Dark Metropolis

by Jaclyn Dolamore

  She heard an increasing amount of distant noise—shouting and gunfire. Flustered, she turned east when she meant west, and they had to backtrack a block.

  The noises seemed to be getting closer quickly, and then she heard gunfire ahead, on Kline Street.

  “Oh no,” she said, turning back around the way they’d just come. “Maybe we can go around. The asylum is near the hospital, and it should be safe there.”

  They hadn’t gotten far when they heard a disconcerting rumbling behind them, like an automobile but deeper and slower, and a group of workers came running, one clutching his chest with a bloody hand, another with blood trickling down his head. Thea had barely registered this when her father suddenly shoved her to the ground. She stayed down, scraped up and gasping, as he knocked a trash can in front of her. The rumbling was very close, and a volley of shots sounded all around her.

  I’m going to die, I’m going to die—

  The shots rang in her ears, and her mind was empty of everything but the thought that it could all end, any second, one bullet to her head or her heart—

  Then the shots ceased, and the rumbling moved on.

  She peered out beyond the trash can. Her father was on the ground. She let out a cry, checked behind her to be sure it was really safe, and ran to his side. He was flat on his back, a big bloody hole punched in his chest, close to his heart. He was still moving and conscious.

  An ugly sound of fear came out of her throat. It wasn’t just that he’d been hurt. It was seeing it—seeing him live through this. Seeing him move his arms and sit up and clutch his chest. That wound would have killed anyone—unless he was already dead.

  For all the explanations she’d heard of how her father was dead, for all that she’d told Freddy she understood she must let him go, a part of her had still brushed aside the truth of it.

  Seeing him live through this told her more clearly than words could have that he was truly, truly dead. She was alive and he was dead, even though both of them were moving and speaking.

  He was clutching his chest, his breathing rough.

  “Does it hurt?” She didn’t know what to ask. “Should I do something?”

  “No, I—” His voice sounded like something blocked it, and he cleared his throat and coughed blood into his sleeve. “I’ll manage. It’s not much longer—is it?”

  She bit her lip hard and shook her head. She helped him to his feet.

  He wasn’t the same anymore, though. He didn’t speak now; it seemed to take all his concentration to keep moving. He didn’t appear to be bleeding as much as a living person would, but he still kept his hand covering the wound. He put his other arm around her.

  “I love you, Thea,” he said. “I’m so sorry…all those years growing up without me—all the things we won’t have time—”

  “No—don’t say those things! Father—”

  “I need to rest,” he said.

  “But Mother must see you! She’s the one who is sick because of you; she’s the one who knew you were alive….” Thea buried her face in her hands.

  “I can’t—” The words came painfully, and she didn’t want to cause him pain, but she also needed him to speak; she wouldn’t be denied his voice so close to the end. “I can’t die this way, but I can be hurt. And I am hurt. I need time to knit back together….I know I don’t have that time. I don’t know what awaits me on the other side, but I know there will always be love between you and me and your mother. And sometimes…we just have to accept the way things are. We have to accept that I’m leaving you. And we have to accept that maybe…we can’t get to your mother.”

  “It’s not far,” she insisted, trying not to choke on her words. “It’s not far now. I—I could bring her to you. But I don’t want to leave you.”

  He walked into a narrow alley and sat down heavily. “I’d like that,” he said, his eyes glazed. “How I’d like to see her. I can just rest a moment.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Stay here.” She quickly kissed his head. “I love you, too, Father. I’ll be back very soon.”

  “Phonographs and marzipan and fall leaves,” Sigi murmured beside Nan, closing her eyes as they pushed their way out with the rest of the workers. She opened them again when the entire stairwell shook so that dust and bits of plaster sprinkled on their heads.

  “All that trouble to save me, and I’m going to die anyway!” Sigi cried.

  Nan grabbed her hand, and so did Freddy.

  “We’re not going to die,” he said. “I insist.”

  The lights flickered again, and then—gone.

  “Come on,” Nan said. “We can push our way out while everyone’s panicked.” Standing at the doors and windows of Rory’s house were men she thought must belong to the resistance—their clothes were shabby and bohemian. They were moving the workers through. “This way, come on.” One young man noticed their group.

  “Aren’t you—Sigismunda von Kaspar? And the silver-haired boy. I’d better get Yann.”

  The world aboveground had gone to hell. Houses and cars set on fire, people unconscious or hunched on the ground bleeding, running and fighting and shouting everywhere: revolutionaries, workers, policemen, even servants from the grand houses. Nan stayed close to the young man, who was talking to another man with silver in his hair. He noticed them and urgently waved them forward.

  “What’s going on?” Nan asked the man with the silver hair, whom she assumed was Yann. “Who started all the fires?”

  “We did,” he said, running as he spoke. “The more chaos, the better. Where is Arabella?”

  “She’s…dead,” Sigi said.

  He pulled off his cap. “Oh, no….I’m so sorry, Miss Sigi. We’ve never met, but I heard a lot about you.”

  Sigi looked a bit appalled.

  “Arabella gave her life for Sigi’s,” Nan said. “We need to get out of here. All of you should.”

  “I’ll get you to safety,” he said. He put his cap back on.

  “We need to meet up with Thea,” Freddy said.

  “Don’t worry—we won’t forget Thea,” Nan assured him.

  They ran down the street after Yann. The streets were so busy it might have been a holiday, only with celebration replaced by tension. An old couple in ragged clothes ran around shouting for someone named Torsten, and Nan realized that word must have spread that the missing dead were wandering lost, and so their relatives had gone looking for them. Sirens howled nearby. She heard a gunshot. Sigi was shivering, covering her ears.

  Nan put an arm around her.

  “This is horrible,” Sigi said. “Is this what we wanted to happen?”

  “It isn’t what we wanted,” Nan said. “But it’s a consequence.”

  Rory was probably right—more people would be hurt and die. That wasn’t what she wanted. Of course not. But for so many years, she had carried that feeling of imbalance and wrongness inside her, and she had to let that be her compass, even if the immediate repercussions were violent.

  Yann’s car was old enough to need a crank. “Get in,” he said while he worked at it. “She’ll go in a minute.”

  “Where are we going?” Nan asked.

  “Our base of operations, in the old factory district.”

  Nan wondered how far they could get in a car, but at least the windows would give them some protection.

  Yann was aggressive, honking the horn liberally and driving on whichever side of the road suited him. The power was out for several blocks. People ran through the darkness, and two men carried a dead or injured person wrapped in a bloody sheet. Hundreds of stories raced by in those blocks, and none of them appeared to be happy ones.

  “Don’t worry,” Yann said. “This is war. It’s unpleasant business. But we’ve been preparing for it. The reign of suppression and terror will be over soon enough, and all of this paves the way for a new re
gime—a government for the people.”

  “Who will lead?” Freddy asked.

  “I had hoped it would be Arabella,” Yann said. “But we have some different factions in our ranks. That will all shake out as we go. All I know is, we have to band together to keep anything like this from happening again. Of course, I hope you’ll be right there with us, Freddy. To have you will be invaluable.”

  Freddy scoffed. “That certainly isn’t what Arabella said. She was happy enough to kill me.”

  “She was…impulsive at times.”

  “Is that really a quality you want in a leader?” Freddy asked. “If I ever use my magic for anyone else again, it will have to be someone who can make good decisions.”

  “I’m sure the right leader will…” Yann trailed off as they turned the corner to an appalling sight. Half a dozen workers lay writhing in the street, conscious but shot to pieces: holes in their chests, a hand blown off. Freddy stiffened, leaning forward to get a better look.

  Sigi covered her mouth. “The army must have come through,” she choked, “and they can’t die! They can’t die unless you let them go, Freddy!”

  “Stop the car!” Freddy shouted at Yann, who had slowed to maneuver around the bodies but wasn’t stopping.

  “We can’t. We have to get you to a safe place.”

  “Stop the damn car!” Freddy grabbed the steering wheel, and the car jerked toward a lamppost.

  Thea had never run so fast, for so long, in her life. She was glad the night hours were hers; she was accustomed to the darkness, although she wasn’t accustomed to sharing the streets with so many people at these hours, or this awful smoky smell, or the ever-present air of confusion and fear.

  The asylum was a foreboding building by day, a terrifying one by night, the gothic towers looming over stone walls in the darkness. She hadn’t considered how she’d get in, but even as she approached the gates, she could see a number of workers crowded at them, and then she could hear an awful sound on the wind: women shouting and moaning.

  Bound-sick women.

  She hadn’t even thought of it, but they might sense their husbands were free. And the spell must have tugged these workers here as well, even if they didn’t remember their wives enough to be sick.

  A man who appeared to be a night watchman was on the other side of the gate, trying to reason with the men. “I’m afraid I can’t let you in! These women are being treated for illnesses.”

  “But that’s my wife in there!”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. I just think she’s in there….”

  “If none of you can tell me who you’re looking for, why should I let you in?”

  “Please,” Thea said, making her way alongside the men to press against the metal bars. “I’m looking for Mrs. Henry Holder. She’s my mother. But you’d better let all of them in. The wives will be cured of bound-sickness if they can just see their husbands.”

  “I—I don’t know about all that. Where did they come from?”

  Thea didn’t have time for this! “They’ve been trapped underground! Brought back from the dead and robbed of their memories, and all they want is to see their wives. My father is bleeding in an alley somewhere, and if he doesn’t see my mother, I’ll—” She didn’t know what she’d do, though. “Please!”

  The night watchman looked flustered but unconvinced. “I’m under strict orders.”

  “Her name might be Alice,” one of the men ventured. “Is there anyone named Alice?”

  “I’m sorry,” the night watchman said.

  Thea saw that he had a gun. And she had a gun. So she might point hers at him, but she knew she couldn’t shoot a man who was just trying to do his job. And would he shoot her? If there was any justice in the world, he should see all these desperate men, any of whom could have been her father, and let them in.

  But he wasn’t going to. Her father was dying, her mother was behind the gate, and Father Gruneman had given her the gun.

  She took a deep breath and slipped her hand in her purse. Her hands were cold in the night air, and the gun cold in her grasp as she drew it out. “Please. Do you know what I’ve gone through tonight?”

  He put a hand on his own weapon. “All right, miss. Calm down. Put that away.”

  “Let me in.”

  He removed his pistol from the holster. “Calm down,” he repeated.

  Her hands were sweating through the cold now. “I’ve had a living, walking corpse try to eat me. I was in the abandoned subway tunnels, searching for good men like these, trying to free them so they could see their families just one last time. Can you imagine having rotting, withering flesh trying to claw at you? Whispering for blood? Can you imagine the eyes of something dead still…looking at you?”

  “I cannot,” he said, sounding unsure.

  “Well, in a few hours, that’s what these men will become, if—if they don’t see their wives!” She invented the last bit, but it burst out of her mouth as if true, because she so wanted to believe it. She wanted to think her mother’s touch might heal her father, save him, keep him close forever….

  It was at that moment that one of the women screaming out the windows of the asylum building, across the wide green lawn, jumped out, plunging four stories. She didn’t get up again.

  Thea’s breath caught painfully in her chest. It was too far to see if it could be her mother.

  This seemed to be the last scrap of evidence the guard needed that matters had gotten beyond his control. He opened the gate.

  All the men started running, and Thea with them, still holding the gun carefully. The men were faster, and they stormed the doors for her. The staff already seemed to be in an uproar, trying to corral the women. Their screams echoed through the lobby, a heartbreaking din of “Where—?” and “Let me go!” and the names of lost husbands.

  Thea grabbed the first woman she saw, a young one in a nurse’s dress. “Where is my mother, Mrs. Henry Holder?”

  Father Gruneman had told her that hopefully she would only need to point the gun at people, and it seemed to be true. She felt like a different person with a deadly weapon in hand, the woman looking at the gun in terror. “I—I think I just saw her. I’m not sure.”

  Thea let the woman go, spotting her mother standing against the wall, clutching her head as if trying, amid the shouting and sobbing, to sense the magic that bound her to Thea’s father.

  Thea ran to her side. “Mother!”

  Her mother’s tense expression turned to relief. She was already dressed to move. “Your father,” she said. “I know your father is close. You’ve seen him. You’ve seen Henry. Where is he?”

  “He’s—he’s hurt. And he’s going to die soon. Mother—” Her voice faltered.

  “We’ll get to him.” Her mother grabbed Thea’s arm. “We just have to hurry.”

  The car crumpled against the post, throwing Freddy and Yann forward. They hadn’t been going fast. Freddy glanced back just long enough to see Nan and Sigi blinking back at him, and then threw open the door.

  He had brought these men back from the dead. Brought them back to slave away, to lose their memories—to die in agony. He ran to each of them, touching their heads or hands, severing their threads as quickly as he could. After the first two, after they realized, they started begging him, thanking him, as they died.

  As if he’d done them any kind of favor. They ought to be using their last breath to curse him.

  It was getting easier to feel them slip away.

  Yann got out of the car. “We don’t have time for this! We can’t let anyone find you! Look, maybe it’s time. Just let them all go. Enough of them have gotten out; we can take it from here.”

  Freddy turned on Yann. “This isn’t your magic. I’ll decide how and when to do it. I’m not working for you, and I don’t want your protection.”
>
  How long would it be before the revolutionaries wanted to keep someone important alive? He couldn’t trust anyone, he realized. And Yann was already talking as though Freddy belonged to them.

  “You need our protection,” Yann said. “You know that every person aware of your existence will be looking for you, and the word will spread.” He reached for Freddy. Like he was going to grab him. Drag him back into a world where his power wasn’t his own.

  Never again would he allow someone else to be the keeper of his magic.

  “If you don’t come with me, the chancellor’s men will find you,” Yann said.

  “No.” He shoved Yann and punched him in the jaw. Yann staggered back, and Freddy punched him again before he could recover.

  He heard two pairs of boots behind him and saw Nan and Sigi, and this spurred him on. He wasn’t alone.

  Maybe Yann was right about one thing: if the workers were suffering, maybe it was time to try to let them go. But at this very moment, Thea might be rushing her father across the threshold of the asylum. He had to see her first.

  They kept running until they were sure Yann wasn’t following anymore. They had taken a few turns, and he wasn’t in view. The power was out here, too, the streets dark and busy.

  “We have to get out of these work suits,” Sigi said, her voice tremulous. “If the police or the army shot those workers, they might shoot us, too, if they see us. They won’t know we’re alive.”

  “If we can just get to Thea’s apartment,” Freddy said, “we can figure it out from there. We’re not far.”

  As they moved from a largely residential district to Thea’s neighborhood, where shops and apartments mixed, they saw that some of the shops had been looted. Shards of window glass glinted on the sidewalk, and people were running off with cans of food.