Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (28 page)

I jerked hard enough that he cursed, staggered but did not fall, and I rolled out from his reach.

When he dropped the whip entirely, I had only enough time to brace.

If Hawke was a tiger, then Osoba was the lion he was to reign over. He was ropy muscle and savage strength, grasping hands that caught at the base of my hair where I’d tucked the frayed plait into my collar. Every fine hair wrenched taut, painfully sharp.

I yelped.

He snorted at the verbal recognition; it turned into a wheeze as my elbow found his solar plexus. The fingers tore from my hair, leaving my scalp stinging with it, and the fight atop that rooftop became a flurry of fists, legs, elbows, knees.

I had been trained to fight by the street.

He shared a similar background, it seemed, for he fought just as dirty, just as viciously, as I.

A fist to my mouth split my lip; blood flowed from his nose, courtesy of a return tap, and an abrasion on his elbow turned red after a fall caught on the harsh rooftop.

The facility shuddered and shook with every leap, every collision.

I was wearying faster than he was. I’d misjudged my own strength.

The moment I went sailing over his shoulder, I knew it was over. The impact with the roof jarred all the way through my injured shoulder joint, and this time, I screamed as it popped.

Pain sheared through me, forced by the collision of flesh to rough wood and shingle, and the added agony of the ridges of the discarded whip I’d landed on.

I gasped for breath, tears streaming from my stinging eyes, and couldn’t summon more than a wheeze.

Osoba became little more than a dark blur in my bleary sight. He crouched at my side, winded and bloody, but the victor. My hands grasped weakly at the roof beneath me, but found only one edge and the whip my own weight made useless.

“You know,” he said quietly, and I couldn’t see through the spots painted over my sight to know if he smiled. “If things had been different, I think we might have been friends.”

I managed a rasped, “Bastard.”

He chuckled. “I can see what it is that Cage loves.” I started, the whole of my body jerking—but whether it was shock or denial or the start of questions flooded out by raw energy and determination, I didn’t know. Harsh fingers closed around my throat. “With this,” he said evenly, “our torment ends.”

No
. He squeezed, and my throat closed beneath his grip. Spots turned to visual tremors, to a tunnel so long and vast that Osoba’s face looked suddenly very far away.

I twisted, I thrashed. I grasped for his wrists, his clothing; nothing helped.

Inordinate pressure filled my head.

I had known this pressure before; this suffocating heaviness as it thrust cotton fingers through my ears. My eardrums throbbed, my tongue protruded as I struggled to gather breath.

The fingers at my throat tightened.

“Give up,” said Osoba’s voice, but from within. I felt it more than heard it, felt it thrum through my chest, my straining senses. My back bowed, twisted, and a knee planted in my belly.

Give up.

An easy decision to make. With my death, Hawke would no longer feel as though he had to protect me. Fanny, Booth and his wife—they could live happily. Free.

But what of Ishmael? Zylphia? The Ferrymen already moved against them.

Who would protect my friends?

No.
No!
I could not abandon my course, not now.

Shaking with the effort, my head swollen, I summoned all of my strength with the last of my consciousness. Where it came from, where the idea formed, I don’t know. As though guided by some deeply rooted memory, I sketched an
M
into the space between my face and Osoba.

“
M...
” I had barely any breath left to manage it. Eyes wide, protruding, I forced the word out on a rattle, “
Magnitudo.
”

Following the same instinct that guided me, I curled my left hand into a tight fist and drove it through the letter I’d carved in thin air.

I was too used to the colors of the alchemical Trumps I’d learned.
Eon
tended to flare blue,
Apis
and
Bacatus-Typhon
had altered between blue and silver.

I had never seen red.

It sparkled in my sight, popped like shattered glass, and reflected in golden eyes flared suddenly wide.

Osoba screamed—a sound punched from his chest as the whole of his weight flew backwards. I had not touched him, my fist had not made any connection, but it was as though a great hand had plucked him from the rooftop and sent him screaming to the ground below.

Wood splintered. The shattering of glass sheared through his ragged voice, and a wicked gout of red and orange spewed over the roof’s edge.

It wasn’t warm. Nor was it cold. I couldn’t distinguish what exactly the inferno was, but it seared my skin, forced me to roll over and bury my face in my arms as the air turned to acid and ice and flame.

Osoba’s screams rent through the chaos, strained to ragged panic; they broke, died and surged anew, transmuted into decibels forced higher and higher.

Heat quickly replaced whatever it was blasted from below, and the smell of burning flesh and wood filled my nose.

Aching, shuddering, I grabbed the edge of the roof I clung to and dragged myself to the rim.

What I saw on the ground below would haunt me forever.

The crates, those not consumed by flame edged with venomous green and red the color of bruised kidneys, lay splintered. Glass shards glittered, a thousand golden slivers winking in the alchemical fire, and in the midst of it all, Osoba writhed.

I had never watched a man be consumed by flame before.

He jerked and shuddered, limbs flailing, writhing and the manner in which his spine bowed must surely have snapped it.

Yet he kept moving. Screaming.

Horror filled me.
Magnitudo
. What in the Trump of strength and impossible obstacles had caused such chaos?

How had I possibly called upon it when it was meant to be so far out of my reach?

Osoba’s scream reached a frayed crescendo, and his throat forced it past mortal bounds; longer, harder, farther than any human throat could achieve. Wild gold eyes rolled back, boiled over. The voice forced from him fractured to a wild, panicked howl.

Finally, somehow—God only knew what strength it took—his flailing took him past the fire. As soon as he found cold ground, his limbs dug in, hands and feet, and shrieking, Osoba tore deeper into the Menagerie. Like a comet tipped by bloody flame, he vanished out of my sight.

His voice lingered long after.

I did not have the energies left to feel anything but brutal fatigue.

Magnitudo
. Far beyond my grasp, and yet I’d managed it.

Or it had managed me.

Shivering, shock turning my senses to leaden numbness, all I could think about was getting to Blackwall.

The Ferrymen already move against the Bakers.

The facility beneath me shuddered. Gouts of flame licked up the walls, and I crawled to the farthest edge.

I didn’t think it through when I rolled over the farthest side. My body fell like a broken doll, and the ground stole what was left of my consciousness.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Wake up.”

I surfaced only slowly, as though through water.

“
Hey.
”

And then I realized I
was
in water, and I jerked entirely awake, flailing and sputtering. My left hand caught at something soft and fleshy, and a woman’s voice yelped, “Watch it!”

My eyes fluttered, two identical women circling around and around before congealing into one.

Delilah bent over me, both hands holding mine at my chest. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said. She was smudged with soot, wet because she was in the same body of water I was.

A fountain?

The spray overhead was icy cold, and as if my body only waited for that realization, I started to shiver uncontrollably.

Delilah shifted beneath my head; it was her lap I’d used as a pillow. “What happened?” I croaked.

She exchanged a look with someone I couldn’t see.

Delilah was a sweet, the same I’d come to visit before, and whatever breaking she’d gone through, it didn’t show on her face. That was only good manners. One didn’t mar the goods. With soft black hair now damply clinging to her neck and cheeks and the striking features of an English thoroughbred, she didn’t look like the sort of girl who’d pick up a sword to defend others.

She’d done just that when last I’d seen her, and made to suffer for it.

Yet she apparently hadn’t learned her lesson, for here she was, helping me again. “Less guard today. We saw the smoke from the window, Talitha and I. Came running and found you before the footmen did.”

I was shaking uncontrollably, so much so that I could barely force my limbs to obey. I tried to sit, sank near half into the water, and had no choice but to let Delilah grasp me under the arms and haul me upright.

My knees locked on instinct, saving me an inglorious drowning.

Talitha—a pretty blonde thing who’d often playacted as sisters with another sweet—hugged dry clothing to her chest. Her eyes were a delicate blue, like a porcelain doll painted in English hues, but there were dark circles beneath. She looked hollower, gaunt.

Frightened.

“Osoba?” I managed around my bruised throat.

Delilah shook her head. “Didn’t see him.”

I took the towel she handed me, dried as best I could, but gave up when my hands trembled too badly. Delilah took over. She stripped me, uncaring of the fact we remained outside the sweets abode, and I was too far gone to care.

Fortunately, none came. The billow of smoke, oddly hued in my bleary vision, explained why. Them left behind to mind the gardens were likely busy.

“Dress, and then be gone,” Delilah ordered. When I blinked at her, she grinned. “You’re here for Hawke, right?”

Did everybody know my business?

I didn’t have the warmth to flush. A jerky nod was all I managed. The whole of my body hurt, and as I tugged the shirt over my bare arms, I hissed when the fabric dragged across a burn. It was mild, flesh made red and raw but not overly deep.

A similar overly prickly throbbing dotted my side, as though embers had burst over me.

Collectors gained scars easily. I hadn’t realized how lucky I’d been to heal as quick as I’d done, thanks to my father’s serum and my ghostly mother’s influence, until I no longer healed so fast.

Delilah had acted with swift thinking, dumping me into cold water before the burns had gotten worse.

“Good.” When I proved able to dress myself, she slung an arm around Talitha’s shoulders—a casual sort of comfort. “We hope you give them all hell.”

“Why?” It hurt terribly to speak through the bruising I was sure would soon appear around my neck, but I would persevere. The clothing the sweets gave me were a man’s. I appreciated the courtesy. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“’Tis better to ask when we aren’t in trouble,” Talitha whispered, and my heart hurt for that.

Delilah gave her a squeeze. “Time for a change.” A shout filtered through the air, and she glanced over her shoulder. No sign of anyone, but that might not hold true for long. When she looked back at me, her smile was a crooked thing. “Things is different, you know?”

“I know,” I rasped. My boots were soaked, but serviceable.

“Can I ask you a thing?” When I nodded, Delilah leaned her head against Talitha’s, gaze trained on me. “Are you going to save us?”

I really must learn when to bite my tongue. Without so much as a blink, without pausing to consider my own safety, I said, “I intend to tear down the Veil.”

“Good,” Delilah said again. “There’s too much wrong here. Too much rot. We’re with you.”

I’d seen her fight. She was a deft hand. Talitha had always been the softer, but with Jane missing, I wondered if she’d earned some steel of her own.

“How many?” I asked.

“There’s fourteen of us ready to fight back,” Delilah said. She shuddered, but I thought it more from cold than fear. Talitha hugged her close for warmth, dampening her own night dress and wrapper. They’d like as not been asleep before the fuss. “Ten of us were there for Zylphia’s call.”

Fourteen sweets. I wanted to tell them to stay safe, to stay out of it all, but that would win no wars.

“Play merry hob with the Veil’s men, then,” I said, even as I hated myself for allowing them into the fold of violence. “Burn what you can. Stay out of sight, and lead them on a wild chase.”

Delilah’s smile grew. “Aye, aye.”

I couldn’t summon the will to smile back. “Be careful,” I said. “Promise me. No face to face fighting if you can help it, and watch out for Marceaux. He’s as trustworthy as a starved weasel.”

“Right,” she agreed. “For how long?”

I didn’t know. Communion had asked for four days. Only three had passed, but the Ferryman were already moving.

I took a slow, steadying breath. It ached all the way to my toes. “Until it’s all burning,” I said. “And then get out. Grab the bantlings, any of the children who have nowhere to go. Don’t go to Baker land, and stay out of Shadwell and Ratcliff.”

“All right. We’ll go north.” Another shout cracked through the Menagerie quiet, and a faint rolling boom. Something had collapsed. The building, likely. “Go on, then.”

I took the opportunity where it was given. Fear filled me for the sweets, but I was no commander capable of choosing her soldiers.

The sweets would harry the lingering servants loyal to the Veil, and wreak havoc across the grounds. Lives would be lost, I had no doubt.

My only comfort was that most of the Ferrymen were likely to be assaulting Baker lands.

The quickest way into Poplar was from the eastern gate.

Summoning all of my determination, I lurched into an awkward run.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

My plans only rarely unfold accordingly. Was it any wonder I’d developed a habit of making it up as I went along?

Poplar by day was a crowded thoroughfare, with many a working man and woman afoot. I ran through by way of the lanes I’d mastered, and saw little enough of the Baker troubles along my path.

It came a different tale when I entered Blackwall.

Men in blue wool ringed the mouth of Preston’s Road, where Poplar turned to Blackwall. Recognizable by the tall helmets they wore and the truncheons at the belt, the low street bobbies faced what looked to me like a tangle of furniture and upended carts.

A wide swath of cleared ground between the barricade and the police that watched it bore signs of a struggle: splintered wood, bent lamps, and a shattered window at the fringes.

The bobbies stood rigid and uniformed, and that they faced inward suggested that they were less worried about keeping others out as what might leave the barricade.

I caught my breath whilst catching a lamppost for balance, blotting at my brow with a sleeve. It came away spotted with red; blood, no doubt, scabbed from the fight I had with Osoba and dampened by my own sweat again.

I looked a sight, I knew that. As likely to earn attentions as not.

The Poplar pedestrians were a diverse lot, whose defining characteristic was that of poverty. There wasn’t a face among them lacking in haggard symptoms of hunger, want, or warmth. Even them seen better off by way of steady work boasted patched togs rather than new, and mended handkerchiefs to wipe the soot stain away.

They clambered for a ringside view of whatever show unfolded beyond that barricade, shooed away by the bobbies when they meandered too close and otherwise left to congregate.

I studied them from my claim at the post marking the entrance to a grocer’s shop, but saw none that I recognized.

Had I turned about, I might have rectified that issue.

A hand came down on my shoulder; all too familiar for the attempt, but this time with the added benefit of wrenching the injured socket.

My knees buckled, and the hand that meant to catch my attention caught a fist full of my borrowed urchin’s jacket instead. I swung awkwardly, sucking in a breath between clenched teeth lest I yelp my mingled pain and shock.

My back collided with another, the arm supporting my suddenly tottering weight went taut, and I looked up into a face capped by greasy blond hair and a scarred smile. “Rough go, missy?”

I bit off a too-brusque rejoinder, but allowed the Baker to right me upon my feet. Cradling my arm at the elbow softened some of the sting. “Not nearly so rough as that,” I managed. I tipped my head at the row of police. “What in the name of reason is going on there?”

“What, them rozzers?” The Baker let me go when I proved capable of maintaining my own balance, and a bit of an apologetic slant tugged at his smile. “Communion ordered it.”

That made no sense. A barricade like this was guaranteed to draw the attention of London officials. Gangs were one thing, often given the run of the district they claimed, but it had always been an unspoken rule that neither bobbies nor crew push the others too far.

“That’s guaranteed to earn the Bakers a noose,” I pointed out grimly. “What’s he thinking?”

“Best a noose fer th’ Bakers,” he told me, all trace of a smile fading, “than th’ Ferrymen dogs out here, aye?”

Ah. So that was it.

I frowned at the pedestrians all finding some reason or another—or giving up on the playacting entirely—to watch the police and the silent barricades. There was precious little more beloved than the theatrics of a street show made real.

The Bakers had created the barrier to save as many innocents from the bestial Ferrymen as they could.

If they only knew what fate would burden them should Communion or his blokes care less. At least it might be a very short fate, indeed.

Alchemy was not meant to be used in the open, and here the Veil had gone and done just that. What on earth was there to stop them from utilizing such skill to take over London’s streets?

Why stop there?

Why not unleash these hounds of hell upon the well-heeled above the drift? Upon Parliament?

Against Her Majesty?

Once upon a time, I might have considered such matters beyond the Veil’s interest. It had already been made clear that the Veil was beyond the entity I had originally thought. Now I had no choice but to treat them as a wholly new enemy with an uncertain game.

I knuckled at my eyes until the overwhelming fear of a burden too great faded from them. “I need to talk to Communion, and quickly. The rozzers won’t let me by. What’s a better way?”

“Ain’t one,” he replied, leaning against my lamppost like he was one of them what simply watched. A lookout, for sure. Meant to dissuade or to carry messages inside?

It didn’t matter. He was high enough in Ishmael’s esteem to claim his company.

I planted both hands on my hips and bent forward. “What’s your name?”

His scar crinkled with his smile. “Luther.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Luther,” I said politely, and then compounded propriety by thrusting my face close enough to his to startle his shoulder right off the post. He managed a bit of a jog before righting himself. “Do you know what collector business means?” I demanded.

“Everyone knows it,” he replied scornfully. “Don’t apply here.”

I thought about the notices I’d plucked from the wall. My eyes narrowed. My voice lowered. “You willing to bet your dimber damber’s life on it?”

To his credit, Luther was not a disloyal man. He squared up, towering over me, fists ready where I could easily see them. “You threatenin’ Communion?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head and backing up enough that he might feel less pressured by a twist my size. “I’m trying to ensure he lives through the night.”

Luther was silent, leaving the thrum of the watchful crowd and the barkers beyond to fill the gap. I watched him carefully, and he studied my features, searching for some thread, some clue, he could seize upon.

I gave him impassive collector’s face.

He sighed. “He’s not here,” he admitted, as though it wrested from his better judgment.

“Why isn’t he?”

“The first wave came about three hours ago,” he explained, jerking his chin at the barricade. “They come in groups of six, all howling and snarls and shouting. Bakers kept watch, you know? So we weren’t unawares, but we lost thirty-four men.” His voice hardened. “First wave, missy.”

My jaw set. “My condolences,” I said, knowing it wasn’t enough. The Bakers, at rough count, numbered nearly seventy. To lose half of the mass in one go was a terrible blow. “Was Communion caught in it?”

“No.” Luther jammed his thick-knuckled hands into his pockets. “But he left about an hour past to take care of it.”

Damn it all. “Where, then?”

He huffed out a breath. “He and the brimstone took it back to Limey.”

This took me a second or so to process, until I remembered that “brimstone” was common cant for an abandoned prostitute.

Zylphia.

“Bollocks,” I breathed.

Luther studied me. “You going after him?”

I nodded.

“Bring him back alive, right?”

When I half turned, nodding still, he caught my arm. I winced when the cloth rasped over the burn. “You owe,” he added tightly. “Life for a life. You bring Communion back, it’s as good as done.”

Not the way I wanted to absolve this debt, but I would take it. “I will bring him back alive,” I said fiercely. “I promise.” I broke his hold easily, ran from Luther without another word. He called out in my wake, but I lacked the time to explain what I meant to do.

Communion had given me four days, but that was before any of us knew the Veil would launch its own assault sooner. Had I remained with Zylphia in Fanny’s home, I might have been made aware of this change.

Bloody bells and the devil’s own. The very same I’d meant to save had gone to cut the head off the serpent.

I ran as though my very life depended on it. It didn’t. I had the means to flee, if I wanted, to go with Ashmore wherever the world might take me. I had the option.

It wasn’t my life that rode on my speed, but that of my friends.

I had so few left. I’d be damned if I lost even one.

Halfway through Limehouse, just by the Limehouse Station, I heard my name. I drew up sharply, prepared for a fight, but Ashmore leapt from the carriage he rode to grab me by the shoulder. Rage sharpened his features. “Where the hell—”

“The Menagerie,” I panted. I seized his lapels, shook hard, “The Ferrymen are attacking Blackwall but Ish—” I gasped for breath, “—Ish and Zylla are trying for the—the Veil.”

Ashmore’s reprimand turned into a sharp curse. “Are you sure?”

I nodded hard. “I need to go.”

“I don’t have the means here to—”

I broke Ashmore’s hold, stumbling back. “Whatever you must do, we have to help them.” He stared at me, searched my flushed face.

I did not hide anything from him. “Please,” I said on a hard breath. “Please, it can’t end like this.”

His gloved hand curled into a fist. He pressed it against his forehead. “If you were anybody else,” he said, nearly a growl. “
Damnation.
”

Relief forced me to bend over, bracing my hands on my knees and drawing great gobs of air. It stung, but no worse than the burns I bore.

“I cannot convince you to accompany me,” he admitted, already acknowledging what I did not need to say. “Go, then. Try to stop your friends. I need to collect my tools.” He did not wait for me to confirm, but once more swung into the carriage waiting idly by. He braced himself out the window, voice cold as I’d ever heard it. “Survive this, Cherry St. Croix.”

I lifted my head. My smile, though wobbly, bit deeply. “I will. Come rescue me, you hear?”

He did not smile in kind. “Always,” he said grimly, and pounded on the roof of the carriage.

The driver, used to his master’s antics, flicked the whip. The single horse lobbed into a canter, easily maintained given the quiet of Limehouse’s streets.

Given what little respite I could, I summoned my strength and hurried to the Menagerie.