Torchlighters

by Megan R Miller

  “I can move him somewhere else if you’d prefer,” Ely said.

  “I’ll find you space in one of the warehouses,” Joey said. “Near the waterfront so you can dispose of him easily if it comes to that.”

  “I’m going to need a freezer,” Ely said. It was amazing how that had been such a source of contention in her mind before. How would she ask? And yet she simply did it now.

  “Fine,” Joey said. “Fine. But it’s time we had a talk about all this. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Found the dead rats, noticed some of the others skulking around with scars.”

  “The scars have gotten smaller,” Ely said. He wasn’t yelling. That honestly only made it worse.

  “Which only means you’ve been doing this a lot more than I was aware of,” Joey said. “If you’re going to feel the need to cut into things we’re going to have to do something constructive about it. How do you feel about medical school?”

  “That was honestly the goal I had in mind when I started in the first place,” Ely said. She hesitated. Hesitance was okay, it was what he would expect to see out of her. For a beat, two, maybe three. Four would be too much, would look calculating. Now comes regret. At the very least she should have the grace to look embarrassed. Now a glance up sidelong. “…are you mad?”

  “Concerned,” Joey said. He walked over to her. “Promise me he died fast. I know not all of the rats did.”

  Ely pulled back the sheet to reveal the bullet hole through his eye.

  “Instantly, or as close to it as I could have given him,” she said. “He was waving a gun at a friend of mine. The other choice was let it escalate until someone wound up dead.”

  “Someone did wind up dead, El,” Joey said, quietly.

  “Someone winds up dead a lot when you’re involved,” Ely said. “It’s like you taught us. We don’t let people get away with harming our own. The man this one threatened was under my protection so I protected him. It was a kinder death than a burning would have been and leaving the body or throwing it into the water would have been a waste when there’s so much to be learned from his flesh.”

  The truth came out of her in a rush.

  “You’re more ready than your mother thinks you are for all this,” he said, finally. He perched on one of the crates she had stacked along the side and crossed one leg over the other. It made the fabric of his trousers wrinkle. “I think I have something in mind for you to do, Ely. A job for you.”

  “Other than getting the dead body out of the basement?” she asked, smiling a little bit.

  “Yes,” he said, chuckling. It sounded genuine and that made her relax. He wasn’t angry, at least not enough to say anything more about it. “I’ve gotten some word that there’s a man in from Charon with something to sell that he thinks is going to change the landscape of the world. The aristocracy won’t have it so he’s gone to the underground, but since he came from inland, Gate Street got there first. I want you to find out what they’re talking about.”

  “I will,” Ely said, sitting up a little straighter. “But there’s something else. That friend of mine, the one I killed this man to save, he has something intriguing as well that you might be interested in.”

  “What is it, Ely?” Joey asked.

  She moved to the rusty sink on the south wall, degloved, and carefully scrubbed her hands clean before stepping over to her father.

  “My contact told me where there was a door into the catacombs. We’re reasonably sure that’s where the Gaters are working from. We’re still not sure how they have access, but we know there’s a door down there under the sacristy in the Orthodox cathedral,” she said.

  “Who was this contact and how did he know that?” Joey asked. He perched on a crate, eying her, and Ely climbed up to sit beside him.

  “That was Martin,” she said. “He’s in the medical program, works as a mortician and he studies architecture at the Academy. You could say he’s a regular renaissance man.”

  “I remember him. He worked on Callum’s case. Someone like that could be useful to have around,” Joey said.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Ely said, tucking the goggles back in her bag.

  “Find out more about it from him,” Joey said. “See if we can get some people down there and figure out where other entrances are and just how much catacomb there is to explore. As far as I know the guy coming in from Charon is going to be at the Ninth Circle later tonight. If you could go find out what he and the Gaters are going to be talking about, it’d be a big help. It’s neutral territory, Vivi would be stupid to try to hurt you there, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “That leaves me a lot of room,” Ely said, lips curling into a smile.

  “I’d worry if one of your brothers said that,” Joey said, chuckling again. Swiftly after, his smile faded. “Be careful.”

  “I always am,” she said. “I’ll come back and move the body after.”

  Callum instantly recognized the dagger in the man’s hand, and the sigil emblazoned on the side of it. The girl he had held against the alley wall tried to cry out, but the man’s hand clamped over her mouth. She bit him. Blood ran down his fingers and onto their clothes.

  He never saw Callum coming.

  He’d learned, by now, not to go for the quick kill. He drove the point of his dagger into the forearm of the man, causing him to let the girl go. She shoved at him and backed away a few paces before looking at Callum with an expression that was a mixture of fear and gratitude. Her hair was the kind of metallic that only came from an angelic bloodline. She was some sort of nephil. Her clothes were definitely upper crust.

  That exchanged look cost him. The man with the dagger took off at a dead sprint and Callum had a choice. Make sure the girl was okay or take off running after him. All it took was a second glance at the blood around her mouth from where she’d bitten the man’s hand to convince him she’d be okay; someone else might not be if this man wasn’t caught.

  The alleyways were a blur of brick and masonry. Callum threw himself around corners, his feet hitting the pavement in a staccato cadence as he did his best to close the gap. They fell into a maze of turns and at one point ran between two other alleys. A rush of air went past him from the openings and he heard footsteps behind him.

  Callum didn’t hesitate to grab a trash can and fling it behind him to trip up the people pursuing him. He never bothered to look back. Not even as the man disappeared around a corner.

  The throng of the theater district was overwhelming, but only for a second. Actors and patrons alike conducted themselves like peacocks, with colorful clothing and feather boas, and the deep brown of the man’s jacket actually managed to draw the eye for a moment. Callum took off after him at a run, shoving between a couple of people.

  The man with the dagger darted between two ladies who both cried out, and then did so again as Callum shoved them out of his way to follow. A large man with an open vest and a bare chest tried to step in his way and he darted nimbly around him without losing sight of his quarry.

  The impact was harsh, and would have driven the wind out of him if he hadn’t braced for it in the first place. He crashed hard into the man with the dagger in a springing tackle. As they fell to the ground, he caught the glint of the steel skittering into the crowd as the man abandoned it and Callum realized too late what was happening.

  “Help!” he shouted. “Help me, this mad man is assaulting me!”

  “You little fuck,” Callum growled.

  He managed to get two heavy hits in, drawing blood, before the man drew down the Hellwatch. A pair of heavy, meaty hands closed on Callum’s shoulders and pulled him away from the bleeding man beneath him.

  “That’s enough, son,” a deep voice said.

  Oh shit.

  He found himself lifted off of his crouch at the ground and spun around to face the captain of the Hellwatch himself. Barghest’s face was a hard mask, his eyes narrow as he reached out and plucked the mask from Callum’s face.
/>   “Trezza,” he said, sighing deeply. “What an unexpected surprise.”

  “I can explain this,” Callum said, his throat suddenly dry.

  “Save it for your mother,” Barghest said. There was a jangling sound as he drew cuffs from somewhere around his back.

  “Wait,” Callum said, voice suddenly high and full of alarm. “There’s a man with a dagger, he just took off—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Barghest said. He gestured at one of the officers down the street. “Come on, we have a call to make.”

  “Hold it, we can’t. I haven’t told her yet, she doesn’t know.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like your problem,” Barghest said. The metal cuffs went around Callum’s wrist and he ducked his head as Barghest shoved him through the crowd. “That’s enough, disperse, nothing to see here.”

  Anyone else might have been ineffectual, but Barghest’s words had the immediate effect of the crowd at least pretending to mind their own damn business. Barghest kept steering him along, keeping one hand on the metal cuffs.

  Callum wanted to heat them up but when he attempted to tense his fingers and summon afrite fire, nothing happened. He felt the sigils on the cuffs sear his bare wrists.

  “Don’t bother,” Barghest said. “Hellwatch knows how to deal with demons and you don’t have even half the stopping power of a full-blooded afrite. Behave yourself, nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  He half grumbled it and Callum took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. This man was going to call his mother. Shit. Shit! It was too soon and he had somewhere to be tomorrow evening, he couldn’t have this.

  Okay. Okay. Stay calm, Trezza, you’ll figure this out. This will be easier if you run with it, didn’t your dad say that at one point?

  “You got it, tin can,” Callum said, forcing himself to ease down. “Can I at least get you to listen to what I was doing back there?”

  “Oh you’re going to have to,” Barghest said.

  “I have the evidence,” Callum said. “Send someone back into the crowd to find the dagger with the sigil on it, they’re capturing souls for some kind of summoning ritual.”

  Barghest straightened and shouted something over his shoulder to the woman behind him. Callum couldn’t hear exactly what it was over the sounds of the crowd around them, but she nodded and headed off in the direction of the man Callum was sure had gotten away.

  “Call my Uncle Danny,” Callum said. “Please, I need to tell my mom myself.”

  “If you were going to do that you would have already,” Barghest said. “I take it you were responsible for those bodies in the alley?”

  “What bodies?” Callum asked. He lifted his chin in defiance. Barghest beelined them into a tram station.

  “We’ll see about it,” Barghest said. He kept a harsh hold on the chain between Callum’s hands the rest of the way through the lines and Callum kept his breathing even and watched the other members of the crowd. Tixi appeared and disappeared along his peripheral vision, sometimes running between the forest of legs here and sometimes coming closer and perching on people’s messenger bags and nearby ashtrays.

  Callum made eye contact with her a couple of times and when he was sure Barghest wasn’t looking, mouthed at her.

  ‘I need something to pick these locks with.’

  She cocked her head at him at certain moments, and disappeared in others. By the time they reached the end of the line, he was uncertain if she’d understood him, but she never completely left his field of vision.

  Maybe, he thought. Maybe. He noticed the other officer dragging a struggling hooded figure in behind them and that made him relax a little bit, at least. He’d be questioned. He wouldn’t be killing anyone else.

  The rest of the tram ride was spent in silence.

  When they reached the station there was an explosion of whispers as Barghest shoved Callum roughly toward his office. For a second, he was sure Barghest was going to let him go as he unlocked one of the cuffs, but that was only until he reattached Callum around the back of the chair.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, “and I’ll have questions.”

  “Wait,” Callum said. Barghest paused at the door to his office. “Let me give you my report first and then you can ask the rest of your questions and call my mother. At least give me long enough to explain the situation, please. I’m not going to talk unless I can do it now.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Start talking.”

  Barghest turned around in the doorway and leaned against the frame. Over his shoulder, Callum could see Tixi digging through a desk whose occupant had gone home for the evening and it took every ounce of his willpower not to look at her.

  “You’re aware of the cambion murders, right?” Callum asked. “And there have been a couple nephilim as well?”

  “You know about that,” Barghest said. His brow fell over his eyes like a shadow. “Keep talking, this had better be good.”

  “I was one of them,” Callum said. “They tried to kill me with a dagger with that sigil on it, your officer should have found it. The man I was after ditched it. It might be too late to catch him but it’s not too late for the evidence. I pretended I was dead because I thought it would be easier to find them if they thought they’d gotten me and I thought…”

  “You thought they wouldn’t go after another afrite if they thought you were dead,” Barghest deadpanned. “You still should have told your mother.”

  “I’m sure she’ll still agree with you, sir,” Callum said. “Whatever they’re doing they need one of each. That much I’m sure of. I’ve gotten information from several sources and we’re all in the process of figuring out the details but I’m telling you what I can. They have six out of seven cambion and I know they’re going after nephilim now. Do you know how many they have?”

  Barghest sighed.

  “I don’t see how it can hurt at this point,” he said. “There have been two.”

  “There would have been three today,” Callum said. “There was a half daeva under the blade, I stopped him from killing her. You’re welcome.”

  “We’ll see how much this helps,” Barghest said. “I’ll still need the names of your informants, but we’ll get your mother on her way here and then I can finish getting the rest of this report from you.”

  He turned the bulk of his mass and walked out of the room. A moment later, Tixi poofed into existence behind him, clinging to the back of the chair with her tail and tinkering softly with the locks at his wrist.

  “So boss,” she said. “How much candy am I getting out of this one?”

  “Five bags,” Callum said.

  She leaned around with one tiny clawed hand and gestured upward with a smug little smirk on her face.

  “You can do better,” she said. “Consider for a moment that I’m doing you a huge favor and how screwed you’ll be if I don’t come through.”

  “Ten,” Callum said.

  “Make it thirteen,” Tixi said. “I like that number.”

  Extorted by an imp. What would his father say?

  “Fine,” Callum said. “Just do it.”

  The lock clicked almost instantly and he leaned back to make sure Barghest wasn’t looking before he rose from his seat and crossed to the window.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” he breathed, thumbed the lock to the window open and shoved the glass aside. He could hear footsteps coming back toward him from behind and he had no choice but to leave the window open.

  Callum expected an angry shout as he left. He expected something, anything. There wasn’t. The cuff still hung off of one wrist, and he didn’t stop until he was sure no one was following.

  Tixi clung to his arm as she picked the remaining lock with a pair of paperclips and Callum’s very first stop was to the candy store. She’d earned this.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Trouble, Everywhere

  “The Voice of the Night here to talk about the Nightingales. How much do they actually know
? Word on the street is these ladies are trading more than just songs.

  The amount of information I’ve been able to get my hands on is pretty limited. They apparently recognized my voice and wouldn’t talk to me when I tried to flag one down. Consider this an open request for somebody to act as a proxy for me?

  Anyway, there are a lot of rumors that they’re prostitutes and plenty more that they’re just entertainers, but I’m reasonably sure that’s a lot of bunk. You know what makes people forget you’re there and puts you in a convenient place to hear a lot of things you wouldn’t otherwise?

  Being the entertainment.

  Unfortunately, I’d know all about that because some people aren’t taking my hard hitting reporting seriously out there.

  You know who you are.”

  After a morning of trying and failing to get a line to Martin, Elysia turned her attention to her other assignment. It would have to wait, and if he’d skipped town that was disappointing but understandable. Things had gotten tense.

  She hoped he’d gone somewhere warm.

  The Ninth Circle was a well known club for pleasure-seekers of all sorts. Madame Haywood kept a tight hold on everyone who entered and exited through that front door. The rules were simple; leave your colors at the door. Street bias was not welcome here. It didn’t matter if you were Torchlighter red, Gate Street gold or Hellwatch steel, you behaved yourself in Zenith’s house or you answered to her brother, Uther.

  What happened to Callum had happened outside. As much as Zenith had tried to keep Callum’s murder suppressed, people talked.

  There was no telling Ely she couldn’t be where she was, and as long as she paid and was careful not to sit where she was seen, she could listen in to a lot here.

  They had a magician on stage tonight. His hands were quick enough that even Ely couldn’t catch it when he palmed coins or where he produced his birds from. Several women at nearby tables simply couldn’t keep their eyes off of the man, and she had to imagine it made his misdirection that much easier. He threw her a wink as she walked by. She snorted and made her way over to the bar.