by Jason Letts
“If they get so much as a paper cut, I promise I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. But I should encourage you to do it. Help me escape from what I am bound to do,” she said. The sensation of cold steel against her temple made her quake. It would be so much easier to do that than to have to uphold her part of the black contract, which was waiting for her devastatingly close in the future.
“Your Moa…it’s changing,” the Defender gasped. Tris nodded, remembering the first time he’d told her about Moa, which the Mind had discovered was the Defender’s ability to see the pull of death from outside of life.
“I no longer resist the end. I welcome it. Now carry on, strike down your foes, and say goodbye to the woman you need for your ritual at the Jagged Edge, or leave this place at once and no longer meddle in our affairs.”
The Defender lowered the bloody sword that continued to drip letters in blood onto the floor. He seemed to have boundless energy rippling through his skin and cloak, but he didn’t move forward another inch.
“You’d give up your life for them, these people that you loathe?” he asked.
“Yes, if it makes things better for this city,” Tris answered, finding a new similarity between herself and Lowell.
“When you come to regret this, I’ll be waiting.”
The firelight danced over the Defender as he stepped back into the shadows and vanished. Tris knew he was gone for good before Velo and Portia even got to their feet. She took the gun from her head and returned it to the folds of her dress, at once pleased and disappointed that she had scraped her way through.
“Now, where were we?” Tris said, turning again to her unnerved guests.
“We were just in shock at the utter disregard for security,” Portia chided. “Half a dozen of our men are dead on the floor only a few feet away, and several more are hightailing it back to our ship. I have a good mind to follow them. How do you expect us to enter into any kind of deal with you when you can’t even keep your own throne room free of phantom thugs?”
“I agree,” Velo said between deep huffs. “This is an insult! This poor reception has made it clear to me that the Wozniaks will find no suitable partners here, and I will get revenge on you, the Virtuoso who sat idly by while my life was in danger, and this entire city. The Wozniak Conglomerate knows exactly how to deal with a den of murderers and thieves.”
Tris had lost her patience. She hadn’t endured their bickering and then driven away the Defender with her own life on the line only for this to all fall apart.
“Be quiet, both of you! That man hasn’t changed the reasons why you sailed all the way here to make a trade deal in a city you’d scarcely heard of. You’re here because Cumeria is falling apart, and you know full well that you need to extend your operation beyond its borders or risk getting sucked under in the implosion. The Virtuoso will gladly compensate you for your goods, but know that we won’t be agreeing to anything that allows you to uproot people from their farms or let you monopolize the city’s markets. Having a wealthy new trade partner is more than enough, and the price we’ll give you will be well worth it. If you can agree to our terms, your productivity and thus the prosperity of your own people will flourish.”
Velo and Portia, still shaken, were pacified, as Tris knew they would be. Both of them had put on a front of strength, but at the root of it they had come crawling on their knees for the Virtuoso’s help, believing her to be a wealthy foreign power. But Tris had doused them with cold water when she informed them Madora would not be theirs to exploit.
A moment of silence filled the air, and Tris realized they were not fully convinced. She released a stilted breath when she saw that Lowell had been right. He knew they would not be completely sold, even by what seemed like a very profitable deal. And they likely still harbored doubts about the Defender’s attack. They needed something special to sweeten the deal, something these rich people desired in their dark hearts that they could not get on their own.
Tris closed her eyes for a moment. If she was willing to sacrifice her life just moments ago, how could she stop Lowell from doing the same for his family, his legacy, and his homeland? She couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth when she fulfilled her part of the black contract and executed Lowell’s masterstroke.
“If you commit to this deal, you will receive payment in another kind as well. I will hand over to you the one person who has eluded your grasp: Lowell Bracken.”
CHAPTER 10
Across Madora’s main artery on the north side of the city, Lowell, Milorka, and Leeser moved into position for their most ambitious plot against the Commerce Titans. They traversed the rooftops of the row of buildings next to the old courthouse and the sinkhole, where the auction raged in the cool darkness of a new night.
Hauling everything they needed over gaps between the roofs was not an easy task, and Lowell’s aching joints made him keenly aware he was far too old for the espionage business. They’d soldered handles onto the projector, which he carried in one hand along with rope in the other. Legacy was sheathed at his side. Milorka hauled the phonograph and a long wooden board they used to cross the gaps between buildings. Leeser, gangly but with deceptive strength, had a bulky cinderblock tucked under one arm and a crate full of smoke and flash bombs, as well as a few good old-fashioned grenades under the other.
As Lowell came to the edge of another building, he looked down the row at the crowd gathering on the cement slope leading down to the auction stage. They seemed rowdier than usual, as if the incoming steam ships had caused an infectious buzz to spread throughout the city. That buzz would lead the Titans back to Tris within hours of the end of the auction, leaving Lowell with no choice but to make the first move. The only thing that mattered was pulling off the disruption and making an exit in time to surrender to the Wozniaks and Illiams, thereby securing the deal that Tris was negotiating at that very moment.
The Titans’ hired thugs wandered through the sandy alleys surrounding the auction, but none of them ever bothered to glance at the shrouded figures tiptoeing across a board overhead. The gap between the roof of the last building in the row and the courthouse’s open windows was too great for the plank, so Leeser got a running start and leapt through the darkness, falling through the open window one floor below. A minute later he’d snuck through the vacant upper floors to the window facing the row of buildings, and Lowell tossed him the rope.
They then carefully used the rope to move their supplies across. Sliding the projector over wasn’t a problem, and the phonograph didn’t need to go over, but Lowell nearly had another heart attack when they shifted the rope too quickly and the box of grenades went zipping along the line toward the hard windowsill. Leeser dropped the rope at just the right moment to catch the crate instead, tipping onto his back and cushioning the impact enough that the crate didn’t blow him to bits.
Milorka tied one end of the rope to the cinder block and lodged it against the roof’s short lip while Leeser tied the other to a metal rod in the courthouse that the sinkhole damage had exposed. Lowell lowered himself stomach-down onto the rope, carefully keeping his balance as he shimmied over to the other side. The three-story drop to the ground below wasn’t going to be something he’d walk away from, and worse he’d need to use the same route to escape once the chaos started. His muscles already felt fatigued by the time he crawled through the courthouse window. He looked back, breathing heavily, and saw Milorka swing across and pull himself up like an orangutan.
“You could’ve at least made it look a little harder,” Lowell said.
Taking a deep breath, Lowell signaled to the others that it was time to get into position. The phonograph was running and would burn through the blank end of the record for a few minutes before it reached the laugh track. Lowell took the projector and headed to the center window above the stage facing the crowd. Leeser and Milorka took the box of grenades and covered the window to his left and the stairway behind them.
Lowell’s heart
was racing in his chest. He’d been in battles before, but this felt different. He fully expected the Wozniaks or the Illiams to kill him once he was in their custody, making this a last hurrah. This one had to give his family enough breathing room to restore their legacy and free his children from fear long enough to pursue their dreams.
Raising his head to Leeser, who drew a match from his pocket and lit it against his crusty hunting pants, Lowell gave him the signal and watched as he lit the fuse on a smoke bomb and threw it out into the audience. He pulled the pin on a flash grenade and dropped it down onto the stage.
The flash was momentarily blinding, even from so far up, and countless cries echoed through the air as the entire crowd was thrown into a state of frenzy. The smoke bomb began spewing its payload along the concrete slope as it rolled toward the bottom. The Mind would be furious if he knew they’d used his weapons to kill innocent Madorans, and these measures were intended to clear the masses out.
Behind Leeser, Milorka held a grenade like an apple while watching the stairway and the floor below them.
Lowell began cranking the projector, which came to life right around when the laugh track starting playing. It was hard to tell where the Titans were after all this, doubtlessly coordinating their guards, but Lowell was sure seeing the toothless old man’s mocking face projected against the slope shocked the shit out of them.
The flashes and the smoke continued to rise from the stage and the sinkhole as Leeser continued to light and drop bombs as quickly as he could. The tone of the shouting shifted to something more menacing as the cries of the people gave way to angry orders from those working for the Titans.
Tremors in the floor signaled that footsteps were pounding the stairways, and Lowell looked over to Milorka, who pulled the pin and stood there as the sound of their pursuers echoed louder.
“You have to throw it. Throw it!” Lowell shouted, finally getting his attention. The words didn’t register with Milorka, but the frantic arm motion did. Still, the Madoran had probably never seen one of them go off and had no idea that simply pushing it onto the stairs below wouldn’t be enough.
Lowell dropped to the floor, inadvertently knocking against the projector and pushing it out of the window. The grenade went off near the bottom of the stairs, eliminating everyone on the floor below, but it also blew Milorka against the wall and shredded him with shrapnel. He slid to his knees and hobbled toward Lowell, but it was not looking good. The man was immediately covered in blood and wouldn’t make it out of the building under his own power.
“Damn it to After!” Lowell griped, but Leeser’s reaction was worse. Thrown into a terrifying fury at the sight of his grievously wounded friend, Leeser grabbed three grenades from the crate, yanked out the pins, and hurled them down the stairwell. Astonishingly, he lifted the entire crate and threw it down as well.
Lowell’s face paled and his blood ran cold when the grenades went off below. It felt like the floor was going to give way beneath them. The entire back corner of the courthouse was blown open, leaving the second floor buckling under the weight of the third floor and the roof. It was time to make a hasty exit and the rope leading to the next building was still there, but Milorka’s movements became slower and slower.
“Come on, we’re not going to leave him to die here!” Lowell shouted at Leeser, gesturing for him to come over and grab the other arm. Together they lifted the burly Madoran and dragged him to the stairs. Dust, debris, and small fires creating black smoke clouded the lower levels of the courthouse, but they had no choice but to head directly into the haze. Lowell started coughing immediately once they’d made it to the second floor, and his eyes burned as he searched for signs of movement among a handful of bodies.
The smoke filtered through the crater in the wall, and Lowell peeked out as they passed to find people in the streets still in a state of panic. It was hard to tell what was going on, but sounds of metal against metal and other fighting echoed against the incessant laugh track. The Titans’ guards were trying to subdue the people, and the whole scene bore an awful resemblance to when they had destroyed Tris’s market.
Turning the corner, they approached the stairway to the first floor, but only made it a few steps before one of the Titans’ goons came bounding up. Fortunately Milorka was on Lowell’s left side, allowing him to draw Legacy and take a swing at the attacker. The bearded man with bloodshot eyes barged up the stairs as if the Titans were whipping his back. He clutched a butcher knife and reached back to chop at them, but Lowell seized the opportunity to dive forward and run Legacy’s tip straight through his chest.
They fell back down the stairs together, and Lowell uttered a pained groan as they slammed against the hard floor. It couldn’t have possibly been because of the fall, but the building seemed to shake again, and the sound of thuds outside signaled that some things were indeed falling. Getting his creaky body back onto his feet and withdrawing Legacy from his slain foe, Lowell returned to Milorka’s side and helped him onto the ground floor. Rather than continue down to the basement where the auction bench and stage were set up, they went for the wooden front doors and kicked them right off the already broken hinges.
The air outside was cool and calm, but everything else was a whirlwind of madness. The auction crowd and other locals were running wild, but they became less of a distraction for the Titans’ mercenaries once Lowell emerged from the crumbling courthouse. He’d only made it a dozen yards before three of them converged on their location, forcing Lowell and Leeser to set Milorka down and defend themselves.
The mercenaries had sabers and scimitars, but they wielded them recklessly. It was even predictable for Lowell, who was still far from a master swordsman. While Leeser took down one of the men with nothing more than stones he’d picked up from the ground, Lowell fended off flailing attacks from two of the men until he followed a block with a stiff shoulder that knocked one into the other. His next swing tore open the first man’s neck, spurting blood, and the second couldn’t get out of the way before Lowell ran him through the stomach.
A slow, unenthusiastic clap echoed through the dimly lit street. Breathing deeply, Lowell turned the other way to find the Titan who sat in the middle of the bench—the one with the white wig, pockmarked cheeks, and deep purple birthmark—strolling forward. He was far from alone. Behind the gangster were a dozen thugs carrying an array of weapons, as well as one bruiser who towered above the rest at no less than eight feet tall.
The Titan conveyed a few choice sentiments to Lowell, but the meaning was lost on him. Leeser didn’t hesitate to respond, however, and the two engaged in some malevolent banter. All the while Lowell watched as the men fanned out around them and the giant with the axe closed in. Lowell gulped and raised his sword, vowing to go down swinging until he felt something tug on his leg.
It was Milorka, who had a blank look in his eye and a grenade in his shaky hand, which he extended to Lowell. His eyes widened as he nodded at his Madoran friend and took the grenade, immensely relieved that the tables had turned.
“I don’t think you want to come any closer,” Lowell said to the man in the wig, taking some cautious steps closer to him. “If I pull this pin, we’re both going down.”
The gangster sucked the saliva in his mouth, as he did during all of those auctions when he was appraising a deal. The men around him had halted, and Lowell had a feeling the man was too much of a coward to put his own life on the line. Even if he ran for it on his stumpy legs, he’d never be able to make it farther than Lowell could throw.
“OK.” The Titan grimaced, pointing a finger at Lowell to encourage the attack. The men continued inching in around them, while the giant stepped in front of the Titan. Lowell set his jaw, knowing the man was calling his bluff. But even with Leeser and the saber he’d picked up, the two of them would never make it through the circling foes.
“I don’t bluff.” The pin in the grenade made a clinking sound when he tore it out. The mercenaries immediately started backing
away, but the eight-foot-tall monstrosity didn’t budge an inch. Perhaps he thought he could withstand the blast, and there was a possibility he’d take enough of it that the gangster behind him would survive, which was unacceptable.
Only seconds remaining until the grenade went off, Lowell hollered at the top of his lungs and rushed the pair of enemies. Tris would be in a hard spot when she didn’t have him to complete the deal, but at least Velo and Portia wouldn’t have the satisfaction of putting him down. The monster had thick pads with steel braces on his arms, which he used to deflect Lowell’s first swing. Soon they were in inches apart, Lowell getting manhandled as the two of them kept their eyes on the grenade.
Seconds passed, and Lowell felt a sinking feeling grow in his stomach. The grenade was a dud.
His adversary knocked it out of his hand to the ground, where it sat like a stone. The Titan expelled some throaty laughter as Lowell struggled in his new predicament. His foe had at least two feet on him and one hand grabbing the front of his shirt. When the first punch slammed into the side of his head, Lowell was surprised it wasn’t knocked clean off. Legacy dropped to the dirt.
The behemoth bore a smile of crooked teeth when he reached back for the next blow. He hesitated in mid-swing when thunder ripped through the air, which was strange because it wasn’t raining. In fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. But when Lowell looked up, he did see a black figure blocking out a swath of the stars. It seemed like a plane at first until the shape twisted and another devastating roar violated his eardrums.
The massive lug holding Lowell noticed it, as well—the great dragon that was many times his size. It was similar to the tiny one Sierra had found, except that as this one descended right above them, it seemed to grow bigger and bigger.
