Dead of Veridon (25 page)

"And if the son were reinstated?" I asked, the barest quaver in my voice. "What then?"

"The son?" she asked. "You mean the criminal, the murderer, the thug who takes rides with dangerous girls, who is wanted for conspiracy and theft and, oh, a thousand other things? That son?"

"I see your point."

"Maybe. But that son would still have a legal right to the seat. If he were reinstated, of course." Her eyes glittered and she leaned closer to me. "And he didn't get himself killed in the process."

"I really can't tell if you're threatening me, or offering to help."

She laughed. "Such a blunt object, Mr. Burn. It's going to be a joy, watching you crash through the Council. Assuming you take up your father's letter and claim your right in the Massif."

"How do you know about that?" I asked, sternly.

"Like I said. We have agents."

"Sure. Your agents are everywhere, all seeing. That's why you know about the wall of dead cutting this city off from the rest of the world."

"Wall of dead? You're being dramatic, Jacob."

"Wall of dead. I was under the city, I saw them. There's an army of the cog-dead standing watch on the shores of the Reine, keeping even clever boys like me inside today. Tell me," I looked back out the window, at the looming hulk of the Chamber Massif. "Is that part of your Council-ordained curfew?"

"It is not," she said carefully.

"So. Maybe you don't have all the cards."

"Maybe." She unfolded the gloves one last time, then pulled them on her thin fingers. "But I have you."

We were getting very close to the Chamber, now. I shifted nervously in my seat.

"What's the warrant on me for?" I asked.

"Murder, conspiracy, insurrection." She laughed with her eyes. "There's something in there about our black-toothed friends. They're holding you responsible for a lot of this trouble."

"Do you think I did that stuff?"

"Not at all. But I think the Founders would like to see the Family Burn raised up or gone forever. Either one works for them. And I guess you're the key to that." Again the smile, hopelessly dead of normal emotion. "What with your father and all."

"Is that why you're turning me in? Something to do with getting back at the Founders?"

"Who said I was turning you in, Jacob?" She pounded her fist on the carriage wall, and we stopped. The Chamber wasn't more than a block away. It was a dark shape, sketched in light from the windows, barely seen through the driving rain. It was still early in the day, but the storm had brought an early night. "I'm giving you a choice. You want to know what's going on, I know. You wouldn't have risked coming to me, otherwise. Come with me, risk arrest, and see what's going on in the Council. Or get out of the carriage, and never show your face in this city again."

"Hell of a choice," I said.

"Hell of a choice," she agreed.

I stared down at the old building. The Chamber Massif was a dangerous place, especially for a guy like me. What were they going to do? Arrest me. Try me right there. They had that kind of power. And someone in that room was keyed in to what was going on in the city, not just the curfew, not just the attacks. Answers inside, and nothing out here but the rain and a chance to get away. Hell of a choice.

"Can you do something about these?" I asked, holding my wrists in front of me. "And maybe get my revolver back? Don't want to go in naked."

She smiled nastily. "Cuffs, no. Revolver, yes," she said, producing the weapon from the folds of her riding dress and tucking it backwards into my vest pocket.

"Well," I said. "Thanks for the ride, ma'am."

I popped the door and stepped out. It was coming down, cold and hard. Veronica Bright tutted at me as I stepped into the rain.

"Jacob, you disappoint me."

"Yeah," I yelled over the driving rain. "That happens."

I ran to the alley, getting some cover from the rain in the sloped walls of the building. The carriage door closed behind me. A few moments later the engine clattered back to life, and they continued on. I watched them disappear into the Massif's covered barbican. Hell of a choice.

"Took you long enough," Wilson said. He stepped from the shadows, knives in his hands.

"I really thought they were going to see you," I said. I had been following his shadow from rooftop to alleyway since we left the Manor Bright. I raised my still-shackled hands. "Something you can do about this?"

"Maybe. Why are you here?"

"I'm done running, Wilson. I couldn't do it. I mean, seriously, I couldn't do it. The docks were all closed. But once I realized I was stuck here, well. I guess I realized a lot of other stuff. Like maybe there's more to being a hero than -"

"Shut it," Wilson said. He bent to the cuffs and had them off in a second. "Nothing I hate more than a thug who thinks he's a poet. What's the plan?"

"Do you honestly think I have a plan?"

"I think you have an idea. That's enough for me."

"Well then." I rubbed my wrists and looked longingly at the bright lights of the Massif. "Here's my idea."

T
HE
M
ANOR
T
OMB
hunched under the storm clouds, rain sheeting off its slate roof like a waterfall. The lights were on, all of them, glowing through the gloom. Wilson and I huddled across the street, counting the guards and the intervals of their patrol.

"Usually have more time to plan this kind of stunt, Jacob," Wilson said. He'd been grumpy ever since we left the Chamber Massif without stabbing or shooting a single person. He liked my idea less and less, the further we got into it. "Not the kind of thing you do off the cuff."

"That's what makes it interesting," I said. "Not something they'll expect."

I looked up at the tower. The crows were all inside or flown away. There was a light on, and shadows moving behind the curtains. Crane was close.

"Whatever he's planning, I have to believe that having the Council meet in the middle of the curfew is part of it. Angela called the session." I turned to Wilson. He was looking up at the window, whetting his knife on a stone. "Don't know if he's doing her bidding, or the other way around."

"Don't know that it matters," Wilson said. "Let's get to it."

"Yeah." I turned my attention to the gate. Tired of counting intervals. Tired of waiting. "Let's."

I was across the street and climbing the fence without another word. Wilson followed, then passed me. He was over the gate and into the guards before I was to the top. I meant to say something about not hurting the guards because, hey, they were just guards. Just guys drawing a paycheck. I'm not sure if it would have mattered to Wilson, anyway. He laid into them, fists and knives. Didn't even shrug out of his coat to get the spider arms involved. They went down like dropped meat.

"You didn't have to kill them," I said, landing heavily in the muddy yard.

"Probably not," he answered. "They didn't have to fight back, either."

It didn't look like they'd done much fighting back. Matter for another day. We double-timed toward the house, avoiding the main door and looking for a kitchen entrance, or servants' gate. Halfway across the garden, Wilson's handiwork was discovered. The cry went up.

"Can I kill them now?" he asked. I didn't answer. He had that look in his eye. Didn't matter what I said.

There were surprisingly few guards, and those that there were we just avoided. They didn't really seem to be guarding anything anymore. Mostly creeping from bush to bush, pillar to shrub, weapons out. Skittish. They spent as much time looking back toward the house as out into the perimeter of the estate. Something had them spooked.

"Guess with Angela gone, there's not much inside to guard."

"There's the Patron," I said. "And, you know, generations' worth of accumulated wealth. Nice furniture and stuff."

"Not a good day to steal furniture. Ruin the upholstery."

"Good point." I ducked as one of the skittish patrols crept past us. Never even looked our way. The two guards bee-lined for the wall and, as we watched, hitched over the gate and out into the streets.

"Jacob," Wilson said. "Unless I'm mistaken, those gentleman just fled the scene."

"Yes. They did."

"Perhaps they know something we don't?"

"Perhaps. But I'd rather find out for myself."

Wilson sighed, but still seemed pretty anxious to cut someone. We got to the house and snuck into the kitchens. The ovens were cold, and there was no one around.

"Not too typical," I said. "Unless the Tombs are having the sort of staffing problems the Burns are having."

"Tomb always managed the descent better than you lot," Wilson said. "Always managed to keep up appearances. Then again, they've managed to keep their place on the Council, too."

"We haven't lost our seat," I said. "Just no one around to sit it, right now."

"Sure. Right now."

We stopped talking and listened, because we both heard it. Hurried footsteps, and the rushing of the wind. I got behind a cabinet. Wilson just disappeared into the drafty beams of the ceiling.

A serving girl rushed into the room. She had both hands wrapped around a kitchen knife, and her face was as white as a sheet. She slid on the tiled floor and fell behind a counter, and the knife went clattering away. She crawled toward it until the wind got much closer. Terrified, she froze, her hand halfway to the knife.

A great darkness filled the doorway. It slithered past at tremendous speed, a shadow of glossy black feathers and iron-hard beaks, eyes that stared like beads of oil and claws that were red with fresh blood. The sound was incredible, a thousand wings, beating the air. It sounded like the shuffling of velvet cards, amplified a hundred times over. Deafening and soft, thunder wrapped in soft leather. The rushing darkness passed and passed, a seemingly endless parade of wings and beaks that flowed like a skyborne river of ink. Distant yelling, the thudding of doors, then a sharp splintering sound and they were away. The hallway was silent.

The girl was panting in terror. Slowly she stood, hands on knees, until she was straight. She stared out at the empty hallway, the fluttering ghost of a feather all that remained of the thunderous visitor.

"Now, love," Wilson said as he lowered himself from the ceiling on his spider arms. "I want you to not shout at all."

She shouted a great deal, mostly in terror. She backed away from him, until she bumped into me. I took her by the arms and spun her around.

"It's okay, alright? Everything's fine. We just..."

She fainted. I sighed and let her fold onto the floor gently.

"That was well done. When are you going to get it?" I asked. "Look at you. People are terrified of you, Wilson. Especially when you drop from the ceiling like that."

"Not my problem," he said, picking up the girl's kitchen knife and stowing it into his vest of blades. "Those were crows."

"Yes, they were."

"Meaning he's still here."

"Meaning his pets are still here," I said. "And maybe him. That's what I'm hoping."

"Yes," Wilson said, grinning his thousand-tooth grin. "Hoping."

"Don't kill him outright," I begged. "Just this once, don't kill him outright. There are probably some questions we should ask."

"Probably. But let's find him first. Crane and his little army of crows."

We put the kitchen girl into a cabinet and hoped that wasn't some kind of death sentence. That makes two unconscious girls I've left in certain danger in the last eight hours. Just like a hero.

It was pretty clear why those two house guards had gone over the wall at their first chance. There were dead housies scattered throughout the living quarters, and a whole pile of them in the dining room. I wondered if Angela had even made it to the Council session, but saw no evidence of any family members. Just guards and servants. Most of them looked to be resting peacefully, only the group in the dining room showing wounds. Those guys died violently. Everyone else might have just lain down, with their eyes open and looks of terror on their faces, and just stopped moving.

"Our friend Crane, he likes to find a variety of ways to kill," Wilson said. We were standing at the foot of the grand stairwell. This would get us to the fourth floor. We'd have to look around for the tower stairs from there. Wilson bent to examine the body of a manservant draped at the bottom of the stairs. He had taken a tumble, but nothing that looked fatal. "Interesting."

"Too many things in this venture can be described as 'interesting,'" I said. "I don't like it."

"Perhaps you should hang out with people who are interested in less morbid things," Wilson said. He produced a pair of long tweezers and used them to fish around in the servant's gaping mouth. With a tug that pulled at something deep in the servant's chest, Wilson held up the tweezers. They were grasping a twig. "You can't tell me this isn't interesting."

"I can, and I will," I said, sweating nervously. "About as interesting as getting fatally shot, at the moment."