The sound was awful, a hollow thumping like rotten logs crashing together, over and over, and then a crackling like kindling being crushed. They screamed in triumph, lifted the limp form above their heads and swept down the alley into the street. They were still yelling when I got to my feet. The proper gentleman was still there, on one knee, glaring at me. His lip was bloodied.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" he asked. "Standing with a bug, defending one of those… one of those monsters? What's wrong with you?"
I dusted off my pants and retrieved my pistol. Realized it was damp all the way through. Never would have fired, even if it had come to that. Wilson was already stalking down the alley, away from the scene of the murder. I flipped the pistol in my hand, then put it through the gentleman's teeth. He crumpled.
"Gentlemen need to stand, sometimes," I said. "Gentlemen don't need mobs."
I put away the revolver and ran to catch up with Wilson. We walked past the tiny shed that the mob had shattered. There was blood on the wood, pooling between the cobbles, making a sluggish stream to the drain. Neither of us stopped.
T HERE WAS NO need to talk about where we were going, or where we had been. We walked in silence, Wilson's hands thrust into the damp pockets of his coat, his thin face turned down. The fog cleared, the clouds parted, and the sun came out. It did nothing for our mood, or for the scent of madness that settled over the city. The air smelled like smoke, but not woodsmoke. Unnatural things were burning, somewhere.
The streets weren't safe. The citizens of Veridon had taken protection into their own hands, each street watching out for itself, enforcing their own idea of who should be safe. We stuck to the houses. No one was inside, not in the Lower City. Several of the houses we walked through showed signs of struggle. One house, there was something banging around in the parlor. The door was nailed shut, a couch leaned against the frame. There were bodies, too. Fehn and regular folks, some of our pearl-white friends who used to be Fehn, as well.
"They're running," Wilson whispered, as we looked down at the bloated remains of a Fehn. There was none of the tar-black blood we had seen during our fight out on the river. "Something's happened, and they're trying to get out of the river as quickly as possible."
"Coming up in people's homes, or at the docks. Throw in a couple reports of these cog-dead, and suddenly every Fehn is a monster." I rubbed my eyes and looked around the house. It had been looted at least once. The city's thieves saw what was happening, and they weren't wasting any time. "This is going to be a hell of a thing to get past."
Wilson grunted and went to the back door. A quick hop across the alley and he picked the lock of another house. We walked on.
The closer we got to our destination, the more Badge we saw. The gray-coated officers held important intersections or patrolled in tight, heavily armed groups. There were plenty of them around the canals, too. We avoided the lot of them, going extra wide around the barricades and staying away from the water. Tough to do in Veridon, and it was taking us forever to make our way across the city. By the time we got where we were headed it was well past noon. People were settling down, repopulating their homes, leaving the streets to the Badge. There was a lot of hammering, as basements were secured or sealed off completely.
Finally, we stepped out of our last looted building and skulked across the street. The house stood opposite, black and broken as when I'd first seen it. The house on Marlowe street, where I'd first met Mr. Ezekiel Crane.
"Wish we'd had time to stop for a dry pistol," I said. I took my revolver out and shook it. Even the wood grip felt soggy.
"What you get for depending on powder, son," Wilson said, drawing the wicked steel blades from his vest. He shrugged off his coat and dropped it to the street, extending his six bonewhite spider arms like a bird shaking out its wings. "You'll just have to be more traditionally brutal."
"Suppose so." A quick look up and down the street showed no witnesses. "Ready?"
"Ready enough," Wilson answered, then rushed the front door in a clattering flutter of arms and legs and razor's edge. The door splintered on impact. I ran after him, yelling and brandishing the damp revolver like a club.
The tiny foyer was empty. The bookcases were splintered, their contents reduced to pulp. The oil lamp was gone. And something had dug ruts into the walls around each of the doors, like a beast trying to dig its way out. Wilson paused long enough to give me a nervous look, then rushed down the hallway Gray and I had taken to meet Mr. Crane. Still low, still narrow, like a tunnel burrowed in a tree. The walls were scorched, and the oil lamp from the foyer lay smashed on the floor in the middle of the room. Its glass hood crunched under our boots as we ran, faster and faster, into the final room.
Empty. It showed all the signs of a thorough looting, the kind of job professionals do if they're looking for something, or trying to hide something. A little random vandalism thrown in to make it look like a casual job.
The fireplace was still warm, the last embers smoldering under a curtain of ash. The furniture was overturned but undamaged, and the massive table was clean of paperwork, though the forest of candles remained. As soon as I saw the papers were gone, I went to the fireplace and poked through it with the barrel of my revolver.
"Awfully confident that powder's ruined, aren't you?" Wilson asked, wincing. I muttered something noncommittal and continued my search. Got nothing for it but a barrel full of ash. Banged it out against my thigh, then grimaced down at the mess it made on my pants. Wilson was giggling at me.
"What's this look like to you?" I asked him, ignoring his joviality.
"What it is. A professional job. Someone wanted us to think it was theft." He tipped one of the delicate chairs up and sat. "But it's not. Thief would have slit these cushions. Thief would have taken the chairs, maybe even the table." He peered at me with his insect-curious eyes, his hundred teeth glittering in the light from the window. "Thief would not have taken all the papers. Papers are not money."
"No, they're not." I sat on the table and swung my legs. "And the stuff in the hallway. Theater?"
He nodded. "Theater. Those doors did not lock. There was no need for something to try to claw its way in. If the doors were barricaded, we would see evidence of the barricade. And the lamp was dropped in the one place it probably wouldn't spread to the rest of the house."
"If someone, and I'm assuming it's Crane we're talking about, if Crane wanted to cover his tracks, why not just burn the place?"
Wilson watched me for a dozen heartbeats, though I don't think he was really seeing me. Finally, he stood up and walked to the table. With those long, articulate fingers of his, he plucked something from among the candles and presented it to me. Crane's glasses, carefully folded shut and hidden.
"Because he expected someone to come by. Because he wanted us to search the house."
I grimaced. I didn't like that. Didn't like being led, being part of someone else's game. Didn't like someone else playing me. I took the glasses from Wilson. They were light, the rims incredibly delicate. The lenses were very thin. I held them up to my face. No distortion. They were false glasses, just for show. Just for theater. I dropped them to the floor and put my boot on them.
"Then I guess we search," I said.
Chapter Four
My first visit to this house left me nervous. I came out with the impression of a house full of dark rooms, rooms that may be full of silent people or completely empty. It was a house of strange noises and unsettling quiet. That had changed, but not in a good way. Walking through the house now, I felt like I was sitting in a room with a dead man. No sound, and all the more maddening for the quiet.