“Let’s make this quick and painless,” Eliot snarled, but there was as much urgency behind the words as threat. Ilsa resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder for advancing Psi cloaks. “We know you’ve been trading information for vemanta. Tell us what he wanted from you and we’ll let you live.”
“Long as there’s no riddles,” amended Ilsa. Eliot flashed her an approving smile.
Hardwick stared venomously at her, spittle spraying from his lips as he regurgitated the mantra: “Yours not to—”
He was cut off as the back of Ilsa’s hand met his cheekbone sharply. She didn’t revel in making a man fear for his life, but she had a real lead on her brother and nothing was going to stop her. “Would you keep to your oath if you were choking it out through your own blood?”
Hardwick just continued to stare.
“I s’pose you don’t value your life then” – unable to resist a little showmanship, she wiggled her fingers and showed him up both sleeves before she magicked back the vemanta tin she had lifted from his pocket when she hit him – “how ’bout this?”
Eliot’s eyebrows shot up, and he pressed the knife harder to the man’s throat. “We know how to cut off your supply. Die or don’t die, it’ll be a long, painful wait for your next pipe.”
He continued to struggle, but his heart was no longer in it; they’d found his real weakness, and it was the same as Lila’s. “He had us visit the temple and pay our respects to the Seer,” Hardwick blurted, “but it wasn’t the Seer he was interested in.”
“It was the apprentice, we know,” said Ilsa.
Within his limited range of motion, Hardwick shook his head. “No. Cogna wanted him. He did not want Cogna.”
Eliot’s and Ilsa’s eyes met, and each saw their confusion mirrored.
“What’d he tell you to do at the temple?” said Ilsa.
“Find the crypt,” choked Hardwick. “He needed to know if it was true what he heard. That there’s a crypt under the temple.”
“Is there? A crypt?” said Eliot. Hardwick hesitated, so with a flash Eliot slashed the blade across his cheek. The crimson blood was especially chilling against the pale sheen of his skin. The Oracle howled.
“Yes! There’s a crypt, yes! The alpha went to break in and found Cogna instead. Whatever the alpha wants, it isn’t there.”
Ilsa wanted to ask what Gedeon had been after, where he was, anything, but their time was up. On the footbridge above them, quick footfalls were approaching. She spun; men and women, all in capes of various shades of pink, were looking down on them like spectators around an arena.
The cloaks had them surrounded. It was a good job they could grow wings.
Eliot shoved Hardwick away from him. His eyes swept the cloaks above despairingly, but he spared a glare for Ilsa. “Too late for diplomacy now. Think small,” was all he said before turning into a sparrow.
Ilsa followed suit, but couldn’t help questioning the wisdom of Eliot’s words; fast, not small, was usually her first rule of escape.
But she quickly learned why small was better, when the first missile came at them. It was a dustbin lid, lifted psychokinetically from the street below and used to herd them in the direction of another missile; a basket of mushrooms stolen from a cart. On all sides, whatever objects their hunters could find filled the air and manoeuvred to trap them, and only their diminutive size allowed them to evade capture. They moved erratically, around buildings, over and under bridges, back on themselves, until the Psi had lost sight of them amidst their own enchanted jumble. Ilsa hung on Eliot’s tail, determined not to find herself alone down here.
A horn sounded, then another. A cacophony of brass notes sang out, alerting more cloaks to their presence. Before they were out of range of the first wave of Psi missiles, more magenta capes flashed below and a wall of nets rose above them, fine enough to catch even a sparrow. Ilsa beat her wings in a frenzy, straining for a gap, but there was nowhere to escape to but below, where the cloaks waited with restraints that looked alarmingly like the ones Cadell Fowler had used to stopper her power.
If Ilsa could only fight in one form, it wasn’t going to be a sparrow. As the small, walled-in square below got near, she commanded her muscles to change again, and she hit the ground on the four massive paws of a giant snow leopard. Eliot changed too, becoming his favourite panther. They were surrounded on three sides by magenta-clad Psi, a wall at their backs. Ilsa’s hackles raised. They could shred a dozen cloaks each, but they would still be in their territory, surrounded.
They had broken the Principles by using their magic outside the Changeling quarter, but they had only shifted. They hadn’t hurt or threatened any Psi. Hardwick had used his magic too. A Whisperer could do so without ever being detected. Ilsa’s righteous anger burst out of her in the form of a snarl. She flexed her claws, daring the Psi to come closer or ensnare her with their ropes. What would they do to them once they were captured? If they were slaughtered, would the others ever find Gedeon?
But before anyone could move, birdsong sounded above them, and the Psi gaped as a third bird swooped low above the square.
In the chaos of one chase and then another, Ilsa had forgotten their tail. He had been trained in stealth by the very best, had stuck close to their heels, paws and wings, and it seemed he was shadowing them still.
The bird was a nightingale – then a macaw, then a swan, then not a bird at all but something in the fox family, its gangly limbs flailing in thin air as it fell to earth.
Fyfe landed in an inelegant human heap with a defeated sigh, but when he pulled himself up it was with a slow, methodical motion, like someone trying not to provoke a growling bulldog. He half-turned towards them, locked eyes with Ilsa, and brushed back his coat to reveal a sort of toolbelt, loaded with coloured pellets.
Dampeners. They were getting out of here after all.
Ilsa snagged Eliot’s attention with a soft growl. She couldn’t tell him to do as she did, but he understood all the same, and followed suit when she turned back into a sparrow.
“Now!” yelled Fyfe, as he launched a pellet in either hand and plunged the Psi into a magenta fog.
Above the roofs of the square, nets were still waiting to enclose on them, but as three birds took flight, they began to sag in place like roses wilting in a vase, before fainting out of the air. Footsteps chased them and horns sang out their direction, but no enchanted obstacles rose from the magenta smoke. As they darted back towards the safety of a Camden-bound staircase, the snares of more cloaks came to greet them. But each time they did, Fyfe crash-landed on a rooftop, briefly became human, and launched another handful of pellets. The soldiers were unharmed, but robbed of their powers. Ilsa laughed – it came out in a gleeful chirrup – to think she’d once thought of Fyfe as a golden retriever. For all his boyish gawkiness, his sweet humility, and atrocious shifting, he might have been one of the most dangerous people in the Witherward.
Suddenly, every Psi in the Underground was powerless to stop their escape. They shrieked as Ilsa, Eliot, and Fyfe swooped low above their heads to aim through the tunnel that would take them to the surface. When they finally burst into the waning evening sunshine and left the Psi border guards far behind them, Ilsa was so giddy on adrenaline she botched her landing, turning human too soon, and went sprawling onto the pavement.
24
Fyfe helped Ilsa up, a cocky grin pulling at one corner of his mouth, but an alarmed glint in his eyes.
“Do I want to know what that was about?” he said.
Before Ilsa could reply, Eliot stepped between them, gaze searing into Fyfe. “You followed us,” he said darkly.
“I think the words you’re looking for,” snapped Ilsa, hands on hips, “are ‘thanks for saving our hides’. We’d be throw rugs by now if it weren’t for him.”
“If anyone recognised Fyfe or me, that future is still not beyond the realms of possibility.” He had turned his ruthless fury on Ilsa now, but that was fine with her. At least she deserved it. “If the Psi
hesitate to skin us, Hester certainly won’t. You broke the Principles.”
“Well the Principles are stupid,” said Ilsa, the injustice fresh and still burning.
Eliot rolled his eyes melodramatically and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Stupid,” he intoned.
“We din’t hurt no one! Well, no Psi, anyhow. And we got what we needed.”
“Which was what?” Their heads snapped to Fyfe, and Ilsa could see his investigator’s mind picking through every detail of the afternoon. There would be no keeping anything from Fyfe any longer. “Tell me what you’re up to and I’ll take the blame,” he added when no one answered. “If this comes back to bite us, I’ll say I was conducting some field research, I set a dampener off by mistake and it escalated. Hester’s never been able to shout at me.”
Ilsa and Eliot exchanged glances.
“Of course, the business with that Oracle will be hard to explain.” Fyfe’s expression was exaggeratedly grave. “But with the details I’m sure I could make something of that as well.”
His eyes darted between them as they stared it out. Something in Eliot’s expression revealed layers of unease Ilsa couldn’t account for.
“He saw everything,” she said. “And we owe him. And we ain’t getting nowhere fast just the two of us.”
Eliot closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. “That’s a double negative,” he muttered, stalking past them in the direction of a drab-looking pub.
* * *
The Screeching Hen sat on another “weak spot”, and just like its equal in the Otherworld, it was particularly grim. The saloon was in the cellar; a narrow space little wider than a corridor with too few windows and too-dark wood. Even the necessary presence of a roaring fire did little to brighten the room, so on heady, late summer evenings such as this, it was inevitably deserted.
They took a table in the corner furthest from the bar, ordered a carafe of wine, and sat with heads close together.
“Why are you carrying an arsenal of dampeners?” began Eliot.
“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail,” said Fyfe. “When I saw you were sneaking off together, I assumed it was out of Camden. That, or a love affair.”
Fyfe seemed to regret the words as soon as they left his mouth. The awkwardness leached around the table from one pair of eyes to the next, like a round robin.
So Ilsa jumped in and explained everything she and Eliot had been doing. She started with Eliot’s discovery that Gedeon was using the city’s vemanta supply to control its Oracle users for information.
“That’s awfully clever,” said Fyfe, eyes cutting to Eliot. “It sounds like… well, it sounds like something you’d come up with.”
Eliot stiffened. Malice flashed across his features, but Ilsa kicked him under the table and he calmed himself. “I don’t know where Gedeon is, Fyfe.”
“I believe you,” Fyfe mumbled, and he swallowed a long gulp of his wine. “I just meant that it was very well done.”
Ilsa went on with how they had used a little bribery themselves to find Brecker & Sons, and what they’d managed to get out of Freddie Hardwick before their time was up.
“Gedeon din’t go to the Docklands to get that apprentice at all. He was trying to break into some crypt.”
“One would assume a crypt at the temple would be for dead Seers,” said Fyfe, frowning. “But disgraced Seers are executed by fire and their ashes are poured into the Thames.”
“And we know how well the Docklands like to execute their leaders.”
Fyfe nodded. “They’ve done away with two in my lifetime, if memory serves. If a crypt existed for the remains of the honourable ones, it would be no surprise if we’d never heard of it. It would be practically unused.”
“Lucky for us,” said Eliot. “The less that’s down there, the less Gedeon could have been looking for.”
“But Hardwick said whatever Gedeon was looking for weren’t in the crypt,” said Ilsa. “So what would he do next? Where’s he gonna look?”
Fyfe shook his head. He was chewing his lip, lost in thought. “That’s not a good question.”
“Pardon?” said Ilsa, affronted.
“No. I’m sorry. I mean… of course it’s a good question, it’s just not the one we need to answer. Eliot, that acolyte you interrogated. He told you Cogna met with Gedeon at the border of the Docklands.”
“That’s correct.” Understanding dawned in Eliot’s eyes. Ilsa reached it too. “Because Cogna saw him coming.”
“Hardwick said Gedeon din’t want Cogna. Cogna wanted Gedeon.”
“So the question’s no longer what Gedeon would do next,” said Fyfe grimly. “It’s what Cogna’s going to do.”
There was a silence as they all came up short. Ilsa couldn’t anticipate her brother’s next move with so little information, let alone some Oracle’s.
After a long, aching moment, Eliot shook his head and downed his drink.
“Gedeon has abandoned the Zoo, robbed from half the city, and broken the Principles. It wasn’t all for nothing.” He turned to Fyfe. “He has a goal. Would the Gedeon you know be persuaded away from what he wants by some runaway Oracle with their own agenda?”
Fyfe shook his head. “He’s stubborn. And persistent.”
“Exactly. If Gedeon was after something he hoped was in that crypt, then he’s after it still. We need to know more about this apprentice, you’re right. But we also need to know who’s entombed in that crypt.”
When Eliot looked at Fyfe again, Ilsa was relieved to see his wrath had been subdued. “I suppose thanks is due again, Fyfe.”
“You din’t thank him the first time,” Ilsa muttered.
“I should have trusted your intelligence weeks ago.”
A furious blush spread up Fyfe’s face all the way to his ears.
“And for another thing too,” he added, “if you’ll oblige me. The acolyte said Cogna was different; that they couldn’t See him—”
“Or her,” interjected Ilsa.
“—or her. So coercing random Oracles has reached the limits of its usefulness. We’re going to have to tap another source for information, one outside of the Docklands.” Fyfe nodded his understanding as they stood to leave. “I’ll research this crypt, you two – Cogna.”
“What other source of information?” Ilsa murmured to Fyfe as they exited the pub into a dwindling warmth. “What’s he mean?”
Fyfe grinned, his eyes alight. “He means you and I are going to Whitechapel.”
25
“The Docklands want to kill me.”
“Yes,” said Fyfe.
“It ain’t just an empty threat.”
“Oh, they’re committed.”
“And it ain’t some rebel unit or secret society – it’s the whole bloody faction.”
“Seer’s orders.”
“Then tell me again,” said Ilsa, crossing her arms, “why we’re ’bout to go knock on some senior Oracle’s door and ask for a chat?”
This was where she and Fyfe were headed. In order to find a neutral, cooperative Oracle beyond the Docklands – one who might tell them more about the Seer’s apprentice without hoarding secrets or bartering for vemanta – they needed to visit the Whisperer quarter.
“You don’t need to be afraid of Jorn, Ilsa,” said Fyfe, grinning.
“Who said afraid?”
Fyfe grinned wider. “He’s important to the Docklands, yes, but Jorn isn’t the ambassador in Whitechapel because he cares. He’s the ambassador because he gets to live the life he wants away from those he answers to. Not standing up for your people is messy morally, but fighting for them is messy literally.” Fyfe held his hands palms up like he was weighing the two, and his grin became a grimace. “And Jorn just bought an expensive Belugian rug.”
Ilsa narrowed her eyes, but she hadn’t made it to seventeen by questioning people’s reasons for not wanting to kill her. “Well I wouldn’t want to mess up his new rug, neither. Long as we’re agreed.”
The mid-morning sun
was already sweltering when Fyfe tugged her out the door, but Ilsa was dismayed to find there was no carriage waiting.
“We’re walking?” she whined.
“It’s not far,” said Fyfe. “Besides, it’s better to avoid the fanfare of a carriage and guard detail on a mission like this.” He delighted on calling the trip a mission, and had done so thrice already. “Whitechapel is unlike anywhere else in the city. When its people can conduct all their business without ever breathing a word out loud, the smallest of disturbances could attract unwanted attention. Eliot was very insistent that if I take you with me, we slip in and out.”
They came to the edge of the park and peeled east towards the Whisperer quarter.
“He don’t think I can handle myself against a Whisperer?”
Fyfe rolled his eyes, but smiled affectionately. “Sometimes, you’ve got too much fight in you. Try not to handle yourself against anyone.”
Ilsa pantomimed cracking her knuckles. “It’s the street urchin in me. Can’t help myself.”
King’s Cross marked the boundary of Camden Town and Whitechapel, so it wasn’t long until the border loomed and Ilsa was trying not to stare at another breed of soldier.
The Whitechapel stewards were dressed in their faction’s midnight blue. Their double-breasted coats with gleaming silver buttons, black gloves and patent leather shoes gave them the appearance of Otherworld constables, if not for the matching half-capes cascading from one shoulder. They were more elegantly dressed, and more fearsomely disciplined in appearance, than any of the militia she had met.
And, to her surprise, they were armed. Not with claws or spells or hovering nets, but with more metal and fire power than any man would ever need if this was the Otherworld. Here, they were probably still weak against the likes of a Wraith.
The stewards squared themselves as Ilsa and Fyfe approached.
Men in police uniforms and good old-fashioned guns; finally, some fears Ilsa was accustomed to. It made her homesick. Almost.
“We need to state our purpose for coming,” Fyfe murmured in her ear. “Telepathically, I mean. Hold meeting Jorn in your mind and keep the rest locked away.”
Witherward Page 30
