Fade to Black (21 page)

I took a hesitant step towards Jake, and tried not to feel satisfied that there was some sort of break, some chink in their relationship where I could insert myself. I kept my voice low, so Pasha couldn’t hear the words, though he shot me a look that could have cut through steel just the same. “Are you all right?”

Jake took a deep breath and looked upwards, as though calling on the Goddess for strength. “Fine.” But she didn’t sound fine, and the way her lips twisted and she blinked rapidly, the way her hands gripped at the sideboard, she looked
far
from fine. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, took a deep breath and grabbed for her swords. Her hands shook as she strapped them on, but her face was still now, as still as the Goddess in the painting, and as full of promised violence. She stalked past me and out of the door. Once she was gone, I let go a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. Because with her in the room, even angry and closed off, even with two swords at her waist, I wanted her. Not my usual sort of
want either – I wanted to make it all right for her, better for her.

Pasha looked up at me from under hooded lids and he knew. Of course he did – his kind of magic. A subtle and invisible wall appeared between us. He sat up from his hunch, leaned forward on his knees and studied the arena, his eyes flicking back and forth as though seeking a weakness.

I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to explain myself. “Pasha, I—”

He didn’t look at me apart from a brief glance, but his hands were between his knees, twisting, pinching, hurting. I’d never seen him do it openly before, though he must have done something for those flashes of magic where he seemed to see inside my head.

“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re getting into. You don’t know her. You think you want her, love her. I’ve seen it before, in the eyes of other men, in their heads. They see the grace, see her pretend to smile and they think they know her. Think they want her. But they don’t. I know men like you, Rojan. They want to say they have, that they were the one to get her, they were the one to get past her wall. We all have walls, don’t we? You and your cynicism, her and her ice-queen act. A wall to keep everyone away, outside, so they won’t see the fear. Those men,
you
, never see past that exterior; you want her not for her, but for yourselves. You think you love her, but you don’t even know what that means. Would you do anything for her to be
happy? What about letting her dice with death out there? Would you let her risk dying for her to be happy, or would you try to make her stop, and kill her inside in the process? Would you take her Upside, away from everything that’s important to her, or would you stay down here, for ever? Would you forbear to—” He broke off with a shake of his head, as though he’d almost let something slip he shouldn’t. “How far would you go?”

That’s when he looked at me, with eyes dark and round with emotion, and I knew just how far he’d gone. Further than he wanted to, but not as far as he would go, if he had to. I didn’t know how to answer. We both stared out at the sandy arena, stained and spotted with blood. Finally, because I sensed he really needed an answer, I said, “I don’t know. Women have never been…
I’ve
never been good partner material. I don’t know if I have what it takes, or how good I’d be. Piss-poor on past performance. But she makes me want to try.”

Pasha’s head hung low over his knees, but his head bobbed in a nod. He seemed about to say something else, but the music changed. Jake’s music. Pasha leapt to his feet and planted his hands on the glass. Purple welts criss-crossed his fingers – where he’d used his magic. “That’s not right.”

I got up and peered through the glass, at the crowd as they began to chant, to stomp their feet and generally behave as though they wanted to make the building collapse. “What isn’t?”

Jake made her way down the ramp. Pasha was right, something was up. Gone was the easy grace, the carefully still face, the assessing eyes. She moved jerkily, like a puppet on a string. Her gaze flicked our way for a heartbeat and away again. She was trying her damnedest to keep her face still, but her wide, twitchy eyes gave her away. She was terrified.

“Pasha?”

He pressed himself against the window, as though he could help her just by wanting to, by passing it through the glass. “I – she comes down second. Always, she comes down second. Fuck, oh fuck. It’s a Ministry job.”

“A Ministry job? What do you mean?”

He spared me a withering glance. “I told you this was mostly sham, right? This is the bit that’s not sham. One person out there is really going to die.”

“What?” I pulled him away, but he shook my hand off and pressed his hands back on to the glass. The music changed again. The singer’s voice was raw, wailing about a betrayer’s kiss, of Namrat demanding a soul, and things much, much darker. It sent a shiver along my spine.

A figure appeared at the top of the ramp, a dishevelled, bruised-looking man. His clothes were ripped and bloodstained, his arms shackled in front of him. Someone unlocked them, shoved a sword in his hand and ran. The swordsman looked down at the blade and gave it a practice swish. A demonic grin spread from his lips, seemed to alter his whole face. Made him look as though he was the kind of guy who
didn’t give a shit what he had to do, he was going to do it, and probably enjoy it too.

“Pasha, just what—”

“A punishment,” he said, so low I barely heard him. “Don’t you have them Upside? What do they do when someone breaks the law?”

“The Ministry holds a trial. Sort of. The priests oversee it and supposedly pray for guidance. I can’t remember the last time there was a not-guilty verdict. It’s a crock of shit. You get arrested, you’re guilty.”

The rumpled man swaggered down the ramp, the demonic grin seeming the only part of him now, the only part I could see. I’d seen that sort of look before. Normally right before someone got their guts laid out on the floor of some seedy bar, or down a dark and lonely alley.

“And what happens to the guilty?” Pasha’s eyes flicked between the two combatants as they sized each other up.

“Depends. Prison, mostly; sometimes they hang them. They say some of them end up down here, though I never believed that.” I’d never been sure which was worse.

“Well, it’s true. Some of them do, and we have some of our own. But we have no prison. No open trials. When they’re found guilty, they disappear. To Azama, to the mages almost certainly.” Pasha’s breath fogged the glass. “A nice, easy, still-alive body that no one will miss. But sometimes, with the worst crimes, they want to ‘set an example’. That’s when they send them here. For public execution, in the name of the Goddess.”

My stomach went cold. Public execution had been banned many years ago Upside, way before Downside was sealed, though it still happened behind closed doors. This – this was barbaric. Jake was peerless with a sword. The man would be cut to pieces in moments, no matter the way his face was twisted. I couldn’t see why Pasha was worried.

“And this is a problem for Jake because…?”

His gaze slid towards me and it wasn’t just withering this time. If looks could kill, I’d have both Jake’s swords rammed somewhere very intimate. Pasha snorted, dismissing me. I didn’t know this place, or her, like he did, that gesture told me.

The prisoner and Jake squared up against each other and waited for the signal: the music stopping. As the last bar faded away, the prisoner lunged for Jake. She parried with one sword and feinted with the other. Yet it was all half-hearted. Her blades didn’t come within a foot of the prisoner. Whilst I’d seen her fight before, and had been seriously impressed, now it looked like she’d forgotten how to attack.

I wanted to ask Pasha, but was sure I’d only get a sneer in return. I thought back, and back. The first time I’d been here, Pasha had said Jake never killed anyone, accidentally or on purpose. Two hundred fights and no deaths, a score she was proud of. Only, would that matter now? Surely she’d done an execution before, if this was common?

“Never done a Ministry job,” Pasha said, reading my mind. I saw how he was twisting one of his fingers, just enough to
hurt, and I could almost feel him rummaging around in my head. “Never. This thing, her with her swords, it’s all a sham, a fake, a bit of flash to look good, to cover up what’s underneath… her swords are the wall that she hides behind. She’s good at looking good, at making it look real, but you think she could really beat all these guys? She was damned lucky against the Storad, but that’s it – luck, flash, a bit of panache and a showy way with swords, with the crowd. She’s not a fighter, she’s a… I don’t know. An acrobat, an entertainer, gives the crowd what they want, a bit of blood, a hint of danger, the chance to scream off their anger. Half these men could kill her in a heartbeat: too strong for her. She’s quick, and smart, so it looks good. But it’s flash, that’s all. Besides, no killing, that’s her thing. Even when we rescue the girls, no killing is the rule. She won’t. She won’t.”

That last was a drawn-out moan. “They know, Azama knows we’re on to him, that we might try for him, that we know where he is. No hope of keeping it secret after the Jorrin thing. He knows, and he’s arranged this.” Pasha shut his eyes and rested his head on the glass. “Only she might even do it. Orders of the Goddess, that’s what a trial verdict is, the priests say so. She’ll do anything to please the Goddess, anything, but…”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she’ll die. That’s the rule of the execution matches. Only one comes out alive.” He smacked a hand on the window with enough force to make it shudder, and turned
away. Glass rattled on glass behind me as he poured a drink, but I didn’t take my eyes off the match, off Jake. She defended well enough, but still, her blade never came close to hitting the prisoner. What she thought she’d achieve, I don’t know. Maybe time to think.

The prisoner’s grin had got wider all the while; he knew, I could see by the look on his face. He was
gloating
. A crack sounded behind me, muffled and weak, but I knew what it was. I didn’t turn.

“He’s a plant,” Pasha murmured. “Been offered a pardon if he kills her.” Another crack, and this time Pasha let out a moan of pain. I still didn’t turn – I knew what I’d see and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had power to intervene and wasn’t. Would the pulse pistol work through glass? I’d never tried. There were other things I could do, only – the sound of a glass breaking and a breathy scream – only they’d hurt. A lot. The black was there, waiting for me to sink into my magic, go too far, fall in so I couldn’t come back. It was waiting for Pasha too, but he didn’t care. I kind of admired that, in a horrified way.
How far would you go?

Jake was on the back foot in the arena and the prisoner had got past her guard enough to slice a bloody rent in her allover. The crowd screamed its disapproval as her blood seeped out rhythmically, dripping down her side and on to the sand, mingling with the blood already there. With a glance in our direction, a look of apology in her eyes mixed with something like relief, Jake made a misstep, staggered off balance and fell
to one knee. Subtle, but unmistakable. Deliberate. The crowd howled as the prisoner pounced, his sword high, ready to slice her clean in two.

Just as the sword reached its apex, the prisoner stumbled, his eyes wide. The sword fell from his hand and his fingers reached up to his cheeks, scrabbled there as though someone had poured acid on him. Jake’s eyes were round and horrified, her swords loose in her hands. The crowd fell disturbingly silent. The only noise was the prisoner’s screams. Steam began to curl out of his nose and mouth.

“Pasha.” I had to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Pasha, what did you do?”

I dragged my eyes away from the arena because the sick feeling in my stomach told me exactly what he’d done and I didn’t want to see it play out. Pasha sat cross-legged on the floor, huddled over his twisted, bleeding hand. The glass he’d used to cut himself lay scattered around him. Behind me was a popping noise, and the sound of the crowd saying, “Ahhh” as one. A satisfied yet disgusted noise, like you hear in the temples when they make a sacrifice. However Pasha had done it, and I had my suspicions, the prisoner was dead.

Pasha looked up at me with sullen, sneering eyes, daring me to say I didn’t understand. “I did what I had to, which is more than you did. Too afraid of your own magic. Too much of a fucking coward to use it unless you’ve no other choice, too fond of your own skin.”

I moved over to him and crouched down. “You’re probably right. Let’s get that hand—”

I leaned over to look at the mess of his hand but he caught me by surprise and lashed out with a foot. It caught me on the ankle and I flailed backwards. Pasha was on me in a second, smacking me with his good hand. It was only then that I realised he was crying. I grabbed for his hand and caught it in my own, held it fast and tried to stop him. His shirtsleeve twisted away from his wrist, and I saw it. The brand mark, black jagged lines interlinking in an A.

I dropped his hand from nerveless fingers. I’d seen that brand before. Pasha saw what I was looking at and wrenched his arm away, smoothing down the sleeve so the brand was covered, then got up off my chest and turned away.

“Pasha, I—”

But Pasha wasn’t about to be reasoned with, or stopped. He was too far gone for that. He whipped back round and his dark eyes bored into mine, his face hard with hate. “Shut up. Just shut up before you embarrass yourself with your ignorance. They wanted me to be one of them, all right? They wanted me to, to – to gather the power. By hurting others. Not just a little, either. The mages told those girls that pain was their redemption into the Goddess’s blessedness, that they were only doing all of, of that, the pain, so the Goddess would love them again. That the mages did it because they
loved
them, and wanted them to be saved, and the girls believed them. Believed that the mages were saving them, that the
mages loved them and this was how they showed it, how they showed love. They want you to, as well. That’s why you’re here, that’s why they brought you with the lure of your niece. That’s why her. And you’ll do it too, I think.”