The Spirit Rebellion (38 page)

Almost before it hit, Eli jumped out. He was dirty and pale, his short black hair standing up at all angles, but he was beaming as he grabbed Miranda’s hand and gave it a vigorous shake.

“I knew I could count on you,” he said, clasping her
hand tightly in his. “I always told Josef, if there’s one Spiritualist with her head on right, it’s Mira—”

He was interrupted by the clink of a lock closing. Eli looked down. The hand that was shaking Miranda’s now had a manacle around its wrist, the other end of which Miranda was fastening around her own. It was one of the manacles from the rack on the wall, and she locked it in place with a key from the key ring he’d given her before tossing the entire ring into the pit of her former cell.

“Eli Monpress,” she said, grinning like her ghosthound, “you are now under the authority of the Spirit Court.”

Eli looked down at his wrist, wiggling his hand against the tight, sharp, metal band. “That was a dirty trick.”

Miranda didn’t stop smiling. She held out her hand, and Mellinor blasted himself against the prison’s outer door, popping the hinges. The door fell over with a squeal of metal on stone, and Mellinor returned to Miranda, leaving the excess water he had gathered to drain away back into Miranda’s cell.

Eli watched as the keys vanished under a layer of filthy, poisoned water. “A
very
dirty trick,” he grumbled as she dragged him out into the hall.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, walking quickly and quietly, using Mellinor’s light to guide her. “You’re the master of dirty tricks.”

“I thought you were above all that,” he said, letting her drag him. “And you
know
it’s not going to work.”

“Maybe not for long,” she said, “but if I can keep you under control for even an hour, it will be worth it.” She came to a stop at another door, a wooden one this time, blocking the entire hall. It was locked, of course, with a padlock that looked very similar to the one on her cell.

“Well,” Eli said. “I doubt your little spout spirit there has enough water to bash this one in. If only we still had the keys.”

Miranda silenced him with a jab to the ribs and pressed her ear against the door. She could hear shouting on the other side, shouting and guard whistles. They didn’t seem to be coming her way, though. She bent down lower to examine the lock when the door rattled softly. Miranda jumped, slapping her hand over Eli’s mouth as she pressed them back into the wall. The door rattled again, and there was an almost inaudible click as the lock popped open.

Miranda dampened Mellinor’s light to nearly nothing and then reached up to grabbed an unlit torch from the wall bracket above her. She brandished the torch like a bat as the door opened. The moment a head came into view, she braced herself and brought her makeshift weapon down with all the force she could muster.

A second before it would have conked his head, her target dodged. He spun, a shadow in the dark hall, grabbing her arm as he went. She barely had time to gasp before she was on the floor with her arm wrenched behind her and the stranger’s knee in her back.

“Well,” a cultured voice whispered just above her head. “Eli, what are you doing, letting the lady go first?”

The pressure vanished from Miranda’s back, and she felt the chain jerk as Eli rolled over on the floor beside her.

“
Letting her go first?
” the thief sputtered. “Whose idea do you think this was?”

The man, whoever he was, ignored Eli completely, and a black-gloved hand swooped down to help Miranda to her feet.

“Apologies, my dear,” he said kindly. “The boy never could learn manners.”

Miranda took the hand gingerly, very confused, and lifted her head to see a tall, thin man in late middle age with a handsome, cultured smile wearing wrapped clothes in varying shades of black.

“Giuseppe Monpress,” he said, before she could ask. “You must be Miranda. Gin has told us all about you.”

“Gin?” she said, her voice rising in a rush of hope. “Is he here? What do you mean you’re Monpress?”

“It’s not a terribly uncommon name,” the man said. “And your hound is currently making a fine distraction running circles around the duke’s men. Now”—he took her arm, the one that wasn’t chained to Eli, whom the man seemed to have forgotten—“we should hurry. The duke’s a clever man. He’ll tear away from the ruse soon enough. We’ve got a little time before Josef and Nico’s cavalry shows up, however. Meeting you here has put me ahead of schedule.”

“Well, good for you,” Eli said, elbowing his way between them. “I, however, am in a hurry to miss my date with the duke, so if you don’t mind…”

He made a series of gestures toward the door. The older Monpress shrugged and, gesturing for Miranda to go ahead, let Eli lead the way up the narrow stairs to the maze of tunnels that ran below the citadel, speaking up only to correct the thief when he was taking them in entirely the wrong direction.

J
osef and Nico snuck through the empty streets. Above them, lights flickered behind the wobbly glass windows in the upper stories of the lovely houses, but Josef and Nico saw no one. Though it was still early, all the restaurants were dark and closed, same with the taverns, and even the inns. Whatever command of the duke’s had cleared the streets earlier was obviously still in effect, and now that Eli was caught, even the patrols were off the streets, leaving Nico and Josef to run in the shadows behind the watchful lamps and toward the dark river and the docks beyond.

“At least the paving stones aren’t trying to trip us anymore,” Josef grumbled, stomping harder on the cobbled street than was strictly necessary. “I guess Eli was right when he said the spirits couldn’t keep it up forever.”

“Or they just aren’t looking for us,” Nico said. “Spirits are famously bad at finding nonwizards. Humans all look the same to most spirits.”

“Lucky us,” Josef said, hopping up the stairs toward
the tall bridge that was the only way across the river. They kept to the back line of storehouses, ducking behind crates and barrels until they reached the dusty, neglected warehouse they’d slept in the night before. Josef flipped the rusty lock with impatient fingers. He could almost feel the Heart inside, waiting for him. The door opened with a groan, and they slipped inside.

With the docks empty, there were no fires burning in the braziers outside. Without the ambient light, the warehouse was ink black, forcing Josef to stop at the threshold and let his eyes adjust. Nico went on ahead of him, striding confidently into the dark. That was typical. The dark never seemed to slow her down, which was why he jerked to attention when her soft footsteps stopped.

His hand dropped to the sword at his hip. He could just barely see Nico in front of him, a spot of darker shadow gone completely rigid. Keeping one hand on his sword and the other on the dagger in his sleeve, Josef crept forward until he was pressed against Nico’s back.

“Someone’s here.” Her voice was scarcely more than a breath.

Josef stared over her shoulders, but he saw nothing but shadowy outlines and dusty beams. She pointed at the darkness ahead of them, and Josef squinted. He could make out details now, the edges of crates, the forgotten tools lining the walls, and, directly ahead of them, the dark, solid shape of the Heart of War leaning against the corner, right where he’d left it. He was about to ask Nico to be more specific when something shifted in the dark, and then he saw it as well. Sitting on the stack of crates beside the Heart was an enormous, dark shape. At first Josef thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, that
the shadows were stretched out, for no man could be that large. Then the shape jumped down, landing on the wooden floorboards with a crash that rattled the building to its foundation.

Josef stumbled, gripping the hilts of his sheathed swords, white-knuckled as the dark figure stretched out his hand, pointing one long finger, not at Josef, but at Nico, who was trembling in front of him. The man, for Josef could now see it was a man, smiled, his teeth glinting in the dark, and spoke a command.

Don’t move
.

Even Josef, spirit deaf, could tell the words were more than words. The moment they left the man’s lips, Nico went down. She fell hard, straight down without catching herself, landing on the floor with a bone-splitting crack. Josef was at her side in an instant, but wherever he touched her, her coat was as hard as iron. Even the air felt like stone around her skin. Her body was rigid, the frantic darting of her eyes and the slight noise of her panicked breaths the only sign she was still alive.

Josef was still trying to get her up when he heard the clank of enormous footsteps coming toward him. Leaving Nico with a curse, he drew his swords with a singing scrape of metal and turned to face the enormous man closing the distance between them.

But the man wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t even seem to notice the blades in Josef’s hands. He was staring at the girl lying on the floor.

“You were hard to find, little demon.” His deep voice was still terrible, but it was at least mostly human this time. “I don’t know how you hid yourself, but no matter. No one hides from the League forever.”

Josef stepped over Nico and took up position between her and the approaching man. “What did you do to her?” he shouted. It looked like wizard stuff to him, but Eli had always told him wizards couldn’t control other people.

“League benefit,” the man said, walking slowly. “I gave the spirits around her something to do. The League is the arm of the White Lady, so their nature binds them to my command when it comes to demon hunting. They’ll stay like that, squishing her down, until I tell them otherwise.”

Josef had no clue what the man was talking about, but he had other worries. Now that he was out of the deep shadows, the man wasn’t as large as Josef had initially thought, but he was no less a monster. He stood seven feet tall at least, and was wide enough to make his height seem normal. His head was shaved clean, and scars that stood out white against his deeply tanned skin ran from the top of his skull to the tops of his bushy eyebrows. A long cut had scarred his face into a permanent sneer, and his nose was crooked from multiple breaks. He looked like a man who’d spent his life brawling, and he carried his enormous frame with a fighter’s grace. Across his bare chest, he wore a wide, red sash festooned with a host of strange objects—jeweled rings, sword hilts, necklaces, talismans, and even, Josef cringed, a preserved hand curled in a fist.

Above the ghastly collection, a long black coat with a high collar sat awkwardly on the man’s monstrous shoulders. The sleeves were ripped off, revealing muscular arms covered in mismatched tattoos. The coat looked too small for him, but anything would look small on this man. Anything, that is, except the sword he wore at his
side. That suited him perfectly. Its pommel was the size of an orange, and the hilt was wrapped in thick leather until it was almost as large as the guard above it. He wore it naked, with no sheath, the dark blade out and lying bare against his coat so that the wicked, toothed edge tore at the fabric until the dark cloth was nearly in tatters. It was eerily familiar, but the blade looked so at home on the man’s hip that it took Josef a few moments to recognize it as the sword he’d seen in Slorn’s workshop.

“Ah,” Sted said, laying a hand on the sword’s hilt. “You like my new baby, yes? You must be the demon’s guardian.” He looked Josef up and down. “Aren’t you a bit puny to be the master of the Heart of War?”

Josef ignored him. “Who are you? What are you here for?”

“What kind of question is that?” Sted cackled. “Don’t you see the jacket?” He flipped his torn collar. “I’m Berek Sted, best killer in the League of Storms, and I’m here to kill the demon.”

Josef raised his swords. “You’ll find that harder than you think.”

“Really?” Sted laughed. “I like you, swordsman. Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. See, I kind of owe you. When I got to Gaol, I couldn’t find the girl. I’ve never been good at finding demons and all that League mumbo jumbo. But I could feel the Heart.” His scarred face grew almost wistful. “Any swordsman worth the name can feel a sword like that. It’s a force of nature. So I followed it and waited and, sure enough, here you are. I hate owing people, so how about I make you a deal to call it even?”

Josef scowled. “What kind of deal?”

“A fighting chance,” Sted said. “It goes like this: You
give me a good fight, something to make me remember why I put up with the League. If you beat me, I’ll let the girl go and tell old Alric I couldn’t find the demon.”

Josef stared at the man. “Wait,” he said. “You’re a member of the League of Storms, and you’re offering to let the demon go if I fight you and win?”

Sted shrugged. “The League is work, you know? You look like you know how to give a good fight, and I always say pleasure before work. Anyway,” he chuckled, “it’s not like I’ll
lose
.”

Josef glanced down at Nico. She was still on the floor, prone and flat against the boards. He did a quick calculation in his head. They had a little under half an hour before they were supposed to meet the elder Monpress and Eli at the wall. Not much time, but it wasn’t like he could ask the man to wait. He’d just have to be quick. In any case, he thought as his hand tightened on his sword, wasn’t this the kind of challenge he’d been looking for?

“All right,” Josef said. He bent over, laying the wrapped Fenzetti on the floor beside Nico. “You’ve got your deal.”