Shadows of Self (33 page)

“I see,” Marasi said.

Aradel waited for something more. She could practically hear the implication.
You’re a constable, Lieutenant. This is your job. Do as you are assigned.

“You could just ask him,” she said. “He’s been deputized. He is technically under your jurisdiction.”

“And you don’t think I’ve tried? He always promises a report. If I’m lucky, that consists of a letter telling me where he left a suspect hanging by his ankles—do you remember that one?—or a quick rundown at a party of something he’s hunting, if only so he can ask me for the loan of some resources. I don’t mean to turn you into his chaperone, but honestly, a little more information would be
wonderful
.”

Marasi sighed. “I’ll write you a weekly report. More frequently if an investigation is ongoing, as it is now. But I will inform him that I’m doing so.”

“Great. Fantastic.” Aradel started down the stairs again, stepping quickly and speaking almost as fast. “Get to the governor’s place and tell him I need an executive order for martial law tonight so I can clear the pubs. Suggest he send one to each of the octants. Then check in on your friend Ladrian and tell me anything he’s learned about this immortal who thinks she can bring down our city.”

He reached the floor below and strode out into the main chamber, shouting for a report on the number of constables they’d been able to call up for duty this night. Marasi followed more slowly, legs feeling like they bore hundred-pound bracers.

You can be a resource for this department in more ways than one.…

She reached the ground floor and walked out the precinct’s back door. She’d always known that her involvement with Waxillium had helped her obtain this job. If she hadn’t joined his hunt for Miles Hundredlives, she’d never have gained enough notability. That said, she’d assumed her understanding of historical crime rates, her letters of recommendation, and her interview had been more important.

Was that even the case? Had Aradel given her the job instead of someone like Reddi because she knew Waxillium? Did her studies even matter?

She settled with her back against the wall, waiting for MeLaan. Rusts … did everything always
have
to be about Waxillium? Of course, thinking that made her feel like a child, jealous that someone else had more blocks than she did.

MeLaan strolled into the alleyway a short time later, disturbing the mists. “Well?” MeLaan asked. “How did I do?”

“We shall aid thee in thy desperation?” Marasi asked.

“Hey, it’s what he expected.”

“Not what
I
expected.”

MeLaan sniffed. “I can be divine when I need to be. I’ve had a
long
time to practice.”

“Then why don’t you use the act around me and the others?”

“Who says this isn’t the act?” MeLaan said. She met Marasi’s eyes. “Perhaps my duty as one of Harmony’s servants is to show people what they need to see, whatever will bring them the most peace.”

Marasi felt cold, suddenly, a shiver running through her. Not at the words, but at the look in MeLaan’s eyes, which had faded to a faint translucence. As if … in reminder?

Then MeLaan threw her head back and started laughing. “Nah, I’m just rusting you, kid. I don’t show you that side because it’s too hard to keep a straight face while talking with all those ‘thee’s and ‘whatfore’s.”

“Hence the snoring wisecrack?” Marasi said.

“Yeah. I had to check on the guy when Harmony was first looking for Paalm. He snores like a
steam engine,
that one. Anyway, where to now?”

“The governor’s mansion,” Marasi said.

“Along we go, then,” MeLaan said, striding toward the exit of the alleyway.

*   *   *

“We pulled to a stop,” Chapaou said, hunched up next to his carriage in the mists outside the Soother’s place. “And I’d been hearing things inside the coach. I didn’t like how he’d come out of that church, with hands all red.”

Wax knelt in the back of the coach, listening while he carefully unwrapped a bundle of black cloth. A lantern hung on the side of the coach, giving him light, but also turning the mists into a bloom of illumination. He could still feel the Soother’s touch from the nearby building, but it was far less pronounced now. He felt almost like himself. That was both good and bad, for there was nothing to hold back his sense of revulsion as he unwrapped the bloody mallet that had been used to pound the spikes into Father Bin.

“I shouldn’t have looked into the coach,” Chapaou said. “He told me not to look, you know? But I couldn’t help it. So I turned softly and peeked in the coachman’s slot, the one they have so you can see if the person inside is ripping the upholstery or whatnot.

“I found I hadn’t been carrying a man, but a monster. A mistwraith, with bones and sinew exposed, and a face of stretched muscle and grinning teeth. It looked at me, all smiles, and scrambled up toward the hole. It pressed that exposed eye against the slot, and then it
changed
. It
changed
. Skin growing over its face, like mine. A twisted, broken version of me.”

He started weeping again. Wax unrolled bones from the bundle, the corpse of the Pathian whom Bleeder had imitated in order to kill Father Bin. Bleached, picked clean, and under them a pile of cloth. Pathian robes? Yes, the colors were right.

“Hands all red…” Chapaou whispered.

“You ran, after that?” Wax asked, lining up the bones carefully.

“No, I drove,” Chapaou said. “I whipped the horses forward, bearing that demonspawn in my coach. A driver for Ironeyes himself. What good would it do to run? It had my soul. Harmony … it
has my soul
.”

“No,” Wax said. “It is a trickster, a false face, Chapaou. It was a twisted version of yourself, you say?” MeLaan had said that older kandra could often approximate a face without having the right bones, but it was always noticeable.

“Yeah.” The man huddled down lower in the alleyway. “I know what you think, lawman. I killed that priest tonight, didn’t I? I went mad, and I killed him, and those bloody hands are mine. Shoulda killed myself, jumped off that bridge…”

“No,” Wax said. “You’ve been taken in by a charlatan, Chapaou. It wasn’t you.”

The man just whimpered.

Wax continued, methodically laying out the evidence, though a part of him wondered what good it would do. Did traditional detective work have any place in a fight against a creature like this? How did you fight mythology with a microscope? Harmony … what if he
did
find a clue? If he chased her down? Could he even defeat something like this?

He stared at the bones, then shook his head. He would send for a crime-scene team to look this over. He needed to get to the governor’s mansion and check in.

Wait,
he thought, then leaned forward. There, on the hem of the robe. What was that? He shielded the lantern, causing Chapaou to groan and huddle down farther.

With the lantern dimmed, Wax spotted it better. The corner of the robe’s hem
glowed
with a soft blue light, easy to miss. Wax reached down, taking a substance off the robe and rubbing it between his fingers. A powder of some sort? What kind of powder gave off its own light, faint though it was?

“Did you see anything glowing back here, Chapaou?” he asked, turning toward the man. Wax had to unshield the lantern to get him to respond. Even then, the only reply he got was a confused shake of the head.

“Where did you drive the coach?” Wax asked.

“Lestib Square,” Chapaou whispered. “Where I’d been told to drop the creature off. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and waited. It … it climbed up to me, as it left. Hands on my shoulders, head beside mine, cheeks touching. I could feel the blood, though it left none staining my shirt. It … it
whispered
to me, lawman. ‘I will make you free.’ When I opened my eyes it had gone, leaving those bones in the passenger compartment along with a small pile of coins. I thought for sure I’d gone mad.”

Wax downed an extra vial of metals to refill his stores, then dried the vial out and took a sample of the dust. Lestib Square, named after the Lord Mistborn. It was worryingly close to the governor’s mansion. “Don’t worry. I’m on the thing’s trail. I intend to stop it.”

“It said it would make me free,” Chapaou said. “If I’m not mad, then that means … that means that thing was
real
.”

“It is,” Wax said.

“Honestly, sir, I’d rather be crazy.”

“Eh,” Wax said, rising and pushing Chapaou toward his coach. “The thing probably doesn’t want you dead anyway.”

“Probably?”

“No way to tell for certain,” Wax said, checking his ammunition. “But I’d bet money against it—at least, it no more wants you dead than it wants everyone in the city dead. Maybe. Not sure yet what its endgame is.”

Chapaou looked sick. Damn. He was sure that last part had been comforting.

“Go home,” Wax said, then tossed the man a few banknotes. “Or go find a hotel. Get some sleep. She isn’t going to come for you.”

She had much bigger game to hunt.

GUEST EDITORIAL:

THE NUISANCE OF NEGLIGENT COINSHOTS!

In the last sixteen months I have replaced three lamposts, an iron gate, and two steeple spires, all at my Madion Ways house. My residence in the 6th Octant, much nearer the Hub, has needed twice that attention due to it being on the main route of Coinshot couriers. Motor cars, carriages, bronze statues. None of these is safe from similar fates. Must our fine neighborhoods look like a return to the World of Ash?

No! Let us take back our dignity! (
Continued on Back.)

VISITORS from other WORLDS

Rarely does The House Record bring news of the sensational, but the reputable Lady Nicelle Sauvage of New Seran has contacted us with a report that will shock you.

“I was lost in the mountains south of the Southern Roughs,” said Sauvage. “And my fellow travellers had either left me or died. That’s when I came upon a mountain pool of the most perfect blue, fed by the melting snows of the heights. Harmony, but I thought I’d reached Paradise.”

As twilight struck early, as it is wont to do in the mountains, Sauvage saw a hunched figure by the pool. “Just a shadow, really,” she said. “Piercing eyes, and a face like some otherworldly beast from one of those hideous pulp stories. I regret to say I hadn’t the courage to engage this Visitor. Instead, its horrible visage struck right at my heart. I let preservation instinct take over and ran for an hour before making camp elsewhere.”

(More on Back, Column 4.)

The Sinister Soiree!

I described my assailant as wearing a striped white suit, but that is not as specific as it may seem. In Elendel, someone dressed as described would stick out like afternoon tea among koloss, but in New Seran the men run about in such vibrant suits that one would almost think they are all performers late for the circus. So I will be more specific. The gunman also wore mustaches waxed straight horizontal to a perfect point. The women on both sides of him stood back not only because he had brandished a gun, but also because they feared losing eyes to the sharp and glistening facial hair.

I burned what little tin reserves I had left. (You will recall that I detailed the episode last week in “A Sport of Spirits” where I’d been forced to flare most of my tin to counteract the effects of winning a gentlemanly impromptu wine-sipping contest earlier in the evening.)

“Stand down, sir,” I said, cursing myself for leaving Glint in my outer jacket taken by the servant when I’d entered the party. Had I become so soft since leaving the Roughs that I felt comfortable enough without Glint on my very person? Never! Unconsciously I knew that even without my trusty sidearm I was a match

16

Wax perched on an electricity pylon, overlooking the governor’s mansion—a clean white building, brightly lit in the mists by floodlights. Those didn’t shine so strongly every night, and their brightness tonight seemed to indicate that Innate was worried. The crowds were not dispersing. Men roamed the streets; there seemed to be
more
of them than there had been earlier, though the clock had struck midnight soon after Wax had left the Soothing parlor.