“You’re not having coffee?” Ben asked.
“I didn’t feel like making any when I got up.” Which was bizarre, but so was getting up early.
“I’ll put some on for you.”
“Oh, no. That’s not necessary. But thank you.”
He nodded and left the parlor. I continued to read and came across the information that the ashes of the mayor for a day had been stolen. It was ridiculous how many ashes were going missing. People were getting obsessed.
As Ben rewrapped my hand, Taro came in for some breakfast, and then we headed out to the Stall for our watch. Almost as soon as we were on the streets, we saw the new notices pasted on flat surfaces all over the place. The paste was so fresh and smelled so strong I couldn’t stand to get close enough to read the notice. “What are they about?” I asked Taro.
“New punishments for people pretending to engage in the practice of casting spells,” he said.
“Really?” I didn’t even know what the old punishments were. “What are they?”
“Lashes,” he said with distaste.
“Excuse me?”
“A public whipping. A single lash for each book of spells owned.” He shot me a look. “Five for performing any alleged spell or ritual. An additional lash if it’s a love spell. An additional ten if the spell harms someone else’s property. Twenty lashes for each instance of collecting, possessing, selling or consuming human ashes.”
I didn’t know why the idea of digging up ashes for the purposes of selling them disgusted me more than digging them up for personal use. It just did. Not as much, though, as the idea that someone would get tortured with twenty lashes just for doing it. After all, ashes were merely the remains of dead people. Dead people weren’t capable of caring. Yes, the practice was disgusting and stupid, but so was torture, and torture was perpetrated against live people.
“I didn’t know there were standard punishments for crimes.” I’d always thought it was up to each individual judge. “Who decided these?”
“His Imperial Majesty Emperor Gifford.”
“Can he do that?” He wasn’t an emperor yet.
Taro shrugged. “Who’s going to tell him he can’t? You might think about getting rid of those books.”
I stared at him. “What did you say?”
He tapped the notice with the tip of his finger. “A lash for each book. How many books would you say you have? About twenty-five?”
“No one is going to tell me what I can and cannot read.”
“Would you be saying that if you weren’t fairly confident that as a Shield you are excluded from the force of this decree?”
“Yes.” But I would also be getting rid of the books, coward that I was. I wasn’t going to be tortured for reading about something I wasn’t all that interested in.
Taro seemed to stiffen, and I felt his inner shields shift. “We’re not on duty yet, Taro,” I said sharply.
“No one’s doing anything. It’s not here.” The words were rushed out of his mouth, and then his shields were down. I had to put up mine and there was no point in talking any further because he was committed and there was nothing more to be done but follow along.
But damn it, I was tired. Besides, the natural events had to be allowed to happen somewhere. If nothing was allowed to happen anywhere, well, the world would just explode, wouldn’t it?
Taro was just showing off, damn him.
Again, it was an event from the place of crashing waves and jagged cliffs. What was it about this place that Taro kept feeling the events taking place there? He wasn’t feeling events from anywhere else.
Then something strange happened. An unpleasant sliding sensation that hit me right in the stomach. I felt myself stumble. “Taro.”
Water heaving and swirling brought a stinging to my nostrils and dizzying tension to the bridge of my nose.
And Taro was channeling too much, all at once. It frightened me. The racing of his heart was mixing in with the cacophony exploding in my ears. “Taro, slow down.”
I was vaguely aware of falling against a wall. A stench assaulted my nose, which didn’t help with the nausea.
And the forces rushed through Taro, much like the gushing water pressing against the backs of my eyes.
I felt a rippling in my Shields. Were they slipping?
My gods. That couldn’t happen. That didn’t happen. “Taro!”
Couldn’t he hear me? The panic in my voice was obvious to anyone who cared to listen, I was sure. Why wouldn’t he answer me?
But maybe he couldn’t hear. He was letting too much rush through him, and I had no idea how aware he might be of what was going on around him. Or of me. Maybe when his blood was rushing about that hard, he couldn’t really hear anything.
Yet I would have thought he would notice that there was something happening to my Shields.
The rippling became more intense. “Taro!” I shrieked. “Slow down!”
He couldn’t stop once he’d started. I knew that. We were in trouble.
But the forces lessened in their volume. By slowing the channeling of the forces, Taro lessened the demands on his blood and his organs. That released some of the pressure from my Shields. Unfortunately, the more the forces lessened, the more my Shields seemed to weaken. That made no sense.
I couldn’t let my Shields fall. It would kill Taro. It would kill me. But the sliding turned into spinning, and there were moments when I wasn’t sure whether I was standing up or falling or lying down. I curled my arms around my stomach, because letting them hang loose made them whip around.
I couldn’t believe my Shields were failing. They never failed. I’d been in far more trying situations without a doubt that my Shields would hold. What the hell was going on?
The forces smoothed out; the flow lessened and lessened again. Still, I had to push hard, my arms tight against my stomach, my knees hard against my forehead. The images faded from my mind, the screaming birds were silenced, and all I could feel was the tension in my muscles as I fought to keep my Shields up.
I managed to say out loud, “We need another Shield here!”
“No, we don’t!” Taro snapped. “We’re all right!”
“We’re not.”
“It’s almost over. You can hold on.”
“I can’t. We need another Shield.”
“No one’s here. And another Shield can’t Shield me. Hang on. We’re almost done.”
But he lied, and the channeling went on and on and on. The pain in my nose tightened and spread over my forehead and into my temples. I ground my fingernails into my arms and just held on.
It took too long. It should never take so long. Our bodies weren’t made for doing this for such an extended period. Why was Taro doing this?
The forces lessened a little more, and in time, a little more, and then, finally, they disappeared. Taro’s own protections drew up around his mind, and I let my Shields fall. Finally. Thank gods.
Taro knelt beside me, his face unusually serious. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t keep my Shields up.” And that was so hard to admit—that I’d almost failed my Source.
“You did keep them up,” he reminded me.
“Only because you slowed down,” I said. He didn’t respond to that. “This is too dangerous. I needed you to slow down because I couldn’t keep my Shields up. That’s a serious problem.” I had never, ever thought I would be in danger of letting my Shields drop. There were Shields who had failed in that way. It almost always meant the death of the Pair. Once a Source began channeling, it was supposed to be impossible for him or her to stop, even when the Shield’s protections failed. The forces would kill the Source, and the Source’s death would kill the Shield.
That was why Taro and I had to be brutally honest about what was happening.
“So what are you saying?” Taro asked. “That you can’t Shield? Do you want us taken off the roster?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Nothing so drastic was needed
. “You’re channeling events you’re not supposed to channel. Stop doing that.”
“I’m not going to stop doing that,” he snapped back. “I’m supposed to channel these events.”
“The only events you’re supposed to channel are those that are occurring within High Scape.”
“I know, I know, but something feels familiar about these events. I feel I should channel them. That something terrible will happen if I don’t.”
Now, that was alarming. “Familiar how?” I demanded. “Like when Creol was sending events to High Scape?” Channeling those events had been painful, and I had gotten images while Shielding. But there couldn’t possibly be another bitter, crazy Source out there.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then how is it familiar?” I persisted.
“I don’t know! There’s just something about it that I’ve felt before.”
I resisted the urge to ask, again, what he meant. There was no point in going around and around about it. “All right, fine. But these events aren’t threatening High Scape, right?”
“Correct.”
“So I need you to stop channeling them.”
“There might be people there,” he protested.
“We don’t know that there are, and I could barely hold out this time.”
“It’s my fault, Lee,” Taro said in a soothing, yet annoying, tone. “I channeled when you weren’t expecting it, in a manner you’ve asked me in the past not to channel. There’s no need to panic.”
“I am not panicking,” I said through my teeth. “I am being responsible.”
“Aren’t you always,” he mocked. He kissed my forehead. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
Why wouldn’t he listen to me? He was risking our lives to channel events that, for all we knew, were taking place out in the middle of nowhere. Why was he being so stubborn about this?
Because he was always stubborn, especially when it came to the use of his abilities. But it wasn’t his abilities at issue. He was apparently having no difficulty channeling. I was the one having problems. He needed to listen to me when it came to how my Shielding was functioning.
How was I going to convince him of that?
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m not going to let this go, Dunleavy,” Risa said just before taking another long swallow from her roofer’s black, a heavy dark beer that I thought tasted terrible. She’d brought it with her, and the windows in the room would all have to be left open for hours to get rid of the heavy yeasty odor. It was making me nauseous.
“Let what go?” I knew exactly what she was talking about. I wasn’t going to help her along.
“Costume,” she drawled.
I rolled my eyes.
“Dunleavy, I will nag at you and nag at you until you tell me,” she warned me.
Fine. “It really wasn’t that interesting, Risa. I danced the benches against spectators who paid for the privilege.” It was the truth, if not the whole truth.
“And the costume?” she prodded.
All right. Something less truthful than the short-skirted, midriff-baring embarrassment in scraps that I’d been forced to wear, but strange enough that Risa would believe I’d be made uncomfortable by it. “These strange trousers that came only to my knees. And a blouse that wasn’t too bad, except it was covered in all this golden glitter, and they put glitter in my hair and on my face.”
“Oh,” said Risa, and she sounded disappointed. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Really? I’d like to see her wearing something like that. “It was bad enough.”
“And you had me thinking there was something interesting going on.”
“Come now, Risa. When have you ever known me to be involved in anything interesting?”
And I knew right then that I’d overplayed my hand, because that was a stupid thing for me to say, and the look Risa gave me told me she thought the same.
“I’ll just get Shintaro alone and ask him,” she promised. Or threatened.
I shrugged as though I didn’t care. And I didn’t. While Taro was happy enough to tease me when he had an audience—and often when we didn’t—he knew how much I’d hated the whole Leavy the Flame Dancer experience, and I knew he wouldn’t betray me.
“You look like hell,” Risa said, because she could be ridiculously blunt if she wanted to be.
“Thank you so much,” I said without heat. I’d been hearing similar comments, though less blunt, so often that I couldn’t get angry at every one of them. I’d be exhausted. “Did I invite you over? I really can’t remember.”
I sipped on the revolting tea Ben had brewed for me. It tasted foul, but it did ease the ache in my head a little, which was the point of it.
“I came over to see why you’re begging off of drinks all the time. Can see for myself, now. What’s wrong with you?”
“Just tired and whatnot.”
She eased back on the chair. “Nothing catching, I hope?”
“No. It’s too much bile or something like that.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is? You look really bad.”
“The healer said it was nothing to worry about.” And I was beyond being bored with talking about my health.
“Where do you get your water?”
Wasn’t that a bizarre leap? And one I wasn’t able to follow. “What?”
“The water that’s used in this house. Where does it come from?”
“There’s a well out back.”
“Is it connected to one of the rivers?”
“Aren’t they all?”
“No, though a lot of them are.”
“Well, I have no idea. I’ve never thought about it.”
“They think that’s where the Riverfront Ravage is coming from. It’s something in the water. That’s why the illness is showing up in other parts of the city. Because their wells are fed by the rivers.”
“Holy hell.” That would be a nightmare. What would people do without water? “What’s wrong with the water?”
“They haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”
“Brilliant.”
“Is anyone else here ill?”
“I’m not ill,” I said. “I’m just tired. And I have too much bile. I think if I had the symptoms, the healer would have at least mentioned the riverfront illness.”
“You look really pale.”
“I’m always pale.”
“Really, you don’t look well.”
“Risa.” Her insistence on talking about it was making me think about it, and that just made me feel worse. “Leave it alone. Please.”
“All right, all right.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, I didn’t come to talk about any of that. We found out who killed that mayor.”
“Oh?” I didn’t really care. I was upset about the fact that he’d been murdered, but I didn’t really care about who’d done it. There was no reason for Risa to think I should know anything about it.
“It was one of his servants. A woman named Sara Copper.”
“I see.” Still had nothing to do with me.
“She’s your Ben’s daughter.”
That shocked the hell out of me. “Ben Veritas’s daughter?”
“Aye.”
“My gods. Does he know?” He hadn’t said anything while he wrapped my hand early this morning, and I hadn’t seen him since. If he did know, it would explain his absence today. Though none of his earlier absences. He’d been gone a lot recently.
“Probably not. She was arrested just this morning.”
Oh. “And you’re telling me first? Why?”
“She killed him,” Risa continued in a lowered voice, “so she could sell his ashes.”
“She killed him for his ashes?” I echoed dumbly. Yes, he’d been murdered. Yes, his ashes had been stolen. I hadn’t thought both crimes had been committed by the same person.
“Aye.”
“I thought they were digging the ashes out of g
roves.”
“Maybe they’re running out of likely sources in the ash groves,” said Risa. “Now that more and more people are doing it.”
“She didn’t want to wait for someone to die? She murdered him? That’s insane.”
“Murderers aren’t known for being rational.”
“I’d think that would depend on the murderer.” Was it possible? Were people really getting that crazy? Because this was a whole different issue. Digging up ashes, while disgusting and disrespectful, didn’t really hurt anyone.
But killing people. Killing people deemed to be particularly lucky. Just so their ashes could be consumed by or sold to de lusional layabouts who wanted spells to fix whatever they thought was wrong with their lives. “She said she killed him for his ashes?” Zaire, this was Ben’s daughter. Poor man.
“Zaire, no. She’s not admitting anything. But she was one of the servants who went missing from the mayor’s house.”
“That’s hardly conclusive evidence,” I objected. “There are all sorts of reasons why she would run. Fear of being blamed for his murder would be a big one.” I would do the same, in her shoes.
“There is more evidence than that. I can’t tell you what it is. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but I thought it was important you people knew the kind of man who’s living with you and working for you,” said Risa.
“What kind of man? You mean Ben?”
“Of course I mean Ben. His daughter is a murderer.”
“So? That doesn’t mean he’s a threat to us. It’s not like it’s the sort of thing that runs in a family.”
“You’d be amazed how much crime does run in the family, Dunleavy.”
That was, I thought, a horrible and dangerous assumption to make. “How old is this woman?”
“Twenty-five or so.”
“Was she raised by Ben?”
Risa shrugged.
“He lives here. He’s worked for the Triple S for years. Decades, maybe.” I realized, to my shame, that I didn’t know for sure. “I’m pretty sure if his daughter is into this sort of thing, it’s off her own bat.”
“Oh, she did it all right.”
“You can’t know that unless she confessed.”
“No, there will have to be a trial. But she did it. There’s no doubt. And after she’s convicted, she’ll get as many lashes as the charges demand. If she survives that, she’ll be hanged.” I grimaced. “She’s a murderer, Dunleavy. Don’t waste your sympathies on her.”
Moira J. Moore - Heroes at Risk Page 16
