Weather Witch (12 page)

“No, the other war,” she corrected softly. “1812. Those men fought to keep us free, John. You saw the one missing his leg?”

“No, ma’am. Saw the one missing his arm, though. And the one with the bandana over an eye.”

“Those are our good veterans,” she said. “
That
is their fine reward for fighting in our stead so that we might go on serving tea and biscuits for the lords and ladies of the Hill.” She paused at a crossroad, rubbing her chin. She looked up one street and down the other. Here the houses were even smaller than in the Below, each only the tiniest bit wider than a single door and stacked so high in shambles of architecture that one might easily imagine an entire block tumbling down like so many dominoes.

“The Burn Quarter,” John realized.

“Yes.”

The one place the city watchmen, constables, and fire companies had orders to let burn if ever it caught fire. And, as the fire companies had aligned with the gangs, the likelihood a place would burn while they fought each other was high. Still, the Burn Quarter was the one place they could find the particular skill they sought.

A forbidden skill.

“Miss, this be the place of—”

“Hold the course, John. Steady now. What we do is for the good of our family.”

“No good comes from such places,” he muttered.

A cat screeched like it was being murdered and Chloe thought perhaps that was the truth of the thing. She touched her hip, feeling the little kitchen knife she always carried nestled in one pocket. Small comfort, that, probably only good for a poke or two. Only enough to make a thing angry.

Still, small assurance was better than none at all.

She counted the rambling houses with an outstretched and bobbing finger and paused, pointing to the single house sporting a fence and gate. The one spot in the awkward block with a yard, odd though it seemed. “That one.”

John swallowed so hard Chloe heard it. Running her fingers along the wheelbarrow’s lip, she pressed forward, toward the house … seeking some confirmation she had the right spot.

John found it first. “’Neath the roof’s edge … Be that a skull with stormlight eyes?”

Her answer sounded through the softest of breaths. “Yes.”

“Lord, Lord,” John murmured, looking in distress at the bundle between them, realization slow to dawn. “But … Lord almighty.” He scrubbed a hand over his hoary head. “Miss Chloe, this man…” John shook his head. “This man be a…” Still the words eluded him. He groaned. “A bad sort. Takin’ money and grantin’ life—and not a life like any of us might reckon is worth livin’, neither.”

“A person’s life is not for me to judge. Not its quality, nor its nature, nor its worthiness of being. Nor is it mine to judge who is good and who is bad,” Chloe insisted. “Be it as the Bible charges,
Judge not
—”

“—lest thee be judged?”
John asked. “Surely I wish not to be the first to cast stones, Miss Chloe, though I daresay I built my house not of glass but on the Rock. Still…” He eyed the house, puckering his lips. “I feel safe volunteering that the good Lord may judge me as critically as I might judge this man whose services you wish to contract.”

But, although Chloe heard him, she listened to none of his words of warning. Instead her senses focused on the look of the entire place, from its shaggy and overgrown exterior yard to the way the slats in the fence slanted first one way and then the other like a mouthful of broken teeth. “This is home to a Reanimator.”

“Is a place without love,” John whispered. “Look it. No love for the land—how we ’spect there’s love for life here?”

The moon slid out from behind the last remaining clouds and threw a glow about the place.

“Hush,” Chloe demanded, slipping past him to undo the gate and enter the yard. Plants snagged in Chloe’s skirts as vines crawled from one of the rolling and uneven walkway’s sides to its other. Behind her, John hefted the lady and followed.

Chloe tripped over the tilted threshold, her raised fist slamming prematurely onto the door’s rough surface and cutting her knuckles.

“Bad omen, that,” John said. “Blood calls to blood.”

“What does that even mean?” Chloe asked, but the door opened suddenly and she balked—coming face-to-face with a leering mask. The man who wore it was tall, slim, and graceful.

From the holes designating the mask’s eyes, the Reanimator glanced at them both, peering at the shape held in John’s big hands. Then he looked up and down the street beyond.

Chloe dug her voice out of the pit of her stomach and asked, “You the Reanimator?”

He snorted as if she’d delivered a surprising smack. “Some call me that. In dark alleys and under bridges and in taverns, I suppose.”

“I got your name from none of those—”

He stepped back, hugging the shadows. “My name? You got
my name
?”

Chloe shook her head. “No, good sir—I mean your location. Technically.”

His exhale was amplified behind the mask’s comically painted lips. “Come in,” he said with a slow nod. He waited until they were inside, looked outside once more, and remained silent until the door was shut behind them and latched with two bolts. Only then did he speak again. “Who is it and when did it die?”

John spoke up, anger tinting his voice. “She is—”

But Chloe put a hand on his arm and silenced him. “She is a lady who passed barely an hour ago.”

“What lady?”

“Why should it matter?” Chloe pressed. “She is a lady and she is dead—does not time matter in affairs of this sort?”

He squinted at her, his eyes shadowed beneath the mask. “Yes, yes. Time certainly matters. Bring her here,” he said, motioning to a table. He immediately reached out to unwrap the body, but Chloe slapped his hand away.

“I apologize,” she said, voice wavering. “But she is a
lady
. This much I will do.” With reverent and shaking hands she pulled away the first blanket. And then unfolded the second. She glanced at John. “She’d not want anyone to see her this way,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Just I never turned my back on our lady afore,” he said, thick eyebrows rising. “Never would mean her no disrespect.”

“I know, John. Surely she’d know, too. But…”

He nodded again and turned his back as, hesitantly, Chloe untucked and unrolled the quilt so her lady’s face was once more exposed to the air.

Something small, dark, and furred raced into the room, whining and circling the Reanimator’s feet.

John and Chloe jumped.

“Black magick!” John cried, making the sign of the cross.

The thing took flight, landing in the Reanimator’s arms and licking the face beneath the mask.

“Not black magick,” the Reanimator said with a laugh, stroking a hand down the black beast’s back. “Merely my dearest companion—a true vixen.”

Her broad, plush tail flipped about like a fine dust brush and with a whimper she hopped back down and slunk back into the shadows. “Although black magick is highly profitable, it is not what I practice,” he assured. “There is enough risk with real magick and science—things go wrong and doppelgängers and fetches get born…” He shook his head. “Reveal your lady.”

Chloe dropped the quilt’s edge and retreated, her hand going to her mouth. To see her so still … She knew she was dead. She
knew
it. But the shock of seeing death so plainly shadowing her ladyship’s features, making her seem sallow, so incomplete …

The man wandered around the table, leaning over to examine her more closely. “And precisely how…?”

“Her wrists,” Chloe stammered, her hand rubbing at her own wrist, stunned.

“Ah. I see, I see.” He shook his head. “No. I
need
to see. Unwrap her fully, please.”

Chloe did.

After a long time of him doing seemingly nothing but staring at the ragged tears in her forearms, he untied the ribbons on her wrists and announced, “I can bring her back. I will need to repair some structural damage first.” He motioned to her butchered veins. “But it is nothing I haven’t managed before. Given a little time and a great deal of luck, I’ll have her right as rain.” He stuck his hand out. “Hand me her soul.”

John’s eyes flew wide open and, turning, he stuttered, “H-h-her soul?!”

The man’s grinning mask tilted as he appraised his guests. “You do not have her soul?” He looked from one of them to the other and back again, his gaze settling on Chloe.

“How does one even…?” she began, but her voice fell away to nothing.

“Amateurs. The soul or spirit is energy—not unlike that inside your common stormcells and stormlights. When a person dies, especially in a traumatic fashion, their soul wings away because, being power, it is attracted to power, even residual sources and especially tumultuous sources of it. What stormlight was closest to her when she died?”

“They were all dead.”

He straightened sharply. “Ah. Lady Astraea.”

Chloe clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

“Word travels fast whenever the Weather Workers arrive. There will be a stormlight near her body’s location that will still have the faintest of glows to it. It will shine with a color and hum without the power of the Hub. Bring me that stormlight with the crystal intact and I might revive her to nearly her natural state.”

“
Nearly
her natural state?” Chloe asked.

“This is science. And science is an imperfect art. But frequently improving. Hurry now.”

Both servants turned toward the door, but Chloe grabbed John. “No. You have your keys. Stay with her. Guard her,” she whispered, looking at the strange man. “I’ll feel better if you do.”

“But.” John glanced toward the door and the darkness beyond. “The streets—”

“—were my home before either of my two households took me in,” she assured. “I’ll be fine.”

Yet, hearing the door latch behind her, she drew her arms tight around her body and hurried back toward the Hill and the Astraeas’ dark estate crowning its top.

The Road To Holgate

The carriage holding Jordan captive jostled its way across the Hill and meandered down the zigzagging road that descended along properties of decreasing value.

The Councilman perched on the overstuffed leather seat across from Jordan was glaring. “This would all be much easier if you admit that you are what you are,” he growled, leaning back until the seat squeaked. He picked at his fingernails and shook his head, making little
tsk-tsk
noises.

“But I am not a Weather Witch,” Jordan insisted, rubbing at her cheeks to stop the flow of tears. “I have no affinity with storms—I don’t even particularly like them. The only thing I like about a cloudy day is that I do not need to carry a parasol to avoid getting an unsightly tan. Or freckling like some washerwoman.”

“You summoned a storm. A large one.”

“No. I did not! I have never summoned a storm—I cannot. I am Grounded. Besides, that was not even a large storm considering our weeklies. Magicking a storm is simply
not
within my capabilities
nor
my bloodline.”

“Your bloodline is corrupt. Your mother no better than a filthy whore.”

“Take that back,” she hissed, her manicured fingers curling into claws as her lips twisted in a snarl. “No one speaks of my mother that way. Lady Cynthia Astraea is one of the most noble women to walk this Earth…”

“Slut,” the Councilman said, lacing his fingers together and peering over them at her with cool detachment in his eyes. “Whore. Two-bit Molly.”

A growl grew in Jordan’s throat and she leaned across the aisle, eyes bright and sharp. “You stop now or I swear…”

The man grabbed a metal bar on the carriage’s curving wall, fingers wrapping tight around it as he watched Jordan, a wicked grin on his lips. “You swear you’ll do
what,
Miss Astraea? Or shall we give you some other name since Astraea should not belong to a bitch whose mother was nothing but a common coney?”

Shrieking, Jordan lunged across the aisle but the Wardens flanking her simply held tighter. For a moment she hung in the middle of the aisle, her mouth moving soundlessly as she fought for words to hurl at the Councilman and the cold-eyed Tester at his side. No words came and finally she flopped back into her seat, shaking with sobs as fresh tears seeped free of her eyes.

The folded paper star pressed into her sleeve was a bitter reminder of how far she’d already fallen.

Across the aisle the Tester cocked his head, cooing a single word, his eyes on her hands the whole time. “Interesting.”

Jordan sniffled and turned her head to the carriage’s barred window, watching her world slip away, lights and familiar sights streaking and blurring to nothing as the last beads of rain raced across the window’s glass.

Chapter Seven

For it’s always fair weather

When good fellows get together …

—RICHARD HOOVEY

Philadelphia

Rowen wandered down the stairs, his fingertips trailing along the low banister as his nose sucked in the familiar scents of the kitchen. Freshly baked bread, sweet biscuits, and stew … It was hardly appropriate that he should spend so much time fraternizing with the staff—they were all at least two ranks below him, but Rowen had never cared much for societal norms when it came to friendships. He had grown up with brothers who couldn’t be bothered with him and parents who only wanted him to fit a mold. Most of the time he did.

And most of those times willingly.

But there were times as a boy Rowen broke free—disappeared—and had to be hauled back to the house, streaked in mud and laughing like some wild child, clothing torn and hair full of “unmentionable natural objects,” as his mother would say. Jonathan was his most frequent accomplice and remained a friend (though that word could never be used around Rowen’s mother—it was unseemly having a manservant as a friend). So it was only natural that Rowen headed to a place he knew Jonathan would find him.

A place his harpy of a mother would dare not visit.