Shadows of Self (29 page)

“She wanted freedom to kill,” Wax said. “She’s not ‘confused,’ MeLaan. She’s destructive and possibly psychotic. Tell me how to kill her.”

MeLaan sighed. “Acid works, but that’s horribly inefficient. If you crush her skeleton, she’ll have a hard time moving, so maybe use that. Gunshots will be useless, as will most forms of physical damage. The spike—it’s the key. Pull it out, and she’ll revert to her primal state. It
is
the best way.”

“Her primal state,” Marasi said. “A mistwraith.”

MeLaan nodded.

Wax tapped the table in thought. “If I can get the spike out, chances are that I’ve already immobilized her. If she’s tied up, what good will it do to remove the spike?”

“Waxillium,” MeLaan said, leaning forward, “you
do
realize what you’re dealing with? Paalm was trained by the ancients, and served the Lord Ruler
himself
. She quashed rebellions and overthrew kingdoms in his service, and she is intimately familiar with the intricacies of Hemalurgy. By your own accounts, she’s learned to use spikes to grant herself Allomancy and Feruchemy—something we thought impossible. If you have her captured, that is a state she’s not likely to remain in for long.
Remove that spike.
”

Wax felt a chill. “Right,” he said. “Will do.”

“Rusts,” Marasi whispered. “I thought you didn’t want us to be intimidated by you.”

“Me?” the kandra said. “I’m harmless.” She waved at the barmaid, then pointed at her mug. “I’m far less crazy than Paalm.”

“Great,” Wax said. He glanced at Wayne. “You look concerned.”

“Me?” Wayne said, placing a fourth level onto his tower. “Sorry. Tryin’ to think of how to get everyone in the city drunk.”

“I … I’m not going to ask.” Wax grabbed a few of the coasters as a barmaid dropped more on the table, noticing that they were playing with them. He started building a tower of his own. “So we get the spike out. How?”

“Easiest way is to call me,” MeLaan said. “I can get it out. But if I’m not there, don’t wait on me. Break her bones, start pulling them out, and eventually you’ll find the spike. It will take a strong stomach.”

Great.
“Is there a way to spot a kandra? Wound patterns? Blood samples?”

MeLaan dug into her pocket. “Once we’ve shifted shapes, we lock into that body and
are
that person. We’ll bleed, and if you take off a finger, our prints will remain that of the person we’re imitating. Even another kandra will have trouble spotting a duplicate. Haven’t you read the Historica?”

“Several times,” Wax said, “but the kandra sections are kind of dull.”

“I feel like I should be offended by that.”

“Then you aren’t drunk enough,” Wayne responded. Five levels. Wax shook his head and concentrated on getting his second level built.

“Anyway,” MeLaan said, “locating other kandra was a problem in the past. So we did something about it, just in case. The more scientifically minded among us developed this.”

She slid something onto the table. A pair of needles, about as long as a man’s palm is wide, attached to metal syringes. Wax held one up.

“Inject that into a kandra,” MeLaan said, “and the liquid inside will make her shape droop for a bit. The skin briefly goes clear, reveals who she really is.”

“Nifty,” Wayne said.

“One problem though,” MeLaan said. “If you stick it into someone who
isn’t
a kandra, it will kill them.”

“Inconvenient,” Marasi said, examining the other one.

“Yeah,” MeLaan said. “We’re working on that part. This is a last resort, obviously, but it
will
immobilize her briefly. If you want to find Paalm before using it, you can try to catch her in a lie. She won’t have the actual memories of the person she’s imitating. Conversely, if you see someone who isn’t Metalborn use a power, that outs her too.”

“I’ve got a feeling that if she’s using her powers right in front of me, I’m dead anyway,” Wax said.

The group fell silent. Wax took both syringes and tucked them into the pouch on his gunbelt. Marasi scribbled on a note pad, transcribing the conversation—he’d have to ask her for a copy. Drink refills arrived, and no payment was requested. What had Wayne done here before Wax arrived? He was afraid to ask.

What help is this?
Wax thought, frustrated, his tower falling to pieces. A weapon he could use only when he was already a hundred percent certain who the impostor was? It felt like so little. Bleeder could be anyone. Bleeder could manifest any of the powers. Bleeder was ancient, brilliant, and crafty.…

“She has a plan,” Wax said. “She’s
not
simply crazy, MeLaan. There is more to this.”

“You’re still determined to kill her,” MeLaan said, sighing.

“If I have to. Why are you so hesitant? I’d think that the kandra would be determined, more than anyone, to see this problem dealt with.”

“She’s not a ‘problem,’” MeLaan said. “She’s a person. Yes, I want to see her stopped. She
needs
to be stopped. But…” She settled back, then knocked over her small tower of coasters with a flick of the finger. “There’s so few of us left. Hell, there weren’t ever more than five or six hundred of us, and we lost a lot in the days before the Final Ascension. Imagine if your entire race consisted of three hundred people, lawman. Maybe you’d be a little more hesitant to see one of them slagged.”

“A person’s species shouldn’t matter,” Wax snapped. “I don’t care if there are three hundred of you left or just three; when one of you starts nailing people to walls in my city, I’m going to—”

“Wax,” Wayne interrupted, balancing his
sixth
story of beer-mat coasters. “Check your pulse, mate.”

Wax took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he said.

“What was that,” Marasi said, wagging her pencil from Wayne to Wax. “Pulse?”

“Sometimes,” Wayne said, “Wax forgets he’s a person and starts thinkin’ he’s a rock instead.”

“It’s Wayne speak,” Wax said, grabbing some coasters and starting another tower. “For times when he thinks I should be a little more empathetic.”

“You can be single-minded, mate.”

“Says the man who once collected eighty different kinds of beer bottles.”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, smiling fondly. “Did that mostly to annoy you, I did.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “Started to hate all those rusting bottles, but each morning you’d curse when you tripped over a new box o’ them, and it was just so melodious…”

“You know,” MeLaan said, taking a pull on her drink, “you two aren’t
anything
like I was led to believe.”

“Tell me about it,” Marasi said.

“For one thing,” MeLaan added, “I had no idea that Kid Wayne was so talented with beer-mat sculptures.”

“He cheated,” Wax said. “He stuck some of the coasters on his lower level together with that gum stuff he’s been chewing.”

Marasi and MeLaan turned to Wayne, who grinned. He picked up his sculpture, knocking down the top levels, but revealing that the bottom three had—indeed—been stuck together.

“Wayne,” Marasi said, aghast. “Are you that concerned with impressing us?”

“It wasn’t about impressing anyone,” Wax said. “The contest wasn’t about how high the towers got—it was about if I’d spot what he did. He always cheats somehow. Back to the matter at hand, MeLaan. Your rogue kandra friend is planning something. If her plot gains momentum, it will roll over us and crush this city.”

“I agree,” MeLaan said. “So what do we do?”

“We outthink her,” Wax said. “I need to know her motive.
Why
is she doing this? What drove her to pull out her spike in the first place?”

“I wish I knew,” MeLaan said. “We’ve been trying to figure out the same thing.”

“Tell me about her, then,” Wax said, tapping at his empty shot glass. “What is she like? What are her passions?”

“Paalm was the ultimate blank slate,” MeLaan said. “Old-style kandra. Like I said, she spent so much time out on missions that she barely had a personality of her own. She had real trouble with that at the dawn of a new world. Some of the older generations, they liked to spend time in the Homeland, only left for a mission when forced to. Not Paalm. She was the Father’s own, the kandra reserved specifically to do missions for the Lord Ruler.” She hesitated. “She might know things from him. Things the rest of us weren’t told. I think he may even have had her imitate Inquisitors at times, act as a mole among them.

“Anyway, she wouldn’t have been able to impersonate an Inquisitor without a good grasp of Allomancy and Feruchemy. So maybe that’s where she got the knowledge. She was loyal to the Lord Ruler, and then when he was gone, she became loyal to Harmony. Fanatical about it. Insisted on being given mission after mission, and never spent time with the rest of us. Kept to herself. She was almost always in character. Until…”

“Murderous rampage,” Wayne said softly. “It’s always the quiet ones. Well, and the psychopathic ones. That too.”

So what does that tell me?
Wax thought, leaving his little tower at three stories.
How would I approach this if it were any other criminal?

MeLaan leaned back for a moment, as if lost in thought, then flipped a coaster at Wax’s tower to knock it down. She grunted.

“What?” Wax said.

“I was just curious to see if you were cheating too.”

“Wax never cheats,” Wayne said, face halfway in his mug. Wax had never figured out how he could talk and drink at the same time without choking.

“That’s incorrect,” Wax said. “I cheat
infrequently
. That way nobody’s expecting it.” He stood up. “Can you think of a reason Bleeder would target the governor in particular?”

MeLaan shook her head.

“Do any of the other kandra know her better than you do?”

“Maybe one of the older ones,” MeLaan said. “I’ll see if I can get one of them to come talk to you.”

“Good,” Wax said. “But first I want you three watching the governor.”

“I’ve got to report in to the precinct offices first,” Marasi said. “I want to follow up on something there.”

“Fine,” Wax said. “Wayne, you head to the governor’s mansion first.”

“He ditched me last time.”

“He won’t again,” Wax said. “I’ve persuaded him to listen, though we’ll need him to meet MeLaan soon.”

“Sure, all right,” Wayne said. “It wasn’t like I was planning to, you know,
sleep
tonight or anythin’.”

“Sleep might be in short supply going forward,” Wax said.

“You want me to go with him, Dawnshot?” MeLaan asked.

“Depends. Marasi, would you like some backup?”

“Yes please,” she said.

“Watch her,” Wax said, nodding toward Marasi. “And maybe give Aradel a glimpse of your nature. It’s probably time to inform him what we’re up against.”

“Already done,” Marasi said. “Though I’m sure he’d like proof.”

Wax grunted. He hadn’t ordered her to do that. “Be quick about your errand,” Wax told her. “And get to the governor. I want more than one set of eyes on him. And before we split, I want each pair of us to exchange codes, individual and unknown to the others, so we each have a way to authenticate ourselves to one another. I’ve done the same with the governor and his top staff.” Harmony, this was going to be a nightmare.

“Watching the governor isn’t going to be enough, Wax,” Marasi said, standing up from the table. “You yourself said it. Too reactive. So what else are we going to do?”

“I’ll come up with something.”

The others stood, and Wax towed Wayne by the arm to check to see that they were square with the pub manager. Surprisingly, Wayne had indeed paid for everything he should have. On their way toward the door, Wax explained to his friend a little idea he had for protecting the governor.

They stepped into the entryway of the pub, where MeLaan was waiting while Marasi fired up her beast of a motorcar. Wayne hiked off to catch a carriage to take him to the governor’s mansion, and Wax took MeLaan by the arm.

“I hate this,” he noted, soft enough to keep the bouncer outside from hearing. “Not being able to trust people I should always be able to. Second-guessing myself.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “But you’ll handle it. There’s a reason He came to you for this.” She stepped in closer. Rusts, she was attractive—but then, it would be odd if she weren’t, all things considered. “You and I aren’t the only ones hunting Paalm, lawman—every kandra in the city is searching for her. Thing is, I don’t think many of my brothers and sisters will be of use. They’re timid about hurting others, particularly after what TenSoon was forced to do during the Remarked Duplicity. And beyond that, they can be an … inconsistent group.”

“They’re God’s servants,” Wax said.

“Yes,” MeLaan replied, “and they’ve had centuries upon centuries to refine their eccentricities. Getting older does
not
tend to make you more normal, let me tell you. We don’t think like killers. We’ve been too closely in contact with Harmony. What Paalm is doing, it baffles us. It goes against everything we’ve believed and lived for centuries. I don’t think we’ll be able to find her, not in time. But you … you can.”

“Because I think like a killer.”

“I didn’t—”

“It’s all right,” Wax said, releasing her arm. “I am what I am.” He took his mistcoat from the peg by the door and shrugged it on before stepping out into the night. “Thanks, by the way,” he said.

“For?”

He tapped his ear, and the earring he wore in it. “This.”

“I was just the delivery girl.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was what I needed. When I needed it.” He dropped a bullet casing, then stilled it with his foot. “I’ll meet you all at the governor’s mansion.”

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