Skoh was a strong man, and desperation made him stronger. One kick smashed the door out of its frame.
Carl turned at the crash. Skoh was already moving, charging him like a bull. The hunter body-slammed into Carl and drove him back into the wall, shattering the mirror. Carl tried to fight Skoh off, but the other man was much more powerful. He slammed Carl into the wall again, then punched him in the face. Carl flew backwards, hit the jamb of the doorway opposite and fell to the floor, unconscious.
Skoh thought for a second about finishing the job. It would be a pleasure to kill the bastard interrogator. But he knew there wasn’t time. If the others were about, they’d have heard all this. He ran for the stairs, flying down them.
In pyjama pants and a singlet, Kara emerged from her room. ‘Carl? What the hell’s going—’
She saw Skoh leaping down the staircase.
‘Damn it, no!’ she yelled, and ran after him, ignoring the pain in her belly. Skoh had a good lead. He was in the hall before she was even halfway down the stairs. Seeing her, he turned and hurled a hall chair at her. She ducked, and it broke against the heavy banister.
Skoh was at the front door, throwing the deadbolts, and then he was out, onto the path, into the cold grey evening.
Barefoot, in agony, Kara pursued him. Onto the street, the wide, quiet avenue. No traffic, no pedestrians. Just the high, ivy-clad walls of the neighbouring mansions, streetlamps, alarm posts.
Even hurt, she was fast. Sprinting furiously, she began to close the distance on the fleeing man. He couldn’t escape. He simply couldn’t. It would blow everything.
They reached the street corner. Kara was close enough to grab him now, but as she clawed out, her foot slipped on wet leaves and she fell sideways against a wall.
Kara howled. Something had torn – Belknap’s perfect stitching, probably. She tried to rise, but she couldn’t. The pain was awful. Blood was soaking the front of her singlet.
Skoh was disappearing down the street.
Carl Thonius leapt past her. Still running, he looked back. His face was a bloody mess. ‘Get back!’ he yelled. ‘Get back and secure the house! Call the others!’
‘Carl!’
‘Do it! I’ll get Skoh!’
One hand on the wall, the other wrapped around her belly, Kara hobbled slowly back towards Miserimus.
AS PER HIS habit, Dersk Rickens got off the rail transit a stop early, and walked the last two kilometres to his home. He’d done it for years, mainly to ensure he maintained a modicum of exercise in his life. But he also liked the surface level streets of Formal E at night. The busy cafes, the dining houses, the music halls along the Griselda Wall.
It was dark now, the city lit up with yellow lamps, and there was a threat of rain in the air. Even so, he waved off the boy gampers who approached him as he came down Eisel Stack underwalk and limped up the steps onto the ironwork footbridge over the yawning hydroelectric canyon. There was no one on the bridge. A few spots of rain struck against the bridge’s tintglas roof. A cold night wind, scented with nitric acid, blew in through the sides of the bridge’s open framework.
Rickens tapped his cane along the bridge deck.
A figure appeared at the far end of the bridge and started to walk to meet him. The man was lean, well-dressed, and smoked a lho-stick in a long holder. His eyes, in the yellow cast of the street lanterns, seemed colourless.
Rickens had been on the force long enough to be wary. His left hand closed on the snub he carried in his coat pocket. A mugging. Now that would be a perfect end to this particularly crappy day. Though the man looked too well dressed to be a mugger. Not the usual moody vermin.
Walking, they came close, almost eye to eye, then passed each other.
Rickens relaxed slightly. False alarm.
The man suddenly stopped and turned. He called out, ‘Excuse me. Sir?’
Rickens halted, and turned back. ‘Yes?’
The man was coming back to him, his expression one of curiosity. ‘Dersk Rickens? Am I right?’
Rickens stiffened. ‘Well, this is more than chance. In a hive this size. A random meeting on an empty bridge. With someone who knows my name.’
‘I suppose so,’ said the stranger. ‘Nice to see the old instincts are still there. And thank you for confirming that your name is Dersk Rickens.’
‘I’m not smiling, son,’ said Rickens, sliding the safety off the weapon in his pocket. ‘Who sent you? Sankels?’
‘He put in a call, but he doesn’t have that kind of clout. Not even nearly. Only one man in this hive gives orders to the Secretists.’
Rickens sniggered. ‘Well, that’s the stupidest name I’ve heard in a while. What, am I supposed to be afraid?’
‘Your choice,’ said Toros Revoke.
‘Relax, son,’ Rickens said. ‘I know what this is. A little scare tactic to make me change my mind and resign after all. I’ve been expecting it. Let’s get it over with. Make your threats, hit me if you intend to. I imagine your boss will want you to do that and I don’t want to get you into trouble. I just want to get home. So, come on.’
Revoke smiled. ‘You think I’m here to put the frighteners on you? Dish out some intimidation to get you to be nice and play along?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Sorry, that moment’s long passed,’ Revoke clicked his fingers.
Rickens heard a humming sound behind him. He turned. At the far end of the bridge, silhouetted against the lamplight, a tall, hunched man with long, straggly hair was spinning what looked like a bull-roarer.
‘All right,’ Rickens said. ‘If this is how you want it.’
He pulled the gun, and raised it, but the man with yellow eyes had vanished. Rickens turned, aiming his weapon at the other figure, and advanced towards him.
That damn thing in the man’s hand was still circling and humming.
‘Magistratum!’ Rickens cried out. ‘Drop that and assume the position! This is your first and only warning!’
There was a sound, suddenly, like metal whisks churning milk. For a second, Rickens thought the rain had begun. He glanced around.
Wings beating, the sheen birds mobbed in through the open side of the bridge frame. Hundreds of them, chrome and steel and silver, like a snowstorm fury driven by the wind.
Rickens cried out. He fired once, twice, three times, his gun-flash lighting the dark and glittering off the swirling metal wings of the flock.
Then the Unkindness enveloped him, jabbing and pecking, and he staggered backwards. The force of them drove him back over the rail. As Rickens fell into the vast hydroelectric canyon, he was already dead, his skin flayed off.
Drax stopped swinging the lure. Toros Revoke came out of the shadows, picked up the steel-shod walking cane, and threw it off the bridge into the night.
EIGHTEEN
SKOH VAULTED THE wall at the end of Parnassus, and dropped onto the metal walkway. He found the stairwell and thundered down-stack towards the arterial.
Carl Thonius was about twenty paces behind him.
They were moving through pedestrians now, thickets of citizens, tradesmen and gampers who leapt aside and turned to stare at the two racing men. Carl could hear the noise of the traffic from the four-lane arterial. He knew Skoh was blocked. There wasn’t a crossbridge for nine stacks. Skoh could either go along, or down again, into the sinks.
Carl saw Skoh up ahead, slamming through the crowd, knocking people down. He was heading towards the lower pavements.
Carl wasn’t entirely sure how he was managing to keep up with the hunter. Lactic acid burned in his muscles, and his face hurt like hell. He realised it was simple. He absolutely didn’t want to let Ravenor down.
Skoh couldn’t be allowed to get away. He couldn’t be allowed to contact his co-conspirators. It was a mortal lock. Carl simply had to catch him and stop him.
If only he’d brought a weapon. The Hecuter 6 would have made this so much simpler.
Carl lost sight of Skoh. The ma
n had ducked left into a crosswalk between two interlocked stack towers. Carl followed, and slewed to a halt. The crosswalk was empty. Where the hell had Skoh g—
Feaver Skoh, equally weary, was tired of running. He came out of the shadows like a pouncing carnodon.
But Carl Thonius was caught up in a rush now. He turned, met the attack, and drove his fist into Skoh’s nose. The hunter reeled away, then lunged back with a potentially backbreaking punch that Carl sidestepped.
Carl was a slight, slender man, but he was quick, and he had been trained by the Inquisition’s best. You didn’t make interrogator without learning certain skills. The fact that Carl Thonius avoided physical combat didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it.
The fight lasted ten seconds. In that brief time, the two men traded almost fifty strikes and counter strikes, whip-snake fast, the precise martial skills of the Throne agent pitted against the brute force and cunning of a game hunter who had survived the dangers of countless bar-fights and rip worlds.
Passers-by from the main street gawped at what they saw occurring down the alleyway. Two men, blurs, engaged in a level of physical war that was seldom seen, even in a city that boasted the Carnivora. Every punch, every kick, was a potential killer; every block, every smash, bone-breaking.
Carl dodged, cracked Skoh’s ribs with an under-punch, then chopped wide at his exposed neck, but Skoh lurched aside, caught the chopping hand, and viced to snap it. Carl had to somersault out of the hold, and kicked out Skoh’s right leg from behind as he landed.
Skoh stumbled, but turned the fall into a sweep with his feet that Carl was forced to leap over.
Skoh came up, broke Carl’s nose for the second time that night, and crushed his left ear, but Carl blocked the third punch, broke another of Skoh’s ribs with a sidekick, and burst Skoh’s right eye with a hammer-claw.
Skoh staggered backwards. Carl leapt at him, but had underestimated the hunter’s burning resolve. Skoh threw a punch that hit Carl in the throat and dropped him onto his knees, choking.
Skoh started to run again. The crosswalk went nowhere except the fence overlooking the roaring arterial highway. Skoh scaled the fence, shivering the chainlink, kicking off Carl’s hands as they tried to grab his ankles. He went over the fence top and fell onto one of the box-girders over the rushing traffic ten metres below.
He clawed up, and began to tightrope along the girder, arms out.
Carl followed him, sliding over the chainlink and down onto the narrow footing of the girder. It was so narrow, barely the width of his feet placed side by side. Vast transporters and cargo trucks roared by below them.
Skoh saw Carl coming after him. He looked down at the racing traffic of the arterial, all four speeding lanes, and jumped.
‘Holy Throne!’ Carl cried.
Whether by luck or judgement, Skoh landed on the top of a cargo-10’s freight container. He grabbed onto the netting before the slipstream dragged him off.
Carl jumped too.
The impact of landing punched the breath out of him, but he managed to stay on top of a parcel transporter four vehicles behind Skoh’s ride.
Everything shook. The wind was in his face. Road sign displays whipped overhead, brightly lit and dangerously close.
Carl clambered up, dragged himself forward. In disbelief, he watched as Skoh jumped from the cargo-10 onto the back of a low-rider track that was busy overtaking it.
Carl got up and threw himself into space, slamming down on the roof of a transit omnibus in the outside lane. The roof was flat metal, and Carl almost slithered right off until he got hold of the sill of the roof light.
Up ahead, there was Skoh, getting up and looking back. He saw Carl.
‘Bastard…’ Carl stuttered, trying to hold on.
The thundering traffic suddenly slowed down so violently that Carl was thrown flat again.
The overhead alerts announced an accident at Whitnee Circus. Abruptly, they were almost at a standstill. Carl got up, leapt off the omnibus and onto the roof of a small private transport, denting it. He heard cries of complaint. Skoh was moving too, off the low-rider onto a crawling cargo-8, and off that straight onto a limousine.
Carl followed, jumping from one slow-moving vehicle to the next, ignoring the protests of the drivers and the blaring horns. He almost missed his footing leaping for a cargo-10, almost went under its wheels.
Almost…
Skoh bounced off the roof of a sedan, and rode the windscreen down onto the bonnet. The vehicle braked hard, and the van behind rear-ended it with a brutal shunt. Horns blasted again. From where Carl was, it looked as if Skoh had been thrown off onto the highway.
But no, there he was, climbing the revetment on the far side of the arterial.
Carl threw himself into the air, rolled as he crunched onto the roof of a cab, and got up. Another vault got him onto the back end of a cargo-8, and then he was at the revetment, clambering up the wall after Skoh.
Carl was in a frenzy, not even thinking. He was finding strength from somewhere, somewhere deep inside him.
It was an ugly strength. A dark, unpleasant force. But Carl Thonius didn’t even stop to think about that. Below him, the traffic had begun to speed up again, engines racing. Carl scraped his way to the top of the six-metre revetment.
He looked up.
Skoh was standing over him on the top of the wall, looking down, one eye a bloody gouge.
Skoh grinned and stamped on Carl’s hands.
Yelling out, Carl lost his grip and plunged down into the speeding traffic.
SKOH JUMPED DOWN off the revetment and limped along an unlit walkway, gasping for breath. There were streetlights ahead, he could see that with his remaining eye, and that meant a cab, or a transit station, maybe even a public vox post. Dazed, he tried to think. Akunin. How could he contact Akunin? Maybe the circus was the best bet. Or perhaps he should go straight to the top. The Ministry would protect him surely, given what he knew. Trice owed him.
He limped on.
A man came out of the shadows ahead of him. The man was smiling.
The man was Carl Thonius.
‘How… the hell did you…?’ Skoh began.
‘Truth be told, I don’t really know,’ Carl replied. Only it wasn’t his voice. It was a dry, rasping growl.
Skoh backed away. Carl’s eyes were glowing red from the inside, as if a lamp had been lit inside his skull.
‘Holy of holies,’ Skoh mumbled, backing away. ‘What are you?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ the rasping voice replied, gusting like rotten air from Carl’s lips. The inner light had increased, shining out of Carl Thonius’s nostrils, mouth, eyes, and glowing through the skin of his face so that the shadows of the skull formations inside were visible like an x-ray plate.
‘But I know what you are,’ he said.
Carl raised his right hand. The flesh peeled back from the bones like melting wax, and the exposed finger bones extended into talons, long and thin and curved.
‘What you are is dead,’ Carl rasped.
NINETEEN
WE WERE LEAVING Strykson’s mansion when the vox chimed. We’d been in there a few hours, probing him for everything he knew. Behind us, we left a man who had no idea what secrets he had just revealed. As far as Athen Strykson and his entire staff were concerned, he’d just had a nasty visit from the tax office.
‘Yes?’ I answered.
‘We need you here,’ Frauka replied.
Through Mathuin’s eyes, I looked at Kys and Nayl. ‘Got to go. Get back safe.’
They nodded. As soon as I had left him, they led the slightly woozy Mathuin up the hill to the rented flier parked behind the trees.
‘WHAT HAPPENED?’ I asked, resuming control of my chair.
‘There was an incident,’ Frauka replied lightly. ‘I’d taken the boy to a gallery, like you suggested. An exhibit of the later Remembrancers, quite beautiful work, if a little—’
‘Wystan. The point’
He shr
ugged. ‘We got back. Skoh had escaped.’
‘How?’
‘It seems Doctor Belknap’s liniment afforded him the opportunity to slip his cuffs. He overpowered Carl. Kara went after him, but she hurt herself.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘Belknap’s with her now. Carl continued the pursuit. It would appear he killed Skoh.’
I swung my chair around. ‘Look after Zael, please. Distract him.’
‘All right,’ Frauka answered. ‘How did it go with Strykson?’
‘Fine. The others are on their way back now. I’ll fill in the details later.’
I floated down the hall and entered the front lounge. Carl was sitting there on an armchair, gazing into space. I tried briefly to read him, but his mind was impenetrable. Shock I supposed.
‘Carl? What happened?’
‘Skoh got out sir,’ he said, getting to his feet. His face was split and bruised. His clothes were torn and soaked with blood. ‘I gave chase. I knew we couldn’t let him get away.’
‘That would have been bad,’ I conceded. ‘So, you killed him?’
He looked at me sharply. ‘No. No, no. I didn’t. I chased him. We fought. He tried to climb the fence beside the arterial. And he fell. Went under the wheels of a cargo-10. It was… instantaneous.’
I sighed. ‘Better that, I suppose…’ I began. ‘Better that than he’d got away. Are you all right?’
‘A little dinged up. That happens, right?’
‘Yes. Go and get yourself cleaned up, Carl. Get Belknap to look at your face.’
He nodded. ‘What happens next?’ he asked me.
‘We know what they’re doing. We just don’t know why. As of tomorrow, we switch to infiltration. Kys and Harlon will be going in. To find out what this is actually about.’
‘What they want the data engines for?’
‘Exactly, Carl. Exactly that.’
‘I see,’ he said. He paused. ‘About Skoh, I’m really sorry—’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘Our cover’s still intact. That’s the main thing. If our enemy had found out we were still alive and operating here, infiltration would be suicide. Thanks to you, we’re still covert. You should feel good about yourself.’