Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (62 page)

Thunder rolled in the wake of a lightning flash, and Merion found himself wishing for a coat, or an umbrella. He was already soaked to the bone, and there was nothing he could do about that. All he could do was shelter the Mistress and hope that rain wouldn’t jam it. Looking down at it again, Merion wondered whether he could use it, were he pushed. Could he stoop as low as his murderer? He imagined the sight of his aunt tied to a chair, bloodied and beaten, would certainly be enough to throw him over the precipice. If murder had to be committed to protect her, then so be it. That was the truth in its basest form. Merion felt the hot flush of that simplicity through him. It steeled him, and stirred something monstrous inside of him. He let his blood boil, and it felt good. It felt powerful. That rage shouted down the doubt and fear enough to keep his feet moving through the slick mud.

Merion threw a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Rhin wasn’t following him. You could always spot him in the rain. The droplets clung to whatever cloak of invisibility he wore, making his shape easier to see. It was the one flaw of that particular Fae magick. The road behind him was empty, as it should be. No sign of the coward.

Merion did not regret a single word he had uttered to the faerie. It was how he felt, simple as that. Rhin had let him down time and time again, and this time, now that he had stood by while his aunt was kidnapped, was the last straw. Merion let that new anger swirl with the current, and together they helped him burn.

With a wet hand, he rummaged through his pockets and checked his vials. Some of the labels had been blackened or smudged with other blood, but as far as he could tell he had quite a selection, despite the odds.

Ox.

Blue whale.

Pigeon.
Useless
.

Mongoose.

Bobcat.

Flamingo.

Turtle.

And electric eel.
Thank the Almighty
.

Merion prayed that these would be enough, and as he smudged the labels with his wet fingers, he wondered what combinations he could make, and whether he dared to.

It was then that he heard a squawk from behind him. Merion whirled around to find Jake flying right at him. Merion threw up his hands and Jake flared his wings, coming to a stop on the boy’s left arm. He winced as the magpie’s claws sunk in. ‘What is it?’ Merion asked, staring into the beady eye of the bird.

The magpie chattered something utterly incomprehensible, and Merion shrugged.

‘I don’t understand, I’m sorry,’ he apologised.

Jake chattered again, this time flapping his wings and bobbing his head. Merion kept his eyes fixed on the bird’s good eye and poured all his concentration into it.

‘War,’ Merion said. Just one word, like a bell chiming in his head.

Jake nodded his head eagerly. The claws unfortunately sank deeper. Merion gasped. ‘I can’t do anything about it,’ he said. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

Jake cawed loudly in his face.

‘Jail? You mean Lurker? I don’t have time. They have my aunt!’

The magpie screeched at him before launching himself back into the rainy sky. He circled once, cawing something disapproving, and then flapped back towards the town.

‘I’m sorry,’ Merion shrugged. Lurker could not help him now. He was in jail, surrounded by sheriffsmen and steel bars. Ox blood would do it, but he needed that for Castor, and his guard dog Gile.

Merion looked down at the gun once again, and let his finger trace the curve of the trigger—practising, almost, for that moment when he would put a bullet in somebody.

There was just one other factor that he had not yet considered, partly because he refused to, and that was Calidae. What side would she choose, when his aunt’s blood was spilled, and Merion’s gun fired? He let that question hang unanswered in the dark parts of his mind, stowing it away for later. He hoped he would not have to ask it of her. The last thing he wanted was Calidae as an enemy.

*

Lurker sniffed at the cold air, and the droplets of rain that splashed through the bars. ‘Don’t smell right,’ he murmured. He looked up at the night to watch the downpour and the lightning playing in the storm cloud’s canyons and valleys.

‘Don’t smell right at all,’ Lurker shook his head. ‘Sheriff!’ he yelled, pressing his face up against the bars of his cell. ‘Sheriff! I need to talk to you.’

There was a bark of laughter and cursing from the room along the hall, and then a sigh. A shadow moved against the brick, and sure enough, one of the sheriff’s lackeys ambled down the hall.

‘If you’ve shit yourself, I swear to the Maker, I’ll break your—’

‘I don’t shit myself, man, it’s the Shohari!’

The sheriffsman crossed his arms and put his head on a slant. ‘What about ’em?’

‘They’re goin’ to attack again. Tonight,’ Lurker said.

That seemed to put a little kick into the man. He straightened up and came a little closer. ‘How’d you know, traitor? You tip them off? Feeling guilty all of a sudden, are we?’

‘No, I mean, yes. You have to warn somebody,’ Lurker urged him.

The sheriffsman snorted. ‘And what if that’s exactly what the Shohari want us to do? Huh? What if this is a little plan of yours, you and your painted monster friends. Nice try, traitor.’

The man began to turn away, but Lurker reached through the bars and grabbed his sleeve. ‘Please, you got to—’

Lurker had seen many strange and horrible things in his time, but this one had to take the prize for both categories. Before Lurker could finish his sentence, a hazy, rain-soaked shape jumped onto the sheriffsman’s shoulders and sank a glass-like blade into his throat, cutting a neat crimson stripe across his skin, and opening his veins to the air. Lurker grabbed his other arm and held him upright against the bars so he could clamp a hand over his mouth. The eyes of the sheriffsman were wild and frantic as the blood dribbled.

‘What the
hell
, Rhin, you demented bastard? They’ll kill us!’ Lurker mouthed.

‘They won’t have time to notice. The town is rioting over late pay,’ hissed the faerie, materialising out of the air. ‘In about ten seconds they’ll be out of that door and we’ll be left alone to deal with him.’ Rhin held the sheriffsman’s head as he struggled.

‘Rioting? Shit.’ Lurker pressed his forehead to the bars. He suddenly didn’t care about the blood any more. ‘The Shohari are about to attack for a second time.’ Lurker sniffed then, and said: ‘And you smell like gold. Lots of gold.’

Rhin frowned and shook his head. ‘None of that matters right n—’

There was a bang as the door at the end of the corridor flew open. Two lordsguards burst in and hollered at the top of their lungs. ‘The workers are up in arms! There’s a damn riot on Main Street! We need your help!’

Another chorus of cursing began as the sheriffsmen scrambled for the door. One of them called out to the dying sheriffsman. ‘Iker, get a move on! There’s a riot going on!’

Lurker acted quickly, shouting out on behalf of the unfortunate Iker. ‘I’ll be right there! You go on!’

‘Well, hurry up!’ came the reply, but the man was already halfway out the door.

‘See?’ shrugged Rhin. ‘And you even did a reasonable impression, too.’

Lurker let the man slump to the floor, but not before relieving him of his keys.

‘You were saying?’ he asked as he unlocked his cell door.

Rhin took a breath. ‘It’s Merion. And Lilain. The Serpeds have taken her and Merion is on the war path. He’s taken a gun and is marching on Castor’s riverboat right now. We have to help, or he’ll get himself killed.’

Lurker looked as though he were having a hard time processing all of that information at once. He scratched his shaved, scarred head, wondering how long he had actually been in jail. ‘How?’ he croaked.

‘It’s a long story and one we don’t have time for.’

Lurker took one last look at the dead sheriffsman, pulled a wry face, and then nodded. ‘I need my hat. It’s raining,’ he said as they jogged down the corridor.

‘I don’t know about that, but your gun is hanging on that wall,’ Rhin replied, managing to keep up with Lurker’s loping strides.

Lurker had already spied it, and was currently tucking it into his belt. He also took a spare rifle from a rack. He was about to leave when he noticed a hat hanging from a peg. It was rounder, and sandier in colour than he liked, but a hat was a hat, and he couldn’t go without. He grunted, and slipped it onto his head.

‘You done?’ Rhin snapped.

Lurker nodded, pulling the brim of his new hat low. ‘Lead the way,’ he growled.

*

The house was a smouldering, hissing wreck when the Wit and his Fingers arrived. He stood in the middle of the muddy road, crossed his arms, and tapped his feet. They stood in plain sight. The town’s thoughts were on the riot that had abruptly sprung to life, and was raging through the streets. Doors in the Runnels had been tightly locked, and windows shuttered. If a house fire could not gain their attention, then a gang of thirteen heavily armed and armoured faeries would hardly cause a stir.

The sky rumbled and Wit shrugged. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got,’ he ordered, and his Fingers swarmed forwards as one. He strolled behind them as they picked their way through the blackened, sodden wreckage of the front door. The downpour was showing no signs of letting up, and though fortunate for a burning house, it was a terrible inconvenience for faeries on the hunt for other faeries. The Wit was in a foul mood now. There was knife-work to be had, and his fingers itched for it.

His eyes fluttered as they illuminated the smoky, wet darkness for him. Everything was black. The upstairs was gutted, and the kitchen had fared no better. The Wit could still feel the heat in the floorboards beneath him. The rain had a job left to do. As the Fingers prowled and poked about in the corners and under fallen beams, Finrig moved to the right, to the one room the fire had failed to turn to charcoal, some sort of bedroom.

The Wit stood in the doorway and let his eyes wander, as they had a habit of doing. He drank in every grubby little detail, every crease and burn, every corner, every … There was a mound of something under the bed. Finrig moved forward, hands creeping onto his knife, eyes widening to take advantage of what feeble light the stormy night had to offer.

Then came lightning. The night froze, drenched in haunting blue light, and in that blinding flash, the Wit saw his prizes, strewn across an old and dusty suitcase, wrapped in old clothes. Bending underneath the frame, he began to pick through the moth-bitten detritus: a whetstone that fit his hand perfectly; a fork far too small for any human; shoes made of thick leather, just short of the Wit’s own; and paper—reams of paper covered with crude and tiny diagrams written in stolen ink. This was a faerie’s den, just as sure as the Wit was a bastard.

But Finrig did not seem at all happy. He let his wings rattle angrily. Rhin was nowhere to be seen. The Wit pulled out his knife and poked around in the mess, looking for something to assuage his dark mood and itchy fingers. There was a dull thud as the knifepoint found something unyielding. He flicked a cloth aside to uncover a small but thick book, bitten at the edges and yellower than a beggar’s teeth.

‘What do we have here?’ The Wit whispered to himself. Faeries were great keepers of books, but the road was not a joyous place for those with heavy packs. If a faerie carried a book with him, there was bound to be an important reason for it. His knifepoint tickled the corner of the book and made it yawn. The Wit sank down to peer at its scrawled words, like the barely legible scribblings of a shivering child.

The Diary of Rhin Rehn’ar.

The Wit did not need to read any further than that to make him smile. He reached down to seize the diary and then backed out from under the bed. His Fingers were standing, waiting.

‘There ain’t nothing here, Wit. Not a sniff of the boy or Rehn’ar,’ spat one of the Fingers.

Finrig smirked, tucking the heavy diary under his arm. ‘I think there may have been a falling out of the houses, lads,’ he said.

‘Trouble in paradise?’ chuckled another.

‘Looks like we’ve got some more walking to do.’