Tarnished City

by Vic James

  ‘Yes, you and the hundreds of other people who’ve called this morning saying the same thing. Student, are you, sonny? One of these “social justice warriors”? Do us a favour and stop wasting our time.’

  ‘No, wait, I’m none of that. This isn’t a threat – it’s real. I’ll do it. I’m . . . family.’

  ‘Ah.’ The voice paused a moment. ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, son. But you’ve got to understand, what these people did was against the law, and that needs to be punished. I can see from the location of your phone that you’re near Gorregan. Here’s my advice. Go home. Whatever you do, don’t stay there and watch it, kid.’

  The line went dead.

  Luke let out a stream of curse words that would have given Mum a heart attack if she’d heard them. What options were left? Almost none. He fingered the tear gas cylinder. He’d intended to throw it into the crowd, to create chaos just as they led Abi out. In the confusion, he would grab her and perhaps they could make an escape – although how, and where to, was the point at which that particular plan started to fall apart.

  But another idea occurred. Maybe a way to bring the show to a halt before it even began. An elevated viewing box had been constructed, from which the Equals would watch everything. A gas canister tossed in there might abort the whole event. He needed to get back fast, before the square became so densely packed he’d have no chance of finding a spot.

  It was well past nine by the time he’d wriggled his way into the press of people around the platform. At one point, he thought he’d have to drop to his hands and knees and crawl through the thicket of legs. He lost count of the number of times he was elbowed in the eye, trodden on, or shoved so hard it winded him.

  But eventually he reached the front. Just a few people stood between him and the scaffold, while behind him – erected over a statue of some women standing on a wave, so it would be solid and immovable – was the Equals’ elaborately decorated viewing box. At the right moment, he could toss the canister either onto the platform, or up into the box. He reached for his satchel, to check it was still safely there.

  And discovered to his horror that the satchel was gone. The strap must have ripped in the press of bodies. Or maybe someone had done to him what he had done to the dancing woman whose bag he’d nicked. A knife brought to stab a victim of the Blood Fair could just as easily slice through a bag strap.

  He let out a howl of despair. All his ideas, come to nothing.

  ‘What’s up?’ said the person next to him. ‘Lost something?’

  He turned, wound tight enough to punch the speaker, some bloke in a hoodie, when in the shadow of the hood he glimpsed a flicker of gold. The guy blinked, and it was gone.

  ‘I should have known you wouldn’t miss it, Luke,’ said Silyen Jardine. ‘Though I’m intrigued as to how you escaped from an inescapable, blood-bound castle. You’ll have to tell me over a coffee sometime. My treat.’

  ‘Don’t say another word to me,’ Luke said, ‘unless it’s to explain that you’re here to rescue my sister.’

  ‘Me? I’m here to let the Dog off the leash for a bit. You know what he’s like about rapists, and he has such fond memories of Julian and Blake.’

  Luke followed Silyen’s gaze, and there was Dog at the very front, pressed up against the crash barriers.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? People are going to die here, and you’ve brought him along to help?’

  ‘You’re surprised, after I let an innocent boy be Condemned for a crime he didn’t commit? After I encouraged Zelston to make a Proposal that could only ruin him? When I was the only one there when my aunt died? Either you’re less intelligent than I thought, or you have a touchingly high opinion of me, despite all the evidence to the contrary.’

  Half concealed by the hoodie, Silyen’s mouth curved up into a smile. Luke’s fingers itched to smack it. But right now, the Equal was the only hope he had of rescuing his sister – because he could, Luke was certain. With the merest lift of his fingers, Silyen Jardine could save Abi’s life. ‘How did you even know I’d be here?’

  ‘I had no idea you were coming. You are supposed to be a prisoner in Scotland. But I felt you right away once I got here, thanks to our ... special connection.’ Silyen stepped closer, so that his hood framed both their faces. He grabbed the front of Luke’s sweater and twisted, pulling their bodies together. ‘When something’s stuck to a spider’s web, she can feel it wriggling, no matter where she is.’

  Luke wasn’t even going to think about what that might mean. Only that it was somehow, possibly, useful. You’re important to Silyen Jardine, Coira had said. Well, if he was, he could do something with that.

  ‘It’s a shame our little bond will be broken,’ he said, keeping his voice level, ‘when I die up on that scaffold alongside my sister, when my rescue goes horribly wrong. Unless you do something.’

  Silyen let go and Luke stumbled back.

  ‘Ahh,’ the Equal said, his smile even wider, if that was possible. ‘I knew you’d be perfect, Luke. From the minute we met, I knew. But I doubt I’ll need to do a thing. Look, here comes my family.’

  A peal of trumpets sounded. The crowd pressed and swayed as Security opened a path for the Jardines: Lord Whittam and Lady Thalia, Gavar and Bouda, then Jenner. They took their seats; the sixth chair was empty.

  ‘Ooops,’ Luke heard Silyen mutter. ‘Forgot to put that in my diary. And I’d keep your head down, Luke.’

  Luke needed no telling, because he’d just glimpsed those arriving to occupy the next two rows of seats. He could barely see the petite forms of Astrid Halfdan and the girl alongside her. But he saw Astrid’s companion lift a hand to push back her long hair, and her slender arm ended in a gleaming robotic claw. After her huffed a humongous man that Luke recognized as Lord Matravers, Dina’s father. He was too out of breath to speak, but was listening intently to Crovan.

  ‘Yes, we should do something about that.’ Silyen reached out to Luke’s throat and teased down the neck of the jumper. His fingertips brushed across skin and collar. ‘It’s a shame, because it’s a good look on you. But we don’t want any unnecessary fuss.’

  As easily as if it had been a ribbon tied around Luke’s neck, Silyen slipped a finger beneath the golden band. Luke watched him draw it off and almost cried with relief.

  Silyen held it up to inspect for a moment, then tipped his hand and let it fall to the ground. The band evanesced in a shimmer before it hit.

  Luke remembered when the Equal had plucked the padlock from Dog’s cage. He dispensed freedom so casually, did Silyen Jardine. As if it was nothing at all.

  ‘Pay attention,’ Silyen mouthed, pointing towards the platform.

  The horror was already beginning.

  Julian, clad in only a pair of white shorts, had been frogmarched onto the platform. Gone was the Skill-induced blankness of yesterday morning. He was fully alert – and plainly terrified. He was begging and whimpering as Security moved around him, fixing the chains: two at his wrists, a third looped around his waist. On the far side of the platform, Luke could see Blake receiving the same treatment, unresisting and contemptuous.

  ‘People of Britain!’ Lord Jardine’s voice carried across the square. ‘The ties that bind us are greater than the forces that seek to tear us apart. You serve us, and we protect you. This is how it has always been.

  ‘And more than merely protecting you, we want you to flourish. We live to keep our country strong, and to improve life for each one of you. As a token of that pledge, today we deliver for your judgement those who have grievously wronged you, and our country.’

  London was lapping it up. Those gathered in the square were baying and applauding. Luke couldn’t believe it. They were cheering a man who was telling them that their place was to serve. They must be intoxicated beyond reason.

  Jardine continued. ‘This pair are convicted of the rape of children and the mutilation of a young woman. After them will come more. Seditionists who burned the crops that make your ch
ildren’s bread. Wreckers who terrorized the quiet and honest labour of the worktowns. We give them to you.

  ‘Act without fear of retribution. Against these creatures, here and now, no crime can be committed. Today we entrust our justice to your hands.’

  The trumpets blasted. Security dragged back the crash barriers. Then, with a roar, those at the front of the crowd surged forward. Luke swayed on his feet, partly from the motion, partly because he was dizzy with horror and amazement.

  He felt Silyen’s hand at his elbow, holding him steady. ‘Watch,’ the boy murmured. ‘Watch and understand.’ ‘What am I supposed to understand?’

  ‘That you don’t get to save everybody.’

  Luke shook him off.

  Julian’s wailing was inhuman, a piglike squealing. Blood fountained up. Something followed it, tossed high above the crowd. A finger. Then another.

  ‘For Miss Athalie!’ someone cried, as an apple corer stabbed down roughly where Julian’s eyes might be. Jules’s scream was as jagged as broken glass. Luke turned away, and glimpsed, in the box behind, the gleam of two robot hands applauding.

  It went on and on. Torn scraps of bloodstained white cloth were trampled, unregarded. Luke saw what looked like a fan of steel, and could have sworn he heard Dog’s demented laughter. Then came a piercing, ululating shriek from Julian that Luke didn’t think he’d ever forget, as something resembling offal was flung into the air and there was a lavatorial stink.

  Luke doubled over and vomited. A soul-deep nausea wrung out his stomach. Julian’s screaming ceased, and Luke heaved one last time.

  He saw a glint on the ground. Someone had dropped a knife. He curled his fingers around it. As he straightened up, the mess that had been Julian was being dragged to the rear of the platform.

  A column of prisoners was marched up the steps to take his place: half a dozen men, then at the back of the group, Abi.

  No, not quite the back. After her came Renie.

  In a moment, Luke’s knife was at Silyen Jardine’s throat.

  ‘If you’ve a plan for rescuing my sister, now would be a really good time.’

  Silyen tsked, making no move to push the blade away.

  ‘Only dull people have plans, Luke. “Go here. Do this. Hope other people do that.” It never works. No, clever people embrace possibilities. Seize opportunities. For example, there are several intriguing possibilities for what will happen here next. And in only one of those does your sister die.’

  ‘That’s one too many.’

  Then a powerful voice roared out, ‘Get that child off there!’

  ‘Oooh,’ Silyen murmured quietly at his side. ‘Not the one I was expecting.’

  Luke had heard that voice before, in another crowded square where hell was breaking loose. He turned to look. Gavar Jardine was on his feet, standing at the front of the box, gesturing furiously.

  ‘We believe she’s sixteen, Heir Gavar,’ a voice replied from the stage. And Luke recognized that one, too, though he glanced over his shoulder to check. Yep. Kessler, his Millmoor nemesis.

  ‘She looks more like twelve, but I don’t give a damn either way. I’m not going to watch a child be ripped to pieces. Nor a young woman, either.’

  ‘Sit down, Gavar,’ said Bouda Matravers icily. ‘This is the justice they deserve.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ Gavar snarled.

  Which was when the sculptured marble wave the Equals’ box rested on somehow, impossibly, lifted higher, and the air quivered with a roar that could only have originated deep in the throats of the square’s monumental bronze lions. The stone wave curled and crashed in a jaw-dropping display of Skill, smashing the box to the ground. Equals tumbled and fell, the people nearby yelling and pushing to get out of the way.

  Luke looked at Silyen in astonishment. The Equal boy shrugged, in an unmistakable ‘not me’.

  Then a light came into his eyes and he pointed. Away across the square, standing tall on Gorregan Square’s empty fourth plinth, was a young woman Luke didn’t recognize, her head half shaved and hands uplifted.

  ‘Good old Midsummer,’ Silyen whispered, grinning.

  Behind them, the lions roared again.

  Then with a scorching uprush of air, the platform surrounding the scaffold burst into flames.

  28

  Abi

  The stage beneath her feet heaved as if the earth itself had shrugged. Abi staggered, grabbing the metal post for support. The Security man who’d been holding her cuffs, ready to fasten them, was thrown violently sideways.

  ‘Renie!’, she yelled – but the scaffolding between them tore in two, Renie’s section jutting up even as Abi’s tilted downwards. The kid scrabbled to hold on to the edge of it with her fingertips, while Abi’s knees buckled and she fell.

  The ground shook with a monstrous rumbling, as if a Tube train was somehow tunnelling up to the surface. And as Abi watched, Renie’s portion of the scaffold was lifted high on the back of a monstrous bronze lion that tossed its head and roared.

  Was she going mad? Had they put a chain around her neck and tightened it – and, starved of oxygen, was she hallucinating this?

  The platform surrounding them burst into flames, as did shattered viewing box. Everywhere people were running and screaming.

  Abi tensed for the Security man to grab her. If he fastened the chains, either the people of London would swarm over her with steel in their hands and murder in their eyes, or the fire would burn her up. She’d fight him with her last strength.

  But no-one touched her.

  Behind her, Abi heard the guard’s groans. Perhaps he’d been injured. But there was no time to look. The flames were hot on her face and the scaffold would catch fire next. She had to jump – but it would be blind, a leap through flame and smoke. She rocked back on her heel for propulsion, then launched herself forward.

  Hot, black air seared her throat as the exertion forced her to drag in a breath. But she made it through the flames – only for her feet to catch the top of the crash barrier. Abi fell in a tangle of clattering metal, sharp pain shooting through her elbow and ankle.

  Something roared and a giant bronze paw smashed down beside her.

  ‘Abi!’

  She looked up. Renie was perched on the back of the gargantuan metal lion. She sat astride its shoulders, her fingers dug deep into its rippling mane.

  ‘Come on,’ the kid shouted, reaching down. But Renie was too small and the lion too large. And Abi’s arm hurt too much to lift it, and her ankle too much to stand. So though Renie’s fingers strained to reach her, they never had a hope of pulling her up.

  The lion roared again and sprang away. Renie twisted on its back, still hopelessly reaching out. Abi shook her head, willing the kid to turn round and hang on.

  The bronze beast cleared the flaming wreckage of the Equals’ box in a single bound. The noise in the square was deafening, now, as people fled. Another throaty rumble came from somewhere nearby, and the crowd heaved and turned again to get away from the path of a second lion, then a third and fourth. Mounted on one, Abi thought she saw Renie’s uncle Wes. Pulled up behind him were several men of the Bore.

  The four lions stalked across Gorregan Square, and Abi saw where they were headed. On the empty fourth plinth in front of the National Gallery stood Midsummer Zelston, arms stretched wide. She looked like a bronze statue herself, monumental and magnificent.

  Two of the great lions reached her side and stayed there, tails lashing angrily. From the other two, the riders dismounted and the creatures readied themselves to spring back down the steps to retrieve the remaining Bore workers – and Abi, she devoutly hoped. She dragged herself to her feet, wincing.

  ‘No,’ said Bouda Matravers, in a voice loud enough to be heard half a mile away in the House of Light.

  The blonde woman was immaculate as ever, despite having been thrown from the box like all the others. She stretched out one hand across the square, and Abi wondered if she was somehow going to pluck
Midsummer from where she stood, or throttle her with nothing but the power of Skill.

  Instead, the fountains blew.

  At the heart of Gorregan Square was a massive ornamental pool of water. At each of its four corners, fountains in the shape of Nelson’s ships poured ceaseless streams from their bowsprits. In the centre, a giant bowl spumed water high into the air. As Bouda’s hands pinched and twisted in the air, the bowl flew off, the ships cracked open, and the ornamental cascades turned into geysers.

  The water poured up in a torrent, then flowed outward like a high curtain, forming a glassy, rippling wall that divided the square in two. Walled off, the lions prowled and snarled.

  At the near side of the pool, water spiralled upwards in a twisting, turning column – then lashed down with a terrible power towards the burning scaffold.

  The force of it was incredible. It doused the flames in a deafening sizzle, sending up a wave of acrid smoke. The debris – Abi included – was blasted away in a foaming flotsam of wood, ash, metal poles and chains, and wrecked crash barriers. Other people caught in the torrent slammed into her – were they spectators? Security? Something torn and bloody washed over her, perhaps from the man they’d ripped apart first.

  As she was swept away Abi thought she heard a voice shout her name, but she must have been mistaken because it sounded like Luke.

  Then something struck her head and her ears rang, her vision swam, and she felt herself sink.

  It could have been immediately, or it could have been minutes later that a hand roughly pulled back her hair. Another slapped her face. She couldn’t move, Abi realized. Something heavy pinned her down.

  ‘Abigail.’

  This stern voice definitely wasn’t Luke. She tried to look, but could barely open her eyes. The person gave a growl of annoyance and pressed two fingers against one puffy eyelid despite her yelps. There was a violent tingling, and when she blinked, she found that she could see.

  The sight was a surprise.

  ‘The kid got away okay?’ her rescuer asked. ‘I thought I saw her on one of those bloody lions.’