“That you did. The bit about snoring … a metaphor, I assume. But for what? The constables, we’re too loud, perhaps?” He nodded to himself. “We’re supposed to serve the people, but the complaints of brutality, and of officers ordering people around as if they were lords … Yes, I can see. I’ll need to make some changes. Do you think that’s what she meant?”
“I don’t know,” Marasi said carefully. “Meeting her does tend to affect one in profound ways.”
“Very true.” Aradel hesitated on the steps, turning as if he longed to return up above. He held himself back. “The question I had earlier remains. We’ve got an immortal killer out there, potentially trying to overthrow the government. How in Preservation do we fight something like that?”
“You don’t,” Marasi said. “Lord Waxillium will handle the kandra. We should focus on keeping the city from exploding.”
Aradel nodded. “I want you to do something for me.”
“Sir?” They still stood in the stairwell, lit by a solitary electric light above them.
“You mention Lord Ladrian,” Aradel said. “He seems to trust you, Lieutenant.”
“We have become good friends over the last year.”
“He’s a wildcard, Lieutenant,” Aradel said. “I appreciate the work he does, but his methods … let’s just say I wouldn’t mind having a little more information on what he’s doing and when.”
“You’re asking me to spy on him.”
Aradel shrugged. Another man might have been embarrassed to be confronted with it so bluntly, but he didn’t seem so. “I won’t lie to you, Colms. I think you can be a resource for this department in more ways than one. It’s my job to see that the law in this octant is served, and I’ll feel a hell of a lot better if I know what Lord Ladrian is doing. If only so I can get the proper warrants—and if necessary, apologies—ready.”
“I see,” Marasi said.
Aradel waited for something more. She could practically hear the implication. You’re a constable, Lieutenant. This is your job. Do as you are assigned.
“You could just ask him,” she said. “He’s been deputized. He is technically under your jurisdiction.”
“And you don’t think I’ve tried? He always promises a report. If I’m lucky, that consists of a letter telling me where he left a suspect hanging by his ankles—do you remember that one?—or a quick rundown at a party of something he’s hunting, if only so he can ask me for the loan of some resources. I don’t mean to turn you into his chaperone, but honestly, a little more information would be wonderful.”
Marasi sighed. “I’ll write you a weekly report. More frequently if an investigation is ongoing, as it is now. But I will inform him that I’m doing so.”
“Great. Fantastic.” Aradel started down the stairs again, stepping quickly and speaking almost as fast. “Get to the governor’s place and tell him I need an executive order for martial law tonight so I can clear the pubs. Suggest he send one to each of the octants. Then check in on your friend Ladrian and tell me anything he’s learned about this immortal who thinks she can bring down our city.”
He reached the floor below and strode out into the main chamber, shouting for a report on the number of constables they’d been able to call up for duty this night. Marasi followed more slowly, legs feeling like they bore hundred-pound bracers.
You can be a resource for this department in more ways than one.…
She reached the ground floor and walked out the precinct’s back door. She’d always known that her involvement with Waxillium had helped her obtain this job. If she hadn’t joined his hunt for Miles Hundredlives, she’d never have gained enough notability. That said, she’d assumed her understanding of historical crime rates, her letters of recommendation, and her interview had been more important.
Was that even the case? Had Aradel given her the job instead of someone like Reddi because she knew Waxillium? Did her studies even matter?
She settled with her back against the wall, waiting for MeLaan. Rusts … did everything always have to be about Waxillium? Of course, thinking that made her feel like a child, jealous that someone else had more blocks than she did.
MeLaan strolled into the alleyway a short time later, disturbing the mists. “Well?” MeLaan asked. “How did I do?”
“We shall aid thee in thy desperation?” Marasi asked.
“Hey, it’s what he expected.”
“Not what I expected.”
MeLaan sniffed. “I can be divine when I need to be. I’ve had a long time to practice.”
“Then why don’t you use the act around me and the others?”
“Who says this isn’t the act?” MeLaan said. She met Marasi’s eyes. “Perhaps my duty as one of Harmony’s servants is to show people what they need to see, whatever will bring them the most peace.”
Marasi felt cold, suddenly, a shiver running through her. Not at the words, but at the look in MeLaan’s eyes, which had faded to a faint translucence. As if … in reminder?
Then MeLaan threw her head back and started laughing. “Nah, I’m just rusting you, kid. I don’t show you that side because it’s too hard to keep a straight face while talking with all those ‘thee’s and ‘whatfore’s.”
“Hence the snoring wisecrack?” Marasi said.
“Yeah. I had to check on the guy when Harmony was first looking for Paalm. He snores like a steam engine, that one. Anyway, where to now?”
“The governor’s mansion,” Marasi said.
“Along we go, then,” MeLaan said, striding toward the exit of the alleyway.
“We pulled to a stop,” Chapaou said, hunched up next to his carriage in the mists outside the Soother’s place. “And I’d been hearing things inside the coach. I didn’t like how he’d come out of that church, with hands all red.”
Wax knelt in the back of the coach, listening while he carefully unwrapped a bundle of black cloth. A lantern hung on the side of the coach, giving him light, but also turning the mists into a bloom of illumination. He could still feel the Soother’s touch from the nearby building, but it was far less pronounced now. He felt almost like himself. That was both good and bad, for there was nothing to hold back his sense of revulsion as he unwrapped the bloody mallet that had been used to pound the spikes into Father Bin.
“I shouldn’t have looked into the coach,” Chapaou said. “He told me not to look, you know? But I couldn’t help it. So I turned softly and peeked in the coachman’s slot, the one they have so you can see if the person inside is ripping the upholstery or whatnot.
“I found I hadn’t been carrying a man, but a monster. A mistwraith, with bones and sinew exposed, and a face of stretched muscle and grinning teeth. It looked at me, all smiles, and scrambled up toward the hole. It pressed that exposed eye against the slot, and then it changed. It changed. Skin growing over its face, like mine. A twisted, broken version of me.”
He started weeping again. Wax unrolled bones from the bundle, the corpse of the Pathian whom Bleeder had imitated in order to kill Father Bin. Bleached, picked clean, and under them a pile of cloth. Pathian robes? Yes, the colors were right.
“Hands all red…” Chapaou whispered.
“You ran, after that?” Wax asked, lining up the bones carefully.
“No, I drove,” Chapaou said. “I whipped the horses forward, bearing that demonspawn in my coach. A driver for Ironeyes himself. What good would it do to run? It had my soul. Harmony … it has my soul.”