists leaned neglected against the wall beneath the scrawled charts that had replaced them.

Only one portrait remained hanging on the wall. It depicted an elegant woman, austere in expression but for her soft amber eyes and the trace of a smile on her lips. His beloved Elizabeth. Devon looked deeply into her painted eyes, as though for reassurance.

Will the Spine come for me? Are they stealing up the steps to my apartment even now, blades oiled, crossbows coiled and ready?

No. Someone powerful was protecting him. Someone had already provided him with the means to save himself.

Someone high up in the Church.

It had happened seven months ago, when Devon had returned to his apartments to find an innocuous package: the ramblings of one of his chemists, he’d presumed. He’d left it for a while and almost forgotten about it, but when finally he’d opened it he’d been shaken to the point of terror. In his hands he held the journal of the Soft Men: three scientists named as Mr. Partridge, Mr. Hightower, and Mr. Bloom. It contained pages and pages of notes, hundreds if not thousands of years old. In archaic script the pages outlined the process for making angelwine.

There were no clues as to who had delivered this package, but Devon had developed his suspicions. The journal could only have come from one place. The Codex.

Had Presbyter Sypes delivered it?

Why?

The question plagued him endlessly, but he felt it would be imprudent to confront Sypes directly. His mystery benefactor clearly wished to remain anonymous. And what if Devon was wrong? One misplaced word could end his own life. The Spine would not look kindly upon the reappearance of such a work.

He let his gaze drop from his late wife’s portrait to the mantelpiece below it. An ornate clock ticked the moments away, lost amid a clutter of chemical bottles with handwritten labels and sugar-crust corks. Poisons for making angelwine.

Devon sniffed. A faint odour of sulphur hung in the air, pleasantly unpleasant.

He went back to the journal, tapping a pencil against the gold rim of his spectacles. Fluids leaked from the bandages covering his back. A little fresh blood had gathered in the crook of his arm: not much, but enough to add yet another stain to his already ripe tweed jacket. Devon didn’t care; his looks were of no concern. Elizabeth had still loved him.

Cracked lips pursed while he considered the pages before him.

Blood contained energy: a life-force—or
soul,
as the Church named it. This journal presented him with a method of extraction, a way to remove the spirit from the blood. To bottle it.
Flesh withers. Everything material is poison, everything we consume. Even the air we breathe destroys us. But when we nourish the body with spirit, feed the flesh with something ethereal
…Somewhere outside was a creature who did just that, and had done so for thousands of years.

“Please,” the girl said, “stop this.”

Devon glanced again at the flask of her blood before returning his attention to his notes. He had followed the letting and purification processes to the letter, but as yet there had been no sign of the expected results. Was his transcription at fault? Had he overlooked something? Impossible. There had been no error, he felt sure, in his preparations or implementation of the technique. What else could be missing? Some extra manipulation that had not been recorded? It seemed unlikely. The journal, for all it infused mysticism with science, appeared to be complete. Devon chewed the end of his pencil. A pollutant in his materials? Hardly. He could not make them any more sterile. He’d even had the containers blessed.
For all the good that will do
. And he’d used minimal sedative in the blood itself.

Then what? What was he missing?

The girl’s pleas came in fainter gasps. “You’re…killing me. Please…stop.”

“Hush, girl,” Devon said.

“My name is Lisa,” she wailed. The effort left her breathless.

Devon rolled the pencil between his fingers. A blister opened, leaving the wood slightly damp. Perhaps the souls were tainted, in some way damaged by the process of removal? Or was he failing to extract the entire soul? The Soft Men had taken thirteen souls before the elixir reached saturation point, when spirit could no longer be absorbed by the physical solution. Only then had the recipient flesh been able to absorb the angelwine. Devon had already harvested ten souls. After this girl he required two more. But as yet there was no sign of the elixir nearing saturation point, and this troubled him. Was a soul quantitative?