Torchlighters

by Megan R Miller

  “Sam’s been trying to get me to talk to them for days,” Callum said, “and what you just said makes so much more sense than a single point he made.”

  Ely smacked him in the arm.

  “Ow, what was that for?”

  “You told Sam?” she demanded. “You decide to fake your death and go to find a co-conspirator and you pick Sam? Ugh, no wonder you got caught. You know I’ve been studying anatomy and to get on without leaving a visible trail for years as a hobby, but fine, you picked Sam.”

  “He’s older than you,” Callum said.

  “He’s a weenie and he has the lock picking skills of a Neithan Greyback,” Ely said. “But I guess he can keep a secret better than I thought. Still. If there’s ever a next time—there had better not be a next time but if there is—I had better be your co-conspirator. You had better call me if you need someone to break you out of jail.”

  Callum laughed and mussed her hair. Ely smacked his hand away and gave her best glare.

  “I will,” he said. “I promise.”

  “You better.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Blood

  “Daelan City this is not a drill. Something serious is going on beneath these very streets and I want you all to be ready to pack up and go at a moment’s notice.

  I know not everyone is listening. And out of those that are listening, not all of you are going to believe me. I don’t want to cause a panic, but please, those few of you that are, I want to save your lives. Be ready to leave if the alarm sounds.

  I am not allowed to tell you everything, but if the aristocracy had any decency at all we would be in a state of emergency right now. I know the wastes are a danger, even from the inside of a train, but suck it up because maybe dying on the rails is a much lesser risk to definitely dying if you stay—

  …my manager is standing outside my door again, please hold and stand by for further information…”

  Sam was down at the docks when the ruckus started. He’d come down here to clear his head, watching the waves lap the rocky sand underneath the docks, when a throng of Torchlighters obscured the northern end and Danny came through.

  They parted for him like the sea breaking at the stern of a ship. Danny was tall enough that Sam could see him among all of the shiners, at nearly seven feet in his own right. He was holding a man by the scruff of the neck. A man in Gate Street gold with a clearly broken arm cradled against his chest.

  Danny threw him hard to the wooden planks of the dock and the small sea of Torchlighters parted to let him hit full on. Sam stepped away from the edge and quickly moved over to them. He was at the edge of the group by the time he realized Uncle Danny was bleeding.

  For an awful moment, he was sure it was Corvin.

  “I caught this piece of garbage trying to set fire to the fisher’s hut,” Danny said. “He cut me when I tried to stop him.”

  Danny’s eyes fell on Sam and he nodded him over. The crowd parted as they realized he was standing there to let him through and Sam had no choice but to meet his uncle where he stood.

  People pressed in. Danny waved them off.

  “Keep this guy where he is,” Danny said. “Kick him if he tries to move, I need a word with my nephew.”

  As Danny parted the crowd, Sam could see the man clearly for a moment. A stranger. He didn’t have time to be relieved.

  Danny put a hand between Sam’s shoulder blades and steered him away from the throng on the dock. When the two were far enough that Danny could drop his voice and not be overheard, he spoke.

  “I’m going to level with you,” Danny said. “I know what happened in the alley. I know you have it in you to kill a man, but right now I think the boys need to see you do it. I think they always just assumed Callum would be taking over for your father someday, but after what happened, you’re going to have to show you’re ready to fill his shoes and that won’t always be easy. Understand?”

  “You’re about to ask me to kill that man,” Sam said. His throat was dry. He’d taken the blame for the men in the alley but he hadn’t actually killed either of them. Even if he had, this was different. This man wasn’t actively fighting him, he was just a guy that happened to be here. He wasn’t doing anything overt right now.

  Any way Sam tried to cut it this time, it was murder.

  Danny drew a little two shot gun out of the interior pocket of his jacket and offered it to Sam butt first.

  “He cut my good arm,” Danny said. “You aim right between the eyes, and he won’t suffer.”

  Danny gestured between his own eyes and down the bridge of his nose.

  “There’s a T shape in the face. Eyes and nose. You shoot him there, and death is instant. No getting back up.”

  “What happens if I don’t want to do this?” Sam asked. Their backs were to the group, and he was confident no one had seen the gun.

  “Then we give him to your father and he burns, like we’re supposed to do in the first place,” Danny said. His voice was still hushed, but perfectly calm. “He tried to kill innocent people under our protection. That can’t be allowed to stand. Anyone we have out there that’s innocent has to be protected. You know how it is. Law of the land is, he burns. I’m giving you a chance to end him humanely, right now, and show the guys out there that you’re made of tougher stuff than they think you are.”

  Sam swallowed around the dryness in his throat, and took a moment to think about it. When he listened to the tide, he could still smell the burning flesh from that first time.

  He took the little gun, and turned back to the throng. Sam didn’t stop walking until he was right in front of the man. Wide brown eyes stared at him. He thumbed back the hammer and lined up his shot.

  Corvin’s hand had been trembling when it held the gun and they hadn’t been far from here. Sam knew that Danny wouldn’t lie to him. There was no doubt in his mind that this man had been trying to kill those people, and he was probably trying to blame it on them. Probably trying to make this a weak point in their little empire here.

  If he hesitated, if he looked back, he wouldn’t be able to do this and he knew it.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The tiny gun didn’t have much stopping power behind it. Sam had expected a loud noise, had expected brain matter on the wet dock below. There wasn’t any, only an instant death and a tiny hole right between eyes that never closed.

  The throng had fallen silent. Dozens of Torchlighter eyes were staring at him.

  “It’s taken care of,” Sam said. “Get back to business, there’s nothing more to see here.”

  He stood holding the gun until Uncle Danny came up behind it and took it from his hand. Even with his off arm, Danny managed to pick up the corpse with ease and carry it to the edge of the dock.

  There was a light splash as he dropped it into the water. For a long time, he and Sam stood there together in silence.

  “You did well,” Danny said.

  “I didn’t really have a choice, did I?” Sam asked.

  “You could have let him burn,” Danny said.

  “Are we going to pretend that’s a choice?” Sam asked. He wasn’t able to keep all of the bitterness out of his tone.

  A little of the scarlet reapervine had broken loose and was floating out like stretched hand toward where the body had fallen. It was attracted to the dead and grew on mausoleum walls and along the docks. Most places in the city, reapervine could be a dead giveaway for where bodies were hidden, but it wasn’t particular about what kind of bodies it grew for and people tended to assume the vines on the docks were there for all the dead fish. Convenient, for the Torchlighters. Even if everyone knew the truth, they couldn’t prove it.

  “No,” Danny said. “I’m sorry to have put you in that position.”

  “I guess it had to happen eventually, anyway,” Sam said. It sounded hollow even to him. “Uncle Danny?”

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Tell me about the first time you killed a man?” Sam asked, raising a br
ow. He couldn’t help but imagine Corvin’s face on the face of the one he’d just shot.

  “The Gaters were still swarming this place like flies on a carcass,” Danny said. “I was probably fourteen. Joey was closer to seventeen. One of them got the drop on him and all I had in reach was a brick. It was messy and I never had time to stop and think about what I was doing before it was done. Someone saw it, though, and that was the point of no return for us.”

  He told the story with a practiced calm that only comes with having revisited a traumatic memory over and over again. Sam heard him out in silence and nodded, his hands clasped in front of him.

  “That wasn’t your first,” Danny said.

  “No,” Sam said, honestly. “Mine was in the heat of the moment, too. This was the first time the guy couldn’t fight back, though.”

  “If you’d given him the chance he would have,” Danny said. “You can always tell when they’re never going to stop.”

  Was Corvin?

  “How?” Sam asked.

  “It’s a look they get in the eyes, Sammy,” Danny said. “I caught that one and he cut me and by the time I had him restrained he was looking at me with all that hate in his eyes. He didn’t say a damn thing with his lips but his eyes said ‘I want to watch you and everything you love burn’. The eyes don’t lie.”

  Corvin’s eyes had told him a very different story than any other part of him.

  “You’re thinking about something,” Danny said. “I can tell. Come walk with me, we’ll take some time and talk this over.”

  “I’m not sure I want to talk about it,” Sam said.

  “Alright,” Danny said, “that’s fine too, but walk with me anyway. Get some distance, clear your head, and if you still don’t want to talk when we arrive, that’s fine. You want to start at any point, I’m listening. Sound fair to you?”

  It actually did, as much as Sam didn’t want to admit it. He nodded and he and Danny started walking together.

  The water lapped. Sam folded his hands behind him and stared through the slats on the dock. He didn’t want to talk about Corvin, or admit to how close he’d gotten with the enemy. The question came to his mind, one of an appropriate level of severity, and it finally just slipped out.

  “How old were you when you knew you were gay?” Sam asked.

  “Well,” Danny said, “first of all, I’m not.”

  “But you brought that guy from the bar home last Christmas—” Sam said, and Danny lifted a hand to cut him off.

  “Bisexual,” he said. “I still like women just fine. Just not only women. It ain’t a problem, it’s just how it is. But given that’s the case, and people around here aren’t always friendly about the idea of two men together and because women didn’t really turn me off at any point it took me a while to get comfortable with and a while longer to really realize.”

  Sam hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and looked at Danny sidelong. He wondered, but he wasn’t going to ask again. It took a couple of steps for Danny to catch on.

  “I was in my twenties,” he said. “That’s not unusual, especially for cambion and nephilim. We tend to age slower than other people, that inhuman bloodline makes us take things slower. Not that your twenties is late for a human.”

  “You’re finding this difficult to talk about, aren’t you?” Sam asked.

  “More the bloodlines than anything, Sammy,” Danny said. “It’s complicated. I know you’ve grown up in a house with blooded folk and that our family’s status makes people think twice about saying anything about it, but you’re half of something they don’t understand and I had a very different experience with it than you did.”

  “How long do pure humans live, usually?” Sam asked. His brow was furrowed. He’d been aware, of course, that outsiders live longer but he’d never asked by how much. It never seemed relevant, or it felt inappropriate to ask.

  “They get eighty years, maybe ninety if they take care of themselves,” Danny said. “It makes it a hard choice. Now you know I gotta ask.”

  Sam sighed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “There’s a boy. He’s human.”

  He’s the son of one of my father’s biggest rivals. He almost shot me the other night. And then he saved my life with a broken bottle and he wants peace and an end to this as much as I do.

  Sam looked up at his uncle. The water continued to beat the sand in their lapse of silence. The horizon was gold and bloody red around the setting sun, and Danny was shrouded by that corona. It struck Sam in that moment just how much he did and did not look like his father.

  Joey had a strong jaw, but fine facial features with high cheekbones. Danny was all angles, and everything about him was heavy, but there was no denying they were brothers.

  “Which part of that is the part that bothers you?” Danny asked. His face was a perfect mask and he wasn’t looking at Sam.

  “Both,” Sam said. “Neither. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

  “It’s not as complicated as you’re making it out to be,” Danny said. “It’s going to be difficult. People are going to judge you. But Sammy, they’re judging you anyway. You’re a Trezza. You’re a nephil. And you have what it takes to do what needs doing and not look back. You can do this. Whether or not you should depends on how much it’s worth to you. Is he worth the looks you’re going to get from the veil?”

  It wasn’t the veil Sam was worried about.

  But was it worth it?

  Was Corvin worth some of the hate they would inevitably draw down on themselves? From their own families?

  Yes. That wasn’t a question. If they were normal boys, this wouldn’t be an issue. He knew his family would understand.

  But Corvin was going to die. He would die when Sam was only about halfway through his life and leave him middle-aged and alone. Dirty looks he was prepared for. Watching him wither and die? Sam wasn’t so sure.

  And he knew his family wouldn’t accept a Gater.

  “The age thing, then?” Danny asked.

  “That’s more like it,” Sam said, looking up at him. “Thank you for this. I’ll…take some time to think about it all, it’s a lot.”

  “Just remember that there isn’t a rush,” Danny said, nodding to him.

  Sam nodded back.

  “Wait up!”

  Joey stopped and looked over his shoulder to find Augury running up to meet him. The beaded fringe at the bottom of her skirt clacked wildly with every step, and when she finally caught up to him, she was breathing hard.

  “Barghest and I figured something out. Is your wife home?”

  “I was just about to find that out myself,” Joey said, gesturing to the door. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding to emphasize the point.

  “Alright then,” he said, and held the door open for her. She walked in, gesturing with her words as she spoke.

  “I need to talk to her if she has a good recollection of some of the harder to pin down names of entities. I have a couple of questions regarding higher level summoning in general that might be relevant to the case. Has anyone told you Callum hasn’t been the only victim in these stabbings?”

  Joey frowned.

  “No,” he said, “no one’s said anything like that. Are you sure it was the same people?”

  “They were all cambion,” she said. “They used the same weapon. They left similar calling cards. I couldn’t be much more sure.”

  “What’s going on?” Ophelia asked. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs with Ashes at her heels, and her eyes were only on Augury. He noticed she was wearing her Hellwatch breastplate.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Joey said.

  “I’m on my way to a meeting,” Ophelia said. “I have a minute if this is important. I have to assume it is if you’ve come all this way, Augury. Please.”

  She crossed the hall and into the kitchen. Augury followed, arms folded.

  “I need a list of what powerful entities we k
now exist,” Augury said, “and I need to know if you’ve ever encountered anything planar that wasn’t an angel or a demon.”

  “I’m not going to claim such a thing couldn’t exist but after all this time getting in contact with such a being…” Ophelia shook her head and took a seat at their kitchen table. It was a large oak one with thick legs and a tabletop that had survived their children’s shenanigans, slammed fists and once even a stray bullet when he’d first been teaching Callum how to shoot and the boy hadn’t yet learned how to stow his gun properly. It was a good sturdy table. One made to support a family.

  Joey sat beside her and took her hand. Ophelia squeezed it.

  “Difficult?” Augury asked. Ophelia nodded. “Impossible?”

  The silence stretched between them and Ophelia met her eyes. That seemed to be all Augury needed to know.

  “Listen,” she said, “I’ll get back to you just as soon as I know something more.”

  “See to it that you do,” Ophelia said. “I’ll get you that list tonight.”

  “Meanwhile,” Joey said, “I have business I need to see to. I’ll catch up with this later?”

  Ophelia nodded to him.

  Mirin was sitting in their usual spot. She looked like she’d been beaten pretty badly. She spat blood and looked up at him like this was just to be expected, and he sat beside her, folding his arms.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Gate Street,” she said, shrugging. It was clear she intended to leave it at that.

  “Take a break after this,” he said. “You’ve done enough. What do you have for me?”

  “The list of Julianne Geist’s properties,” she said, drawing an envelope out of her jacket and holding it out to him. Two of her fingers were taped together, as if to treat a break.

  “Thanks,” he said. His blood roiled on the inside. “Go find a healer.”

  “Boss?” she asked. He glanced back over his shoulder even as he turned to go. “It was Corvin Verida that let me out. I don’t know how much that matters to you.”

  He nodded his acknowledgment and made a note of the potential weak point. From there it was a simple enough matter to grab Danny and head to one of the addresses on the list. He leaned into the scrying mirror.