Steal the Sky (21 page)

R
ipka went home
before she went to the station, and changed into the Brown Wash clothes of mourning. She would not do what she was about to do while wearing her blues.

The black cotton was pounded smooth by stones, and the supple fabric covered her from throat to foot. It was a variation on an old Catari tradition, or so her mother had told her, though the original rites were long since lost. In the Brown Wash, one donned their blacks and stole an item of personal significance from the house of the deceased on their pyre night.

Galtro would have no pyre night. Ripka suspected Thratia would chuck him into an unmarked grave, or garbage burn, to keep from establishing a site that might turn into a symbol for martyrdom. That was all right by Ripka, she'd never been much of a traditionalist. She'd find her own way to mourn. A way that involved punching Thratia right in her smug little mouth.

The black cloth made slipping through the city unnoticed easy, and she found herself walking through the station house's door before she had a plan firmly in mind. The station was quiet, the lamps snuffed and the halls emptied. Papers were left in haphazard stacks on desks, half-drunk tea cups gone cold beside them. At least someone had remembered to lock the door on their way out. Ripka's lips quirked in a smile adverse to her mood. Probably Banch.

She drifted through the darkened halls by rote, found the aisle of long-term inmates and reached for the lantern she knew would be there. It felt light in her hands, not much oil left. Not much time to burn.

With care she struck her flint and lit the already charcoaled wick, coaxed a small flame into life. A few muted groans of protest sounded down the hall. The regulars, annoyed that their darkness was disturbed. She ignored their grumbles as she continued down the hall. She wasn't here for the regulars. Ripka sought a much more recent addition.

The unnamed woman's cell was second to last, a palm-sized piece of wood with “Unknown #258” hastily tacked in place of a name placard. Ripka ran her fingertips over the number, wondering at the motives behind the two hundred and fifty seven who had come before this one. Most were long before Ripka's time, but in her experience few kept their numbers long. The last, however, had kept his number until his death. Unknown #257. The doppel caught impersonating Mercer Agert.

She resolved that this woman would not die in obscurity.

Ripka hung her lantern from the hook above the small window in the wooden door, placed so that it was just out of reach of the inmate but still close enough to cast some light into the cell. Then she pulled a heavy metal key from her pocket, and stepped inside.

Unknown lay on the bench opposite the door, curled on her side with her arms cushioning her head. Lank, greasy-brown hair streaked her cheeks, and the whites of her eyes glinted wide and wary as Ripka entered her world. Taking a deep breath of the fetid air, Ripka shut the cell door behind her.

The woman swept her gaze over Ripka's mourning clothes and raised her brows. “Is this a personal call, captain?”

“I need answers from you. Evidence.”

With a grunt the woman sat up. The chains binding her wrists together hissed against one another like a disturbed viper. “I've been through this about a half dozen times with your lackeys. I've got nothing to say, and you don't have the spine to force it out of me.”

Ripka eyed the woman with care. She was in good health, even if she could do with a bath. The records her watchers kept said she ate well, sending back empty platters after each meal time. Ripka made sure of it – she checked those reports every night, and did what she could in the morning to see to it that those who weren't eating had their diets adjusted to please them. Ripka would never allow it to be said that her jail treated its inmates poorly.

She could only hope her successor gave the same care.

“You're right.” She spun the cell door key around her finger. “We're not interested in forcing answers from you. We're not brutes. Though I'm sure if the situation was reversed Thratia would have cut the answers from you by now.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Never said that's who I worked for but, I'll tell you this, I woulda' cut the answers outta you
myself
if the tables were turned.”

“Charming.” Ripka moved the key, very slowly, to her pocket and gave the button flap a hasty loop. She stood there alone, unarmed. The key to the cell protected by no more than a flimsy piece of cloth. The woman licked her lips, chains rustling as she leaned forward. Ripka's heart stuttered with a burst of adrenaline, her muscles growing taut though she didn't dare take a fighting stance.

The woman's eyes widened and she grinned to bare her teeth. “Why, Captain Leshe. You are the clever one.”

“Does that mean you'll answer my questions?” Ripka fought to keep her voice smooth, to keep her hands from twitching toward the empty holsters of the weapons she had set aside before entering this cell. The fight she sought would already be unfair. No need to make it worse.

“Maybe. What it does mean, is, I'll take you up on your offer.”

A fierce grin split the woman's face, and Ripka's whole body thrummed with anticipation.
Do it, then!
She wanted to scream, but she bit back the words behind a falsely perplexed frown. “I'm not sure what you–”

The woman lunged. Fierce joy shot through Ripka, the burst of elated strength so overwhelming she grabbed Unknown by her outstretched arms and pivoted at the hip, swinging the over-leveraged woman into the wall. Unknown's hip and shoulder cracked against the hard stone, loud enough that Ripka feared for a fleeting moment that she'd overdone it, that she'd knocked the woman out in one blow.

Luck was with her.

Unknown turned to face her and lurched forward, fists raised, and forced Ripka to circle around lest she let the woman get within her guard. The woman grinned and wiped blood from her lip onto the back of her fist. “You surprise me, Leshe, an upstanding woman like you starting a fight with a prisoner.”

“You attacked me,” she said, too fast, but she didn't care. It was done. Now she needed to press her advantage, to keep Unknown off guard. “What's your name?”

“Oh, is that how this works? Blow for blow, eh? I guess you earned it. Name's Dekka.”

Before she'd finished her sentence she lunged, landed a jab on Ripka's right side so hard she spluttered and stumbled back. The great wooden door of the cell slammed into her back, and her lungs burned as she strained to retrieve the breath she'd lost. Dekka stepped into it, turning her body wide to come across with an uppercut.

But Dekka hadn't been locked up long enough to know the cells as well as Ripka.

Ripka shoved her hands down and grabbed the iron loops protruding from the door at hip-height. Bracing herself, she drew her knees into her chest and kicked out with both feet. The connection sent Dekka reeling, but Ripka was too busy trying to quiet the rattle of her own teeth to see where she went. Ripka dropped the loops, her fingers too numb and her shoulders too jarred to keep on holding them, and fell into an awkward crouch.

Dekka lurched to her feet and let loose with a roar as she charged with both her hands held up in a hammer blow. Ripka scurried away, crawl-hopping like a rabbit, and grabbed the bench Dekka had just abandoned to pull herself to her feet.

Dark compacted around her eyes just a breath before the pain reached her, lancing up from somewhere about her lower back. Damn woman was blasted strong. Ripka whirled, teeth clenched, and somehow managed to get the chain that bound Dekka's wrists caught in one hand. She swung her around and then pulled, Dekka's back slamming into her chest, and they went staggering backward until Ripka's back slapped the wall.

Gasping, snorting, they fumbled and grabbed and twisted until Ripka had one elbow snapped tight around Dekka's throat and the other pinioned her arms. The blasted woman's legs flailed, clubbing Ripka's shins with her heels. Ripka screamed against the pain, screamed against her loss, then pushed forward and spun around, slamming the woman face-first into the wall.

Her chest heaved, her knees threatened to quake, but still Ripka held the squirming, cursing, agent of Thratia against the cold yellowstone and fought back an urge to break the woman's neck.

“Who is supplying Thratia's weapons?” Ripka growled, her throat raw from her gasping.

“Fuck yourself,” Dekka hissed.

Ripka tightened her elbow, felt the woman spasm as she struggled for air, then eased the pressure. “Again.”

“Some bitch-faced imperial.” Dekka spat a wad of blood and spittle against the wall, wheezing as she drank down the air.

Callia
. “Why? What's the imperial get?”

“I don't–”

Ripka squeezed. Galtro's rotting body floated before her mind's eye, rank and discarded. Tossed against the wall like a broken toy. She gasped and eased her hold.

“Shit!” Dekka fell into a coughing fit, and Ripka let her heave until it passed. “Freaks, all right? Any weirdo fucking sensitive she can round up. But she's not happy about it, she wants to keep one for herself.”

A smile broke across Ripka's face, and she closed her eyes for a moment in rapture. Perfect. If Thratia wasn't happy, that meant somewhere she was keeping records. Keeping notes that could be used to turn against the imperial should the need ever arise. If Ripka could use them to destroy the imperial's authority, then Thratia would have no official backing. No claim to make on the wardenship… And the people wouldn't be too pleased, either, to hear proof she dealt in human trafficking. Even if the poor souls being bought and sold were deviant sensitives. But first she'd have to prove to Callia that Thratia was planning on holding out on her, drive a wedge between them so she could investigate deeper.

“The records of these shipments, where are they kept?”

“I don–”

She squeezed, and Dekka thrashed so hard Ripka nearly lost her grip.

“Where–”

“I really don't know! Shit! The compound, probably, where else?”

That would have to do. Ripka dropped her hold on the woman's chained arms and shoved her against the wall as hard as she could. Dekka struggled, sensing an opportunity, but Ripka leaned the whole of her weight against the weakened woman and was able to pin her in place. She fumbled one hand through a pocket and pulled out a small clay bottle. Its contents were heavy, familiar. She'd used similar bottles a hundred times or more in her line of work. So many that she had a standing account at the nearest apothik.

Ripka broke the clay bottle against the wall, felt the sticky resin of golden needle extract smear over her hand. The cloth folded within the jar she palmed, shook open, and crammed into Dekka's mouth. It only took a few breaths before the woman went limp.

After waiting a few frantic heartbeats to be sure the woman wasn't faking, Ripka eased her into a looser hold and half-dragged, half-carried her over to the bench. With care she arranged Dekka's arms and legs, making sure none were folded in such a way as to cut off circulation. Ripka peeled the cloth from her mouth, yellow-stained linen flecked with pink blossoms of Dekka's blood.

Her fist clenched, squeezing bitter droplets from the rag to the blood-spattered floor. It was done. The woman took no permanent damage. Ripka closed her eyes and tipped her head back, baring her face to the unfinished stone ceiling as if expecting a bolt of lightning to burst through the dry desert air and cleanse her of her crime.

Yes. Crime. She trembled as she stepped away from Dekka, shut and locked the cell door with care. Even Dekka had known what she intended. Worse, the woman had welcomed the chance. Ripka half-staggered as she walked down the hallway, the sharp absence of adrenaline causing her knees to quake. She paused, took a breath, steadied the lantern she carried.

It was
not
torture.

But that didn't mean it was right.

Ripka clenched her jaw and turned, striding towards her office. Her weapons were there – cudgel, cutlass, dagger – and her files. She flung open the door, heedless of the noise, and crouched before an overburdened file box. Even Thratia would have had to file building plans when she constructed her compound. Ripka flicked through the years, found the yellowed edge of paper she sought and tugged it free.

The lines of the plan were still bold and clear, even if the black ink was fading to brown. Ripka brushed the scent of dust from her nose and cringed as she smeared blood from the back of her hand against her lips. No matter. There would be time to clean herself later. If she survived.  

She had to keep moving. If she lost momentum, she feared she would collapse under the weight of what she carried. Faud. Galtro.

Dekka.

Before she set out, she wrote Dekka's release papers and left them signed on Banch's desk. If it all went sideways, he at least would recognize her authority come the morning.

P
elkaia stood
across the street from the Blasted Rock Inn, wearing her mother's face for comfort. It was not precisely how her mother had been. She'd had to darken the shade of her skin to a more Valathean-mingled hue, had to lift and sharpen the sand-dune smooth planes of Catari cheeks. She doubted any Aransan would recognize a full-blooded Catari anymore, but still she feared her mother's original countenance would be too exotic. Too worthy of notice.

The first time she had come here it had been after another murder, her first in more years than she cared to dwell upon, to drink to her sordid little victory. The memory of warm pride swelled within her and soured, the faces of those strangers she had bought drinks for just to hear them cheer blurred. Now… Now she came to drink smooth the ragged edges of her anger.

The chill of the desert night seeped through her clothes and prickled across her skin. Pelkaia flinched away from the emptiness. The cold reminded her of Galtro's blood, the heat of it turning bitter as it clung to her clothes, separate from the living vessel. She'd left her son's sullied vestments behind at her apartment before coming here – scrubbed her skin raw and red with sand and oils. But still she felt the shape of the stains, spread like guilty handprints across her body.

Pelkaia ducked her head, let lank hair frame the sharp edge of her false cheeks, and slunk into the Blasted Rock.

There was no celebration this night, no raucous gambling. The long bar to her left was elbow-to-elbow with regulars, the little square tables made of old shipping pallets occupied by bent-headed locals. A crude block print of Thratia's face hung on the wall across from the door, her sharp eyes the first thing to greet any who entered.

She took a deep breath to steady the frightened-rabbit thump of her heart, scented the grainmash molder of poorly filtered whiskey and the stale dust of wooden floorboards long unswept. Pelkaia found an empty table and shuffled to it, keeping her head tucked down and her back hunched. She sat, and the weight on her shoulders grew heavier.

The tense atmosphere was partly her doing. If she had not killed Faud then there would be no election, no dark shadow spreading across Aransa from a compound built high above. Pelkaia set her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, then realized anyone looking at her would see the pearlescent ripple of sel around her fingers. She slid her hands up to tangle in her hair. Her real hair. She clenched her jaw and pulled.

“Gotta buy something to sit here, ma'am.”

Pelkaia glanced up into the face of a barboy, no more than fourteen monsoons old, chewing a lump of barksap with such vigor it crackled each time he opened his mouth.

“Strongest thing you got,” she said as she tugged a copper grain from her pocket and pressed it into the palm of his outstretched hand.

The boy shrugged, flipped the grain through the air and caught it in one fist. “You got it, lady.”

He disappeared behind the bar, the sandy curls of his hair lost behind the sloped backs of those patrons seated closest to the booze. While Pelkaia waited she did her best not to feel anything. To think anything. To focus only on the burning in her hastily stitched shoulder, the throbbing ache in her side which rose with every beat of her heart.

The boy returned with a squat brown bottle, its label block-stamped with a spindly black bee. The bottle wasn't for her – she hadn't paid him nearly enough – but he brought it to show her what she paid for. Pelkaia wanted to smile at him for his honesty, but the muscles around her lips were beyond her reach.

He pulled a wide-mouthed glass from his pocket, flipped it around as he had the grain, then caught it and set it on the table. With care he poured out a draught three fingers thick. He then paused, winked at her, and dribbled in a few more drops. She blinked, recognizing the charm of a showman for what it was. If this lad had poured her drinks the night she killed Faud, she might have given him her whole purse.

“Here.” She shoved another copper into his little hand and waved him away. The boy hesitated, a furrow working its way between his brows, but soon his forehead returned to smooth youthfulness and he cut her a quick bow before rushing off.

Pelkaia sighed. He was probably used to a lot more tips and attention than he was getting tonight. No matter, he was still young enough that his forehead could abandon its wrinkles with nothing more than a shift of mood. He'd be fine.

She drank. The liquor was sweet with honey and effervescent, tingling bubbles of selium erupted against the rough surface of her tongue. Pelkaia flinched back, wrinkling her nose in surprise. This was the strongest they had? This sugary… concoction? She hazarded a glance over at the barboy who gave her nothing more than another wink in return. She swallowed hard around empty air. Did he know she was sensitive? Had he thought that a selium-laden drink would help soothe her nerves?

Did it matter?

With a shrug she tossed back the rest of the drink and waved him over for another. And another.

The pain in her shoulder receded, the weight on her heart lessened. She looked up, surveying the room, grinning to herself as she recalled that first time she'd come here. It had been lively then, with the card players worked up into a lather over some Valathean game that was supposed to be new – fresh in from the Imperial Isles, the greatest game behind the Century Gates. Of course it wasn't anything of the sort. It was Detan Honding's game, and the only winner was the man himself.

Pelkaia stared at the empty table, conjuring him in her mind's eye as she'd first seen him.

He'd had his back to her, head bent down over a pile of cards so that his hair slipped up and his collar slipped down just enough to reveal his Honding family crest.

The Honding wanderer. A conman and burnout. The only sorry sack of flesh on all of the Scorched to have lost his sel-sense to trauma. Some accident on his line back in Hond Steading, an explosion or a fire, and he was done. The only survivor – left useless by his survivorship. They'd even taken him back to Valathea for a while, tried to cure his inability. Or so the rumors of the uppercrust went.

Pelkaia had suspected otherwise. The Catari had stories, stories her mother had sung to her at night in their filth-encrusted cave at the fringe of the Brown Wash. Stories of men and women who could make the firemounts roar to life. If the rumors about the Honding lad were even half true, then the only thing he was running from was whatever had been done to him in Valathea.

Gods below the dunes, he'd looked so blasted pleased when she'd had Ripka's watchers arrest him. She'd been lucky, she knew, to find watchers nearby who were willing to follow her orders. Watchers too disconnected from their fellows to realize Ripka would be down by the Black Wash, preparing to put a man to death due to the depth of his talent.

And now what? What was she supposed to do now that Galtro was dead – her self-appointed crusade complete? She felt the folded lump of paper in her pocket, the doctored report of her son's deadly ‘accident'. Felt Thratia's name burning a hole in her hip. Was she finished? Could it ever just end?

What would she be, when this was over?

She straightened, shoulders drawing back, jaw tightening as she pushed aside all self-pity. It did not matter what she became, it did not matter where she ended up. She'd set out to destroy those who'd contributed to Kel's murder. So what if there were one more guilty soul to destroy? So what if there were dozens? Just because she had work yet to do did not mean she had failed. This was
not
over.

The inn's door burst inward, a flush-faced man stumbling as he tugged on a slate-grey jacket. Pelkaia went cold straight to her core, her whole body felt encased in amber as the man's mouth began to move.

“Galtro's been murdered! Thratia's warden now! City's on lockdown until the sun-cursed sonuvawhore who did this can be found!” The man snapped his jacket straight and Pelkaia saw the crest whip-stitched to his sleeve: Thratia's house sigil.

The shockwave of his words spread syrup-slow throughout the room. Pelkaia watched in perverse fascination as eyebrows lifted, curses were uttered, and a few precious mugs were dashed against the floor. Men and women took to their feet, most a touch unsteady, hands reaching for hidden weapons. They cheered. Loud and bright and joyous.

“Easy!” The barkeep, a man who had more muscle in his arms than hairs on his head cried out as he hauled himself up to stand on the bartop. “Steady, all of you bastards! We're prepared for this.” He stabbed a finger at the regulars crowded around the bar. “Wait your cursed turns while Tik gets the goods ready!”

Prepared for this?
Pelkaia's pulse hammered in her ears, her palms went cold and damp with newfound fear. Some detached part of her marveled that she could still feel fear, that she could still desire self-preservation. The rest of her began to move.

Slowly as she could without being obvious, Pelkaia levered herself to her feet. The regulars reached over the bar, their backs to her, hands grasping for grey coats the barboy Tik was hauling out from the back room for them.

No, more than coats. Weapons emerged from the false bottoms of transport crates, their clean metal gleaming in the dusty lamplight. Well-made weapons. Valathean weapons. Pelkaia swallowed hard. She stepped on the balls of her feet, felt the sway of booze in her limbs and decided she'd have to settle for mid-stepping. It was quiet enough. And they were being so loud, the metal clanging…

“Hey.” Tik scrambled to the bartop and pointed her way, his other hand waving a grey coat like a flag. “You loyal?”

“I just wanted a drink,” she blurted, then clamped her jaw shut and slapped a hand over her mouth in shock. Why had she said that? Oh, Gods below… Why had she touched her skin?

Tik's eyes nearly leapt from his tiny, perfectly smooth face. “Doppel!” he screeched.

The mantle of her anguish was shattered by the crushing weight of her fear. Pelkaia bolted, ignoring the pain in her side, letting the alcohol numb her hurts and fuel her movement. She was lean, she was fast. But they were much, much closer to the door.

She thundered into a burly man who, thank the stable sands, had been well into his cups by the time she'd arrived. Her shoulder clipped his, and though fiery lances of pain raced through her he spun away and twisted, toppling like a felled log before his rushing fellows. The first two tripped over their comrade, and Pelkaia's fist closed on the doorknob. She yanked it open and her head snapped back, strange fingers tangled in her hair.

Pelkaia threw her senses out for the bottle the boy had brought her, and found a dozen and a half on a shelf behind the bar. She yanked on the sel within the liquor, heard glass shattering amongst screams as her blind tug sent the bottles spinning into the regulars. Blood and honey perfumed the air. The fingers in her hair tightened their hold.

She gripped the door with both fists and jerked herself to the side even as she flung the door wide. Roots ripped from her scalp as she hurtled out into the street, fingers too numb to maintain their hold. The ground bit her knees. She got her hands out and tucked her head, tumbled through the dust and the grit and slammed into something warm and hard and hoofed.

The indignant honk of a cart donkey broke through the screams coming from the Blasted Rock, and she rolled just in time to avoid being trampled. She found herself in the gutter on the opposite side of the street, scrambled to her feet and took off running down the slope, pumping her legs as fast as she could to stay ahead of the forward tumble of gravity. If she lost her footing now…

Something cracked against the ground beside her and she jumped aside, nearly tangled in her own feet as she slewed sideways into an alley. Pelkaia dropped her back against the alley's wall, facing the way she'd come from, heaving in great gasps of air.

In the street where she had stood rocks rained, pitched down by her pursuers. She snorted in derision, regretted it as snot dribbled over her lips. With a grunt she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and spit. She was Catari. She should not run scared from a bunch of Aransan backwater drunkards.

Neither would she risk any of them landing a lucky blow.

Pelkaia peeled the sel from her body and stretched it as thin as she dared, covering the entrance to the alley, mimicking perfectly the obfuscation she left over the mouth to her own home's alley. It was an easy shaping for her now, but she didn't need it to be perfect. Those patrons of the Blasted Rock were too deep into their drink to notice any irregularities.

As the thunder of their steps approached she forced herself to step away from the wall and stared through the thin membrane. The group approached the spot where the first rock had struck the road warily, peering all around. Pelkaia allowed herself a small smirk as the man who still held clumps of her hair glanced to the alleyway and then reached up to scratch the back of his head in confusion. Idiot.

That's what they got for breaking with the old terms. For insisting on calling her a doppel instead of an illusionist. What you called a thing carried weight, implied meaning. Doppels could change the appearance of themselves. Illusionists could change the appearance of anything. Names mattered.

The group conferred in mutters too soft for Pelkaia to make out, then turned and started back up the slope. She suspected some of them must be relieved not to have to chase down something their mothers had told them scary stories of. Even the dullest of minds knew that being a member of a mob didn't make one immune from harm.

Pelkaia reached up to rub the back of her head, and hissed through her teeth as she touched the raw patch of her scalp. Bastards. Her fists clenched. She could not stay here. Not anymore. There were too many layers in this city – of pain and of memory. It was only a matter of time until she slipped again. Until she was too slow to escape the claws tightening around her.