Shadows of Self (23 page)

Aluminum Doorknobs & Locks.
Don’t leave yourself vulnerable to Allomantic ruffians. We install within the week! 42 Adamus St.

Can you tell a story?
Calour Publications is looking for novels in the alloy of Dechane’s
The Horribles
and Ausdenec’s
Fear & Ferociousness
. Apply with samples at Calour & D. & S. 211 Morise, The Hub, 6th Octant.

Investors Wanted.
Investing in electrics will grow your wealth. Contact S.T., 15 Stranat Place.

Reckless Roughian Apprehends, Kills Marksman

A year has passed since the Fourth Octant Constabulary’s unpopular Decision to deputize the controversial former Roughs lawman Lord Waxillium Ladrian, and the Octant continues to run from a long List of Embarrassments the man has caused.

Foremost are Waxillium “Wax” Ladrian’s reckless Efforts to apprehend the notorious Marksman, who stole from institutions essential to the Commerce of our Grand City and took the life of an Innocent Child.

“Wax’s” latest caper, though successful, also ended in the death of the accused (as well as an unidentified Bystander), robbing the City of the chance to see Justice done with a proper Trial. In the process Ladrian destroyed the motorcar of Lady Dorise Chevalle who was enjoying a leisurely Drive, and shot up the accounting offices of Linville & Lyons, doing over 400 Boxings of damage. Both have retained solicitors.

DISTURBANCE   
At Lord Winsting Innate’s cottage—
See Back, Column 8.

CADMIUM MISTING   
slows time to “pulse” through stodgy board meeting—
See Back, Column 4.

FAMOUS BAKER   
decorates exquisite pastries with flakes of atium—
See Back, Column 5.

“Street Racing” Threatens Grand Old Sport

What do you hear the closer one gets to the Hub and the hour gets later? Motorcar engines growling like Roughs beasts and the yell of tires ripping up the roads. It has been half a decade at least since one could hear the nighttime clip-clop of horseshoes on cobble and the chirping of crickets. In the last six months, young ladies and lordlings—some of them the very children of our readers!—have taken to racing each other through some of our best-known streets. The betting and exchange of boxings began not long after, and the youths began paying gangs of street urchins to deliberately lead the constables away from these so-called street races at predetermined times.

Hardest hit is the 3rd Octant with its slurry of parallel roads and long straightaways, and in a little under a month young Lady Carmine Feltry will be opening a motor-cars only circuit at the old fairgrounds abutting the Irongate River.

(Continued on Back.)

11

Falling felt natural to a Coinshot. That sudden moment of acceleration, gut lurching but spirit leaping. The rush of wind. The chill of mist on the skin.

He opened his eyes to spinning white upon black, mist dancing about him, inviting, eager. All Allomancers shared a bond with the mists, but the other types never knew the thrill of jumping through them. Of nearly becoming one with them. During moments like this, Wax understood the Ascendant Warrior. Vin—they rarely called her by name. Her title, like those of the other Preservers, was used to show reverence.

The Historica, a section of the Words of Founding, said she had melded with the mists. She had taken them upon herself, becoming their guardian as they became her essence. As the Survivor watched over all who struggled, Vin watched over those in the night. Sometimes he felt he could see her form in their patterns: slight of frame, short hair splayed out as she moved, mistcloak fluttering behind her.

It was a fancy, wasn’t it?

Wax fired Vindication, slamming a bullet into the ground and Pushing on it to stop his descent. He hit the street in front of the building lobby, going down on one knee. Nearby, some hopefuls still waited to be allowed into the party.

“Where?” Wax demanded, looking at them. “Someone fell before me. Where did he go?”

I haven’t even murdered your father yet.…

Rusts. Could she mean Steris’s father, his soon to be father-in-law?

“There … there was nobody,” said a man in a black suit. “Just that.” He pointed to a smashed chair.

In the distance, a motorcar roared to life. It tore away with a frantic sound.

Bleeder might be a Coinshot now,
Wax thought, running toward the sound, hoping it was her.
But she wouldn’t need a motorcar if that were the case.
Maybe she’d chosen the Feruchemical power to change her weight, so she could drift down on the wind.

Wax launched himself upward, watching the steel lines for movement. In the mists ordinary vision was of limited use, but steelsight’s blue lines pierced the mists like arrows. He could easily make out the motorcar speeding away, but he didn’t know for certain Bleeder was in it. He took a moment to watch the movements of other vehicles nearby. A carriage pulled to a stop one street away. He could tell from the way the lines quivered—those would be the metal fittings on the horse’s harness. People on foot walked slowly along Tindwyl Promenade. Nothing suspicious.

Decision made, he Pushed against some streetlamps, sending himself after the speeding motorcar. He bounded from lamp to lamp, then launched himself over the top of a building as the motor turned a corner. Wax crested the building in a rush of swirling mists, passing only a few feet over the top. A group of young boys playing on the roof watched him pass with dropped jaws. Wax landed on the far edge of the rooftop, mistcoat tassels spraying forward around him, then leaped down as the motor passed below.

This,
he thought,
will not work out as well as you hoped, Bleeder.

Wax increased his weight, then Pushed on the motor from above.

He didn’t crush the person inside—he couldn’t be absolutely sure he had the right quarry. His carefully pressed weight did pop the wheels like tomatoes, then squashed the roof down just enough to bend the metal doors in their housings. Even if Bleeder had access to enhanced speed, she wouldn’t be getting out through those doors.

Wax landed beside the motorcar, Vindication out and pointed through the window at a confused man wearing a cabbie’s hat. Motorcar cabbies? When had that started happening?

“He got out!” the cabbie said. “Two streets back. Told me to keep driving; didn’t even let me stop as he jumped!”

Wax kept perfectly still, gun right at the cabbie’s forehead. It could be Bleeder. She could change faces.

“P-please…” the cabbie said, crying. “I…”

Damn it!
Wax didn’t know enough.
Harmony. Is it him?

He was returned a vague sense of uncertainty. Harmony didn’t know.

Wax growled, but lifted his gun away from the frightened driver, trusting his gut. “Where did you let him off?”

“Tage Street.”

“Go to the Fourth Octant precinct station,” Wax said. “Wait for me, or constables I send. We’ll likely have questions for you. Once I’m satisfied, we’ll buy you a new motor.”

Wax Pushed himself into the air to the corner of Tage and Guillem, which put him at the edge of a maze of industrial alleyways linking warehouses with the docks where canal boats unloaded. Steelsight on and Pushing bubble up, he crept through the mists, but didn’t have much hope. He’d have a devil of a time finding one man alone here, in the dark.

All Bleeder had to do was pick one place and hide there. Many criminals didn’t make the wise choice in this situation, however. It was hard to remain perfectly still, not moving any metal, while an Allomancer prowled about looking for you.

Wax persisted, walking down a dark alleyway, checking the rope at his waist, making sure he could unwind it quickly in case Bleeder was a Coinshot or a Lurcher and he needed to dump his metals. Soon the mists filling in behind him made him feel as if he were in an endless corridor, vanishing into nothingness in both directions. Above as well, only dark, swirling mists. Wax stopped in an empty intersection, silent warehouses like leviathans slumbering in the deep on all four corners, only one of which held a streetlight. He looked about with steelsight, waiting, counting heartbeats.

Nothing.

Either the cabbie had been Bleeder in disguise, or Wax’s prey had slipped away. Wax sighed, lowering his gun.

One of the large warehouse doors fell outward with a crash, revealing a dozen men. Wax felt a sweeping wave of relief. He hadn’t lost his quarry—he’d simply been led into a trap!

Wait.

Damn,
Wax thought, leveling Vindication and pulling his Sterrion from his hip. He Pushed on the men in the same movement, which flung him backward toward the cover of a half-finished building.

Unfortunately, the men opened fire before he arrived. Wax’s steel bubble deflected a number of the shots, bending them away to cut empty air. The bullets trailed streaks in the mist. One, however, clipped him on the arm.

Wax gasped as his Push slammed him against an incomplete wall. He fired a shot into the ground, then Pushed on it, backflipping himself over the brick wall and behind cover.

Bullets continued to pelt the bricks as Wax dropped a gun and pressed his left hand to the underside of his right upper arm with a flare of pain and blood. The men on the other side of the wall kept firing, and some of the bullets didn’t have blue lines. Aluminum bullets. Bleeder was far better funded than Wax had expected.

Why keep firing so rabidly? Were they trying to bring the wall down with the force of their shots?
No. They’re trying to hold my attention so I can be flanked.

Wax grabbed Vindication, holding his bleeding arm as he raised it—it
hurt
—just as several shadows wearing no metal ducked into the other side of the building site. Wax plugged the first one in the head, then dropped the second with a shot to the neck. Three others knelt, raising crossbows.

Something pulled one of them into the shadows. Wax faintly heard an
urk
of pain just before he fired at the second. He turned his gun toward the third to find it slumping down, something stuck into its head. A knife?

“Wayne?” Wax asked, hurriedly reloading Vindication with bloody fingers.

“Not exactly,” a feminine voice said. A tall figure crawled through the mists, moving over a pile of bricks to reach him. As she drew closer, he could make out large eyes, jet hair, and a sleekly elegant gown—that was now missing the bottom half, below the knees. The woman from the party, the one who had tried flirting with him.

Wax flipped Vindication, reloaded, up in a smooth motion, pointing it at the woman’s head. The bullets outside stopped pounding the wall. The silence was far more ominous.