The girl gathered her skirt and sidled out, moving as if she travelled on hidden castor wheels.
‘Ah, Meroka,’ the older woman said. ‘How unexpected of you to grace us again. Your charming presence has been much missed here in the bathhouse.’
‘Sorry I didn’t give you more notice, Madame Bistoury.’
‘It would have made precious little difference if you had.’ She pinched reading glasses from her nose. ‘Who, might I ask, is your companion?’
‘Name’s Quillon,’ Meroka said.
‘On his way up or down?’ Madame Bistoury scrutinised him carefully. ‘Down, I think; he doesn’t have the look of someone who’s been outside. You may remove your hat, sir. And it must be very difficult to see anything behind those heavily tinted spectacles.’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Quillon said, touching a finger to the rim of his hat.
‘As you will.’
‘We came to see—’ Meroka began.
‘Tulwar, of course. Who else?’
‘I figured you’d be glad we didn’t come as clients, lowering the tone of the place and all.’
‘One must clutch at such crumbs of consolation, of course. How are you finding your guide, Mister Quillon - if that’s your surname? I trust you have a robust tolerance for profanity? All I will say in her defence is that Meroka was not always this way. Once, she could almost be allowed to circulate in polite society. I did warn her, of course. I’ve seen it so many times before. But she wouldn’t listen.’ She put the reading glasses back on and scratched something into one of the ledgers spread open on the desk. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. You know exactly where to find Tulwar. Do pass on my regards, won’t you?’
‘Count on it,’ Meroka answered.
‘Mister Quillon: good luck with the rest of your journey, wherever it takes you.’
‘Thank you,’ Quillon said.
They left Madame Bistoury to her accounting. Quillon said nothing, letting Meroka show him the way. She led him to a plain door in one of the corridors, marked for employees only. Two flights of stairs took them down into what could only be the basement, or part of it. It was oppressively warm, with only faint gaslight filtering down from windows at the top of the basement walls. Meroka walked across stone tiles to a heavy door with a circular, metal-barred window in its upper half. A dim orange light wavered through the glass. She hammered on the door.
‘Tulwar!’
The orange light was suddenly eclipsed. Now all was darkness beyond the door. There came a laboured shuffling sound, accompanied by a heavy, bellows-like wheezing. A man-shaped form, carrying a hand-lantern, loomed beyond the door. A metal cover slid aside beneath the barred window and a gruff voice spoke through it.
‘Wasn’t expecting you tonight, Meroka.’
Quillon recognised the accent as belonging to Steamville. It was softer, slower, more drawling than the way people spoke in Neon Heights.
‘We hit a few snags,’ Meroka said. ‘Are you going to let us in?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘I guess that depends on whether you want to keep on Fray’s good side or not, Tulwar.’
‘It’s always an idea.’
The speaker opened the door and hinged it wide enough to survey his visitors. A face, sinisterly underlit by the handheld lantern, hovered in the darkness. Quillon caught a wild white eye set into a deeply wrinkled socket. The other eye was lost in shadow. The rhythmic bellows sound that he had taken for breathing was, he now realised, nothing of the sort. It was definitely coming from the man but it continued uninterrupted even as he spoke.
Tulwar stood aside to let them pass through the door. It was even hotter in the main boiler room. Quillon made out the boiler’s vague presence, a squatting black kettle as large as a small house, an ever-devouring monster that would never be sated, no matter how much wood was stuffed into its belly. A labyrinth of ironwork pipes and return tubes threaded into the ceiling, distributing steam to all quarters of the Red Dragon Bathhouse.
Tulwar closed the door behind him. Quillon still couldn’t make out much of their new host.
‘You’ve been busy tonight,’ Tulwar said.
‘What gives you that idea?’ Meroka asked.
‘It’s all over town. Someone found a body on the train, and there’s talk of something going down in the railway station on the other side of the boundary.’
‘Fancy.’
‘You telling me you had nothing to do with any of that?’
‘All right. Maybe a bit. Let’s just say we’ve run into a few unforeseen complications with an extraction.’
The eye settled on Quillon. ‘This gentleman?’
‘Guy’s got half of the Celestial fucking Levels on his case.’
‘Special customer.’ The head nodded approvingly. ‘What’s he done to get on the wrong side of the angels?’
‘Better ask him. These aren’t your ordinary angels we were dealing with.’
‘I dealt with a few of the stranger variants in my time.’ Tulwar led them past the boiler, heat bleeding off it even though the stoking hole was currently shut. He paused and tapped the back of his hand against a pressure valve until the phosphorescent dial quivered back to its proper setting. The hand made a dull ringing tone, as of wood on metal. ‘But it was a long time ago.’
‘They’re infiltration units,’ Quillon said, feeling a prickle of uneasiness down in his belly. ‘That’s my understanding, anyway. Modified to be able to survive down in Neon Heights. No machines in their blood. They don’t have wings, either. Unless you see one up close, they’re normal enough to blend in.’ He paused and swallowed. ‘You’ve had much experience with angels?’
‘Fought and killed several hundred of them,’ Tulwar said offhandedly.
‘You were some kind of soldier?’
‘Some kind of soldier,’ Tulwar echoed. ‘I’m guessing Meroka didn’t fill you in about me?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You’ll get the full picture soon enough. Mind you don’t trip on the cable.’
‘What cable?’
‘The one coming out of me.’
Tulwar escorted them out of the main boiler room into a separate annexe that appeared to serve as his quarters. He swung the door to behind him, but not completely shut. He placed the handheld lantern on a table in the middle of the room, then lit a slightly brighter version suspended from the ceiling. The filament flared in intensity, gradually dispelling some of the darkness. The table was circular and set with cards - arranged into the depleted regiments of some half-finished game - accompanied by a glass and a tall bottle of liquor with a sepia-coloured label Quillon didn’t recognise. The room was fractionally cooler than the adjacent boiler room, aided by a slowly rotating ceiling fan, which must have been driven by steam pressure. There was a serving hatch in one corner - presumably it led to the bathhouse kitchens - and a neatly made bed in the other.
‘My little abode,’ Tulwar said. ‘Sit yourselves down.’
‘We don’t have a lot of time to talk,’ Meroka said. ‘If we’re going to make the next connection for Horsetown—’
‘Have a seat anyway.’ The eye turned to fix itself on Quillon. ‘You too, whoever you are.’
‘Quillon.’ He took a chair, his mind reeling, but trying to let none of his consternation show on his face. Tulwar shuffled to one end of the room and slid open a cupboard under the serving hatch. There was a chink of glasses, then Tulwar came shuffling back. He put two new glasses down on the table and began pouring slugs from the bottle into them.
‘Line of work?’
‘I’m a doctor, a pathologist, from the Third District Morgue in Neon Heights.’
‘How did a doctor get mixed up in something that meant he had to get out of Spearpoint?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘No one’s going anywhere for a moment.’ Tulwar pushed one of the glasses at Quillon and the other towards Meroka. ‘Drink up. I’m sure you could both use some.’
r />
‘We’re taking antizonals,’ Quillon said, even as Meroka downed half her glass in a single gulp.
‘So am I. The liquor won’t be the thing that kills you.’ With something close to menace Tulwar added, ‘Bottoms up.’
Tulwar pulled up his own seat and sat opposite them, giving Quillon the first chance to get a good look at him. He controlled his reaction as best he could, but Tulwar was not for the faint-hearted. He was a big man, largely hairless, clearly older than Quillon or Fray, but his age was otherwise hard to judge. He only had one visible eye. The right one was lost behind an eyepatch seemingly made of cast iron, leather and wood, the patch extending around the side of his face, down to his cheek and up to his temples. There were two rectangular metal plates on either side of his skull, secured with screws. Only his right arm - the one that had been holding the lantern - was living; his other arm was a mechanical prosthesis connected by a heavy shoulder harness of leather and metal. The arm was human in shape, ending in a wooden hand with elegantly jointed fingers, tensioned wire tendons running in grooves in the wood.
Tulwar wore a white blouse shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Covering most of his torso was some kind of buckled-on apparatus, a green-painted chest-plate mottled with rust and condensation, with steam-pressure dials twitching under thick glass. The bellows sound, Quillon now realised, was coming from inside that machinery. A segmented copper hose emerged from one side of it and trailed off across the floor and through the gap where Tulwar had left the door ajar.
‘Might I ask what happened to you?’ Quillon enquired.
‘Take a guess.’
‘If I knew nothing about you, I’d say that you were the victim of an industrial accident. But that wouldn’t account for the symmetry of the metal plates on either side of your head. Nor the fact that you mentioned killing angels. Were you a soldier, Tulwar?’
‘What do you think, Doctor?’
‘It’s been generations since anyone went to war against the angels. Even then it was only one or two cyborg polities, and that was a long time ago. But they say cyborgs live nearly as long as angels. Is that what you used to be, Tulwar?’
‘Judge for yourself.’
Quillon took a careful sip from his own glass. ‘You would have been neurally integrated into your battle armour, much of your nervous system bonded directly to the armour’s sensory interface. Those plates in your head were probably where the primary input trunks fed through your skull. The missing eye might be an old injury that was never repaired, or it might have been where the organic eye was replaced by some kind of targeting device. I don’t know how you lost the arm, whether that was deliberate or not. I do know that your internal organs would have been extensively modified, your heart and lungs replaced with an oxygen-exchange pump, the rest of your insides plumbed directly into the battle-armour’s recycling system. Inside it, you could live indefinitely. Without the armour, you’d be dead in seconds. Even in the polities.’
‘I seem to be clinging on.’
‘Only because someone was very ingenious. Someone found a way to keep you alive, in a world where even the simplest electrical device cannot function. You run on steam, from a wood-burning boiler.’
Tulwar started to unbutton the rest of his shirt. ‘You want a closer look, see what really makes me tick?’
Meroka took another gulp from her glass and looked away. ‘No offence, Tulwar, but you’re hard enough on the eyes before you start the guided tour.’
Quillon raised a hand. ‘It’s not necessary.’
‘Come on, Doctor. And you a man of medicine. How could you possibly turn down an offer like that?’ Tulwar tugged the shirt wide around his navel area, exposing a hinged inspection panel curving across the base of the chest-plate. He began to undo the catch at the other end. ‘I’m not ashamed of what I am. I was proud to be a soldier; proud to be given the honour of defending the polity against angels. So what if the war took half of me away? I still earned these scars.’
‘I don’t need to see inside you,’ Quillon said.
‘Not even a little bit curious?’
‘Of course I am. If I could help you I would. But I’d have to examine you properly, and there wouldn’t be any point in doing that until I’ve returned to Spearpoint. At the moment, this little bag is all I’m travelling with.’ Quillon paused delicately. ‘I take it you’ve been like this for a while?’
‘Longer than you’d credit.’
‘Then you’re probably not going to catch anything before I have a chance to come back.’
Tulwar locked the catch and began to button his shirt again. ‘You’d do that?’
‘You’re a friend of Fray’s. That’s all the recommendation I need.’
Amusement glittered in Tulwar’s eye. ‘Friend. That what he said?’ ‘That’s what I said,’ Meroka cut in. ‘Quillon’s only repeating what I told him.’
‘“Underling” might have been a more apposite term to describe my relationship to Fray, don’t you think?’
‘That’s between you and the man upstairs.’
‘You shouldn’t speak of Fray as if he’s God,’ Tulwar said disapprovingly. ‘Especially you, Meroka, being so religiously inclined. She’s never without her Testament, Doctor. Goes everywhere with her, it does. You’d never think it, would you, with that tongue of hers?’
Quillon started to say something, then thought better of it.
‘Fray’s been good to you,’ Meroka said. ‘He set you up down here, didn’t he, when you became an embarrassment to your own side? Gave you a place to hide, a nice, steady supply of steam?’
‘He gets his cut from Madame Bistoury, so let’s not pretend there’s anything philanthropic about it. Do you see him paying me many visits, enquiring about my welfare, asking if there’s something I’d rather be doing than shovelling coal into a boiler for the rest of my time on Earth?’
‘You know he doesn’t get out much more than you do, Tulwar.’
‘At least Fray gets to leave the basement occasionally.’
Quillon put down his glass and looked at Meroka. ‘We shouldn’t take too long before moving on, should we?’
‘Oh, don’t mind us,’ Tulwar said, breaking into a lopsided smile. ‘Meroka and I fight like cats, and bicker incessantly over Fray, but we go back a long way. It’s just our act.’
‘Although sometimes it starts wearing thin,’ Meroka said.
‘Go easy, I’m having a bad day. We’re down a consignment of wood, which means steam pressure might have to be dropped. That hurts me as much as it hurts the bathhouse. Ordinarily I’d put out the feelers for some more fuel, but it’s not like anyone else is rolling in wood either. Been the same all winter. Supplies running low, having to be dragged in from further and further away, and what you get isn’t the best quality. Firesap’s in just as short supply. It’s going to be a cold one, too. You wouldn’t think I feel it down here, but you’d be wrong.’ He gave a philosophic shrug. ‘Good for business, though. You think this is cold, wait until you’ve left Spearpoint.’ Tulwar gave Quillon a lingering look. ‘Hope you’ve got the constitution for it, Doctor. It can take its toll.’
‘Speaking of leaving,’ Meroka said, ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to go on the train.’
‘Forget it,’ Tulwar agreed. ‘After that trouble you caused, there’ll be more than just angels trying to track you down. Police in Neon Heights will already have tubed descriptions down to the Steamville constabulary. They’ll have every station scoped by now.’
‘We’ll need to use one of the alternatives, then. Is that an option?’
‘We’ll sort something out. In the meantime, given the amount of ammunition you appear to have discarded on the way down, you’re welcome to replenish your supplies.’ He jerked his head in a kind of stiff-necked nod, over his shoulder. ‘Through the back door, remember? Take what you need, and leave anything you don’t.’
‘Thanks,’ Meroka said.
‘Pick up some new watches
as well. Good for antizonals?’
‘We have all we require,’ Quillon said, patting the bag.
‘Fine.’ Tulwar refilled his drink and offered the bottle to Quillon, who declined with a polite elevation of his hand. ‘While you’re in there, there are some medical issues I’d like to go over with Doctor Quillon.’
Meroka nodded and went into the back room, seemingly glad to have the chore to herself. Tulwar waited silently until she was out of earshot, then made the lopsided smile at Quillon.
‘You’re good, I’ll give you that,’ he said.
‘Good at what?’
‘Good at hiding what you really are. Unless I’m mistaken, Meroka hasn’t got a clue what she’s escorting out of Spearpoint. Probably all the better for you. She’s about as keen on angels as I am, Doctor Quillon.’
‘You seem to be under some misapprehension.’
‘No, I don’t think so. It’s all about smell, you see.’ Tulwar tapped a wooden finger against the side of his nose. ‘I could smell an angel halfway across the street. Doesn’t matter what they look like. Sure, you’ve been made to look human - pretty damn well, I have to say. But they still didn’t get it quite right.’ Tulwar frowned, drawing the skin tight at the corners of the metal plates in his head. ‘Did Fray know, when he set up this extraction? Of course he knew. How could Fray not know?’
Quillon looked down at his hands. Part of him wanted to persist with his denials, but a shrewder part knew that there was no point in doing so.
‘Fray knew,’ he answered quietly.
‘What I figured. And Meroka?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware.’ Quillon stiffened in his seat. ‘I’m sorry that we’ve ended up in this position. No deception was intended, I assure you.’
‘You’re a walking deception.’
‘What good would it do for the truth to be revealed? I’m running from angels. My cover is the only protection I have. Do you think I’m going to advertise what I am?’
‘Let me tell you about Meroka,’ Tulwar said. ‘She wasn’t always like this. She likes women. That’s her bag. I’m not making any judgements here, just telling you how it is. Once upon a time there was someone special, someone she really loved. But that woman got ill with something they can’t treat down here. The angels, though? Maybe. They can do wonders up there, in the Celestial Levels. So they were petitioned, there are channels for that, and asked if they’d consent to fix the woman, make her better. They do this, take a certain number of deserving cases each year, just the same way it works on Ascension Day. But the woman - her name was Ida - couldn’t afford to go all the way up there on her own, and no one around her could afford it either. The angels said they couldn’t help: they weren’t really interested, I think. They suck your soul out up there, read your mind, but that’s only of use to them if your mind hasn’t been half eaten away to begin with. So Ida got worse, and Ida’s friends tried to find the means to send her up there, but by the time they scraped enough together it was too late. They dosed her with antizonals but she still didn’t get further up than Circuit City. Meroka was with her. Died in her arms. That’s why she doesn’t go a bundle on angels. That’s why she won’t go a bundle on you, she finds out.’ Tulwar studied Quillon for several silent moments. ‘So what do you think’s going to happen now?’