The front door slammed shut and the footsteps of the residents padded around outside. They walked with little noise. From their sound, Seb would have assumed them to be tiny. But the fact that he’d found clothes his size suggested otherwise. A quick look at their bathtub and he confirmed it. No way were the residents any smaller than him. He looked down at his ridiculous flight suit full of pockets and shook his head. If anyone he knew saw him dressed like this …
“Can you smell that?” one of the residents said.
A different voice replied, a female by the sound of it. “What?”
“That smell. It smells like the drains again.”
Seb held the clothes wrapped in the towel away from his body as they dripped sewage water on the floor. Their damp weight tugged on his outstretched arm and he wanted to set them down to ease the ache, but to put them down would make him less ready to go. The opportunity to get out of there would come and he didn’t need anything holding him back.
“I’ll talk to the landlord,” the first voice replied. The sound of his words got louder as he came closer to the bathroom door.
Seb drew a deep breath and the world around him slipped into slow motion. He held the towel in his left hand and clenched his right. Sometimes he had no other choice but to fight.
But instead of entering the bathroom, the steps continued past. Seb released a relieved sigh.
Over the next few minutes, Seb listened to the couple on the other side of the door. At some point he would have to take the plunge and bust out of the bathroom to fight them. He couldn’t wait forever. The creatures had come home now, so they probably wouldn’t go out again. At present, he still had the element of surprise. Better he used that than be caught hanging out in their bathroom like a weirdo.
Before Seb could think on it any further, the whoosh of what sounded like igniting flames roared in the street outside.
“What was that?” one of the residents asked.
“Dunno,” the other replied.
The front door clicked and the noise of something burning grew louder from where they’d clearly opened it. Hard to tell over the noise, but Seb couldn’t hear the couple in the house anymore. They must have gone outside to investigate.
Seb yanked the bathroom door open and looked across the living room. Candles had been lit and a table had been moved out into the middle of the room. Food of some description sat on it. Two meals ready for the two residents. He sprinted across the front room. It didn’t matter if they saw him now, he had to get out of there.
When he got to the window, he saw the movement of purple eyes on the other side and Sparks flung it open. Tossing his towel of clothes through first, Seb followed them out by diving through the space and back out into the alleyway on the other side.
Outside, Seb panted, his breath visible in the cold air. He looked at Sparks. “What just happened?”
When Sparks didn’t reply, Seb walked down to the end of the alley and peered around the corner. A small cottage with a thatched roof sat in a row of other houses. Its roof glowed with flames.
Upon returning to Sparks in the alleyway, Seb raised an eyebrow at her impish grin. She pressed a button on her wristwatch, which sent the same magnesium glare Seb had seen from it several times already.
A spark shot away from her and hit the pile of Seb’s filthy clothes that he’d brought from the house. “Ain’t technology grand?” she said as the ball of clothes went up in flames. “After you just went to all that trouble rescuing the clothes, the last thing we want to do is leave the pile here for someone to find.”
“And you don’t think the burning cottage will raise suspicion?”
“Nah. Thatched roofs and gaslights so close to one another is a recipe for disaster. I can’t believe this is the first cottage to go up in flames.” A quick look up the alley away from the end with fire and Sparks said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Sparks led the way and Seb followed her, the plastic smell of his burning clothes behind them. “Sparks,” Seb said.
The small Thrystian stopped and turned to him, her eyebrows raised as she waited for him to speak.
“That person in the sewers.”
“The nutty woman with no hair?”
“Yeah. What did you think about that?”
“That she was a nutty woman with no hair.”
“But she seemed to know.”
Sparks walked off again and Seb fell into stride with her as he added, “She seemed to know about my mum.”
“So, what, you think you’re some kind of messiah now?”
It did sound ridiculous. Seb shrugged and stopped talking.
At the other end of the alley, Seb peered around the corner and his jaw fell loose. Instead of the same quaint scene of small houses and gaslight street lamps, there stood a huge spire that rose from a block of fog-enshrouded shadow. Jet black as if even the suggestion of light would be consumed by it, the stalagmite of a building shot from the ground and pointed straight up at the sky as if to curse the gods for its wretched existence.
The foggy shadow beneath the spire sat both as wide and as deep as a row of fifty small houses. When Seb looked up the craggy shaft for a second time, he struggled to see where it stopped and the pitch-black sky began.
A row of houses ran down either side of the dark palace. Despite the bizarre building next to them, the streets looked normal for the city, with street lamps and a wide road. The city dwellers wandered about as if they didn’t have an enormous tower beside them more suited for hell than Caloon.
“Look at them,” Seb said with a sneer, all of the people dressed in the ridiculous fashion that he and Sparks had been forced to adopt. “They walk around up here as if everything’s normal and they don’t have a care in the world. As if they have no awareness of the poverty and suffering below.”
“While I agree with you,” Sparks said, “I don’t think feeling contempt for the people of this city is the way we should be going at the moment. I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a huge palace in the middle of the street. A palace that has Crimson Countess written all over it.”
“That’s got to be where the others have been taken,” Seb said.
“And where my bag is,” Sparks added.
Another look up the huge black spire and Seb nodded. “You’re right. There’s no getting away from what we have to do. Come on, let’s go.”
The pair of them stepped from the alley in the wide open space. A foreboding cold breeze hit Seb and his entire body tensed at its touch.
Chapter 44
A wide cobblestone square separated the alleyway from the palace. Black like the rest of the city, the road surface only revealed its undulations when Seb stood on it. It forced him to move slower than he would have liked for fear of turning an ankle. The full force of Solsans’ bitter wind rushed across the open space and battered him. He hugged himself for warmth and spoke through a clenched jaw. “I feel like I’m getting hypothermia.”
Sparks, seemingly impervious to the chill, ignored him.
Halfway across, Seb heard the sound of raised voices. He looked at the street that ran down the right side of the palace and saw a mob. Pitchforks would have completed their image. They held flaming torches and their faces were twisted with hate. They seemed to have someone in their midst that was the source of their ire.
Although many different species, the mob all had something in common. In the darkness of Solsans, their white skin shone so pale it almost glowed like Phulp’s had. To even think about the small creature lifted bile into Seb’s throat. That little rat.
The mob’s skin stopped mattering when Seb saw their victim. Dressed differently to them in the clothes of a slum dweller, she couldn’t have been any more than twelve years old. At first, the hate mob’s angry protests swirled together as one bitter noise, but now they got closer, he heard their chants and yells. “Thief!” “Rat!” “Good-for-nothing!”
The girl’s top rode up as they dragged her along the rough and cold
ground. Too poor for a bra and too young to look like a woman anyway, she had the appearance of a skinny boy beneath her clothes. So malnourished, her concave stomach pulled into her lilac-skinned body with each heaving gasp as she cried. She fought against the tight grip one male had on her ankles with thrashing kicks, but he overpowered her with ease as he pulled her down the street.
Mostly males of their species, but also a few females, the crowd spat and kicked at the girl. “Thief!” “Scum!” One in every three kicks made the girl yelp like a broken and beaten animal.
Seb stopped, his stomach tense at the sight in front of him. Heavy breaths ran through him and the edges of his world blurred as his gift kicked in.
As if she’d sensed it, Sparks grabbed Seb’s arm. When he looked down at her, he became conscious of his scowl and tried to soften his face.
“We can’t do anything,” she said in a low voice. “I hate watching this as much as you do.” She pointed at the palace. “But we need to get in there to help SA and Gurt and get our target free. We fight now and it’s all over.”
The desire to argue burned in Seb’s throat, but he saw the sense in Sparks’ words.
Dressed like the rest of the citizens because of the clothes they’d stolen, Seb and Sparks were able to walk through the streets unnoticed. As harrowing as it felt to pass her by, they couldn’t give up that advantage for one girl.
As they got closer, the male who dragged the girl lost his grip on her and she wriggled free. She made a break for it until another one of the mob kicked her legs away so hard that when she landed, her shoulder slammed against the solid ground with a stomach-churning crack. She cowered away from the mob and raised her arms up in front of her face as she screamed, “Please, I didn’t mean to take it.”
The male leaned over her, backed by the jeers of his pals. “You didn’t mean to take it? The bread just jumped into your hands, did it?”
Snot and tears ran down the girl’s lilac face. Half the size of the male, she looked up at him through glassy eyes. “Please, the bread had been thrown away. It was stale.”
“It was mine. I didn’t say you could take it.”
“You’d thrown it away.”
“And that’s where it starts,” he said. “You steal from the bin, and then you throw food away before it goes off so you can steal that too.” The male’s boot connected with the girl’s stomach.
Her body wrapped around the impact with an oomph.
As she lay on the ground, she fought for breath, her slim form rocking with her gasping attempt.
Seb only realised he’d stopped again when Sparks tugged on his arm for a second time. Pain streaked up the sides of his face from where he locked his jaw tight. How could he walk away with the pack of bullies doing what they were doing? Older males and females, overfed and overprivileged, they treated the girl like she had invaded their world rather than lived on a planet they shared. Swollen with their own self-entitlement, they needed to be taught a lesson.
When an older female—frail-looking and so bitter she seemed to be driven by the devil—stepped forward and kicked the girl in the face, Seb moved toward the mob again and Sparks tugged him back. She spoke to him through clenched teeth. “Don’t lose your head.”
Another male spat on the girl and kicked her. The girl’s head snapped back at the impact and she fell limp.
It hurt Seb’s heart to see the emaciated lilac-skinned girl knocked out on the ground. “You’re telling me to walk away,” he said to Sparks, “but you were hardly subtle when you set fire to that cottage.”
“The difference is no one knows it was me. And, like I said, fires are bound to happen with gaslights and thatched cottages. You start a fight now and everyone will know who you are. We may be wearing the same clothes as them, but one look at our skin and it’s pretty damn obvious we don’t belong here.”
The mob lifted the girl up above their heads and her small body hung limp, flopping about like a rag doll as they carried her away.
Seb remained rooted to the spot and watched them take the girl to the edge of the city. They counted down from three, and although it seemed obvious in hindsight, he didn’t consider the horrific event it until it happened.
On three, they launched her over the side.
Seb clenched his fists and turned on Sparks. “Did you just see that?”
Sparks tugged on his arm again and tears sat in her large purple eyes. “It’s not that I don’t care, Seb. I really do. I just know that we can’t fight this fight.”
As Sparks dragged Seb away, he continued to watch the privileged mob whoop and holler as they all stared over the edge of the city. He could catch them by surprise and shove at least half of them off after the girl before they defended themselves. But he didn’t. He had to listen to Sparks. They behaved the way they did because the Countess allowed it. They had to get into the palace and cut the head off the snake.
The taste of bile still in his throat, Seb reluctantly turned away from the hate mob and followed Sparks toward the dark palace.
Chapter 45
As they got closer to the palace, Seb looked over at the hateful mob again. Most of them continued to peer over the side, obviously taking in every inch of the skinny girl’s broken form. A strong enough gust of wind could send them all over after her. If only! He turned back around and shook his head. “I know we needed to walk away, but I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. She only took a loaf of bread.”
“A loaf of bread her master had thrown in the bin,” Sparks added.
“Right?”
“But we need to get SA and Gurt back. Were it just a case of rescuing a plummy toff from captivity, then I may have chosen the girl over our mission. But we need to make sure we get to our teammates as quickly as possible. Who knows what’s happening to them. We kick off out here”—she pointed at the palace—“and it’ll be a damn sight harder to get in there.”
Tension balled in Seb’s stomach from what he’d just witnessed, but he continued forward with Sparks and didn’t look around again. The Countess would pay for running a city like Caloon.
The closer they got to the palace, the deeper the shadow it cast. So dark Seb almost expected to feel it cling to his skin like oil.
A few steps closer and two huge gates appeared from the shadows. Made from black wrought iron, they stood about ten feet tall. Instead of spikes along the top, they had what looked like forks. Each large prong had a barb on it like a fishhook. Once impaled on one, it would take a lot to get off it again.
Seb looked for a way in and seemed to notice it at the same time as Sparks said it.
“They’re electric gates.” Sparks scratched her face as she looked from one electric box to the other. They’d been affixed to the bottom of both posts.
“You think you can …?” But before Seb could finish, Sparks scuttled up to the gate and popped the front off one of the boxes.
Although Seb struggled to see into the foggy blackness beyond, it seemed unoccupied. He heard no movement, and the shadows—although dark—remained still. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he waited for Sparks to do her thing and he continued to look for guards in front of them.
A sharp buzz and a flash of light punched from Sparks’ corner of the gate. It temporarily blinded Seb. “Not very subtle,” he said while rubbing his eyes.
“What do you want from me? We need to get in and I only have this watch.”
A couple of loud tocks of a small engine willing itself into motion, and a whir called out as the gate slid open.
It creaked and groaned and Seb checked over both of his shoulders to see if anyone approached from behind. The lynch mob remained at the edge of the elevated section of the city, but apart from that, it seemed clear.
Once the gate had opened by a few feet, Sparks stood up and waved Seb over. “Come on,” she hissed, “let’s get inside. I reckon we have about fifteen minutes before the power comes back on.”
Although not quite frozen to the s
pot, reluctance pulled Seb back for a second before he finally shrugged and followed his friend through the gap in the gate.
Chapter 46
Unable to see anything, Seb held Sparks’ hand and kept up with her as best as he could. Somehow, the wide-eyed Thrystian seemed to be able to navigate the dark much more easily than him. She’d guided them into the palace and through some of the corridors, but he had no idea where they currently were. Without power, the inside of the palace had turned into a pitch-black void that seemed to leech the light from his eyes.
The ground, although uneven, didn’t have any surprises to trip them up. At least, not yet anyway. The damp smell of the palace filled Seb’s nostrils, forcing him to screw his nose up against the funk. He slowed down more with each step. When he’d pulled back to a walk, Sparks tugged his hand and hissed at him, “What are you doing? We don’t have much time before the power comes back on.”
“Sparks, without the power, we have nothing. We need to wait for it to come back on before one of us hurts ourselves. I’m totally blind and I can’t imagine your sight’s much better. We can’t move in this darkness.”
Sparks stopped completely and sighed. “You’re right.” The shuffle of her feet called out and she pulled Seb with her until they came to a wall. “We’ll wait for the lights to come back on.”
Puffed out from the run and short of breath because of his rapid pulse, Seb leaned into the cold, damp wall and waited.
A male voice burst from a speaker Seb didn’t realise existed until it went off right next to him. He jumped to the side and his heart beat in his neck. He tried to blink the darkness away and stared in the direction of the sound. What at first appeared to be an echo turned out to be many speakers spreading away from them in both directions. The voice repeated the same order. “Mother requests your presence in the main hangar. You have three minutes.”
A blink of light burst from above them, and Seb—still panicked from the loudspeaker—ducked as if the ceiling would fall on him. A flash more prolonged than the initial spark stabbed through the darkness, and then a light came on, illuminating the space where they stood.
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