by Tim Akers
THE SOLITUDE OF the bizarre garden upstairs was broken by an argument, coming from the still-open door to the garage. Several voices going back and forth in tense whispers as we came downstairs. When the considerable bulk of Angela's engine reached the hallway, the voices cut off and a woman stepped into view. Quite a woman.
She had a lot of very dark hair that fell in broad curls over her shoulders and across her face. She had the tall, broad frame of a woman who could become heavy if given to a life of sloth, but everything about her spoke of a life lived out of doors. Her skin was dark with the sun, her face dusted in freckles, her arms strong and long. She was wearing a riding dress and shoulder shrug, the coat coming to the middle of her torso. The colors were muted, greens and blacks and browns that would have looked common if they had not been so finely cut, so expertly tailored. She put her hands on her hips and stood in the middle of the hallway, blocking our path.
"Lady Tomb. I see that you've taken your liberty with our property again," she said. Her words were precise and clear, the anger in them packaged in courtly politeness. Clearly she and Angela were cut from similar cloth, if perhaps by different tailors, for different reasons.
"Veronica. I am here on Council business, and as such have free access to any property that might pertain to our current investigations. If you insist..."
"I insist, Angela. I insist that you notify the Bright estate whenever you intend to conduct Council business on our property. I insist that you have a family escort during your investigation; if not a member of the Brights, then someone we can agree is trustworthy and will not merely serve the interests of the Founders. I insist..."
"Enough, girl," Angela snapped. "I will not stand here and suffer your insinuations. This is a matter for the Council, and for the committee duly appointed to handle this situation. If you have a problem with that, you can bring it up in the chamber. Until then, I ask you to step aside."
"The committee duly appointed, eh?" The girl named Veronica sneered, a look that sat strangely on her face. "Are you referring to the committee that you created from your friends, the committee that operated without the full knowledge of the Council for months, that did not come to the light of day until" - she hurled her arms around the hallway, indicating the whole house - "until this attack made it necessary for you to share with the industrial families. That committee?"
"It was unclear if it was a matter for the full Council until..."
"Enough. We have filed an order of dissolution for the committee. The votes are with us. You are going to turn over your findings" - she stabbed at Angela with her finger - "with documentation to support your claims. This has been a witch-hunt, conducted in the shadows by you and your friends. And when I read those documents, Angela, I expect to find a report detailing your reason for being here today."
"She was just showing me around," I mumbled. Veronica turned to look at me, as though I had just popped out of the wall.
"Another one of your lackeys, I assume? Does this one know how to properly search a house without killing the witnesses?"
"Veronica Bright, I'd like to introduce you to Jacob Burn." Angela nodded between us, presenting me with a flick of her hand. "Jacob, Veronica."
Veronica stared at me with open tension. I wondered if my father had done something to offend her, or if she'd merely heard the stories of my exciting and disaster-laden youth.
"Another one of your Founders. Of course. Is this the one being groomed to fill Alexander's seat?"
"My father is more than capable of holding his seat in the Council, ma'am. And when the time comes, I doubt he'll be passing that honor on to me."
She gaped at me like a fish, then rounded on Angela.
"He sounds perfect, Lady Tomb. Where did you dig him up? Somewhere downriver? He has that perfect scent of blind ignorance and entitled arrogance I've come to expect from the Founders. Will you sign his birthright yourself, or is Alexander still capable of that?"
"Veronica, please. Jacob is the legitimate heir of Alexander Burn, and more than capable of sitting the Council." She shot me a look that promised violence. Well. Violence she would get. "What the elder Burn intended cannot be disregarded, of course, but there are considerations that must be weighed. In fact..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said, stepping angrily between the women. "I think I can say pretty clearly that my father has no intention of naming me heir to anything other than his contempt. He was pretty clear about that, the last time we spoke."
"And tell me, Jacob - it's Jacob, right? I do remember that Alexander had a wayward child by that name, though honestly when he had you struck from the histories I was a little surprised." Veronica Bright smiled smugly. "When was the last time you spoke to your father?"
"He and I are not on what you'd call speaking terms."
"Hm, yes," she said, then nodded to Angela. "He is quite well done, Tomb. It's a pity Alexander won't be able to appreciate your work." She turned to me and gave a little bow. "A pleasure meeting you, young Burn. I'm sure we'll be speaking again."
She left, going into the garage where she resumed her argument. Within seconds the garage door rattled open and her voice receded. When it was quiet again, I turned to Angela.
"Lovely girl. What did she mean about my father not appreciating your work?"
"Alexander can be a difficult man," she said, sighing as she retrieved her gloves from her pocket and flipped them in her hands. "More difficult than most. You should know that by now."
"That doesn't really answer my question," I said.
"Perhaps not. Perhaps I'm not the one who should be answering. Come, we have things to do. Things to discuss." She moved to the door.
"No we don't."
That stopped her. She turned back to me, rotating like a top on the hundred little feet of the engine. Her face was neutral, but she was wringing the gloves.
"You're after something, Angela. You said this was only the second attack, but that girl claimed your little committee had been around for months. There have to have been others."
"Don't listen to Veronica, Jacob. She wants nothing more than to bring the Founders down to her level. To make trouble." She clattered closer to me. "The Council is fragile. Our hold on power..."
"Your hold on power. No, Angela, something is going on here. She may be playing politics, but I know you are. And that's a game I'd rather stay out of."
"Don't think you can run from this one, Jacob. This isn't the kind of trouble that goes away on its own. It'll find you."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'll find it. Either way, I'm going to do it on my own."
"I can help you, Jacob," she said, her cold hands curled into fists. "Don't throw that away."
"Any help you give me is only going to be because it's to your advantage. No, I'll do this myself, or not at all." I pushed past her, down the hallway. This place had to have a front door. "Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to show me a house full of dead bodies and corpse-plants. It's been special."
She watched me go. I had to step over a couple of bodies, but I found the front door. Got out. From outside, the house looked like any other, the facade dirty and black, the stones of its foundation muddy. Nothing to indicate the horror inside.
I had a list in my head. People I wanted to talk to, people I wanted to avoid. Things I wanted to know. Top of that list: find Wilson, and get my hands on that mask. And then maybe talk to this Veronica lady. Or my dad.
I didn't really want to talk to old Alexander. I shoved that one further down the list, then headed to where I thought Wilson might be. Which could be anywhere.
Chapter Eight
A Talking of Crows
GOOD THING ABOUT Wilson. He anticipated trouble. Trick he learned early on, from what little I knew of his history, a lesson that had been sharpened by the events of two years ago. He and I and Emily spent the better part of two weeks living in basements and cisterns while the Badge turned the city upside down looking for us. Now he kept little hiding s
pots all over the city, sometimes nothing more than a rope at the end of an alley, sometimes cached weapons and the kind of living quarters we could have used back then, tucked between buildings or suspended from little-used foot bridges. Soon as I had the stink of the Brights' rent house out of my nostrils, I turned to the closest of these hiding spots and put my head down. The crowds here were thick, but everyone was keeping to their own business. Wasn't long before he found me.
"Been following you," he said as he swung down from a shed roof, landing and matching my stride perfectly. The crowd never even noticed that there was another body among them. "And I'm not alone in that."
"You saying that I have a tail?"
"I'm saying that we're not going to lead this guy to my hiding spot, as was your clear destination." He put an arm over my shoulder, like we were old drinking buddies, smiled with his thousand teeth. "Turn here."
I turned. It was a short alley, the far end cluttered with barrels. We stopped and turned back to the alley's mouth. Wilson stood there with his arms crossed, waiting.
The guy came around the corner at a fast clip. Worried about losing us, maybe. He wore a halfcoat and shiner's cap, pulled way down over his eyes. His shoulders were hunched. Saw our feet first and stopped dead in his tracks. When he looked up I almost laughed.
"They're hiring them awful young these days," I said. The kid was baby-faced, his mouth hanging open, fat quivering around his jowls. Looked ready to piss himself. "You lose your way, son?"
"No, no sir. But. I guess. I think I took a wrong turn," he stuttered, backing towards the street. Wilson grimaced at him, and it was all the kid could do not to yelp. "Wrong."
He was back around the corner and gone with the speed of the truly terrified. Wilson and I exchanged an amused look, and went back to the street.
"We should have caught him. See what he knew," I said.
"Maybe. Just a kid, like you said. Someone hired him in a dark alley, or at a candy shop." Wilson adjusted his vest and looked up and down the street. "Anyway. He's well gone now."
"Yeah. So, you get away okay?" I asked.
"No. They caught me, branded me, scooped out my brains and then sent my reanimated dead body to hunt you down," he said, with not even a quiver of humor in his voice. "I'm going to hold you here until my masters in the Badge show up."
"Seriously," I said.
"They didn't chase me at all. And I never saw the girl again." He looked at me and shrugged. "After a while I doubled back to see what they were doing with you. Followed you here from the prison, been waiting outside that house for you to come out. You and Angela have a nice roll in the hay?"
"Don't even joke about that. You could have made yourself known earlier. You would have found that place interesting."
"No thanks," he said. "Something about Angela doesn't sit right with me. Maybe it's the way she tried to kill us all, back in the day. Maybe it's the fact that she's a half-dead bitch, living in a dress made of steel and abomination. Hard to say. But it's something."
"You're such a snob," I laughed. "No wonder you don't have any friends."
"I don't have any friends because you people killed them all, or locked them in cages." He glanced at me, his odd smile lightening the comment. "Now, come on. There's something you should see."
"Is it something like that mask? Because I've seen plenty of that."
He patted his vest, and I heard the mask clang dully. "No. Not sure there's anything quite like this thing. I got bored while I was running from the Badge. Or thought I was running from the Badge. Did some looking around."
"What'd you find?" I asked.
"Oh. This is really something you should see for yourself. Gonna take some climbing."
"I've been hiding in bars and drinking myself into shape, in anticipation of just such an event," I said. "Let's go climb something tall to look at something mysterious, rather than just have you tell me what it is. Sounds great."
"Seriously, Jacob." He gave me a vaguely nervous look. "This you should see."
LIKE MOST OF the Founders' Estates, the Manor Tomb sat in the middle of a district that was once quite opulent, and had since fallen to decrepitude. Those Founders who could afford to move had settled in better parts of the city. The Burns stayed because there was no money for a move. The Tombs stayed because the Patron was in the basement, and he was never going to move again.
The manor itself was ringed in a low wall, enough to keep out prying eyes and lazy thieves. Of course, no one broke into the Tomb estate, because the thieves in Veridon were superstitious. And there was nothing more superstitious than an ever-living Founder and his progeny of undead Councilors. They had the money to keep a small army on the premises, too. That army was in good array today, standing guard and patrolling and generally looking very fit to fight. Back when there had been trouble, the Manor Tomb served as something of a battleground, and their guard hadn't been up to the task. This was no longer the case.
We were observing all of this from a church spire, one of the many empty institutions of some dead religion that dotted the city. People came, brought their gods, built their temples, then fell under the sway of the Algorithm. Hard to argue with a god that made that kind of money, and produced that quantity of miracles. Wilson was perched comfortably on the side of the belltower, his foot hanging breezily over a forty-foot drop. I was clutching the railing like I wanted to kill it. I did want to kill it. I wanted to kill this entire expedition and get down to the nice, smooth ground.
"Is there some reason we're spying on the family that was just so kind as to break me out of jail, Wilson? Because we could probably knock on the door," I said through gritted teeth. "I've been formally introduced to their daughter."
"You used to be brave, you know?" Wilson gave me an amused eye and then shook his head. "You used to be all about the crazy plans."
"Brave got me nowhere," I said. Brave got Emily killed, I didn't say. "Just show me what needs showing and then let's get out of here."
"Might be a while. I swung by here, thinking I'd lose the Badge, maybe get them thinking I was hiding among the Family Tomb. I like making trouble for that girl. But then I saw something up in the tower. The window happened to be open."
I peered in the direction he indicated. One of the old solar towers of the estate was well lit, even in the midday sun. The curtains were all drawn shut, haloing the lights inside. The balcony was crowded with birdcages, their occupants black and squawking. Crows.
"Am I looking at the crows? I've seen crows, Wilson."
"You're waiting for the windows to open. Like I said, it might be a while."
"Honestly, I'm just going to go down there and remind Angela that we were just talking a minute ago, and ask what's in the tower. Because it's clear that you're not going to tell me."
But I was done talking, and Wilson was ignoring me. I sighed and tried to relax my arms, but my hands were having none of it. The anansi hung over the open air, swinging his leg and humming to himself.
"It's not that I'm not brave," I said, finally. "I just like things to be simple. This doesn't strike me as simple."
"Anything in Veridon strike you as simple anymore, Jacob?"
I sighed, but didn't have an answer for that. I was working on something clever to say when the curtains of the mysterious tower twitched open. Wilson tutted at me and pointed. As if I had forgotten why I was up there, risking my life.
Ezekiel Crane came out onto the balcony, stretching his arms, as though he had just gotten up from a nap. While I watched, my mouth open, he bent and spoke to one of the crows. Then he cocked his head, stood straight as a knife and spoke harshly to the bird. And then he turned and looked right at us. I could see his smile from here.
"Is this the part where we get the hell out of here?" I asked.
"Sure looks like it."
Wilson followed me down the stairs, breathing heavily on my neck as I clumped my nervous legs along. We ran through the crowd of homeless men living in the sanc
tuary, then got out the door and tried to look nonchalant as we hurried down the street, busy getting lost in the afternoon rush. It was ten minutes of quiet, desperate flight before we realized there was no pursuit.
"It was the crow," Wilson said, breaking the silence.
"What?" I gasped. I hadn't been breathing as I should. I stopped next to a soup cart and used the one stool that was open. The owner gave me an ugly look until Wilson dropped some silver on the counter. We got a dirty bowl of chowder that didn't look completely dead. Brave was something I had given up, so I pushed it to Wilson.
"The crow," he said, picking up the chowder but making no move to eat. "That's how he knew we were there."
"Crows don't talk," I said.
"Neither do dead bodies. Neither do pipes in an empty house," Wilson answered. "Jacob, all the crazy stuff we've seen, you're seriously going to argue over whether that freak can talk to crows?"
I shrugged. Wilson stared at me until, forgetting himself, he put some of the chowder into his mouth. Without chewing, he re-opened his mouth and let the contents slop back into the bowl, which he returned to the counter. The cart owner swept it away, probably to serve it to another eager customer.
"I paid good silver for that," he muttered.
"We all make mistakes, Wilson. Now. What are we going to do next?"
He stood there looking thoughtful for a minute, leaning against the cart and working his mouth silently. Probably still regretting the loss of that silver. Finally, without turning to me, he spoke.
"Say. What was in that house, anyway? The one you and Angela spent so much time inside?"
I was hoping he wouldn't ask. I told him, leaving out a lot of the details and focusing on the conversation between the two ladies of the Council. I knew that if I included the other stuff, the cog-dead and the flower-corpses, if I made those things sound as interesting and bizarre as they actually were, that Wilson would want to go back there. Take some samples. I wanted no part in that. He seemed to know I was holding back, but kept his response to a rude smile.
