Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (40 page)

‘Just a drop,’ Lurker told him, almost snatching back, as if it were more precious than just a flask.

Merion wiped his mouth, unwittingly smearing a dark red streak across his cheek. Lurker tutted. ‘Don’t let folks see you like that.’

As Merion felt the heat grow inside him, he smirked. ‘I suppose I’m kind of like a vampire, drinking blood and all that.’

Lurker looked offended. He shook his head. ‘Don’t joke about that, boy. We’re not damn vampires, we’re rushers. Or in your case, leeches. It’s a foolish comparison.’

Merion did not get a chance to reply. It suddenly felt as though his nose had been removed, and all the scents in the world had tumbled into the gaping hole, tickling his bare brain. Half the smells he had no clue about. There was something that smelled like corn. Something else that was sickly and sweet. Sweat. He could smell that on Lurker. So strong it almost made him wince. He could smell his leather too, that tangy, cured meat smell. And the metal. From the buckles to the buttons on Lurker’s clothes to the giant gun at his back, it all sang to him like a siren.

Lurker reached into another pocket and produced a tiny nugget of gold. ‘You smell that?’

It was like having a bouquet of sweet, oily flowers shoved in his face. Merion sniffed long and deep, drinking it in.

‘It’s always strongest, the first time. Gives you a little somethin’ to chase, really.’ Lurker smiled wryly and put the gold back into his pocket. ‘You’re using it up fast, I can tell.’

It was true. Merion was quickly losing the burn. The world became plainer, greyer, inch by inch and scent by scent.

‘That ain’t a good vein for you.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘You don’t know shit about what’s fine, boy,’ Lurker reprimanded him.

Merion bowed his head, feeling suitably chastised.

‘That’s enough for today,’ Lurker said, picking up the vials and the paper and stuffing them into a satchel.

Merion moodily picked up his flask of water and followed Lurker, and together the two of them walked north, back towards the bustling town.

It was a busy Saturday afternoon in Fell Falls. Fresh workers were coming in by the trainload, like fresh soldiers, ready to be thrown at the walls of the enemy. These were foreigners, men shipped in from the southern ports, from Cathay, in the far east. Merion watched them mill about in clumps, talking in a babbling, urgent tongue and decked out in Serped-green overalls. They seemed agitated, and what did not calm matters were the coffins being busily traded for live passengers. As the new workers filed out of the carriages, the bare wooden coffins were carried in and stowed on the seats. They were watched with wild and nervous eyes. A fine welcome to Fell Falls, indeed.

*

When they arrived back at the house, they found yet another visitor on the step. Lurker just tipped his hat and walked on by, leaving Merion stuck with the blubbering stranger. This time it was a woman, a large woman at that, with thick black hair and a dirt-smeared dress. There were great red patches around her eyes where she had rubbed and clawed at them. ‘Peter,’ was all she could say, ‘Peter.’ Even the name seemed too much for her; she broke into ragged sobs and shook.

‘Excuse me,’ whispered Merion, sneaking past her to the door.

Inside, the air was cool. Before going downstairs to see what had become of this Peter, he stuck his head into his room and called for Rhin.

The faerie had not moved in eight days. Not a muscle. He just kept staring at the door as if it were his mortal enemy, eyes narrowed and hands clasped tightly.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ came the curt reply, as always.

‘For Almighty’s sake, Rhin. Are you ever going to come out from under there?’

‘Soon.’

‘It’s about time you did. Shall I ask again, or am I wasting my time?’

‘Told you. Rats.’

Merion shook his head. He had never seen Rhin like this. Earlier in the week he had been concerned, upset even, but now he was simply exasperated, and bored of his strange Fae mood swing.
Maybe he was just jealous of his new magick
.

‘Rats again,’ Merion muttered, on the way out of the room.

Down in the basement, poor Peter lay on the table with a great puckered welt down his front, tied with thick black thread. It seemed that Lilain was almost finished.

‘Come here,’ she said, beckoning to him.

Merion rolled his eyes. ‘Are we not saying hello anymore?’

Lilain was obviously not in the mood. ‘Just get over here and look at this.’

Merion grumpily obliged her. ‘What is it?’ he asked, staring down at the pale skin of the dead man. Peter was also a large man, and wore a mop of jet-black hair. A husband or brother, Merion wasn’t sure.

‘Look at that,’ Lilain replied, pointing to three tiny cuts in the side of his neck. The veins around the wounds were black and swollen. ‘See that?’

‘Snake?’

‘Since when have you ever seen a three-fanged snake?’

Merion sighed. ‘Never, but seeing as there are also ghosts in this desert that can rip up rail, I thought I would venture a guess.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. No snake did this.’

‘Then what did?’

Lilain didn’t seem sure of the answer. She hummed to herself as she poked and prodded. ‘Something small, and something sharp.’

‘Like a little knife,’ Merion offered. He saw the flicker in the corner of his aunt’s eye, and realised he had chosen his words poorly.

‘Whilst we’re on the subject,’ said Lilain, reaching to the foot of the table, where two dented trays and one chipped bowl sat. ‘It seems you knocked these over when you took the bat blood. Wise of you to make noise, to get my attention. You might not have survived.’

Merion nodded. He could see where this was going.

‘You must have thrown them with a lot of force,’ Lilain added. She picked up the bowl and showed him a sharp dent and a long scratch through the enamel and tin. ‘Must have hit something small. And sharp.’

Merion tried his best to shrug, but somehow it did not feel as convincing as he hoped. ‘I was in a lot of pain. Can’t really remember.’

Lilain showed him the two trays next. ‘See? Something small and sharp,’ she hummed.

Merion wanted an escape, and badly. This line of talk was a dangerous one. ‘Corner of the table, maybe,’ he tried.

‘Maybe,’ Lilain whispered.

Merion began to back away, trying to extricate himself from this awkward conversation. ‘Well then,’ he smiled. ‘I will leave you to it. Going to pick out my clothes for tomorrow evening.’

Lilain sniffed. ‘Still going then?’ she asked.

Merion nodded. He had feared his aunt’s behaviour at the door had cost him his invitation, but as luck would have it, the details had arrived that very morning by courier. Merion was still in favour. Castor Serped was only a day’s wait away. ‘Well, I am still invited. It would be rude not to go,’ he replied.

‘Yes, rude to ignore Calidae Serped,’ his aunt retorted. Merion was not sure if she was angry or disappointed. In any case either would have been unfair. His aunt would have to put her grievances aside for now. He had business to attend to.

‘Yes, well,’ was all Merion could think of to say. He clasped his hands together, shook them at his aunt in some sort of gesture of summation, and then quickly escaped upstairs, to go bother a moody faerie. With the bedroom door double-locked.

BLOOD AND IRON

‘I haven’t left the tower in days. Visitors come and go like fawners around a new king. I imagine Karrigan sitting in his grand study, bathing in the horse shit, smug and smirking. Merion will never become such a man, not if I have anything to do with it.’

2nd June, 1867

N
o railroad on a Sunday, they’d said. Day of the Maker’s rest, they’d said. But Fell Falls had no need of Sundays, it seemed, and the Maker’s rest had been well and truly trampled under the cartwheels of ambition and profit. The town was ablaze with activity.

Merion noted the sour faces, looking as though they’d been cheated. Cheated out of a good morning’s rest, or one last roll around with the mistress, or one last shot of whiskey, depending on the make of the man. Not a single laugh echoed through the bustling streets. Not a chuckle either. Just that slow leaden grumble of conversation, some in the common tongue, or else in the tangled tones of Cathayan dialects, with a sharp order here and there for good measure.

The whole air of the town made Merion want to tiptoe. He felt out of place somehow, as if the disgruntlement against the Serpeds would at any moment be turned on him, the only other high-born in sight—another gold-plated foreigner, throwing his weight around. Merion had already caught more than a few dark looks that morning.
Better not mention the dinner invitation, then
.

Merion was hunting for Lurker. The prospector had promised to come by at ten to continue Merion’s training. It was now eleven, and Merion was already bored of traipsing through the dusty, busy streets and peering into even dustier saloon windows. Lurker, for all intents and purposes, had vanished off the face of the earth. It did not help that the town was full to bursting with people and sweaty bodies. Merion felt drowned.

Lord Castor had almost doubled the population of Fell Falls in just over a week. Safety in numbers, some whispered. More food for the wraiths, said others.

Merion spied a few saloons he had yet to try, a handful which lingered near the end of a long street, where the shining tracks carved a path across the dirt and out into the dust and desert. Merion glimpsed them through the forest of legs and pickaxes. Two of the saloons were bright and cheery affairs—well, as cheery as Fell Falls got with a bucket of lavender paint and a sloppy eye for detail. They were quiet, barely a man or two from empty, but there was no Lurker in sight.

Merion traipsed to the last saloon, a dingy affair with a bowed roof and dark windows. The darkness beyond its pair of lopsided swing-doors was smoky and thick. Merion rolled his eyes. With a hop and skip across creaking steps and boards, he stood at the entrance and peered inside. But the day was bright, and the bar area gloomy, and Merion had a hard time seeing anything besides an array of dark furniture, an equally dark bar, and an assortment of shadowy figures, all with hats and coats and hunched postures.

Once he had stepped through the doors and blinked his eyes, he realised he had about four Lurkers to choose from. They sat at separate tables with their shoulders tucked into their necks and their hats low over the half-empty glasses. Each one could have been Lurker in the right light, until you saw the colour of their skin. Even so, Merion felt like he had just barged in on an official meeting of the Grumpy Old Prospectors-with-a-Fondness-for-Leather Association.

‘Hey, no children in the bar!’ came the shout of a rotund man with red cheeks and slicked-back hair, obviously the owner.

‘He’s with me,’ replied the real Lurker, who was sat at a stool at the far end of the bar, nursing a large glass of orange liquid.

‘Well you keep him quiet, and no drinking,’ ordered the barman. Merion quickly moved to join Lurker, lest he changed his mind.

Merion dragged over another stool. ‘You’re late.’

‘I was busy.’

‘Busy with what? Drinking?’

‘For the most part.’

‘Most of the morning, no doubt.’

Lurker took another sip of his strange-coloured whiskey. ‘You sound like your aunt.’

Merion lowered his voice. ‘You were supposed to come and train me at ten. It’s now well past eleven.’

‘Well I got distracted,’ he said, waving his glass around in little circular motions. ‘Anniversaries. They come every year, even when you don’t want ’em to. Come to fuck up your day.’

‘Anniversary of what?’

Lurker knocked back the rest of the glass and put his hands flat on the sticky bar. ‘You don’t want to know, boy, and I don’t want to waste breath day sayin’ it, so let’s put a cork in your questions for now.’ The look in Lurker’s eye was hard and dangerous, one that Merion found very difficult to ignore. ‘All you need to know is that you’re a welcome distraction.’

‘I could have been a distraction an hour ago.’

Lurker swivelled in his seat and then eyed the floor as if it planned to swallow him. ‘You brought any shades?’ he asked.

‘Several.’

‘Great,’ Lurker grunted. Finally he summoned the courage to stand on his own two feet. He swayed like a pine in a gale, but he stood nonetheless. He took a long, deep draught of air in through his nostrils and sighed. ‘Come, we’re going for a walk.’

Merion was not so sure they were, judging by the course Lurker plotted through the tables and stools, nudging a few shoulders here and there for good measure. Merion followed him, handing out apologies where necessary. Lurker finally made it through the doors without cartwheeling onto his face, and Merion hurried after his drunk mentor, inwardly groaning about how torturous the next few hours could be.

Little did Merion know, all the best mentors are drunkards. There comes a certain clarity when one is inebriated. While some abilities—such as the ability to enunciate, or even to balance—fade away and become muddled, one stands out true and strong amid drunkenness’s lopsided mire: honesty.