He shrugged and unlocked a box near the front wheels. He pulled out a large spindle of metal cable.
“Thanks,” Amaranthe said. “Now, you two sit over there, back to back, please. I’m going to tie you up.”
“What?” Scruffy balked.
His comrade scowled. “Definitely not a nice girl.”
“Actually, I thought this would keep you gentlemen out of trouble,” Amaranthe said. “Better to be incapacitated by deadly bandits than simply wander back to headquarters without your truck, right?”
“Oh,” Scruffy said. “Like a lot of bandits, right?”
“At least six, I should think,” Amaranthe said.
He sat on the cement. After a glower at Amaranthe’s pistol, his grumbling comrade did the same.
“Want me to beat them up a bit?” Maldynado asked. “To add verisimilitude?”
“No time.” Amaranthe finished tying the men and joined Maldynado in the cab. “They can smash their heads against each other’s faces if they feel the need to add physical evidence to corroborate the story.”
Maldynado threw a lever. Gears turned, pistons pumped, and the truck lurched backward, flattening an ash can.
Amaranthe groaned. “Why do I find it so difficult to be a law-abiding citizen these days?”
Maldynado shoved the lever the other direction, causing the vehicle to roll forward. “Is there a law against smashing people’s trash cans?”
“Imperial City Code 174 covers it. There are numerous pages on vandalism.”
“It can’t be vandalism if it’s done by accident.” Maldynado fumbled about, and they veered toward a stone wall.
“No, no, use the turning arm!” came a cry of advice from the bound men.
Maldynado located the controls and turned the vehicle to the left. He angled toward an intersection. “Good thing you didn’t gag them.”
“Yes, they’ll be in big—bigger—trouble with their boss if we wreck their vehicle.” Amaranthe realized her hand was gripping the side of the cab with clenched fingers.
“Nah, I’ve got it now.” Maldynado pushed the vehicle to full speed. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. This is fun. Far better than riding that ridiculous bicycle.”
Wind drove rain droplets through the open side, and moisture spattered Amaranthe’s cheeks. She was already regretting her choice. That theft would be reported, and the enforcers would match it to her once the workers described her. She should have handled the situation better.
“Quit it,” Maldynado said.
“What?”
“Self-flagellating. I heard what that man said; you got the location of the rail carriage. We wouldn’t have gotten that if you hadn’t gone up to talk to them. And it’s important to get over there quickly in case Books and Akstyr have already found it and are on the brink of getting themselves in trouble.”
Amaranthe wiped water from her cheeks. “You’re wiser than you let on most of the time. In fact, you usually hide it well.”
“It’s late. I’m not at my best.” He nodded toward an upcoming intersection bisected by rail tracks. “There’s our street.”
He turned the corner and rolled over a streetlamp in the process. It snapped from its cement post without hindering the sturdy truck. Amaranthe dropped her face into her palm.
“Oops,” Maldynado said.
Smoke teased Amaranthe’s nostrils, distracting her from a mordant response. She sniffed at the air outside the window. It did not smell like the coal burning in their furnace.
“Uh oh.” Maldynado pointed down the street.
Flames licked around the edges of a window in a building a block ahead. A building with an oversized statue in the shape of a hydrant out front—the old fire brigade.
A sleek black steam carriage trundled up the hill, coming their direction. It was a street model, not one for the railways, but it had a similar style to the other one. A chauffeur perched on the bench of the carriage, hood drawn to shield him from the rain. Face forward, he avoided looking their direction. Lamps burned inside the carriage, but dark curtains hid the contents.
“Crash into them,” Amaranthe said.
“What?” Maldynado blurted.
“Nobody who lives around here can afford a personal vehicle, and somebody started that fire.” The carriage was drawing even with them, and it would be too late to stop them soon. “Crash into them!” Amaranthe reached toward the controls.
“All right, all right.” Maldynado jerked the vehicle to the left.
The garbage truck rammed into the side of the carriage. Metal crunched, and the impact threw Amaranthe against the back of the cab. That did not keep her from scrambling out, pistol in hand.
She had expected the crash to force the carriage to stop, but the chauffeur only turned his vehicle away, trying to extricate himself from the garbage truck. The curtains stirred, and Amaranthe caught a glimpse of red hair. Her heart leaped. Their foreign woman.
Maldynado kept mashing the garbage truck into the carriage, trying to pin it against the brick wall of the closest building.
“What are you doing, idiot?” the chauffeur shouted.
Amaranthe sprinted around the garbage truck and jumped onto the driving bench. The carriage lurched and wobbled, rattling the perch like a steam hammer. The chauffeur spun toward Amaranthe, his hand darting for a weapon.
She pressed the pistol against his temple. “I don’t recommend that tactic. Why don’t you stop the carriage?”
He snarled at her and did not obey. She shoved his hood back with her free hand. He had the olive skin and brown hair of a Turgonian. A scar ran from his ear to his jaw, a mark that would have been memorable if she had seen it before, but she had not. He did have the short hairstyle soldiers favored.
“Stop the vehicle,” Amaranthe repeated, putting more pressure on the muzzle pressed against his temple.
“Very well.” The man grabbed a lever.
Steam brakes squealed, and the abrupt halt nearly threw Amaranthe from the bench. She gripped the frame and would have been fine, but the chauffeur took advantage. He launched a kick at her ribs. She dodged, avoiding the majority of the blow, but it upset her balance. Before she toppled off, she grabbed his leg and took him over the edge with her.
They tumbled toward the street. Amaranthe twisted in the air and landed on top of him. She caught his wrist, yanked it behind him, and slammed his face into the wet cement. He groaned and ceased struggling. With her knee in the chauffeur’s back, she patted him down and found the weapon he had been reaching for, also a pistol. She stuffed it inside her belt.
Steel squealed behind them.
Amaranthe rolled to the side and jumped to her feet, afraid someone had started the carriage again. Getting run over was never a good plan.
Neither it nor Maldynado’s vehicle was moving though. The noise came from one of the garbage truck’s articulating arms. It had latched onto a flue on the carriage and was lifting the back end of the vehicle into the air.
“They’re not going anywhere now,” Maldynado called, leaning out of the cab and grinning.
A carriage door opened. Something glinted.
“Look out,” Amaranthe called.
A shot rang out.
Maldynado yelped and ducked out of sight.
Not sure if he had been hit or not, Amaranthe left her man and sprinted for the opposite side of the carriage. She grabbed the door handle, thinking to surprise those inside if they were watching Maldynado, but it was locked. The dark curtains were still drawn, and someone had extinguished the light inside.
Amaranthe was debating about using her pistol to smash through the window when footsteps sounded to the rear. She peered around the end of the carriage. Books and Akstyr were running toward her, swords drawn.
She waved for them to cover the back of the carriage, in case the people inside jumped out and ran in that direction, then she left the locked door and eased around the front. The chauffeur was sprinting toward an alley. She ignored him,
figuring the important people were inside.
Using the front of the carriage for cover, Amaranthe leaned around the corner, her pistol ready. The carriage door dangled open.
Books hunkered by the front of the garbage truck, using it for cover while he pointed a pistol at the open door. Akstyr had gone to the far side of the carriage in case the riders tried to escape that way.
“Come out,” Amaranthe said. “We have you surrounded.”
Something tiny flew out from within, and Amaranthe jumped back. Glass hit the cement and shattered. Smoke poured from a broken vial.
She fired into the few inches of open doorway. She did not expect to hit anyone, but maybe it would make them think twice about throwing anything else outside.
“Is that—” Books started.
“Back up,” Amaranthe called over his question. If this was the stuff that knocked people unconscious...
Though she backpedalled several meters, the smoke billowed outward at an alarming rate. It soon smothered the street and hid both vehicles. An acrid scent stung her nostrils and eyes. She fumbled to reload the pistol, but had to stop to dash away tears that blurred her vision. At least she did not feel woozy or sluggish. This was some new concoction with a different—horrible—smell from the yellow powder.
She wiped her eyes again.
Movement stirred the smoke. She lifted her pistol, but did not fire, not when it might be one of her men.
Amaranthe listened, expecting telltale footfalls. Surely, the occupants intended to use the smoke to camouflage their escape.
Though the vehicles had stopped moving, their engines still rumbled and clanked. But then she heard something different. A clatter. Something hitting the ground.
She dropped to a knee, left arm supporting her right hand to steady it for a shot. She waited, searching the smoke through bleary eyes.
A boom shattered the night. Its force hurled Amaranthe backward, and her head cracked against the cement street. Pain exploded in her skull, and black dots danced before her eyes. Rain pelted the street around her. No, not rain. Pieces of metal tinkling and clanking to the ground.
A shard gashed her cheek, eliciting new pain, and she rolled over, wrapping her arms over her head. Something slammed onto the street inches from her face. She found herself gaping at a detached portion of the articulating arm.
“Up, girl,” she told herself, forcing her mind into gear.
Pain lanced through her at the change in position, but she shoved her feet under her anyway, and turned toward the crash site. Smoke still hazed the street, and the air stank. Her first thought was that one of the boilers had ruptured, but perhaps the people in the carriage had thrown some sort of explosive.
Two tall figures strode toward her, their features masked by the smoke and night shadows.
Amaranthe had lost her pistol in the fall. She yanked out the one she had taken from the chauffeur.
“It’s us,” Maldynado said.
“Are you all right?” Books asked.
Amaranthe lowered the weapon. “Yes. Did you see anyone? Did you capture anyone?”
Given that they dragged no prisoners between them, the latter seemed unlikely, but Akstyr wasn’t accounted for yet. Maybe he had had better luck.
“Sorry, I was busy getting shot,” Maldynado said.
In the poor lighting, she could not see if he was bleeding, but the way he reached for his temple and then lowered his hand to check it made her suspect so.
“Can you walk?” Books asked. “I think they set the fire in that building down there. If so, they must have been trying to hide something, to destroy evidence perhaps.”
Before he finished the words, Amaranthe forced her legs into a jog. “Let’s check it. Where’s Akstyr?”
The back of her head sent a pulse of pain through her skull with each step. She probed her scalp gingerly, and her fingers met dampness. What a night.
“I’m not sure,” Books said. “I saw him racing into an alley. I think it was him. He must have seen someone.”
Amaranthe thumped her fist against her thigh, torn between wanting to race after him to make sure he did not get in trouble and wanting to investigate the building before the flames burned away any evidence that might be inside. “Which alley?” she asked.
Books hesitated, then pointed at one a half a block down the hill. Amaranthe veered toward it, but when she reached the mouth, she could not see anyone. Several alleys opened to the left and right before the main one emptied onto a street a block away.
“Could be anywhere,” she muttered.
“Let’s check the building,” Books said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Amaranthe was not, and she did not want to lose any more men, but she let Books lead her away. Maldynado had stopped to gawk at the wreckage revealed by the clearing smoke. Warped and charred, the vehicles slumped like candles melted down to stubs. Though warehouses and commercial buildings filled these blocks, Amaranthe doubted that explosion would go unreported for long.
Shaking her head, she followed Books to a tall, double-door entrance—one large enough to accommodate a railway carriage. Smoke poured out, and he had pulled his shirt up over his nose. Flames continued to burn at the ground-level window, and fire danced behind the upper floor windows now, too.
Even before Amaranthe stepped inside, dry heat blew over her face. The rail carriage sat in the middle of an open bay. Flames crackled and danced along the wooden ceiling high overhead, but the fire had not damaged the carriage yet.
She rifled through a pocket and found the kerchief she had used earlier in the night.
“The flames have likely compromised the structural integrity of the building,” Books said.
“That’s his way of saying we’re stupid to go inside, right?” Maldynado asked.
“I believe so.” Amaranthe went in anyway, heading straight for the rail carriage. Hot air and light assaulted her already beleaguered eyes, and tears streaked down her cheeks, cool against skin flushed from the heat. “Spread out and search this floor.”
A board fell away from the ceiling and thudded to the cement ahead of her. Flames licked the charred wood. She ran around it and circled the carriage, hoping one door would be open. None were. She tugged her jacket off, wadded it up to insulate her hand, and reached for the handle.
The heat seared her flesh even through the cloth barrier, and she yanked the door open as quickly as possible.
A ceiling beam snapped, and half of it dropped, smashing onto the engine of the rail carriage.
Amaranthe gulped. Wisps of charred paper and wood floated in the air, and even with the kerchief over her mouth and nose, hot fumes seared her lungs.
Using her boot, she nudged the door open wide. Nothing rested on the carpeted floor or black-velvet benches on either end. A shirt or jacket hung over the back of one though. Amaranthe doubted it would reveal anything useful, but she lunged in and grabbed it.
“Amaranthe!” Books yelled.
She jumped out of the carriage. “What?”
“Over here,” he called from the far corner of the bay, somewhere behind the carriage. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Maldynado said.
Amaranthe eased around the carriage and spotted the two men behind a low wall that partially hid a bank of standing lockers. Books was staring at something on the ground, his face twisted in a horrified rictus.
Maldynado backed away, his expression grim. “I can’t look at that.”
Amaranthe took a deep breath and joined Books.
The woman’s body on the ground did not surprise her, but its nudity and the scars gouging the torso did. Though the smell of burning wood—burning everything—dominated the building, she caught a whiff of blood, and her stomach twisted into a knot, threatening to eject its contents. Amaranthe took a deep breath and sought to find detachment, at least enough to study the body and figure out what it meant.
The scars seemed system
atic rather than the result of sword or knife fighting. Some were stitched and partially healed while others appeared more recent. Though blood saturated the blonde hair, the face was oddly unmarred.
A jolt of recognition went through her. It was Fasha, the woman who had first alerted Amaranthe to the kidnappings. Either that, or the missing sister was a twin, but given that Fasha had failed to show up for their last meeting...
“Some of those scars.” Books coughed and cleared his throat. “Some of those look like they’re over the reproductive organs.”
Amaranthe stared at him. “What are you saying? Someone removed her organs?”
“It seems likely someone did something to them.”
Another beam snapped, and burning shards of wood fluttered to the floor.
“We ought to get out of here,” Maldynado said from a few feet away. “I’m sure you two can further discuss the creepiness of this whole situation outside.”
“Good idea,” Books said, stepping past Amaranthe.
“Wait, we should remove the body,” she said. A doctor could tell them more about the cuts and if anything was...missing. “Can you help me—”
A massive crack boomed above her head. Burning boards plummeted toward her.
Amaranthe leaped back. Someone’s hand gripped her collar and yanked her further. Charred wood and rubble from the floor above buried the body and hurled smoke and ash into the air.
The rag about her mouth did little to keep fine particles from invading her throat. Coughs wracked her body, and she bent over, trying to find air. The heat and fumes brought dizziness, and blackness encroached upon her vision again.
More wood snapped overhead. An arm snaked around Amaranthe’s waist, and she found herself slung over someone’s shoulder.
“Help you get out of here?” Maldynado asked in response to her request. “Why, yes, yes I can.”
When Amaranthe opened her mouth to protest, another series of coughs sent spasms through her body.
“You approve?” Maldynado said. “Excellent.”
Despite her reluctance to leave without the body, a surge of pleasure raced through her when they stepped outside and cool night air replaced the heat of the building. Rain splattered the back of her neck, and she didn’t mind it one bit.