Conquest

  Katherine Kerr, the boys’ mother, had been a tour guide in the city before the Illyri invaded, and had passed on her knowledge of its secrets—among them the location of various concealed entrances to the Vaults, Knutter’s shop included—to her close family. This was why Paul and Steven had been chosen for the mission, and given instructions from the top, via Nessa, to investigate further. No point in hanging about, Nessa had said. Knutter was expecting them just as soon as they’d finished their tea.

  Now an Illyri patrol vehicle hummed by, its gray armor bristling with weaponry. It reminded Paul of a huge woodlouse. Its wheels were concealed beneath its frame, and its body was V-shaped to protect the Illyri inside by dispelling the force of explosives. It didn’t even have windows; its sensor array provided a detailed picture of the environment to its crew without exposing its occupants to harm. Like most of the smaller Illyri transports, it was powered by biogas produced mostly from animal waste, although the Illyri also used vehicles powered by electricity and hydrogen, the latter derived mainly from methane. The boys gave the vehicle a quick glance, but nothing more. Taking too much interest in an Illyri patrol might lead the patrol to take an interest in turn, but ignoring it entirely was almost as bad because it suggested that you were trying too hard to remain unnoticed. It was a delicate balance to strike.

  “Are you nervous?” said Paul.

  “No,” said Steven, then corrected himself: “Maybe a bit.”

  “Don’t be. We’ve a right to walk the streets. They haven’t taken that away from us yet.”

  Ahead of them lay the Royal Mile, the castle towering over it. Before the occupation, the castle had been the city’s main tourist attraction. Now few humans went there voluntarily, and the ones who entered it to work were usually either traitors or spies. Paul had never set foot inside it, and even though he was committed to the Resistance, he sometimes wondered if there would ever come a time when sightseers might innocently wander its battlements again, remembering the great occupation that had once based itself here and had finally been defeated. In his darker moments, he found it hard to imagine.

  “Walk faster,” he said to Steven. The rain had stopped for a time, but it would return. It always did in this city.

  •••

  Syl stepped out of the vintage clothing store, her purchases in a plastic bag. The man behind the counter had looked at her oddly as she browsed, but said nothing. Even if he suspected that she might not be human, he probably needed the business. The proximity of the castle and the presence of stop-and-search Illyri patrols meant that many citizens tended to avoid the area around the Royal Mile. Still, Syl bought a lovely old purse decorated with mother-of-pearl, and a white wool coat with a fur collar that would keep her warm in winter.

  The streets were dry again, and the sun was coming out. Perhaps the day would be good after all, a possibility worth celebrating. Syl glanced to her left. There was a little coffee shop nearby, and it sold very good pastries. Maybe she could stick a candle in one and sing herself a song. She smiled at the thought, and started walking. Canongate Kirk, a seventeenth-century church, was ahead of her, and beside it the coffee shop.

  Suddenly there was a massive bang, as though a huge hand had slammed itself down on the Royal Mile, and the coffee shop simply wasn’t there anymore. It had disintegrated into a cloud of dirt and brick and glass. Syl was knocked to the ground, and instinctively put her arms up, shielding her face and head. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t hear properly. Then the dust found her, and she started to choke. She tried not to breathe but she was frightened, and so she began to hyperventilate, and the choking became worse.

  Frantic hands were on her now, trying to pull her to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” said a voice. It sounded like it was speaking from underwater, but it was still familiar to her. “Syl, are you hurt?”

  Syl shook her head. She coughed and spat dust. She felt water splashing on to her face, and then the bottle was in her hands and she drank from it.

  “I don’t think so,” she said at last, once she had stopped choking. She squinted up at the figure before her until she could see more clearly through the fine dust. It was hazy in the smoke-blotted sunlight, but she still recognized the feminine figure with her head cocked like a bird’s, small for her age but fast and agile, and currently badly disguised in mismatched human clothing and sunglasses that were a match for Syl’s own shades back at the castle. After all, they had bought them together, because that’s what best friends tend to do.

  “Ani!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Following you,” said Ani, and her words came to Syl as a distorted whisper, even though Ani was speaking normally. “I thought it would be funny, but it isn’t now. Quickly, patrols will be coming. We have to get away from here.”

  They heard sirens, and from above, the whistling sound of approaching interceptors. Ani put her hand out to help Syl up, but before Syl could take it, another strange hand found hers, yanking her upright and steadying her on her feet. She gave a little squeal of surprise.

  “Are you hurt?” said a male voice.

  In front of the girls stood two young humans, clearly brothers. It was the older of the two who had spoken. In the dust and chaos of the explosion’s aftermath, he had clearly mistaken Syl and Ani for human girls. Syl shook her head, confused, trying to remember her human name, her Italian accent.

  “Do you need help?” he asked, and Syl found herself watching his mouth closely, feeling dazed, seeing it shape the words that she could barely hear. His bottom lip was curved and a little pillowy, and she had an odd urge to touch it to see if it was as soft as it looked, so pink and clean in his dusty face.

  “We’re fine,” said Ani. “We’re just trying to get home.”

  She pulled hard on Syl’s elbow, starting to turn in the direction of the castle, but the younger boy stopped her with an outstretched arm. Now Syl was pushed even closer to the older one, watching his mouth moving once more, half hearing and half lip-reading, near enough to him to see stubble like a little sprinkle of pepper across his top lip.

  “Wait,” he said. “Did you see what happened? Were there people—”

  “We don’t know,” interrupted Ani, jerking Syl’s arm again, and Syl could feel the panic coming off her friend in waves. No human was ever to be trusted, but in the chaotic aftermath of an explosion it would be particularly easy to snatch two young Illyri from the streets.

  “Hold on,” said Syl, and she gave her head a shake so that her ears cleared somewhat. “It was MacBride’s coffee shop—I think that’s where the explosion happened. I didn’t see anyone on the street beforehand, but there might have been people inside. That’s all I know. But thank you for helping me.”

  “We really have to go,” said Ani urgently, and now Syl turned to follow her, but the boy didn’t move, and his younger companion closed in too, blocking their path. This is it, thought Syl. They’ve seen through our disguises. They know.

  “Not that way,” said the older boy.

  “Let us pass,” said Ani. “Please!”

  “You can’t go that way,” he said. “You just can’t.”

  “Why not?” said Ani.

  Syl looked past them. Already there were soldiers and emergency vehicles racing from the direction of the castle.

  “Because there may be another bomb.”

  And as he spoke, there was a second massive blast, and the approaching vehicles were blown apart.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  T

  hey all turned and ran, not toward the castle but away from it, away from the carnage and bloodshed and ammonia stink behind them, away from the billowing cloud of powdered stone and obliterated flesh, be it human or Illyri. Black-and-gold-uniformed Securitats materialized in the area and swarmed over it like beetles, questioning shopkeepers, searching pedestrians and loading into thei
r armored vehicles anyone who failed to come up with a plausible explanation for being near the site of the explosion.

  Syl, Ani, and the two humans powered down the Royal Mile together, and then the boys veered off down a side street, slowing only long enough to make sure the girls were with them before racing on, left-right-right-left, twisting, turning, finally stopping in a deep-set doorway on a corner.

  “We go left now,” said the older boy, but as they burst back onto the street Ani took the lead, and instead of left she headed right, then took a sharp left down a narrow, urine-scented service alley. Syl followed, and after a heartbeat the boys did too, joining Ani as she crouched in a pool of cigarette butts behind a plastic dumpster at the rear of a greasy shop. She seemed to be hiding.

  “What the hell are you doing?” snarled the older boy, but she put her finger to her lips, and then they all heard it: the whine of an interceptor followed by the rhythmic quickstep of soldiers’ boots approaching, rattling like applause on the cobbles as they passed the filthy alley. The youngsters stayed still, barely breathing until the stomping faded away.

  “You must have amazing hearing,” the boy said when all was silent once more, but Ani just shrugged and half smiled.

  “Lead on,” she said.

  Frowning slightly, the human looked from one Illyri to the other, his blue eyes narrowing, then seemed to make a decision. He went to the entrance to the alley, peering around the corner before he beckoned for them to follow.

  They moved more cautiously now, stopping to listen every few steps, and still dodging and weaving, disappearing ever deeper into the warren of streets behind the Royal Mile.

  “Where are we going?” asked Syl quietly as they paused at another bend, looking down a laneway she’d never seen before, the tall, regal buildings more humble back here, lopsided and blackened by decades of pollution. Windows were broken, some even boarded up, and she saw the painted graffiti of the Resistance on a peeling doorway. This was not a place she should be, where any Illyri should be. Her heart was like a bag of stones clattering terrified in her chest.

  “Um, away?” said the older boy next to her ear.

  “Where to, though?”

  His breath was warm on her cheek and she could smell him, soapy and musky. She stepped back a little, feeling flustered.

  “I hadn’t thought of anywhere in particular. Just away from the soldiers and Securitats. They’ll be rounding people up like sheep for the slaughter.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  They started walking again, sticking close to the buildings, but the street was deserted.

  “Why? Where do you need to be?” he said.

  “The castle,” she replied automatically before she could stop herself.

  He turned to face her now, his eyes wide and shocked.

  “The castle? Why would you want to go there?”

  Syl felt Ani poke her hard in her back.

  “Um, a job interview,” Syl spluttered. “We had job interviews.”

  “Doing what exactly?”

  “Scrubbing floors. She’s great at scrubbing floors,” said Ani from behind her.

  “I am. Fabulous,” said Syl. “And she cleans toilets.”

  The older boy gave a low chuckle, and the younger one snorted.

  “Will you keep your sunglasses on even when you’re cleaning the jacks?” he said to Ani.

  “Of course,” snapped Ani. “Safety gear. I never take them off.”

  “You really are the strangest pair,” the older boy said, but he seemed more relaxed now. “I wouldn’t recommend going near the castle for a while, though, not until they’ve calmed down. You could always just hang around here: it’s quiet, and the Illyri don’t come this way very much.”

  He waved his hand absently at a sheet of corrugated iron that hung from a doorway. ILLyri is a disease was scrawled across it in red spray paint.

  You reckon? thought Syl to herself, and she gave an inadvertent shudder. The adrenaline was seeping out of her now, and her legs suddenly felt wobbly and weak. She thought she might be sick. She remembered the explosions, the twin bombs, how close they’d been to walking straight into the second one, how these boys had stopped them, saved them, run with them until they were safe from the guards. But how had they known there’d be a second bomb? Had it been their doing? Were they killers, Resistance killers?

  “Hey,” the older human was saying, looking at her kindly, “are you okay? Seriously?”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. He had that pillow-soft bottom lip, and he didn’t look like a murderer, but what did a murderer look like anyway? Abruptly it all became too much. With a nauseous shiver, Syl tried to sit down where she was, but he leapt forward and steadied her elbow.

  “Not here,” he said. “You’re in shock. Let’s get you somewhere safe. There’s a place nearby—”

  “No!” said the other boy, jumping forward.

  “Seriously, Steven, it’s fine.”

  “But . . .”

  “Steven, I make the decisions. Now, let’s go.”

  •••

  Stumbling along between Ani and the older boy, Syl found herself guided up a set of litter-strewn stairs and through a doorway that seemed to open as if by magic when the younger boy—Steven, was it?—pressed a little tune on its crusty doorbell. They went into a cramped hallway where another tune was coaxed from a keypad by a door that looked like wood but sounded like metal, and then they were in a funny little kitchen. The windows had boards nailed over them, but it was quaintly cheerful and bright nonetheless, with polka-dot red vinyl on the table beneath a row of fat yellow lightbulbs. The floor was made of polished checkerboard stones and the walls were lined with scrubbed pine cupboards, each shelf teetering with mismatched mugs and plates, vases and knickknacks, all in bright, crayon-box colors. An enormous old kettle sat on a squat stove, waiting to be used.

  Ani pushed Syl gently into a chair.

  “Where are we?” she said, watching as the older boy set the kettle to boil, deftly counted tea bags into a green-striped pot, and then poured in the steaming water before covering the whole thing with a fluffy yellow tea cozy.

  He looked over at her and smiled genuinely for the first time.

  “Oh good, you’re back with us. You okay?”

  She nodded and returned his smile.

  “Everyone else okay?” he said. “Steven?”

  The younger boy nodded, and grinned as if to underscore exactly how okay he was.

  “That was amazing! It was crazy!” he said.

  “Amazing?” said Ani, rounding on him. “You must be crazy!”

  His face fell, and he turned to scratch in a cupboard, finding a sugar bowl and some fruitcake in a tin.

  “Whatever,” he mumbled to nobody in particular, but the older boy patted him gently on the back before turning to the girls.

  “I’m Paul, by the way,” he said, smiling again and extending his hand, but then snatching it back and wiping it clean on his jeans before they shook.

  “Syl,” said Syl, without thinking, and his warm hand gripped hers. And then she realized what she’d done.

  “Syl?” He looked baffled for a moment, his grip tightening, then said: “Short for Sylvia?”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” she said, forcing herself to smile, trying to sound as much like a regular human girl as she knew how. “And this is Ani.”

  “Annie,” said Paul, shaking Ani’s hand and nodding. “That’s more like it. When you said Syl, it sounded like an Illyri name.” He laughed drily, and Syl and Ani joined in.

  “Oh, and this is my brother, Steven.”

  They all said hello and then went silent, eyeing each other awkwardly, the Illyri females still with their glasses incongruously perched on their smudged faces. Ani looked more ridiculous than Syl; at least Syl’s glasses resembled something
a regular person might wear on a day like today. Ani, by contrast, should have been lying on a sun lounger and drinking a cocktail.

  “You can probably take your glasses off now,” said Paul.

  “No!” said the females in unison. In a rush of words, Syl explained that Ani had a nasty eye condition from toilet chemicals, and Ani said Syl had a squint.

  “A squint?” said Paul.

  “Uh-huh.” Syl nodded, but gave Ani a kick under the table.

  Paul and Steven looked at each other, and then Paul turned to fetch the teapot, pouring them all large colorful mugs and loading Syl’s with sugar, “for shock,” before slopping in milk. She took a sip. It was sweet and treacly, and vaguely disgusting, but she drank it anyway, feeling the color returning to her cheeks, the vitality reawakened in her strong Illyri bones.

  “Where are we, then?” said Ani, breaking the silence that descended again as they all munched on cake.

  “Just a place,” said Paul, waving a hand vaguely, and Steven gave a meaningful cough.

  “A place? I see.”

  They were silent again. Syl watched Paul, saw how he held his mug with both hands, his fingers interlocked, lean and strong, yet vulnerable too, as though he was trying to warm them even though it wasn’t cold. Could they really be the fingers of a bomber, of a murderer? She had to know.

  “Paul,” she said, and everyone looked at her. Paul raised an eyebrow, and she bit her lip nervously. “How did you know there’d be a second bomb?”