Steel's Edge

Page 24

Richard approached her and held out his hand. Shell-shocked, she rested her fingers on his, and he helped her step over the bodies into the narrow alley leading from the courtyard.
Talk, she told herself. Talking makes you appear confident. She couldn’t afford to let him know that he’d shocked her. She had to appear cool and collected because that’s what he needed in a partner. “I thought Jason would better control his territory,” she said. Her voice sounded normal. She’d expected it to shake.
“They were probably his men,” Richard said.
“What do you mean?”
“You humiliated him,” Richard said. “This was the way he showed his displeasure.”
“I suppose you’ll now point out that this is the result of me speaking for myself.” Just try it . . .
“That would be satisfying for me, but not entirely accurate. I’ve visited the city on four occasions since he took control of the Cauldron, and he prepared a lovely surprise for me every time. The hardest was an Erkinian woman. We fought for three full minutes, and I thought she’d kill me.”
They seemed to have a love-hate relationship. Jason admired Richard—she’d read that much in his face and the way he looked at him—and wanted his approval, while at the same time resenting Richard for it. “Jason has father-figure issues, doesn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes.” Richard sighed.
“In that case, it’s good that you’re a human Cuisinart,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“A Cuisinart. It’s an appliance from the Broken. You put vegetables into it, push a button, and it chops them into tiny pieces.”
Richard frowned. “Why would you need an appliance to chop vegetables? Wouldn’t it be easier to chop them with a knife?”
“It’s meant to save time,” she explained.
“Does it?”
“Well, cleaning it usually eats up most of the time you save on chopping.”
“So you’re telling me that I’m useless.”
“It’s a neat gadget!”
“And I’m hard to clean, apparently.”
She checked his face. Tiny sparks danced in his eyes. He was pulling her leg. Well. If that’s how it is . . . “Considering last night’s argument, I think that you’re remarkably difficult to clean.”
“There probably is a retort to this that’s not off-color,” he said. “But I can’t think of one.”
They reached the middle of the alley. A street person sat on the filthy pavement, a sad, hunched-over figure swaddled in rags. His hair hung over his face in an oily gray tangle. A bitter stench of rotting fish rose from his clothes. He looked old and tired, his face a mess of grime. The dirt was caked so thick she could barely see his eyes, his pupils milky white. He was suffering from cataracts.
The beggar raised his cup and shook it at Richard.
Richard glanced at the beggar. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes turned darker. Richard bent down and dropped a coin into the cup. “Third tooth,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Two hours. Bring your brother.”
The beggar pulled back his cup, his head drooping lower.
Richard straightened and took her firmly by the elbow. His touch was light, but Charlotte realized she wouldn’t be able to get away. Richard drew her away from the beggar, down the alley.
“Don’t look back,” he murmured. “That was George.”
The urge to turn around was overwhelming. “George Drayton? Éléonore’s George?”
He nodded.
Her heart beat faster. The boys would have to be told what happened to Éléonore. She was their grandmother. They deserved to know. Her throat closed up. What would she say? There was no way to soften the blow. It would be devastating. She was a grown woman, and seeing Éléonore’s body burning had torn a hole in her life that filled with grief, guilt, and anger. They were children who had known Éléonore all of their lives. She was the safe haven of their childhood, the one person besides their sister who loved them no matter what and would never abandon them. She made their world safer, and now that illusion of safety would be ripped away. Charlotte swallowed. She had to find the right words somehow.
It occurred to her that George sat in filth on a street. “Why is George dressed as a beggar? I thought the Camarine family had adopted the boys?”
“He and his brother work for the Mirror.”
They’re spies? Wait a minute. “Richard, George’s only sixteen. Jack should be fourteen.”
He took a second to glance at her. “Yes?”
“Aren’t they too young? They’re barely in their teens.”
“Some children are less childlike than we like to pretend,” he said. “At George’s age, I had killed two people and watched my father’s head explode as he was shot dead in a market. What were you doing at sixteen, Charlotte?”
The long field filled with moaning people surfaced from her memory. The coppery scent of blood, mixed with the toxic stench of warped magic, and the smell of smoke rising from the town a few fields away.
“At sixteen I was healing the victims of the Green Valley Massacre.”
“And George is being inconspicuous to—”
A boy shot into the alley ahead, slid on garbage, caught himself, and dashed toward them. Reddish brown hair, cropped short, handsome face, dark eyes, completely wild with excitement. She’d seen this boy before in a photograph . . . Jack!
“Run!” Jack yelled. “Run! Go, George!”
Behind him a mob of enraged people spilled into the alley, brandishing knives and clubs.
The beggar-George jumped to his feet. “What did you do?”
“There he is!” the man at the head of the mob roared. A rock whistled past their heads, ricocheting from the side of the building.
“Run!” Jack yelled.
Blue lightning shot out of the crowd—someone had flashed. Oh no.
Jack jumped six feet in the air, avoiding the glowing ribbon of magic by a hair, bounced off the wall, and sprinted straight at them.
“Hi, Richard, hi, pretty lady!” Jack dashed past them.
Richard grabbed her hand. ‘We have to go!”
They broke into run and chased after Jack, running fast on the cobbled stones. George swore and tossed something over their heads at the crowd. A dry pop burst behind them. Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. A plume of dense white smoke filled the alley. People coughed.
The blue-glowing whip of someone’s flash struck out of the smoke, licking the cobbles. Someone in this mob was throwing magic around blind. This city was insane.
They cleared the courtyard and the narrow alley, burst out onto the boardwalk, and pounded down the street. The entrance to Jason’s hideout flew by. The air grew hot in Charlotte’s lungs.
A small wooden dock rose on their left. “Go right!” Richard yelled, too loud, and leaped off the boardwalk into the dark water, pulling her in with him. The tepid water swallowed her. Charlotte gulped a mouthful of salty liquid and nearly choked. Gods alone knew what sort of contamination was in that water.
Charlotte kicked her feet and surfaced, spitting the water out. Richard pulled her under the dock, just as two other bodies hit the water a foot away. A moment, and George and Jack broke the surface next to them. The four of them huddled under the dock, their backs against the canal wall, among dirty foam and garbage.
The mob spilled onto the boardwalk. Charlotte held her breath.
“They went right!” someone yelled. “To the Reed Alley!”
Boots pounded above them, shaking drops of water from the dock’s boards onto them.
The filthy wet creature that was George raised his hand, gave his brother a death stare, and drew his thumb across his neck. Jack grinned.
A dead fish floated up from the depths right next to Charlotte. Ew. She pushed it gently aside with her fingers.
The last of the stragglers ran past, the noise of the mob retreating. Richard waded to the left, walking along the canal wall at a brisk pace. She waited to make sure the kids followed and went after him.
Fifteen minutes and two canals later, they climbed out onto the boardwalk. Jack shook himself. Filthy water ran from George’s rags in dirty streams. His hair dripped. He stared at his brother, his face grim. If stares had temperature, Jack would’ve turned into a burned-out match.
Charlotte gulped a breath, hoping for some fresh air and finding none. Her own soaked clothes smelled like rancid seaweed. Water filled her shoes, and something slimy had wedged itself under the toes of her left foot.
Richard ducked into another alley, and she followed, limping and making squishy noises on the cobbles. The boys brought up the rear.
Nobody said anything for the next ten minutes until Richard stopped before a warehouse. The small wooden door swung open. A woman stepped out in front of them, carrying a metal bucket filled with bloody water. She hurled the contents into the canal.
Great. Fantastic. Once they were somewhere safe, she would sit everyone down and check them for infection.
Richard held the door open, his eyes scanning the boardwalk.
Charlotte ducked inside and stepped into a large gymnasium. Men and women, stripped down and sweaty, punched and kicked heavy sandbags. A man and a woman, both muscled with crisp definition, sparred on the reed mats; another pair of fighters squared off, their hands raised, in the roped-off ring raised on a wooden platform. A din hung above the muscular bodies: the rapid staccato of smaller bags being hit, the thuds of kicks hammering at the heavier bags, guttural cries, and rhythmic breathing.
Charlotte took a step forward. Everything stopped. The gymnasium went completely silent. As one, the fighters looked at her. None of the faces were friendly.
Not good. She straightened her shoulders, raising her head. Behind her, Jack took a deep breath.
Richard stepped through the doorway and strode ahead of her, oblivious to the hostility in the room.
A middle-aged, overweight man stepped away from the ring and walked toward Richard, his steps unhurried. A scar cut across his tan face, just a hair shy of his left eye. Half of his right earlobe was gone, the edge of the old wound ragged and uneven. Bitten off, Charlotte realized.