Needle Rain (21 page)

Omi slumped. “There is more to it than that.” He stared straight at Thom. “Immortality is what Vassbinder sought, though mostly to prolong the lifespan of Immolators. An immortal invincible army – that was his goal. Or so the records say.” He gestured at the books. “What it did to me, and to Heloise, was to make us attract ghosts. And Thom, they don’t just disturb our dreams, they possess us, they take over every single facet of our bodies so that they can finally do whatever it is that they need to do.” For the first time Omi seemed truly upset; his hands shook, his voice quavered. “Sometimes they make us kill. And that is not the worst of it.”

Silence smothered the room.

Thom dropped his gaze, staring again at the beetle that was marching steadily across the timber floor. He licked his lips.

“How? How do you know what she is going through?”

“In those hundred years I have studied. I have searched and dug up records. I have screamed and cried and railed against my fate. I have made a fortune or two, and at the last, I made a deal with Amora.” He fingered his robe. “It is the only reason I am still sane. She led me to the Bloodmen. The Bloodmen showed me a way to keep the ghosts at bay, at least while I live here. She told me that you may be the answer I seek.”

“Ah. While you live here? I remember nights when we were travelling here when you went missing. Was that, you know?”

“Yes.”

Thom rubbed his temples and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do this to me.” Omi’s eyes shone with truth and conviction.

“No, I didn’t.” He picked up the beetle. Its legs went on marching in mid-air. “
This
seems so trivial compared to what you and Heloise suffer. “I can’t promise anything, but if Amora has told you I might be able to help you, I will try.”

“Good. And Heloise?”

The image he’d had of Heloise, hanging by her neck, spinning, came back to him. It seemed as if he’d achieved that already. He’d damned her to eternal torture.

“Yes. Of course. Though from what you’ve said, she
really
won’t be pleased to see me. And even gods aren’t infallible. Amora may be wrong.”

“Hah!” Omi grinned. “You will be our savior.”

The beetle marched on, though upside down in his grasp. That was he, marching forever on air, going nowhere. Maybe it was time he changed direction.

“What do these beetles eat?”

“Hmph! Other bugs. They’re an assassin beetle.”

Thom raised his head. “Know anywhere that has lots of edible bugs?”

“What? Are you crazy? The forest! It’s the big thing out there where the trees are.”

“Good. Good.”

The priest arrived while Heloise was standing in her front doorway. She surveyed her rooms and despaired at how so much mess could have happened in so short a time. Grunt had a cat flap to get outdoors but it seemed as if he’d still spent days scratching rugs into piles, raking claws down her quagga hide sofa and shedding fur. Kane may have fed him but he certainly hadn’t done much else.

Kane. Now there was a problem. Since the morning at Uncle’s house she’d not heard from him at all. She tipped her head forward to let her hair fall forward in a curtain across her face.
Go away world. I’m not here.

Grunt meowed and softly patted her leg, half-climbing up with his forepaws.

“It’s okay, Grunt. I’m not an ogre. I’m just me.”
Me and a half a million ghosts.

“Ahem.” Behind her someone cleared his throat. “Excuse me, would you be Miss Heloise Ormitrad? I have something for you.”

She turned to find an Amoran priest hovering on the doorstep. A local man, she thought, she’d seen him at gatherings. In his hand sat a dormant homing fly. Blue-black and mauve with silver teardrops down the side, it was a perfect miniaturized Bheulakk airship. The priest rolled it onto her palm.

He stuttered. “It’s f-from a fellow priest. A man I know well. T-trust him.” Smiling, he folded his hands demurely together, backed away and was off down the street.

“Wait...hang about.” Already he was too far away. The only way to find out more was to listen to the thing. Grunt followed her to the dilapidated sofa and jumped onto her lap as she settled. Once nesting on her earlobe, the fly made faint ticking noises as the trinketton warmed up its engine. The message began.

“A man called Thom Drager is here. He wishes to speak to you and to help you if you can convince him of your innocence in his daughter’s death. Though he says he would hang you if you are guilty, he is silly. I know him. He is a better man than when you met him. I, Omi, a priest of Amora will guarantee he will do his best to remove your needles and heal you. If you seek enforcers, he will be dead instead. Since being a corpse is not a state from which he can help you, I recommend you come here and talk first.

“You must choose between love and hate. Choose wisely.”

She listened, eyes widening with amazement. When Grunt gently nipped her hand to demand a pat, she barely noticed.

For half an hour, she listened to the message, over and over, then lay on the sofa with a pillow over her head. It helped her concentrate. Grunt didn’t mind; he promptly sat on the pillow.

If the message was genuine, there might be a way to be free of the ghosts. If. To trust, or not to trust. The priest who’d brought it was genuine and he knew this other priest, this man who claimed to be from Vassbinder’s time. Ridiculous, but then so was her predicament. To find out if this was all true, she had to travel north and meet him.

And maybe Drager wanted to hang her?

Pillow still on head, she stuck a fingernail in her mouth and chewed at it, then the one next to it.

She had to meet with Thom Drager. The man who’d caused this. The traitor. A nasty violent man, no matter what this priest said. Could he have changed? Beating an addiction to somm was nigh on impossible. She’d be in so much trouble if anyone found out she knew where Drager was and she didn’t tell. If the Enforcers got hold of him, she doubted she would ever get a chance to be free of the needles. Gutter gossip said Drager had the secret of making partial Immolators. He was not someone the Imperator would want on the loose or alive.

Maybe she could do this and then afterward, send word. Betray him. Yes. It would be justice. An even-handed justice. That is, if she didn’t plant a dagger in his chest as soon as she saw him.

What he’d done to her...

Though she’d never flat-out planned to kill someone, never
wanted
to, she could
see
herself holding her sung steel dagger. See herself kneeling above him as he lay prostrate on the ground.

His eyes locked on hers. The dagger raised to strike.

She shivered. Oh, the pleasure it would give her to do exactly that. Perversely, imagining him before her sent a warm throb of desire between her legs.

Ouch!
A quick had torn and her fingertips ached. She’d gnawed them all down to the flesh. Served her right for getting all weird.

“Heloise! Heloise? Is that you under there?” Bull asked. “There’s a cat on the pillow.”

“Leave him,” she warned. “He bites. And swats.” Gradually she moved out from under the pillow and slid herself onto the floor. Then she deposited the pillow on the sofa with cat intact.

Stone-faced, Bull stood in the middle of the room. “Dangerous, hey?” He waved a folded note at her. “This was on the table. You might want to read it.”

“Another message?” She struggled upright and snatched it from him. “From Kane” was scribbled on the front. And inside?

I’m sorry, Heloise. I can’t stomach knowing what you do for a living and what has happened to you,

Kane.

That was it? Break up by scrawled note?
Coward.
She crumpled the note, tossed the wad to Grunt and watched him pounce on the ball of paper.

“Not good?”

“No. But I expected as much. He’s gone. Scared off. Don’t blame him.”
Much.
Okay, she blamed him a lot. Which might not be fair but it was how she felt. She screwed her mouth around, thinking, trying not to show how upset she felt. “Um, Bull?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got to leave here and go north. There might be a way for me to get these needles removed, but I can’t tell any more people than I have to.”

“It’s a secret?” For the first time, he looked around. “Hells, what a disaster. Did Kane do all this?”

“What do you think?” She waved at Grunt.

“Him? The cat?” Bull rubbed his chin. “If you go north, I’m coming too.” His tone was as flat as a windless sea. It was clear he wanted no argument from her.

Relief and joy and a tinge of fear rolled over her. Funny. She didn’t want Bull getting hurt.

The man was a giant and a great friend, and if he got hurt, she would blame herself forever. Yet somehow she hadn’t managed to tell him that she only thought of him as just that – a friend.

“Bull,” she blurted, sticking out her hand. “Keep my secret and you can come. I cannot think of anyone else I’d rather have by my side.” Oh. That might have come out wrong.

“Good. Agreed.” He took her hand, enclosing it in his large hand, squeezing gently. “Now tell me the secret.”

She extricated her hand. Yes, it had come out wrong and she knew her face was flushed. Damn. Who would’ve thought he’d get over Sonja’s death so easily.

“It’s Drager. He’s up north and it seems he wants to make amends. Don’t!” She held up a finger as Bull’s eyes bulged and he looked about to combust. “Sit there, on that chair! I’ll make us tea and explain. Please.”

Finding the tea beneath the chaotic clutter turned out to be easy compared to explaining to Bull.

Once the table was the right way up, they sat down at the small dining table to have tea, her on the lounge, Bull on a chair.

How to say this? She cupped the mug and sipped. Red pansies ran around the rim of the china. How to say this so Bull wouldn’t protest? Like, maybe she should leave out the hanging threat?

“There is a priest of Amora up north. He sent word that Drager is with him.”

She checked on him and Bull was frowning.

“He guarantees my safety.” White lie, she told herself.

“Okay. And that helps how?” His forehead wrinkled some more. “Shouldn’t we go up there and kill the bastard.”

“You want to do that.”

Bull shrugged.

“Huh. Me too. At first. The priest says choose between love and hate. I still hate him...” She gazed unfocused past Bull’s ear toward the wall. “But he also says Drager will try to remove the needles. So, I’m going up there to talk.”

“Talk?” Bull swallowed most of his tea. “That’s all?”

“We can kill him or call enforcers in if anything goes wrong. A priest delivered this. I think I’ll be safe. I want to try to get healed. I
need
to.”

Involuntary tears stung her eyes but she refused to acknowledge them.

“When do we leave?” He pointedly stared at her hands where she nervously wove a cradle from a loose thread pulled from the lounge.

“Today.”

“Today? Really? Heloise, where did you learn that?”

“This?” She held up the somewhat higgledy-piggledy mat she’d woven and shrugged. Where had she learnt to weave? No matter. Other, more urgent, problems called.

She planned to reveal as little as possible to Uncle or anyone else, to sneak away before awkward questions were asked or anyone attempted to stop them. She hoped she might encounter less ghosts in the country. In a city there was bound to be someone dying every single day, and thus a never-ending army of ghosts. The other reason for leaving, which she could barely stand to allow room for in her thoughts, was that she hoped to outrun the other Thing, the twisted ghost, because if she couldn’t, she might not make it as far as this orphanage where Drager was hiding.

But it was no use worrying on it farther. She pushed the morbid thoughts away and looked around.

“You go find your gear, Bull. I’ll sort things out here. First, I’ve got to figure out where we’re going to put Grunt. Maybe a pack quagga would bear him without panicking?”

Bull halted, partway to the door. “The cat? He’s coming?” His voice rose at the end.

Was that fear?
Heloise eyed him, grinning. “Yeah. Course he is. He’s my bodyguard. Say, do you know how to change the ownership or home destination of these things?” Balanced on one fingertip, she held up the homing fly.

“No. It’ll return to whoever sent it.”

“Oh.”

Her forehead wrinkled. Should she say nothing and simply turn up, or should she arrive with fanfare? Some grandiose announcement? She smiled, as for a startling second she saw through Drager’s mind. If he was repentant, perhaps he quailed at the thought of their meeting. A grim determination firmed her thoughts. With finger and thumb, she activated the homing fly and spoke to it.

“Drager, I am coming. Meet me on bended knee, or not at all.”

There, that would put the cat among the pigeons. Even if it made things more difficult, for after all, who liked being told to kneel, it still made her happy.

Released at the kitchen window, the little replica of an airship climbed, buzzing, into a cloudless blue sky, steered in an arc to the north, dwindled to a black dot, and was gone.

****

Thom was sitting in Omi’s library, painstakingly going through yet another mildewed, moth-eaten tome, when the homing fly zipped in through the doorway and landed on Omi’s lap. Since he was concentrating on tying feathers on a fishing lure, Omi ignored it at first. The little thing lay there, the buzzing winding down to a complete stop.

It was impossible to look at anything else. Thom stared at Omi, then at the homing fly. He let out a long, exasperated sigh.

“I have seen it, Thom. Patience. Remember, you said you should be learning patience.”

“When?” He slid the book to the side. “Please, what does it say?”

Omi cocked one eye at Thom, splayed out his hands. “You cannot wait? Oh, very well.” He screwed the homing fly onto his earlobe for a short while. “Ah, you may not find this amusing, the girl says she is coming and that you should greet her on bended knee.”

Heat flushed across Thom’s face. “What impertinence!”

Omi shrugged, wrinkled his nose. “Hmph! I don’t know. Maybe you deserve it. Hey?”

It was difficult to think of an answer to that. Did he?

Sunlight, strained through a dusty window pane high on the wall, illuminated floating dust motes. Children laughed outside. A goat bleated. He did deserve it. Of course he did. It was a sobering thought. Not that he’d ever kneel. The cursed woman was simply trying to stir him to anger.