Pax didn’t answer. He’d keep talking anyway.
“Apparently North Ordshaw General Hospital’s got the highest incidence of gunshot care in the UK. More than a lot of Europe. But there’s a fallacy there, right, because in NOGH we’ve also got the best gunshot wound specialists, don’t we? People chopper them in knowing that. It’s all a bit chicken and egg.”
She was only half listening, waiting for this particular chapter in her nightmare to close, so she could take Casaria back to the safety of Broadplain Plaza and start persuading him to work on resolving her problems.
“Those tunnels would be damn helpful, I can tell you.” Jones changed tack, drawing Pax’s attention again. “Imagine us being able to get in under their feet. Get around the shipping channels. We can’t get boats through no more. Man, with tunnels. The things we could do with tunnels. Damn shame they’re polluted, I say.”
“Damn shame,” Bees agreed.
Both of them, Pax feared, sounded unconvinced. She said nothing, hoping the topic would fade away. She expected their friendship might, too.
Bees pulled the van over at the base of a steep hill of houses, the black brick viaduct rising ominously over the road. At least there was a light under that, deep yellow and casting grim shadows. The big men got out and led Pax to the rear of the van, where they hauled her scooter onto the road. Bees rubbed his hands together as Jones bent in around the sliding door, fussing with Casaria’s restraints.
“The hospital,” Bees said, pointing, “is that way. Hit the main road and you won’t miss it for signs. Or if you want to call an ambulance, you’re at the south end of Jerry Rise.”
“I’ll make do,” Pax said. Jones pulled Casaria to his feet, and Pax leant around Bees to see. The agent looked terrible, but he was upright, with colour in his face, and his expression was at least less than totally violent.
Jones straightened him out, big hands on his shoulders, saying, “Now you remember, we know who you are. We know where you live. Hell, you know what we know.”
Jones gave him a sick grin and shoved past to the van.
“And remember those faces,” Bees said. “You want to tell anyone who came for you, it was them. And no hard feelings, hey?”
Pax frowned at the last comment, directed at her, and caught a glint of light reflecting from inside the van, where Jones was drawing his arm back out. She met Bees’ eyes, begging it not to be what she thought. He stared back impassively, unapologetic, as Jones turned on Casaria, knife in hand. Of course – this had been too easy.
“No!” Pax yelled, but she hit a wall as Bees’ arm blocked her. Casaria hissed like a cornered cat, moving to evade, not quick enough. As Jones lurched at him with the curved knife, a gunshot sounded. The van twanged. Another shot sparked off the curb. Bees and Jones were down, crouching, both familiar with gunfire. Jones rolled into the van’s open door. “Fucking Yardies, go, go!”
Bees scuttled like a crab, hands over his head as a shot hit the tarmac and another glanced off the van. Pax flattened herself against the road, twisting to see where the shots were coming from. A wing mirror shattered.
“Drive, drive!” Bees shouted, pulling himself into the passenger seat, big legs flailing. The engine shuddered as the van careered away. The gunshots stopped. Pax sucked in breaths as shadows moved in the windows, hunched shapes of people peering out.
Casaria was down, both hands pressing into his gut where Jones had stabbed him, blood oozing through his fingers.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” Pax pulled herself across the ground towards him.
“Some fucking friends!” Letty said, from above. The fairy buzzed into view, expression grim.
Lightgate joined her, a pistol in each hand, white suit glimmering like a star against the sky. Smiling, she said, “I don’t know, I kind of liked them.”
Pax pressed her hands onto Casaria’s seeping wound, putting all her weight into it. He stared, teeth gritted. Too much pain to get a word out. How deep had the cut gone?
23
Holly brought the barest satisfaction to the day by producing a stew that replaced the telegraph station’s aroma of stagnant mould with a more hearty scent. She had little faith in its nutritional value, as the tinned food’s labels had faded, but it was a distraction, at least, especially when paired with the riddle of finding space in the cluttered workspace to sit and eat. They gathered, in the end, around the small table with the map spread on it, which worked as a lumpy tablecloth, covering bulky objects underneath. For a few minutes, she was treated to the satisfying hungry slurps of her family (and the thin sips of Rimes), and reflected that despite everything, they were doing okay.
Watching Darren eat, she couldn’t deny his bruising and swelling had reduced. Some minor cuts even seemed to have disappeared. Holly wondered if she was being a bad mother by refusing Grace the same toxic-liquid treatment. The girl’s feet had been rubbed raw journeying into the sewers. But Holly suspected offering her daughter that liquid would make her a worse mother. And besides, they didn’t have any more.
Darren sat back from his meal with a deep noise of pleasure, and his eyes fell to the map between them. A wistful look crossed his face as he let himself slip into the memories of his adventures. He looked up, seeing Holly staring. She folded her arms and said, “What did you think I’d say if you revealed all this madness to me? Did you think I’d kick you out? Scream?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t think you’d understand.”
“I don’t understand why you watch football, I don’t understand why you drown yourself in beer. So what?”
He had sad eyes, like he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. She suspected she knew, even if he didn’t. He wanted something to himself. A break from the life they’d created. Their happy, ordinary, comfortable life. Why else?
“I’ve made mistakes, Holly,” he said. “A lot of them. And I’m sorry. But it always felt right, fighting for our city. And it always felt right to shelter you from that. To give you one less burden.”
“Having a deceitful husband is worse,” Holly told him, plainly. “You could’ve died, and I never would’ve known why. Your daughter would’ve been left in a broken home.” Grace looked up from her stew with surprise, not expecting to be drawn into this.
“That’s why I stopped.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “After it became too dangerous.”
Darren took a breath, and Holly waited. “I’m sorry I kept it from you, but I’m not sorry for what I did. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I shouldn’t be sitting here, I should be doing what I’m good at. It should be me out there, not someone like Pax.”
“Someone like Pax?” Holly arched an eyebrow. “Seems to me you barely survived last night, while she came away unscathed. Perhaps she shouldn’t be out there, but by heavens neither should you.” Holly held back for a moment. “What really hurts, Diz, is that you didn’t think I could help.”
Darren had the barest second to register that, as if the revelation of this thought might have made sense of the world. Then the phone rang.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Pax cursed, tying one severed sleeve of her hoodie tightly around Casaria’s gut to pack the other sleeve into the wound. The pressure she’d applied was enough to stop the bleeding, following Letty’s quick instructions, but Casaria’s eyes were rolling about aimlessly and he wasn’t supporting himself or speaking words that made sense. And there was a lot of blood on the pavement. A lot of blood.
Lights were coming on up the street. The siren of an emergency vehicle was approaching. Pax got under Casaria’s arm, heaved him up onto her shoulder and pivoted him onto the scooter. It threatened to topple, dragging both of them down with it, until Pax got a scrambling leg either side of the vehicle.
A window creaked open nearby. Had someone finally got up the courage to help? “Fuck off with your colours, we don’t need it here!”
The window slammed shut again, leaving Pax unsure what that meant.
“You’ve got about two minutes,” Lightgate called from up high.
Pax pulled Casaria’s wrists around her waist, trying to tuck one hand under the other like tying a sweater. The warmth of his wound pressed into her back, and his weight threatened to pin her to the handlebars, making it even harder to start the bike. As if she knew where to go. The hospital would ask too many questions, no matter what Jones said. Those two fuckers didn’t care, as long as this got pinned on their rivals. How could she have been so stupid? This was why she didn’t have friends. Fucking Bees.
What else? A private doctor? There was Dr Merriweather, from the poker games in West Farling. But he was a massive twat, which Pax vaguely connected with him being a cosmetic, rather than actual, surgeon. And despite the name, West Farling was right on the east side of the city. No one useful lived near West Quay. She cursed again. “Those pricks. Utter pricks.”
“Humans for you,” Letty said, landing on Pax’s shoulder.
Pax turned the key. “You got anyone can help him?”
“It’d take a Fae javelin to stitch that,” Letty said.
The scooter came to life and Pax breathed relief. Casaria’s fingers wriggled against her gut, limply groping for a hold. She swatted one off then pulled his hands together, interlinking his fingers. His face pressed into her shoulder and he made an indecipherable comment. Pax gave Letty a look. “So where to?”
Lightgate floated down beside them, hip flask out as though she’d been spectating. “Leave him to bleed out, there’s always Plan A.”
Pax gave her a disapproving look.
“Time’s a factor, Pax. My ideas want to happen yesterday, and this gentleman’s not opening doors any time soon.”
Pax hoped Letty might defend her, but the other fairy hummed agreement. Letty didn’t know about Lightgate’s turnbold, did she? Pax said, “The wound’s not too deep – we get him help soon, he’ll be fine.”
Casaria gargled something that sounded offensive.
“Save your energy,” Pax huffed. She gunned the bike and steered away from the viaduct, back towards what she hoped was the city proper. After a few streets of wobbly riding, she listened for the siren and found it wasn’t getting any closer. She kept going until it was all but a whisper, then pulled over again.
Pax wrestled Rimes’ phone from her pocket and shakily dialled.
“Dr Rimes’ residence,” Holly’s voice answered, as prim and formal as an answering service. The two fairies hovered down, listening.
“Holly, I need Rimes.”
“Oh!” Holly answered. “There’s definitely a joke in there.”
“Not now,” Pax said. “I need to know if there’s any way – anything there we could use, anyone we could ask – to treat a knife wound?”
“Oh my God, Pax, what happened?” The receiver was jostled. “No – get your –”
“Pax?” Barton said. Sturdy, awake. “Where are you? I’m coming for you.”
For a beautiful moment, Pax found a second’s hope. Then she remembered his situation: “You can barely walk.”
“She’s been stabbed!” Holly’s fearful voice cut in.
“No! Not me! I’ve got Casaria, the MEE agent.”
“You’ve what?”
“He’s injured. Don’t think it went too deep, the attack got thrown off, but he’s bleeding a lot. Can Dr Rimes do something for him?”
There was silence, except for Pax’s worried breath coming back to her. Holly asked a muffled question in the background. Pax could imagine Barton’s hand over the receiver, making demands of Rimes, sheltering in the distance. Barton came back: “If it’s bad enough for you to ask, then no. And we don’t have any more glo.”
Glo. Pax hadn’t considered that. Barton was up and talking, and he’d been through something as bad as this. If it worked, it offered discretion and speed.
“Drop him at the A&E,” Barton said. “Let his own people take care of him.”
Pax shook her head, unseen. There was another option. “You know Chaucer Crescent? Is it somewhere you used to pick up glo?”
“No. Why?”
“You didn’t always go back to the same places, did you?”
“Pax” – Barton hesitated – “where’s this coming from?”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Have you had contact with them? You have to –”
“I’ll explain when I get back,” Pax said, hurriedly. “Chaucer Cresent’s on the way.” Before Barton had time to issue a warning, or something, she hung up. Letty eyed her as she straightened out the bike.
“You’re nuts, you know that?”
“The Blue Angel gave me that address before it realised who I was,” Pax said. “There might be something there we can use to help Casaria.”
“This Blue Angel again?” Lightgate said, amused rather than curious.
“The Angel’s had plenty of time to spring a trap since then,” Letty said.
“Why would anyone think I’d be crazy enough to go to that address, after that encounter?” Pax said. “And besides, I’ve got you guys for protection, don’t I?”
“Why would this Angel offer you any glo when Apothel’s been gone for years?”
“It thought I was Rufaizu,” Pax said, revving the engine, “and it blindly led Barton to glo before, recently, Holly said so. Maybe it’s trying to keep up the pretence that it’s on our side – it doesn’t matter – it’s our best hope of keeping him alive.”
24
Roper knocked tentatively at Sam’s door, holding up a manila folder. He could have been a librarian, with his plastic-rimmed glasses and tousled white hair. “The numbers you were after.”
“Please tell me you’ve got something,” Sam said, as Landon appeared by the man’s shoulder, watching as though wary of the technician.
“Not what you’re hoping for, I think,” Roper hummed, leaning into the room and stretching out his hand, afraid to enter. Landon took the folder and passed it to Sam.
“A list of numbers,” Sam said, leafing through pages of large figures. Only the date column was obvious. Many rows had been highlighted with fluorescent yellow marker, some in adjacent blocks. “What am I looking at?”
“Novisan levels within a mile radius of the praelucente, during different surges, broken down over ten-metre squares. That is, the energy fluctuations it causes. The highlighted rows are abnormal troughs and spikes. Mostly troughs.”
“So they are happening in more than one place,” Sam suggested, hopeful that the multiple highlighted rows would clue them in to Pax’s hint.
“No, these are figures during different surges,” Roper said. “Where you see a whole lot of dips at the same time, they’re next to each other. A wider radius, not different locations. A surge can see reduced novisan across as many as ten areas. Though a spike, with higher levels, only ever occurs in one focal point. The epicentre, directly above the praelucente.”
Sam sighed. Basically, these reams of pages showed what everyone already understood of the praelucente’s surges – they reduced energy levels in a wider area and occasionally produced a beneficial increase.
“You may recall the Stray Symphony,” Roper said, helpfully. Sam already knew the story, the classic example everyone in the MEE used to justify the Sunken City. Staring at the numbers, she let him continue anyway. “Sebestyn Furedi’s masterpiece, composed in one inspired night, Thursday 21st November, 1997. There was a novisan spike under his apartment building in Ten Gardens that evening, during a surge that reduced novisan across the two surrounding blocks.”
Sam turned through the numbers that Roper had wasted time printing out. “Bottom line is, novisan levels are only affected around the praelucente?”
“Within the mile radius that we measure, yes,” Roper said. “There was one exception, during a surge in Ripton, on page four.” He waited while Sam looked for herself. A single yellow row in the middle, another highlight towards the bottom. “There was a slight increase in Hanton at that time. Not significa
nt, within the realms of standard deviation.”
It was hard to say if it was significant, Sam pondered, as these numbers said nothing about the actual locations, above or below the city. “Where exactly in Ripton and Hanton were these?”
“You mean street names?” Roper replied uncertainly, unprepared to offer real-world details. Just bloody numbers. “I’d have to cross-check against a map.”
“Please do,” Sam said. “And what about elsewhere? Outside the mile radius?”
“That would take a long time to scan,” Roper said. “We don’t have the server power or the manpower.”
“You’ve got twenty computers out there that no one uses,” Sam replied.
“None of them powerful enough to run the scans,” Roper explained patiently. “Only the Castle, downstairs, can combine the results. We cross-reference readings from half a dozen simultaneous measurements to estimate novisan. They need to be inputted individually, and someone has to update the scan twice an hour. It takes six hours to process the data within a mile radius alone. For a period of twenty-four hours.”
Sam couldn’t respond at once, torn between questioning why on earth it was so inefficient and admitting that it sounded like a long and difficult task. No. This was her office, this evening. She wanted answers. “Why does it take that long? Why can’t the input be automated? Why can’t we split the task over multiple spare computers?”
Roper’s face suggested he’d been caught unawares. “Who would implement that?”
Sam shut her eyes. It was Asquith and his fax machine all over again: why risk change. “Do we have historical records for other locations? Could we do scans retroactively?”
“In theory,” Roper said. “Measurements are recorded everywhere, but they need to be processed. Covering one mile for one 24-hour period would take –”
“Yeah, I got that,” Sam said. “We don’t need a 24-hour period, though. We can focus on a single historical moment, when we know there was a surge. There was one this morning, wasn’t there? When that building started shaking. You could check other locations for exactly that time.”
The Sunken City Trilogy Page 48
