Dead of Veridon (20 page)

"Doesn't explain the purge mask, though," Wilson said.

I shrugged. It did seem a little theatrical for Angela's style. She was much more the type to just pull out a pistol and shoot you in the chest, without preamble or warning. Which was also the problem with Crane's theoretical role in Alexander's madness. If the Tombs wanted Alexander dead, they would shoot him. Unless they needed to discredit him first. I really needed to know more about what was going on in the Council.

"What about this Bright girl?" I asked. "What do you know about her?"

"Not much. They're a recent addition to the Council. Her father has very diversified interests. One of which, curiously, is not the Council. It was her brother that worked to get them a seat in the chamber. And as far as I know, he's the one who sits it. Aaron, his name is, I think. She acts as his second."

"I take it they hate all Founders, everywhere, and would do everything in their power to bring us down?"

"Beats me." Wilson finished his beer then carefully turned the mug on its head and rested his hands on top of it. "But it sure seems she has no love for the Tombs. Maybe she'd talk to you. Tell me," he said, looking around the bar. "Does this all seem strange to you?"

I finished my beer and pushed the glass away. It left a wet trail on the table, like a slug.

"Does what seem strange to me?"

"This crowd. What is tonight, Tuesday? Tuesday's not usually a big drinking night."

I put a hand on the girl's wrist when she brought me the next round. She stiffened, but met my eyes.

"What's with all the people?" I asked. She answered, but it was too quiet for me to hear. I gave her a tug, until she bent close.

"They're coming for you," she groaned. Voice like a graveyard cracking open, rattling up from the deep parts of her chest.

"What?" I asked, squeezing hard. Wilson squinted at me and leaned in to listen. The girl blinked and looked at me like I was an idiot.

"I said, people are cutting loose before the curfew. Council's shutting the city down tomorrow. Some kind of Badge thing."

"First I've heard of it," I said. "I've never known them to shut down the whole city."

"Not since the red fever came through here," Wilson said, looking mournfully at his upturned mug. "It's pretty strange."

"Anyway," the barmaid fluttered her eyes at me. "Much as I enjoy being held by such a fine gentleman, I do have other tables."

"I really doubt you've been held by many gentlemen," I muttered.

She gave me a look, then twisted her arm free and slapped her palm flat across my cheek before stalking away.

"What was that about?" Wilson asked, eyes twinkling.

"Nothing," I said. "Let's get out of here."

"Aren't you going to finish your beer?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Aren't you going to pay for the beers you finished?"

"Nope."

"Woo, it's a party! We're on a tear!" Wilson jumped up and slapped me on the back. "Skipping out on checks and walking out on your father. Next thing we'll be beating up kids for their allowance!"

"What the hell has gotten into you?" I snapped.

"I'm just glad to see you making mistakes again. You're more fun when you make mistakes." He grabbed me by the shoulder with his iron-hard fingers and kept me from walking away from him. "Seriously. What'd the bitch say the first time? I thought your face was going to fall off."

"I don't know what
she
said," I answered, looking nervously around the room. "But someone made a threat, through her. A threat or a warning."

Wilson's smile broke, but only for a moment. He looked for the barmaid, but couldn't find her. Without another word he started pushing for the front door.

"Did she look like she had cogwork?" he asked.

"She looked like she had great tits. That's as far as I got."

"You're not helpful," he hissed.

"I thought I was more fun when I made mistakes."

"That has its limits. Let's get somewhere quieter and..."

The sirens started. Out in the streets, the drunken crowd gave a whoop and a holler, and then gunfire sprinkled the air and people started screaming. We stopped talking, and just ran.

Chapter Ten

Needing a Hero

T
HIS IS WHAT
I wanted to do; what I was going to do. I wanted to run as far from this bullshit as modern transportation would take me. Grew up the pawn of my old man, played the game according to his rules, according to the rules of this little society we had formed on this godscursed river. And he played me, betrayed me, cut me off. Everything that man had ever done was meant to shape me into a tool for his name. And when I broke, when the tool fell clattering to the floor of his shop, he cast me aside and went looking for someone else.

And now he had no one else, and he was coming back to me. Reinstating me into the family would only do one thing, it would get me killed. So here I was, dragged back into the chaos of Council politics, into the backstabbing and the plotting. Into the game. And I was done playing.

Somewhere outside of Veridon there was a morning where I could wake up and not worry about whether my name was about to get me killed. There was a town that had never heard of the family Burn, never heard of the wastrel of a son who disappointed his scheming father. There was a place where I was a nobody, worth nothing. Not worth killing. I was going to find that place. Now.

To hell with this place. To hell with Veridon.

O
UTSIDE, IT WAS
like a festival. The street was stuffed with people, some of them screaming, some of them laughing. All of them drunk. The gunfire was distant, the sirens howling over the crowd like a trumpet call. The air was crackling with a hot spring breeze. Flares had gone up, lining the clouds of an early season storm in unnatural pinks and reds. Lightning shuddered across the sky. Wilson was still smiling.

There was a line of officers of the Badge moving down the street, steadily compacting the revelers into tighter and tighter quarters. The gunshots came from them, firing their shortrifles into the air as they proceeded. Wilson and I went with the flow of traffic, rippling in the other direction. It felt as if we were being herded.

"So, whatever ghost voice talked to you through the girl," Wilson yelled into my ear - it was hard to hear anything over the crowd and the sirens - "do you think it was the Badge they were warning you about?"

"Nope," I answered. My shoulders were hunched tight under my jacket. I was getting pressed from all sides.

"Me neither," Wilson said. "Because it's pretty obvious that they're coming. Don't need to be warned away from that ruckus. Which leaves us with the interesting question."

"Which is?"

Wilson looked around at the crowd, then back to me.

"What's the real threat, and where are they?" He muscled an arm free of the press and used it to clear some space around us. "And how long before they stab us in the back, among all these idiots?"

"That's not a very interesting question," I said. "At least, I'm not interested in it."

"You're not?" He gave me a quizzical look. "Feeling suicidal?"

"No. I'm feeling finished." I pushed to the side of the crowd, against one of the walls. The shop behind me had been boarded up, in eerily accurate anticipation of the riot. The keep had clearly seen this kind of weather in the air before. I stood with my back against the boards, watching the Badge get closer. Wilson fought his way next to me and stared into my face.

"Finished? Just like that? You're giving up."

"I'm just getting out, Wilson. I'm sick of this. Sick of my father."

"Oh, your father," he nodded. "That's what this is about. That's all you care about, isn't it?"

"You're missing the point, buddy. That's all I don't care about. I'd like to keep myself alive, and I'd like him to stop getting in the way of that." The crowd was getting awfully tight. Wilson was pushed right up against me. I could feel the brace of knives in his vest, poking me in the ribs. "I tried doing it in the city. Stayed low. Got forgotten. And that worked for a while. Now it seems to have stopped working."

"Don't give me that shit, Jacob." He bared his hundred teeth at me, biting off each word with a snap. "He would have taken you back, but you didn't give him the chance. You took the path that went through every bar in Veridon, and half the whores. I know, Jacob, because I followed you through that path. That's what friends do."

"We're friends now? I thought you were waiting for me to start making mistakes again. Because it amuses you."

He shook his long, bald head at me and spat. The line of Badge was getting close. Wilson noticed and pushed me aside, then began prying off the boards on the shop door.

"So what's your plan, genius? Get arrested again?" He snapped a board in half and began working on the lock beneath. "Because that's what's going to happen if you don't get moving."

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea. Settle into a nice cell until this blows over."

"You think they're going to let you do that? Angela's already sprung you once. Who knows what would come for you this time!" The lock snapped open, and Wilson pulled the door wide, tearing the boards from the frame as he pulled. So it wasn't the best barricade job. The shopkeeper hadn't matched his prescience with good carpentry. You can't have everything. Wilson stood in the door, staring down at me.

"Stay out here and get arrested, or come through here with me. But if you follow me, by gods, you have to fight with me."

"What makes you so all-fire righteous all of a sudden, Wilson?" I demanded. "You can't tell me that you honestly care about what happens in the Council. Or to my father, for that matter."

He laughed.

"Don't care? It's all I care about, Jacob. You can go traipsing off into some pastoral fantasy about milkmaids and sleeping in and maybe doing a little fishing," he snarled, making the word 'milkmaids' sound particularly vicious. "But some of us are stuck here. Some of us can't drop everything and disappear."

"That's not my fault. That's not my responsibility. And what the hell is keeping you here, anyway? Not like you've got family obligations."

There was murder in his eyes. I had always been afraid of his teeth, and his iron hard fingers, and those knives, and the sharp talons of his spider hands. I added his eyes to the list.

"Oi, you there! You lads!" shouted one of the officers. "We'd like a word with you, if you have the time." As if we were standing in the street, loitering. Not in the middle of a riot.

Wilson stepped inside the shop, gave me a significant look. I shrugged and brushed past him, further into the darkness within. He turned to the line of officers who were struggling to get closer.

"I will thank you kind gentleman to do something about this rabble," Wilson shouted back. "I am a respectable citizen of the city, and the proprietor of this fine shop. Please remove these people from my doorstep and see that nothing is damaged. I have some very fine" - he paused to look around at the shelves nearest him - "some very fine pottery that must be protected at all costs. And what appears to be a hookah... never mind, thank you for your time."

And he slammed the door and threw the bolt, and then whirled on me.

"Let's say that it's not me who's stuck here. You clearly care nothing for me, or my feelings, so let's imagine it's someone else. Anyone else. What would have happened if you hadn't stepped up two years ago, huh? What would have happened to the city?"

"Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have let Camilla have her heart back, and let the chips fall where they may."

"Really?" He stalked closer to me, backing me up against the very fine pottery. "Really, Jacob? You don't care that she would have burned a hole through this city a mile wide and two deep? All the people who would have died, all the tomorrows that would have been lost; that doesn't matter to you at all?"

"Maybe it doesn't matter to me anymore." I pushed him back a little, enough to get my footing. "Maybe I didn't do as much good as you think. Things could have turned out differently. Things could have turned out better."