Dark Metropolis

by Jaclyn Dolamore

  “Wouldn’t he?” Freddy was wrong. He had to be wrong. “My mother isn’t the only woman in the parish who was bound-sick, you know. Surely not all these men were cowards and traitors or suicidal? And even if they were, why wouldn’t they at least tell us the men were being held somewhere, instead of letting their wives get sick? If my mother could just see my father here and there, she wouldn’t be sick.” Her stomach was churning the more she thought of it. “What does happen to them, then? The revolutionaries mentioned…” Well, they hadn’t mentioned many specifics. “They spoke of getting them out. You said Nan was at a hospital?”

  “No, actually,” he admitted. “Uncle brought her into his parlor.”

  “So it isn’t too far away, I imagine.”

  “When I saw Nan, she said she was working in a factory and the food was bad. After I revive them, they’re led off through the basement.”

  “Underground?” She thought of her mother trying to enter the subway. The subways that were all shut down after the war.

  This image of her father and Nan trapped beneath the streets was too much for Thea to bear. Her father had been gone for eight years. Her mother had been losing her mind for eight years. And it could have been prevented. It wasn’t death that had torn them apart; it was the government. The same government that had called her father up for military service in the first place. Moving like a mannequin, she handed a plate of buttered bread to Freddy.

  “I’m sorry,” Freddy said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about it sooner.” She jerked back when he tried to touch her. “Don’t. Please don’t.” She couldn’t bear to even think of his hands on her, knowing what they could do—and what they had done.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  “I just don’t want to be touched right now. Not by you.”

  He stepped back again. “But…maybe there’s just been a mistake. Maybe—”

  “How could it be a mistake to take everyone I love away from me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She felt small and wretched, like it was the first time something truly awful had ever happened in her life, all over again. But she wasn’t a child anymore, and she couldn’t give in to it. “We have to set them free,” she said. “You have to tell your fake uncles that you won’t bring anyone else back unless they let the people go free.”

  “I can’t…just…do that.”

  She drew a breath deep enough to lift the buttons on her dress, and then said, “Well, we have to do something. And you can’t bring people back from the dead anymore. Surely you can’t, knowing this now?”

  He didn’t respond.

  She was still shuffling through all the ramifications. “So…you can really defy death, for good?”

  “Well…almost,” he said. “The only thing is that they need to take a magical serum. It keeps the magic going. Like a medicine.”

  “Do you make the serum, too?”

  “No,” he said. “Gerik and Uncle make it. Or else they know someone who makes it—I’m not actually sure. It just appears, as far as I’m concerned. I give it to my cat.”

  “Your cat?”

  “Yes. He died some years ago, so now he gets the serum.”

  “Your cat is dead?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “And what happens if your cat doesn’t take the serum?”

  “I’ve never actually bothered to find out.”

  “So…the people you’ve brought back need Gerik and his brother, or whoever makes the serum, or the magic might fail and they’d die again.”

  “I think that’s true.”

  This was a sinister new development.

  “And you never thought to ask about these things?”

  “I was a child when all of this started, and it’s been going on for so long. Why would I have thought anything was wrong?” His expression turned stern. “Don’t get angry at me. I was taken from my family when I was three years old because of this. My parents are alive, but I see them only once a year, with Gerik accompanying me. And I’m hardly permitted to leave the house, because they’re so afraid the wrong person is going to find out what I can do. But it’s a sacrifice I make to keep this city going.”

  “Why did Gerik take you to the Telephone Club, then, if you have to stay so secret?”

  His expression twisted, and she had a sinking feeling he was going to drop a new surprise in her lap.

  “They want me to father a child,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

  “A child? And is that what he thinks you’re up to with me tonight?”

  Freddy nodded. He looked a little flushed. “I’m afraid they won’t let me see you much more if…Well, Gerik took me to the Telephone Club to find a girl. Just any girl, he said, somebody pretty I could pay off. But I didn’t want it to be like that.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Why? Why a child?”

  “To duplicate my magic. It’s hereditary.” She had put the bread in front of him, but he didn’t touch it.

  “You aren’t good enough for them?”

  “That’s what I said. But they figure two revivers are better than one. Not that there’s any guarantee the magic would pass on. I believe they intend to keep trying if it doesn’t work the first time.”

  “This is ridiculous.” She pressed her hands against her head, crumpling her waves. “Gerik thinks I’m the kind of girl who would have a baby with someone I didn’t even know? For money?”

  “He actually warned me that you seemed like the kind of girl who might not be amenable to this plan.”

  “But he still thinks—he let you go tonight because he thinks that’s what we’re doing?”

  “Look, none of this was even remotely my idea.”

  It made her sick to remember the way she had flirted with Freddy in front of Gerik, knowing now that all the while he was considering whether she would be “amenable” to this despicable task. She wanted to smack Freddy. Maybe he hadn’t meant to dupe her, but she felt duped all the same. Hot tears flooded her eyes.

  “Thea! I’ve just told you all the things I’m never supposed to tell anyone!”

  “I believe you, but you don’t seem to understand how all this sounds to me. You let Gerik think awful things about me, you asked me about Nan without telling me you’d actually seen her, and worst of all, you—my father—”

  “What do you want me to do?” he said, his voice flatter now.

  “You have to stop reviving people. You have to tell Gerik you refuse. It’s your magic. What can they do without you?”

  “They could threaten my family.”

  “But have they? Have you tried to think of a way to stop this, or are you just going to give up?” she said. “I don’t think you truly realize how much your magic has hurt me. I thought my father was dead. This is much worse.”

  “Thea…” He seemed at a loss for words.

  She shook her head. “Why don’t you just go?”

  “Go? But we should—”

  “I want to be alone right now. I need to think. You’ve lied to me. Maybe you had reasons, but it was still an awful lot of lies, Freddy.”

  “Fine.” The word was like a dull blade cutting into her heart. He opened the door and left her to face these dark revelations alone.

  But, of course, that was exactly what she had asked for.

  When Freddy arrived at home, he went straight to his room. He brushed off Gerik, pleading exhaustion and a headache.

  “Do you need some medicine, lad? You don’t sound very good.”

  “No. Just some rest.” Freddy shut the door behind him.

  Amsel, sleeping on the bed, got to his feet with an eager meow and pressed his head against Freddy’s hand, getting up a good purr. Freddy glanced at his desk. He spent many hours, which otherwise would have been idle, repair
ing clocks. It was the only way he could connect to his father, and to the life he might have had without his magic. Gerik indulged him by sending them his way. Amsel was the enemy of half-repaired clocks, and sure enough, he had swatted gears and parts all over the rug.

  “You’re terrible,” Freddy said.

  Amsel chirped through his purr and climbed into Freddy’s lap. The cat was the only thing Freddy had been allowed to take with him when he left home. Freddy would never forget clutching Amsel, wrapped in a blanket, in the back of Gerik’s car when they drove away from his home forever.

  When Freddy woke one morning shortly after his tenth birthday to find Amsel a stiff corpse curled up at his feet, he didn’t cry. He simply put his magic to use. Thinking back on it now, he remembered Gerik’s anger when he saw that Freddy had revived the cat. “He’ll need serum every day!” Gerik had said.

  “What serum?” Freddy had asked.

  Gerik had quickly calmed himself, explaining the serum and saying it was fine, just fine, good lad, of course you want your old cat to stick around, you can just mix it into his breakfast….

  That was a slip on Gerik’s part, wasn’t it? He didn’t even mean for me to know about the serum. But I didn’t think about it at the time.

  Usually Freddy slept as well as he ate. Magic was a strain on the body, but a satisfying one.

  Now he felt his conscience battling his body, telling him, You must not do this. He spent the night staring at the crown molding of his bedroom ceiling. In the morning, the whole daily cycle began again: a heaping tray of breakfast, a freshly pressed suit, Gerik knocking on the door and asking if he was ready to head for Uncle’s.

  “How was the party last night?” Gerik tapped impatiently on the steering wheel, waiting for a nursemaid to walk a baby carriage across their driveway. Unlike most wealthy men, Gerik hated being chauffeured around. He owned several sporty cars and drove them himself, so they had complete privacy behind the doors of a swank coupe.

  “Just fine.”

  “Good music?”

  “I guess it was all right.” Freddy looked out the window, avoiding Gerik’s eyes. Thea was on his mind, telling him he must take responsibility for his own magic.

  “Records, eh?” Gerik said. “I tell you, when I was young, we always had someone singing, playing the piano. If Alex Korsky was there, we even had a mean violin. Not the same anymore. But after that, she invited you back to her apartment? I hope that went somewhere.”

  This just kept getting more painful. “I kissed her,” he lied. “But she’s not the kind of girl who rushes into things, I think. She doesn’t want to be thought of as…you know.” He tried not to think of her shame last night. “I think next time I should drop by her apartment with something nice to eat, when she isn’t at work.” Whenever he saw her again, he didn’t want to be at the club and he didn’t want Gerik around.

  “Yes, that’s a fine plan,” Gerik said. “But if it takes much longer, we’d better find another girl. Rory’s not very happy I’m letting you pick the girl yourself, and he has no idea you’ve been gallivanting around town. You wouldn’t have any fun at all if I weren’t around.”

  That was certainly true.

  “How is the quest to provide Freddy an heir coming?” Uncle asked, without even a “good morning” first, when they walked into his impeccably kept parlor.

  Even though Freddy saw Roderick Valkenrath at least once a week, the man always remained a distant figure, even down to the fact that he wanted to be called “Uncle” rather than his given name. He was Gerik’s brother, younger by just a year, but he looked much younger—broad-shouldered beneath his trim suit, handsome in a severe way, and clean-shaven.

  “Quite well,” Gerik said. “We have a likely prospect.”

  “A ‘likely prospect’? I don’t understand why this is taking so long. How hard is it to find a woman willing to accept a sum to bear a child?”

  “Well, this will be Freddy’s first experience with a woman, Rory. I don’t want to take that from him.”

  “You would think that.” Uncle sniffed. “But Freddy is not you. And he isn’t going to be young forever. We’ve scoured the country for someone else with reviving magic. I know there were once half a dozen at any given time, but they’ve disappeared. All the common country witches have wised up and hidden themselves away. But we have Freddy. And he is a boy, thank god,” Uncle said.

  “‘Taking so long’?” Freddy said. “I’ve only seen Thea twice.” The more they pushed this on him, the more he wanted to push back, and yet he couldn’t forget about his family.

  “Thea?” Uncle said, as if he disapproved of the girl’s having a name.

  “I think she’s a fine choice,” Gerik said. “She looks like good stock.”

  Freddy supposed it was nice of Gerik to stick up for Thea instead of describing her as rustic and too earnest, but he couldn’t stand hearing her described as “good stock,” and it brought yesterday’s terrible conversation with her rushing back.

  Uncle glanced at Gerik, his face remaining utterly impassive, and Gerik glanced back at him. They seemed to be communicating something they weren’t letting on.

  “Freddy, I know sometimes it seems like a burden,” Uncle said. “But part of having power is giving up freedom. In the old days, that was the job of the prince. Princes grow to become kings and emperors. Their lives are never their own, but they understand what they have to do. You must find a way to accept that, too.”

  “But I didn’t ask to be a prince.”

  “No one asks to be a prince. They are born into it, as you were. Think of your family if not yourself. Because of you, they will never be hungry, never be cold, never know the fear of having an illness or accident and not being able to take care of their own. We take care of them because of you.”

  Gerik and Uncle never used to use his family as a bargaining chip. But, he reminded himself, you never asked questions before, and you never refused to do anything they asked.

  “We don’t ask that much in return,” Uncle continued. “But if this girl isn’t interested in the deal, I can find you one who is.”

  Gerik snorted. “Do you even know any women of childbearing age, Rory?”

  Uncle glanced upward briefly, as if he didn’t want to indulge Gerik with a reply. “All I know, Freddy, is that the next time you have a date with this girl, I want you to bring her back with you, fully informed about and willing to do what’s expected. Now, we’d better not dally any longer. Lots to be done. There are fifteen bodies today.”

  This was the moment where he ought to refuse, Freddy thought. The moment where he ought to start demanding honest answers to his questions. He could imagine himself doing it.

  He could also imagine the look on Uncle’s face. Evasive answers and more veiled threats. Freddy’s magic might belong to him, but what else did? Not just the roof over his head but the roof over his parents’ heads had been granted because of his magic. And the only people who even knew he was alive, besides Thea, of course, were the chancellor and other government officials. They could lock him in his room without food until he gave in. It was that simple.

  “Maybe we ought to hold back five or so for tomorrow, for the boy’s health,” Gerik said. “Fifteen is a fair number for one day.”

  Uncle waved a hand. “I suppose.”

  However I look at it, it would be stupid to defy them outright. I have to think of some other way.

  Freddy held his tongue and shoved open the workroom door.

  A middle-aged man awaited his magic touch. The man’s eyes were still open, his face slack and slightly pudgy. Freddy’s fingers itched, eager to work. The way his magic flowed from him was almost seductive—warm, potent, living.

  Now he placed his hands on the man’s callused, cold ones. They weren’t cold for long. The magic felt so right, even as it left Freddy feeling slightly light
-headed.

  Life entered the blue eyes of the formerly dead man. He gasped. “Where am I?”

  Freddy had always tried to calm the people he revived. He would say things like “You’re fine” and “You’re in a safe place.” He had believed those things. Now he wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t want to tell a lie.

  He showed the man to the side door and turned him over to the guards. “They’ll show you where to go,” he said. The guards stayed very close now, since Nan, but Freddy had told Gerik he couldn’t work with them in the room, which was almost true. His magic flowed easily, but it felt very personal, and he hated doing it with anyone watching. He shut the door again as he heard the footsteps disappear.

  The parade of fresh bodies continued. Some of them showed plainly the method of their death—gunshot wound, or a wrong twist to the body, as though the person had fallen from a roof. But the rest could have died from any number of causes that left no mark.

  Freddy wondered about that, in a serious way, for the first time in his life. If Gerik and Uncle were lying about where the people went, did they also lie about where the bodies had come from? Maybe all the people didn’t really die by suicide.

  The fifth person he revived that day was a young woman—a pretty one, healthy-looking despite the threadbare elbows of her coat, with the blush of cosmetics giving her cheeks color. When life came into her eyes, and she asked the usual where-am-I question, he hissed into her ear: “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I was…what? I was at a demonstration….” She seemed addled. People he revived often did.

  “What kind of demonstration?”

  “Near the university…The police broke it up, and—let me think—gosh. I thought someone shot me!” She looked down at her clothes and found blood, and then looked up at him with wide eyes. “What happened?”

  “Shh, don’t talk too loud. You’re fine, you’re fine.”

  A guard opened the door. Maybe he’d heard the girl, or maybe he just had good intuition. He shot a stern look Freddy’s way. It might mean nothing—the guards never smiled—but Freddy still felt deeply disconcerted. He took her arm. “I’m sorry. Follow them, they’ll…they’ll help you.” He faltered on the last words, the way she was looking at him, her made-up face and waved hair reminding him of Thea’s.