The Forgotten City (16 page)

He started to try to haul Ismail into a sitting position, but then he heard scuffling behind him and his heart seized in his chest. He forced himself to turn and look. A tidal wave of relief crashed over him. Luther stood watching them with his python eyes, the shadows obscuring half his face. Moses appeared beside him, sniffing the air. He stood very rigid with his coat bristling, ears back, and the whites of his eyes flashing wildly. The wolf spotted the scullion man and his ears came forward. He made a small whining sound.

“Luther, help me get him out of here!” Eli cried out.

Luther gave a quick nod and used Cos magics to form a wind platform to propel them out of the grave.

As soon as they were out, Ismail’s eyes flicked open, the curse to keep him sleeping broken. He gave a strangled gasp, one hand clutching his chest.

“He’s going into cardiac arrest!” Eli said.

According to Ev’r’s journal, Ismail had died from a stab wound to the heart. Eli ripped open Ismail’s shirt, the material aged and rotten. He grabbed a syringe off his belt filled with a formula mixed to inhibit the body’s natural stress response. The physiological process was different across races, but the formula was a good all-round mix that he’d discovered while doing a study into enhancing soldier concentration and accuracy during training and missions. It would slow the rate of Ismail’s heart. He bit the cap off, spitting it away, then injected it into Ismail’s arm. It had an immediate reaction, the scullion’s body relaxing and his breathing coming easier.

Eli grabbed an oxygen vial off his belt and tried to attach it to Ismail’s mouth, but the scullion swiped it away deliriously, his eyes rolling. He stared around at them, disorientated. A deep growl rumbled in his throat and Moses came forward, sniffing his face and whining softly. Seeing the wolf, Ismail’s hostility melted away. He reached out a shaking hand to Moses and as he touched the wolf’s white fur, he made a sound of shock.

“Real,” he murmured, but then he jolted away. 
“She’s coming,” he rasped. “She’s here.”

Eli heard the thud behind them and his muscles froze. He didn’t want to look. He really didn’t. Beside him, Moses bared his teeth in a silent, savage snarl. Eli braced himself and looked.

The Mocking Witch stood there with a jug of water in one hand. She turned her hooded head one way and then the other, sensing something was wrong, but not knowing exactly what.

“My love?” she hissed and Ismail cringed. Her attention darted his way. She dropped the jug and it shattered.

“No!” she screamed, blasting them with a surge of stinking air. Eli drew his electrifier and started firing, getting off only a few shots before the witch hissed an enchant that ripped the weapon out of his grasp. She started to curse again. Ismail cried out.

Eli heard a clatter from above them and looked up to the ledge. Flintlock stood there beside Diamond, holding a boulder above her head. She hurled it down onto the witch, who used an enchant to break straight through it. Flintlock released a sonic roar that trembled the cave. She dropped down off the ledge and smashed the witch with her massive spiked club. The impact ripped the witch’s rot-weakened flesh to pieces, but she re-formed in midair and doubled back whole. She tried to curse Flintlock, but was hampered by Diamond throwing what looked like a small metal square at her feet. On impact it unfolded and kept unfolding into a huge shield.

“Grab him!” Eli shouted to Flintlock as he tried to heave Ismail to his feet.

The giant lunged in and hoisted the scullion man onto her shoulders. She started to climb back up to the ledge, but the witch broke through Diamond’s shield and sent a curse that ripped her back down. Luther flared up, bringing the ceiling crashing on top of the witch’s head, completely burying her. She struggled to break out, but he held her with Cos enchants, mouthing to Eli, “Go!’ Moses stood at Luther’s side, snarling at the shuddering pile of rocks.

“Go!” Luther mouthed again.

Eli nodded. Luther could dematerialize, but Eli had no such skill – if he stayed, he’d be dead. He flew up beside Flintlock, who was climbing again and had almost reached the ledge. Diamond grabbed the giant’s hand to help her over, getting in the way and actually slowly her down, but finally they were up.

Flintlock broke into a run, with Ismail slung over her shoulder and groaning in pain. They couldn’t stop to help him; they just pushed on as fast as they could run and fly. The walls quaked around them, distorted screams howled behind and Eli searched ahead for the outside light, but the darkness seemed never-ending. Finally, when they’d already been running for far longer than he remembered taking on the way in, he saw a glowing spark in the distance.

“We’re almost there!” he yelled to Diamond and Flintlock and they sped up their pace.

The spark grew bigger and brighter so quickly Eli soon realized it wasn’t proportional to how fast they were moving – it was as though the light was traveling toward them as well. Except light didn’t move unless it was —

“Fire!” Eli yelled. “It’s fire. Stop!”

Lava Diavol
translated into Urigin as
demon mouth
and Eli could now feel why – the heat propelling toward them was blinding even from this distance.

“The witch must have somehow blocked the entrance,” Eli panted. He heard a curse hiss through the air around them and the shadows suddenly grew arms, trying to drag Ismail away from Flintlock, away from the fire and back to the witch. Flintlock battled to hold him as he gasped in pain, stretched between the two forces. Eli looked back; behind them the darkness was mutating, forming into an army of staggering, lurching figures. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t go forward. Eli dropped to his knees, his eyes stinging from the heat of the fire. He grabbed a handful of burrowing drills from his pocket and a blast grenade. He bound them all together, set the timer for five seconds and threw the bundle up into the jagged ceiling. The burrowers set to work, sinking deeply into the rock. The shadow golems had reached Flintlock and were threatening to drag her down; the fire was looming, roaring, burning. Diamond held her face and screamed – a long high-pitched note. It was an excruciatingly long five seconds. Then a blast rocked the cave tunnel and Eli pushed Diamond aside as rocks crashed down where she’d been standing. Sunslight streamed down onto their faces. Eli fired the anchor hook from his zip gun and felt it find purchase above.

“Flintlock!” He threw the zip gun to her and she grabbed it, triggering the recoil. The pressure yanked her off her feet and upward into the escape tunnel, Ismail clutched in one arm. Diamond and Eli launched after her, flying fast as the fire collided with the shadows just behind them. The witch’s scream chased them all the way through the darkness until they burst out into the desert.

As they did, an evil voice hissed, “I’ll find you, my love … I’ll always find you.”

It immediately took first place as the creepiest thing Eli had ever heard, but he didn’t pause to ponder.

The group crashed down the mountain to the desert sand, and Eli spun back to search for signs of Luther, only to find the mountain gone – vanished. Above them the suns had almost merged and the sand had started to smoke and catch alight.

“Run!” Eli shouted and they raced through the fiery air toward the
Gypsy Rose
parked in the distance. The more they ran and flew, the further away it seemed to be, the sand itself seeming to be dragging them backward, the deceptive magics of the Matadori conspiring against them. One of Eli’s boots burst into flames and as he hopped around trying to take it off, he realized his error. He grabbed the transflyer flash out of his pocket and shouted into it, “Engage autopilot, emergency pick-up mode!”

Immediately the
Gypsy Rose
burst to life, launching into the air and shooting toward them. It swooped in low and maneuvered sideways, the top of the craft opening like a mouth and scooping them up as it zoomed through. Eli slammed into the back of the cabin where the seat should have been. He groaned in pain, then Flintlock smashed down beside him, Diamond on top of her. Ismail lay between them, unresponsive, his eyes glazed.

The
Gypsy Rose
leveled off in the air and waited for further pilot input.

“Diamond!” Eli said, struggling upright. “Can you …”

“Fly?” Diamond cut in. She scrambled over into the pilot’s seat and kicked the transflyer up to top speed so quickly that Eli hit the windscreen and bounced back. He managed to collect himself and unzipped the pocket for Nelly to get out. She lifted her head up, looked around, then ducked straight back in. Eli spread Ismail out between himself and Flintlock. The scullion’s eyes were scrunched tight shut and he was groaning in pain and coughing, the same deep unwholesome sound rattling inside him. Eli examined Ismail’s chest. It was all scar. He’d suffered devastating injury around his heart, and there were dark magic symbols there too, etched deeply into his skin. Eli took out his stethoscope and listened to the scullion’s heart. The beat was way too fast and extremely odd, and as he listened, he eyed the scars – it actually looked as if he’d had a transplant. Ismail writhed in agony, his breathing becoming more labored and erratic, and Eli was afraid full coronary arrest was imminent. He made a quick decision and unclipped the He-Ro, one of the robotic hearts he’d designed, from his belt. The team used them on heart attack and heart trauma victims.

“I’m swapping functioning of your heart to an external source,” he quickly explained to Ismail, though he wasn’t sure the scullion could hear him through the pain. He positioned the He-Ro over Ismail’s chest and activated it. The unit injected its instant aesthetic, then attached hard against the skin and plunged its lines down, linking up with all the arteries of the heart. It clamped them and took over from Ismail’s internal heart.

The scullion’s body relaxed and he lay gasping, staring up at the transflyer roof with weeping eyes, the sunslight painfully bright for him after so long in darkness. He stared over at Flintlock and then Eli, started to try to speak, and then passed out cold.

“Master Eli, this man is very dangerous,” Flintlock said, leaning close. “Leave him here in the desert.”

“I can’t leave him, Flintlock,” Eli said, working fast, putting an oxygen mask over Ismail’s face and injecting doses of fast-acting healing and regenerative agents into him. “He’s a friend of a friend. We have to try to help him.”

He continued to treat the tormented man while Diamond sped them through the desert, singing loudly with stress, some terribly rude song about underwear. When Eli had administered everything he could, including some more anaesthetic to keep the scullion under for a while so that the other medications could take faster effect, he stared down at Ismail’s gaunt, pale face, a ghost of the strong, young man from the sketches in Ev’r’s book. Ismail and Ev’r had been torn apart, then reunited, then she’d watched him die … and now he was here and she was gone. Fate had dealt them a very cruel hand indeed – or maybe not. Maybe this was fate stepping in to give them another chance. If Eli could just keep him alive for long enough to bring Ev’r back, they could be reunited … Eli imagined it for a moment, the look on Ev’r’s face, but then the image melted into her becoming the Ravien. He shook the thought away, his mind going to Luther. He couldn’t believe they’d left him and Moses alone to fight the witch, but there just hadn’t been another choice. He murmured a prayer for their safety.

When he’d finished stabilizing Ismail, he checked the shackle around his ankle. It was still tinted green with the curse and impossible to remove. So Eli wrapped the remaining part of the chain, blocked by the Khaiti diamond, once around the shackle and fastened it so that it wouldn’t drag. He left Ismail stretched out in the back with Flintlock watching him and climbed into the driver’s seat. He had a tussle with Diamond for control of the craft, and once he’d wrestled the steering yoke away, she tried to sit beside him, then on him, then on the other side – with Mr Nimbles and Nelly hissing and chittering at each other at full volume from their respective pockets. He reconnected autopilot to his desert-mapping system and felt the
Gypsy Rose
take over, flying them back to the city – with more questions, fewer answers, more problems, fewer solutions, and one unpredictable and dangerous miracle.

E
xhaustion defined them. They didn’t sit – they slumped, debilitated. Their faces weren’t tired, they were drained – of color, of expression, blank and bleary-eyed with heavily laden lids blinking ever closer to closed. Studying the prisoners now through the one-way glass, Croy saw they were clearly siblings, and from their tattered clothing and ragged physical condition, she judged they’d been in hiding for some time. From what she didn’t know, since neither of them had uttered an intelligible word since arriving, but whatever it was, it had to be truly horrendous for them to seek shelter in the purgatory of the Crematorium.

Croy focused on the brother, a boy fast transitioning into a man with a broad chest and shoulders, a young face with old eyes – watchful, mistrusting. His sister, in contrast, was now calm – too calm. She looked completely disconnected and she was mumbling to herself. She was definitely cracked, but she wasn’t the only odd thing about the pair – their actual posture was strange too. Tower Wardens had locked them in separate cells, but they sat on either side of the thick wall in an exact mirror image, pressed up against the rock as though they could feel the other one there.

The door to the interrogation cells opened and closed behind her, and Croy knew it was Darius by the scents of leather and tigaro smoke and the sound of his breathing. Growing up orphaned and rough in the industrial zones had taken its toll on his lungs. And the smoking didn’t help. She kept saying it. He kept ignoring it.

“Found them,” he said, and Croy turned quickly. For some reason, she hadn’t expected these two to be in the system. Darius walked over to her, providing his own interpretation of the records parchment he was holding.

“Castor and Kellor Quartermaine, twin children of Ezra Quartermaine – Purple Wing, medical professor, nutjob and insurrectionist. Found guilty of high treason for conspiring with
Drays
.” He bit down on the word. “He was tagged for execution, then vanished into thin air from inside a Tower cell. No witnesses, no traces. His children, aged eight annums at the time, have been registered as missing ever since.”

“Until now,” Croy murmured.

“Until now,” her partner agreed. He showed her a sketch of the twins as children. She guessed they were now into their early teens.

“Why wouldn’t they just turn themselves in?” Darius asked. “They would have been cleared and released – unless they helped their father get out.”

“The girl,” Croy said, “the sister, Kellor, she’s not right. Maybe Quartermaine kept her protected, but once he was gone they were on their own.”

“You think the brother knew she’d be exiled? Wouldn’t he have been too young to understand about all that?”

“Think of what you knew at eight annums,” Croy said.

Darius snorted. “Big difference between where I was and their sheltered life.”

“Just because they were Purple doesn’t mean they were sheltered,” Croy reminded him.

She remembered seeing their father, Ezra Quartermaine. He had been a former Fleetsman like John L and occasionally the two had spoken, when John hadn’t been able to avoid it. He’d told Croy that Quartermaine made him uneasy and she’d understood why. During her training and career, she’d been taken by surprise on many occasions by how normal and average killers could look, but Quartermaine was not one of these. He was crazy-eyed and wild-haired, and when he spoke he stood so close you could smell the sourness of his breath – it had smelled like blood. He’d finally come out with an outlandish claim that the Conference had secret laboratories where they ran terrible experiments on children. Their rebuttal was to have him arrested and condemned. Then they’d produced evidence of his contact with the enemy Dray.

Croy touched her ear. It was still aching and ringing badly from the explosion of her I-Sect, but worse than that was the stain of the strange emotions she’d experienced at the Crematorium. Since returning to the Tower she’d felt moments of extreme sadness and starving desperation that were unconnected to everything around her. She felt certain something far more sinister than the obvious was happening at the Crematorium, and these two might be the key to understanding what that was. And maybe their father was somehow connected.

The doors behind them swung open again and Croy and Darius turned to see their boss, First Controller Van Prichard, entering. He was second in charge of the entire Martial Corps, answering only to the admiral, who reported directly to the Conference. As John L had once described him, VP was a short man with a big presence. Windscars from his time as a Fleetsman reddened his face, their color clashing with the purple of his cloak. It was trimmed extravagantly in fur, and around his neck he wore the pelt of an albino fox, its head still attached. It gave Croy the shivers, because once the creature would have been beautiful, but now it was a scarf with a dead face and dull eyes, dulled even more in comparison with the sharpness of VP’s predatory stare.

Croy avoided it. Her relationship with her boss had never moved past strange and precarious. It was VP who had convinced the Admiral to allow her to inherit John L’s position as a Controller, even though he was only her adoptive father and not blood. It had effectively saved her life, but it was also VP who had dug up the proof against John L that had seen him charged and sentenced to death. There had been bad blood between them ever since John L had reportedly had an affair with VP’s wife. Nothing had been proven, but Croy wouldn’t have been surprised. John L loved women – all women.

Since her first day on the job, VP had never been anything but professional to her, but Croy couldn’t rule out the possibility that he might be biding his time – keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. She’d witnessed firsthand his profound intellect and chilling patience for exacting revenge. So she kept her mouth shut as much as she could, hoping to fly under his radar. She had a lot to hide and even more to lose.

Behind VP, Controllers Knightsbridge and Newton entered with trainee Kisslefish. The door snapped shut behind them. Kisslefish was jittery as always, bright-eyed and stepping from one foot to the other. He flashed a smile at VP, who looked him over with little interest that immediately drained to none. Instead their boss turned his attention to Knightsbridge and said, “You have a button missing.” He gestured to Knightsbridge’s tortured shirt, which was straining to contain his bulging pectorals.

Knightsbridge put his hand to the affected area and gave an uncomfortable, “Sir.”

“The Quartermaine children,” VP said, now looking to Darius and Croy. “Hiding at the Crematorium, were they?” He had a way of asking everything, even when he already knew the answer. John L had said he’d spent too much time as an interrogator.

“Yes, sir,” was Darius’ curt reply.

“And the Morticians were unaware?”

Darius spoke again. “So they said, though I don’t trust those freaks for one grain-drop.”

“Tricky bunch.” VP shook his head. “Tricky indeed. And we’re thinking the girl is responsible for the Kilner corpse?”

“She was a suicide.” Knightsbridge stepped forward. “Newton and I were first on scene.”

“Yet DeCavisi and Croy attended the Crematorium?” VP questioned.

“Because we hadn’t yet finished our initial assessment,” Knightsbridge replied with some awkwardness. A sheen of sweat slicked his face and there were spreading patches of wet under his arms.

“I see.” VP scratched his chin. “You arrived first and finished second – yes?”

Newton and Knightsbridge glanced at each other, then lowered their heads.

“The Kilner corpse was found in the Filter. Did you see anything else unusual there?” VP eyed Croy in particular and she shook her head.

“Nothing, sir, aside from the ever-shrinking water level,” Newton replied.

“Yes, it’s a concern,” their boss agreed, the lines of his face deepening. “So what’s the connection between these two and the corpse?”

“At this stage, we have reason to believe the Quartermaines at least knew about the body being taken to the Filter,” Darius said.

“How’s that?” VP asked.

“The girl kept ranting about the corpse wanting to go home to the water.”

VP’s eyebrows flickered.

Knightsbridge cleared his throat and said, “The preliminary in-house post-mortem suggested that the stab wound was COD, with the additional injuries inflicted after death. Those symbols appear to be a chemical mathematical equation. On top of that, there were signs of sexual assault.”

“The Morticians. Those freaks,” Darius snarled.

“Not necessarily them,” VP said. “There’s the Quartermaine boy.” He looked over the team. “Who wants to question him?”

“Sir, I will,” Knightsbridge said quickly.

“And the girl?”

Newton stepped forward.

“They should be questioned together,” Croy said, despite herself. After what had happened at the Crematorium she felt as though she needed to control how this went down.

“Really.” VP’s eyes carved her up. “Why is that?”

“The girl is mentally unstable and her brother is her crutch. Together they might talk, but not alone. Look at how they’re sitting.”

VP glanced over at them, then back to Croy with an evaluative stare that made her feel like she was being skinned.

“As you will, then,” VP said to her. “Show us how it’s done, Croy.”

She thought she saw an odd glimmer of pride in his expression, while Knightsbridge silently fumed and Newton stared coldly.

Croy and Darius opened the door to Castor’s cell and entered. With every step needles of pain shot through Croy’s knee, but she hid it, not wanting VP or the others to know. The boy looked up at them, his face taut with anger, eyes wary.

“We’d like you to move into the next room for questioning,” Croy said to him.

“Go up to hell!” Castor snarled.

“Little turd —” Darius made a move toward him, but Croy put a hand up to hold him back. The last thing they needed was Darry beating up a prisoner in front of the boss.

“It’s up to you, Castor. We can question you separately if you like, but I’m not sure your sister’s up to it. Do you really want her smacking her head against the wall until she kills herself?”

Castor’s hostility dissolved and fear welled in his eyes. He stood up and shuffled with chained ankles and wrists to the interconnecting door. Darius opened it and they went through. Kellor tried to hug her brother as soon as she saw him, but her hands were chained. The sight upset Castor.

“Monsters!” he spat at them.

“Sit down.” Darius shoved the boy to the ground and Kellor sank down beside him.

Croy could feel VP’s eyes boring through the glass into her face.

“Castor and Kellor Quartermaine – you’ve been detained by the Martial Corps on suspicion that you interfered with a deceased body. I urge you to cooperate and answer truthfully the question you will be so asked,” she said. “Why were you hiding at the Crematorium?”

“We weren’t hiding,” Castor threw back.

“No – you were just sitting in that freezer for the fun of it,” Darius mocked him.

Kellor started talking. “Hunting – hunting them. They’re there. I can hear their words – their bad words … bad words … bad words … bad … bad …” She started to get hysterical.

Castor dragged her close to him and whispered, “Kell, it’s alright. Calm down. Just calm down. I’m here.”

“Why were you hiding at the Crematorium?” Croy repeated.

“Why do you live where you live?” Castor demanded.

“Cheap rent, low draft, no ash,” Croy lied. The truth was it was where Roth had wanted to live. The place had never quite felt like home to her.

Kellor stopped crying and looked at her – right into her eyes – and said, “I understand.”

Croy felt a flash of disquiet and Darius looked between them.

“There’s no law against living there,” Castor said.

“Actually there is. It’s called trespass – break and enter,” Croy told him. “Listen, really I don’t give a rat’s arse why you were hiding out down there. We’re not Security. We’re not from the Orphans Home. We’re Controllers – investigating a body that was stolen from the Crematorium, cut up and tied to the pier in the Filter. I know you didn’t kill her, but why did you move her there?”

“We didn’t,” Castor insisted.

“He’s lying,” Darius said, his agitation and frustration rising fast.

Croy squatted down, looking at Castor, fear and hostility staring back at her.

“Your father was charged with treason, but neither of you were charged with anything. For all intents and purposes you’re just victims. So tell us why you did it and I’ll have you housed together. You’ll be safe and your sister will get the medical help she needs. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have you put in the orphan house and Kellor will be taken to the Waste. She’ll be locked up with screaming crazies on either side of her cage until they try her as incapable and exile her into the tunnels. She won’t last five seconds. You won’t ever see each other again. Mark me on this – I’m not a cruel person, but I understand what cruelty is.”

Kellor started rocking, crying. Croy felt bad, but it had to be done.

Castor struggled, his eyes not shifting, not giving – but then he broke down in tears.

“I don’t know why she did it. I went to get food and when I came back she was gone. I followed her tracks. She’d taken a drifter and that dead girl and gone to the Filter. She tied her there, but she didn’t hurt her. She was already dead!”

“I was helping her,” Kellor said with a sudden clarity that immediately lapsed. “She wanted to go home. They don’t like water. I showed her the way.”

“What is she talking about,
them
?” Croy asked.

Castor shook his head. “Make-believe monsters – she’s not well.”

“Guy’s a genius,” Darius sneered.

“Sod you!” Castor yelled.

Croy held up a hand to stop them.

“The symbols Kellor scratched into the body?”

“I don’t know,” Castor said, and she could see it was the truth. “It’s some kind of formula. Our father was a scientist. He was always working on equations. She doesn’t have a reason for doing things.”