Queen of faces, p.21
Queen of Faces, page 21
‘Only a little,’ said Isley, pouting. ‘A bit of skin, some fingernails. If he tells us the prisoner’s location, we’ll give him a quick end.’ He yawned. ‘Tough break. Should have done his job.’
A quarter of a million pounds. Back in my old life, that was nothing. But here, the amount was staggering. Once we sold the watch and the sports car, I would have all the money I needed to hunt Khaiovhe and orchestrate my return.
More than enough, once I killed Gage and took her half.
She had to be tempted too. Her share could single-handedly buy a new body.
But as I considered the offer, the grey girl flashed me a look, disgust radiating from her eyes. A bitter tang grew at the back of my throat, an irritating surprise. Some pathetic, needy part of my mind cared what she thought of me. And Nima Qasemi might be a ruthless killer, but she, or he, had taken a stand against Commonplace’s cruelty. Nima was an outcast. Like us.
I bit my lip, fidgeting with my Voidsteel earring. Then I sighed. ‘Deal.’
Gage’s lip curled. ‘Seriously?’
‘Quiet, Edgar,’ said Isley. ‘The adults are talking.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Just looking at you is bad enough.’
Gage fell silent. She made herself smaller, hunching her shoulders. I gazed at her, thinking.
Then I extended my hand to Jasper Isley. He strode forward, lifting his hand to shake.
In one smooth motion, I unfolded my sword and sliced off his arm.
Isley collapsed, screaming.
‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Tough break.’
The other five men charged at us, fire roaring in their palms. They formed a tight wedge formation, an arrow of pure flames.
Time seemed to slow. My mind raced at a thousand miles an hour. We were facing a hit squad of mages, each of them stronger than Gage, and probably stronger than me. I excelled at combat, but paper magic and fire didn’t mix so well. And there were five of them. They probably knew about Rainbow Veil, and we’d have barely an instant before they struck.
We’re dead.
That was the obvious conclusion. Clever tricks and strategy wouldn’t matter when they incinerated us in seconds. Bitter certainty flooded my veins, paralysing me. Inevitable.
Ah well, I thought. It had been a nice run.
Then the car drove into them.
It slammed into the wedge from behind, tossing them like bowling pins. The wheels bumped as they rolled over bodies, one after the other.
The vehicle rocketed towards me and Gage. I staggered back and tripped, falling. The headlights glared into my eyes.
The car slammed on the brakes. It screeched to a halt just an arm’s length away from me, tyres burning on the cobblestones. The radiator blew hot air into my face. No one was sitting in the driver’s seat. Physical Magic. Someone must have extended their Pith into the car’s controls, steering it with Physical magic. But who?
Qasemi’s guns ripped out of my pockets, flying through the air. The Kshatran girl jumped to her feet, fully conscious. Her hands darted out and grabbed the fat pistols. The Kshatran boy stood up next to her. They cracked their knuckles, then spoke in unison, grinning ear to ear.
‘Hi,’ they said together. ‘I’m Nima Qasemi.’
nima qasemi pointed her shotgun pistols at Gage and me, blood spattered on her purple dress. Her male companion, who was also Nima, apparently, stood next to her, aiming his rifle. The car puttered in front of us on the cobblestones, blood staining its tyres. At a moment’s notice, it could hit the gas and run over us both.
‘Nima Qasemi?’ I said. ‘How can you both be Nima Qasemi?’
‘One Pith,’ the boy and the girl said. ‘Two bodies.’
‘That’s impossible,’ said Gage. ‘A soul can only live in one body at a time. If you split them, you go into a coma.’
Both Nimas shrugged. ‘Believe it or don’t. The two chassis connect just fine if they’re not too far away. This is the first branch of my Praxis Codex.’
‘You’re a Praxis Specialist?’ I said. ‘You’re introspective and self-aware?’
‘There’s lots you don’t know about me.’
A chill wind blew down the street. My fist tightened on my sword.
‘My turn for questions.’ The male Nima stuck his hands in his shorts pockets, floating the rifle in front of him. ‘You weren’t tailing me for the Commonplace bounty. So, who do you work for?’
‘No one,’ I said. I didn’t owe anything to this grimy cut-throat.
‘Wrong,’ said the male Nima. ‘You’re working for Nicholas Carriwitch. What are you doing for the old relic?’
Damn him. Could his Codex read our thoughts?
‘We’re illegal mercenaries doing his dirty work,’ I said. ‘It’s a lot less glamorous than it sounds.’
‘It doesn’t sound glamorous.’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘So why are we still talking? Why didn’t you run us over?’
The two figures didn’t lower their guns, but they didn’t shoot, either. ‘You could’ve sold me to Commonplace. Picked up the bounty. That would’ve been the smart choice, the safe choice. But you didn’t.’
‘It wouldn’t have been right,’ said Gage. ‘Still. Those two cops. Why did you kill them with a pool cue?’
‘They tried to arrest my friend,’ said Qasemi. ‘I protested.’
‘Your friend,’ said Gage. ‘Korin Nameless, the bombmaker. Why protect him?’
‘Boy’s had a bumpy road,’ said Qasemi. ‘Don’t need you people making it worse.’
Bumpy road was a funny way of saying body count in the hundreds. My mother would kill for his head on a spike.
I cleared my throat. ‘What happens now?’
‘You piss off,’ said Qasemi. ‘We go our separate ways, and you tell little old Nick you didn’t find me. And if you dream about double-crossing me, I’ll—’
‘Join us,’ said Gage.
Qasemi and I spoke in unison. ‘What?’
‘Join our group.’ Gage’s eyes lit up. ‘We’re both fighting Commonplace. We can watch your back, pay you a share and keep the Eldritch Guard from arresting you.’
‘You do know I’m pointing a gun at you, right?’
‘Three guns,’ I said. ‘A mage, using guns like a Humdrum.’
Gage kept going, unperturbed. ‘You know more about this city’s underworld than both of us combined. And you can fight.’
‘I can’t leave these bodies,’ said Nima, gesturing at their two chassis. ‘That’s a condition of my Praxis Codex. And even if I could, I paid good money for both of them. Which means I can’t give you one, Anabelle Gage, partners or no.’
They know about Gage’s quest. Though it was easy to guess, looking at that withering Edgar.
I turned to my partner. ‘Qasemi and Nameless might not be with Commonplace, but they’re certainly not with us. They’re criminals.’
‘We’re criminals,’ said Gage. ‘This whole thing is illegal. And we would have died without Nima’s help.’ She stared down at the corpses run over by the car. ‘Our enemies are only going to get stronger. If we’re going to survive, we need to get stronger too. This is how we do it.’ She looked at the Nimas. ‘Try one job with us. If you don’t like it, you can bail.’
For a long moment, no one spoke. The water lapped against the far end of the street, and Jasper Isley twitched in a puddle, unconscious. The grey girl had a point, naive though she was. My combat training at Paragon had taught me nothing about the nuances of the underworld.
‘You’re a witch of the coin, just like us,’ said Gage. ‘A mercenary. You’re just changing clients, that’s all.’
The male Nima bit his lip for a long moment. Then he nodded. ‘This country can burn, for all I care. But Commonplace hurt me and mine. So, I’m going to jam a tuning fork down their throats. You could help with that.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll join your little group, Queen Phosphorus, or whatever.’
‘Queen Sulphur,’ said Gage. ‘You got that wrong on purpose, didn’t you?’ She turned to me. ‘Wes?’
‘You trust far too easily, grey girl,’ I said.
‘Also, you can live in my apartment for free,’ said Qasemi. ‘It has a bathtub.’
‘You’re hired,’ I said. If things got ugly, I could still take Qasemi. Still carry both heads to my mother, along with Gage’s.
‘I’m going to put down my guns,’ both bodies said. ‘If you attack me, I will shatter both your skulls before you can lift a finger.’
‘Don’t shoot my face,’ I said. ‘I want to die pretty.’
‘No one dies pretty.’ The male Qasemi knelt next to Isley and pressed his pistol to the man’s neck.
A gunshot echoed through the ruined street. Gage flinched.
‘Now.’ Qasemi extended his palm to me. ‘Three hundred pounds, was it?’
Two minutes later, we were following the mercenary down towards the ocean. The two bodies strode on to the water, their boots making ripples on the dark surface. Gage and I followed, hardening the liquid under our feet. When I’d first taught it to her, this magic had exhausted her. Now Gage could perform a Water Walk with ease. Something like pride swelled in my chest. My teaching had finally sunk in.
‘So,’ I said. ‘Are you a he or a she?’ I looked between the two bodies. ‘Or . . . they?’
‘Don’t give a shit,’ said both Nimas.
‘But, I mean,’ said Gage. ‘Do you have a preference?’
‘That fight give you brain damage? You know what “Don’t give a shit” means, right?’
That was going to be confusing. ‘Don’t press him,’ I whispered to Gage. ‘He’s clearly quite trigger-happy.’
‘Look,’ said the female Nima, ‘the left half of my Pith is in my feminine body, and the right half is in my masculine body. So, I call the two bodies Left and Right. If you get confused with your tiny brains, use this: Left is a lady. You can use “her” for that one, and “him” for the other. That’s a dumbed-down explanation, but you’re Caimorians. I’ll cut you some slack.’
We ventured through the fog, deeper into the empty neighbourhood. Thick vines grew from the water, snaking through hollow storefronts and crumbled houses. The Flooded District. Elmidde’s worst casualty to the rising waters. Half a century ago, it had been a thriving arts neighbourhood. Now the tiled mosaic streets were more than ten feet underwater. The murals on the walls had faded, and the only light came from the flood lilies, white flowers that grew from the water and glowed at night.
Nima led us through a winding maze of crumbling townhouses and cafés, all bursting with flood lilies and submerged up to the first floor. The buildings here looked old, half a century at least – the rusted streetlamps were gaslights, and half the buildings didn’t even have light bulbs. A grand piano sat underwater, collecting algae on its ivory keys. A yellowing photograph floated above it, with a young couple smiling into the camera, dressed up for a night on the town.
I thought of Samuel, and lost things that might never get found again.
The sun rose ahead of us, and the glowing flowers winked off, one by one. After an hour of trekking, Qasemi led us under a mossy stone archway, into what had been a vast courtyard.
A palace stood before us.
Or, it had been a palace. Pale granite walls rose over faded green stucco. Weathered statues guarded limestone balconies, crumbling into the water. A grimy crystal fountain sat in the square, shaped like a rose. My eyes drifted over shattered windows, moss-covered staircases and the carved parapet circling the roof.
‘This is a Star Prophet ruin,’ I said. The architecture of miracles.
Nima nodded. ‘This was the old king’s winter palace, built high in the mountains eight thousand years ago. At least, it was high in the mountains back then.’
The long eastern wing of the palace stretched into the ocean, so long I couldn’t even see the far end. The waters had risen to flood the first two storeys out of three. And the left half of the building had collapsed, a pile of rubble covered with dirt and algae. The tall, rectangular clock tower was the only feature that still stood proud, a lofty spire of carved stone and opal glass that had inspired countless architects through the ages.
If the Flooded District was old, the palace was ancient. This building had stood when Elmidde was only a snowy peak, when Caimor was just a mountain province in the Star Prophets’ vast empire.
To the ocean, eight thousand years were the flap of a bee’s wings. And a king was no more than a fizzling spark on the water. I thought back to Commonplace’s motto: When the whole world floods, even gods drown.
‘I live here,’ said Nima, striding under an archway and into a ruined hallway.
I scowled. ‘This does not count as a bathtub.’
‘Bokhoresh.’ Right-Nima flicked his wrist, and a mahogany panel slid aside, revealing a metal lever. He pulled it, and a set of hidden gears whirred in the wall.
A door swung open, revealing a rusted dumbwaiter with tiny oval windows on each side, perched in what had probably been a chimney. Unlike the rest of the ancient building, the contraption looked positively modern. This is new. The Star Prophets hadn’t invented elevators, or any device more complex than a mechanical clock. Our technology had long since surpassed theirs, though our magic was primitive next to them.
Nima stepped inside, and the metal structure groaned. I held out a hand to stop Gage from following. ‘Korin Nameless is widely known for his booby traps.’
Nima rolled four eyes in unison. ‘If I wanted to kill you, I’d have run you over with that car. Stop wasting my time.’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘If you paid me my weight in Voidsteel,’ I muttered, ‘I still wouldn’t live in this cold, decrepit—’
‘Shut up,’ said Left-Nima, ‘and follow me.’
Gage stepped into the elevator, and I followed her, squeezing shoulder to shoulder. Her icy cheek pressed into my side, and blood rushed to her face. My shoulders clenched. With my off hand, I reached into my wallet and removed my sword, folded and hidden. If things got ugly, I could put it through Nima Qasemi’s head in a blink.
Nima pulled a lever, and the dumbwaiter carried us upwards, light streaming in through gaps in the stone wall. We rose, past broken stairs, blooming vines and birds’ nests. We were ascending the tall granite clock tower, stretching from this end of the palace.
‘It’s secluded, I’ll give you that,’ I said. ‘But an attic with an outhouse is not an apartment.’
We rose into a darkened chute near the top of the tower, and the outside world vanished. The dumbwaiter jerked to a halt, and Gage’s face jabbed into my ribs. Right-Nima flicked his wrist, and the door swung open. Light flooded my vision, and Gage gaped.
Within the corpse of the Star Prophets’ clock tower, Nima had carved out a giant loft. Pink morning sunlight shone through four translucent walls of opal glass. Giant metal clock hands stretched towards the edges, where the same twelve numbers we used today had been etched with curling silver. Couches ringed a coffee table, with a gramophone on top playing crooning Shenti jazz from a record. A pot of soup boiled on a stove, and a ping-pong table sat by the far wall. A ladder stretched to a floor above, presumably the bedroom.
And in the corner of the room, an elderly Shenti woman hung from a steel bar, her wrinkled hands wrapped over the metal. She did pull-ups with bulging muscles, sweat coating her tunic. Long white hair clung to her neck, stained with grease, and she looked at us quizzically.
‘Come and meet Ana and Wes,’ Nima said to her. ‘They were going after my bounty, but we talked a bit, and we’re going to try working together.’
The old woman jumped down from the bar and jogged towards us. ‘It’s wonderful to meet you, just wonderful.’ She pressed steaming cups into our hands. ‘But before we introduce ourselves, you simply must drink this tea.’
Gage narrowed her eyes, and I scowled. A stranger wanted us to drink her tea. Suspicious didn’t begin to describe it.
‘Erm,’ I said. ‘What kind of tea is that?’
‘Oh, it’s the antidote!’ The old woman beamed at us. ‘For the nerve gas you just inhaled.’
Gage collapsed on to the carpet. Her cup shattered.
A wave of dizziness rushed over me. The room wobbled, and I leaned against the wall, sliding to the floor.
I swallowed the tea.
The old woman knelt beside Gage and stabbed a syringe into her thigh, tutting.
‘Who are you?’ I groaned on the rug, my limbs twitching.
‘I’m Korin Nameless,’ said the old woman. ‘But you can call me Korin.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I groaned. ‘Korin Nameless is a teenage boy.’
‘I am a teenage boy,’ the old woman said. ‘I’m borrowing this body from my grandmother.’
Over the next few minutes, the dizziness faded, and Gage’s eyes drifted open. Korin Nameless hugged us, smearing us with sweat, and passed us bowls of wonton soup. Then he jogged to Right-Nima and started bandaging the boy’s knife wounds from the arena. ‘You’re too reckless,’ he murmured.
Right-Nima rolled his eyes. ‘And you nag like an old goat.’
‘Smart goats get old,’ said Korin. ‘Dumb ones get into hot pot.’
‘They’re shallow cuts. That amateur never stood a chance.’ But he let the boy tend to his wounds. Korin’s cheeks turned faintly red when he touched Nima’s skin, but the mercenary didn’t seem to notice. Right-Nima turned to me and Gage. ‘Ever since I freed him, this idiot’s been following me around. But he does chores, I guess. He’s the one who spruced this place up and gave it hot water.’
‘Why does he have bigger muscles than me?’ I scowled.
‘My grandmother gave me this body for safekeeping,’ said Korin. ‘I need to return it in perfect shape.’ He smeared a fistful of beauty cream on to his wrinkled skin, grabbed a pair of dumb-bells, and launched into squats. ‘Also –’ he glanced at me – ‘you’re too skinny for real muscles. Eggs and fish, my boy. Eggs and fish.’
‘You worked for Commonplace. For Khaiovhe. Before you defected,’ said Gage, her eyes focused. Making bombs that blew up Caimorian soldiers. My mother’s soldiers, more often than not.
