Hale, Ginn

by Wicked Gentleman (lit)

  "That's good," Harper replied. "Have you seen Edward?"

  " I...I've kept track of him, but we haven't spoken..." She glanced up at the bright blue sky on the ceiling and shook her head. "How could we? What could I possibly say that would make things all right between us?"

  "You could let him know that you aren't dead."

  "Do you honestly think it would do him any good? At least this way there's a clean ending. He can remember me as a faithful, darling wife who died at the hands of criminals. It's sad, but God knows it has to be better than telling him that I was in love with another man. Or that I'm a Prodigal. Or that I went out of my mind and burned his house down. What would it do to him to know those things?"

  "I don't know, but I think he deserves the truth."

  "You wouldn't tell him, would you?" She stared at him, and Harper shook his head.

  "You know I wouldn't tell anyone." The thought made him glance back to where Belimai lay sleeping. Joan's secrets had given him a reason to approach Belimai.

  "Who's your guest?" Joan cocked her head to the side and looked past Harper to the bed.

  "Belimai Sykes. He's recovering from a bout of flu." Harper gave her the same lie he and Mrs. Kately had offered the staff.

  "I've seen him before...at St. Christopher's. He helped me."

  "He was also at Scott-Beck's office when you torched it. You nearly killed him." Harper tried to keep the recrimination out of his voice, but it was hard. Not only had Joan nearly killed Belimai, but she had destroyed any evidence that Harper might have used to bring charges against Abbot Greeley for his involvement.

  "I don't remember much about that." She ran her hand through her hair and a thin cloud of dust drifted up from her fingers into the bright morning light. "Do you have him handcuffed for a reason?"

  Harper simply ignored the question. He had kept Joan's secrets from Belimai; the least he could do was give Belimai the same courtesy.

  "Why did you come to see me?" Harper asked.

  "You aren't going to hurt him, are you?" Joan asked.

  "The last thing in this world that I would do is hurt him," Harper said flatly. "Now, tell me why you're here."

  "It's Nick Sariel—"

  "Doesn't anything happen without involving that man?" The name alone was becoming a physical pain to Harper. Joan stepped back from him slightly.

  "I didn't think the two of you were on such bad terms."

  "He blames me for Peter's death, and I—" Harper cut himself off. Even when he and Joan had been at their closest, Harper had kept his desires and temptations to himself. "I'm just sick of every living Prodigal thinking I'm his enemy."

  "I know you're not my enemy, Will."

  Harper was surprised at the sudden softness in his sister's tone. She smiled at him.

  "Things have just been so confused...so hard. I haven't always been thinking straight, but I've never hated you. I've never blamed you."

  "I know." Harper took the four steps that closed the distance between them. "You know that I don't blame you either, don't you? I'm sorry as hell about Peter and for Edward, but mostly I just miss having you around."

  Harper took her hands carefully in his and gave her a reassuring squeeze, just as he had always done in the past. The same small gesture had always conveyed his love: after their mother's death, after their father's disappearance, throughout their lives. He hadn't known that one gesture was all his sister had been waiting for, just a single sign that they were still brother and sister.

  "I've missed you too, Will." Joan pressed against his chest, hugging him. "It's been like some terrible nightmare that I can't wake up from. All I could think of was how furious I was, how much I missed Peter. And I kept thinking that I should have been there with him. I should have been down in Hells Below living with him, not hiding behind Edward and you, pretending I was someone I'm not."

  "Even if you had been there, you couldn't have saved him." Harper wrapped his arms around her.

  "I might have," she whispered against his shirt. "If I had been with him instead of running and hiding, who knows how it would have turned out?" Harper heard the tremble in her voice and the slight pause as she pulled herself back from the point of tears. She sniffed and drew a step back from him.

  "This time I want to do things differently, but I need your help."

  "They've arrested Sariel, haven't they?" In the back of his mind, Harper had known they would. Sariel was one of the few remaining Prodigals who could fly. Between that and his involvement in Good Commons, he made the perfect scapegoat for the murder of Lord Cedric's niece.

  "They took him in for questioning six days ago, and we've heard nothing from him since."

  "They're probably torturing a confession out of him."

  "But he hasn't done anything," Joan said.

  "He doesn't have to have done anything. There are plenty of crimes that have already been committed. They'll just assign one of those to him."

  "Can you get him out?" Joan asked.

  "Possibly." Harper felt suddenly very tired. Part of him didn't even want to get Sariel out. A deep, bitter vein of malice within him wanted Sariel to suffer as Belimai had suffered.

  He wondered what Belimai would do if he found out that Sariel was in Inquisition custody. Would he collapse back into addiction? Or more likely, and far worse, he would confess to the murder himself to get Sariel released.

  "It's not just Nick, either," Joan went on. "Two days ago they took Edward into custody also."

  For a moment, Harper was simply too stunned by the idea to react.

  "They took him in for questioning. I think they suspect that I'm the one who killed Scott-Beck," Joan said.

  "I doubt it has to do with that." Harper's head was beginning to throb with tense pain. Somewhere in the very back of his thoughts, a count was beginning. He was already two days too late to save Edward. Every passing moment brought Edward closer to breaking down into a forced confession.

  "Why else would they take Edward in?" Joan asked. "He's never done anything wrong in his life."

  "It's not your fault, Joan. If anything, it's mine." Harper pressed his fingers up against the sides of his temple as if he could some-how just push the sharp bursts of pain back from his awareness. "I'll have to leave right away."

  "We can go right now if you want. I'll need a fresh horse, but there should be several in the stable—"

  "No. I need you to stay here." Harper dug into his pocket and handed the keys to his handcuffs to his sister. "Look after Belimai for me. He's going to need someone to be here with him. Just, whatever you do, don't tell him about Sariel, all right?"

  "I haven't even agreed to stay," Joan protested.

  "Joan, please don't make me waste time arguing with you about this. Edward is in a House of the Inquisition. If I get to him quickly, I might be able to do something, but I can't just leave Belimai here alone."

  "Fine. I'll stay."

  "Thank you." Harper hugged her once quickly. He turned to go and then stopped for a moment to watch Belimai shift in his sleep.

  "Tell him I'm sorry," Harper said to his sister, and then he left.

  Chapter Seven

  Rust

  Harper drew in a last drag from his cigarette, then flicked the short butt into a murky stream of rainwater trick-ling past his feet. The ember extinguished with a hiss that was almost inaudible beneath the wail of the city alarm. Searchlights flared through the dark sky, illuminating the ornate faces of the nearby buildings. The lights swept over the carved facade of the High Cross Library and then shot through the crystal dome of the Water Works Building. All along the Civic Plaza, Inquisitors rushed from building to building, evacuating workmen, academics, and public servants. Teams of acolytes raced back and forth, shutting off the gas lines.

  Harper watched as the last engineers were hustled out of the Water Works Building. He ducked back into the alley beside the Notary Building as an elderly Sister of Scriptures was dragged shrieking from the library. T
wo angry Inquisitors carried her away.

  Just ahead of him, the glass housing of a streetlamp exploded. Flames burst up through the pipes. Blinding blue light arced into the air as the lime filament seared to vapor. Harper pulled his cap low over his eyes and rushed out from the narrow alley. He strode purposefully past two white-faced acolytes who gaped at the geyser of flame.

  "Don't just stand there with your gobs open! Get clear before the gas main blows!" Harper shouted over the howling siren. The acolytes immediately fled back behind the fire-barricades. Harper strode ahead into the Water Works Building.

  "This is the last warning!" Harper shouted as he walked across the marble foyer toward the pump rooms. Shafts of light splintered and flashed around him as another searchlight swept across the crystal dome above. Shadows twisted and jumped, then the search-light passed and darkness enveloped the room. No one seemed to have lingered. Harper continued to call out as he walked to the maintenance stairs, just in case.

  "We need everyone out of this building. There's been a rupture in the street gas line. This is the last warning." As Harper descended the winding iron staircase, the noise from the plaza faded. A deep thrum pulsed out from the turbines. It vibrated through the massive pipelines and through the rungs of the stairs spiraling down around them.

  With all the gas lines shut down, the only sources of illumination remaining were dim phosphor lamps that hung from the handrail. They bathed Harper in a dull green glow. He unclipped one of the cylindrical lamps and continued down. As he descended, the air grew thick and stagnant.

  At the bottom of the staircase, Harper entered a long concrete corridor. Heavy iron hatches, each leading to a maintenance shaft, lined the walls. Harper checked the letters and numbers engraved above each of the hatches. Mt 22-21, Mrk 1-14, Mt 10-8.

  "Matthew, Mark, and Matthew again," he whispered.

  One of his first assignments in the Inquisition had been in these maintenance shafts. Harper had spent nearly a week searching for a lost Prodigal child. Eventually he had found her, but in the intervening time he'd learned how completely the maintenance shafts infiltrated the city. Anywhere a major water pipe existed, a maintenance shaft ran alongside it. And there were water pipes everywhere. The only problem was finding the right one.

  Harper held up the phosphor lamp and read the encoding over the hatch he had just reached, Deut 15-6. "Deuteronomy, chapter 15, verse 6. 'Lend unto many nations, but borrow of none, so shall thou reign over many.' Pipes for the Banker's rows, I'll bet."

  He turned and walked past three more hatches. At last, he found the one marked Deut 19-18. Harper smirked at the wordplay of the chosen verse: And the judges shall make diligent inquisition.

  The hatch screeched a sharp protest as Harper forced the rusted bearings of the hinge to swing open. Rank yellow water dribbled out from the open shaft. The air smelled both stale and putrid. Clearly, the water pipes leading to the Brighton Inquisition House hadn't been checked in a few years. Harper ducked inside, pulling the hatch closed behind him.

  The shaft was narrow and tall. Water seeped from the pipe running overhead and spattered down onto Harper's cap. A stagnant stream of water rippled around his ankles. Harper moved fast through the dank pools, his phosphor lamp casting an eerie green glow over the water. Where the maintenance shaft split into a Y juncture, he scanned the concrete walls for the few short letters that indicated the streets far above him.

  Movement soothed his mind. It almost drowned out the incessant count of seconds that ran through his head. He had, perhaps, another half hour before the Inquisitors completely evacuated the Civic Plaza. After that, it would only take a quarter of an hour be-fore one of them discovered that the gas lines were fine. Harper had simply tampered with the intake valves of a few streetlamps to ensure that their explosive displays set off the city alarms.

  Harper broke into a run. It eased him to finally take action. Forced to watch and wait for Belimai to surface from his private torture all of the previous week, he had felt helpless. It had drawn him perilously close to prayer, and Harper knew he no longer had the faith for that.

  But motion fed him. His muscles devoured the space between himself and his desire. He poured himself into the pure sensation of his body. He leapt up onto an access ladder and climbed into an adjoining shaft. He raced through the second shaft, ducking and jumping the smaller water pipes that cut across his path.

  At last he stood directly under the Brighton Inquisition House. He clipped the phosphor lamp onto a narrow pipe and gripped the rusted entry hatch with both hands. Even through his gloves, the metal felt rough. Harper shoved hard against the hatch, feeling the ragged metal bite into the palm of his right hand. The thick seal of rust cracked with a low scrape, and the hatch swung open. Harper crawled forward through the series of tiny chambers that buffered the Inquisition House in case of a burst pipe. He climbed a narrow rung ladder up to a final hatch, forced it open, and pulled himself out onto a cracked tile floor.

  The pump room was cluttered with an assortment of mops, brooms, and valve wrenches. Harper wrung the water out of his pant cuffs. His right palm stung. He squeezed his hand closed around the cut. He straightened his cap and left the pump room.

  The Inquisition House wasn't empty, but there were fewer men than usual. Most were still out at the Civic Plaza, Harper guessed. He climbed an immaculate white staircase to the third floor. His heart beat in his chest like a jackrabbit in a wire trap. An acolyte passed him. They exchanged brief smiles.

  Harper strolled past two more Inquisitors and let himself into the records room with his own key. Once he had pulled the door closed, he raced to the open cases. He flipped rapidly through break-ins, stabbings, robberies, and heresies.

  At last he found Edward's name. He was being held as a witness for prosecution against Nick Sariel and another undisclosed suspect. Harper folded the page of charges up, slipped it into his pocket, and then looked over the record of Edward's testimony. Harper knew better than to feel betrayed at seeing his own name disclosed. He hadn't expected Edward to be able to hold out against trained Confessors.

  Harper added the testimony to his pocket and then scanned through the files for Nick Sariel's name among Captain Brandson's cases. The file was nearly an inch thick. Harper skipped over Nick Sariel's past crimes and dug out the recent accusations. An unsigned confession waited in the file. Harper found his own initials penciled in several times beside the word accomplice. The handwriting wasn't Brandson's; it was Abbot Greeley's.

  For a moment Harper simply stared at the page. He didn't know why it surprised him that Abbot Greeley would frame him for murder. Greeley hated him, and Harper was a liability to him. And yet Harper hadn't expected the abbot to sink so far.

  Harper pocketed the confession and then dropped Nick Sariel's entire file inside another sheaf of papers containing cases that were up for dismissal. It was doubtful that Nick would be released, but at least the lost paperwork would delay his interrogation.

  From the floors below, Harper heard a rising rumble of voices. The first of the Inquisitors were returning from the false alarm at the Civic Plaza. Soon, men would come bustling in to file their reports. Harper thought he heard familiar voices coming up the stairs.

  He slipped out of the records room and took the back stairs down to the first floor. He passed a few other Inquisitors, but they took as little note of him as they did of each other. The broad black lines of his uniform melted into the mass of other Inquisitors on the first floor.

  Harper's pulse beat wildly. If he was caught now, he could offer no reasonable explanation. The idea of fighting his way free was ludicrous. Inquisitors were everywhere. The brilliant white halls were filled with the whispers of their black coats. Men bumped and jostled past Harper. For the first time in his life, Harper felt unsafe among them.

  From a distance he caught sight of Miller. As usual, Reynolds was beside him. Harper dropped back, pacing himself along-side an acolyte. He kept his gaze averted as Miller a
nd Reynolds passed him.

  Just ahead, Harper noted a shock of red hair amidst the sea of black caps. Captain Brandson had forgotten his cap again. Harper whispered silent thanks for that. Miller and Reynolds might not have been watching for him, but Brandson would be.

  Harper quickly turned down the hall and took a back corridor to the witness holding cells. He couldn't get past the heavy security in the Prodigal section, but at least he could try to free Edward.

  Harper didn't know the young man standing guard, and he hoped that the man didn't recognize him either. Harper stopped himself from pulling his cap a little lower.

  "I need to take one of the witnesses down to the engines." Harper paused as if the name weren't burning on his lips. "Talbott. I believe the first name is Edward."

  The young guard hardly looked beyond the shining silver insignias on Harper's collar. He scanned through the ledger of the prisoners and then pushed the book and a cell key to Harper. Harper paused only an instant as he glanced at the previous sig-natures in the prisoner ledger. He signed in Brandson's initials, took the key, and went to Edward's cell.

  Two cells down another Inquisitor was checking in on a witness of his own. Harper hoped that Edward was still cognizant enough to keep quiet. He unlocked the door and stepped into the small cell.

  Edward crouched on a narrow cot with his legs drawn up and his face pressed down into his knees. The confessor had not been gentle with him. His right arm was bandaged from the elbow down. Splints jutted out from under his first two fingers. Edward didn't even glance up.

  "Don't take me back there," Edward whispered. "I'll sign what-ever you want. Just don't take me back."

  Harper closed the cell door and strode to Edward. He clamped his hand over Edward's mouth and tilted his head back. Edward looked up into Harper's face. His eyes went wide and he gave a muffled gasp against Harper's gloved palm.

  "I can get you out of here," Harper whispered, "but afterward you're going to be a wanted man."

  Edward nodded. Harper drew his hand back. He was shocked when Edward lunged forward and gripped him in a hard, desperate embrace.