Bright Ruin

by Vic James

  ‘Caught her sneaking round the back entrance of Aston House,’ Gavar told the two Security officers on duty at the main entrance to the parliamentary complex. The sodium yellow from the lamp light, and the flickering radiance cast by the looming House of Light, gave them a ghastly appearance, as if this whole charade wasn’t awful enough already. ‘I’m taking her to the Office of Public Safety.’

  ‘Your wife’s office? Yes, yes, of course, Heir Gavar.’

  ‘My office,’ snapped Gavar. ‘We were tasked jointly by my father. Just because I don’t swan around here with paperwork, doesn’t mean . . .’

  But the guard was already cringing and swinging open the gate.

  ‘Who should I notify . . . ?’ the guard called feebly after them, but Gavar was dragging her forward.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked quietly, once they were out of earshot of the entrance and into the long shadow of the outer quadrangle wall. Abi could only make a moan of agreement.

  She was dragged into a second quad, and across to a heavy oak door with a security-fob panel set incongruously next to it. Gavar touched his parliamentary pass to it, and when the door gave an electronic beep, he shouldered it open and thrust Abi through ahead of him –

  – right against the chest of a massive Security guard. She grunted as they collided, and her heart accelerated. The plan hadn’t anticipated an obstacle already.

  ‘Heir Gavar. An unexpected pleasure, sir. And who’s this?’

  A baton prodded Abi painfully in the chest. As she arched backwards, she saw first the bull neck, then the brutish face.

  Kessler.

  The one who had ripped Luke away from them all and hauled him off to Millmoor. The one who had barked orders as his goons manhandled Renie out of the safe house. The one who’d led them all onto the platform at the Blood Fair. Abi’s hatred for him throbbed like a pulpy bruise beneath her skin.

  Kessler’s baton trailed lingeringly across her breasts, then up her throat, forcing her head back. The tip of it tapped her lips and prodded at the handkerchief in her mouth.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Gavar said, his voice tight. ‘You know who this is. You were there at the Blood Fair – I’ve not forgotten.’

  Kessler was the one who had sworn Renie was old enough to die, and Gavar had overruled him. The man scowled, and thrust his baton roughly into Abi’s mouth. Her gag reflex made saliva well into the handkerchief and she coughed and gasped for air.

  ‘Abigail Hadley,’ he said. ‘Where did you find her?’

  ‘Trying to break into Aston House to see her sister, the stupid little bitch.’

  ‘Not so smart after all, Miss Hadley.’ Kessler gave a wide, thin-lipped smile. ‘I’ll enjoy having you back with us.’

  Well, this had to look convincing. Abi kicked the man in the crotch as hard as she could.

  Kessler howled and lashed out, and Abi actually heard her nose crunch as, for a moment, everything went red.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Gavar yelled. ‘Give me your taser, Kessler. Make sure it’s ready to fire.’ He held his hand out for the plastic device, which the guard, still doubled over, slammed into his hand.

  ‘Zap her on max,’ Kessler moaned.

  Abi’s eyes were watering from the pain of her smashed nose, so she only blurrily made out Gavar holding the device up in front of her face. This whole corridor was under camera surveillance. Kessler was Bouda’s creature and would doubtless relay a full account back to his mistress. She and Gavar had discussed beforehand how every detail of this would have to appear authentic. And right now, Abi’s fear was as authentic as could be.

  ‘You try anything, and you’ll get some of this,’ Gavar warned her. ‘Now hold still.’

  He jammed the taser in his belt. Then his fingers touched Abi’s nose, pinching on either side, and it hurt almost unbearably. And then it didn’t.

  He’d healed her. The thing she’d one day dreamed of studying had actually happened to her. And she was so scared and strung out on adrenaline she’d barely been aware of a thing. Gavar yanked her arm.

  ‘You fixed the bitch?’ Kessler spat.

  ‘I’m about to lock her in a cell. I don’t want her falling unconscious and choking on her own blood. Now do you want my magic hands on you, where it hurts? No, I thought not.’ Gavar laughed nastily. ‘Take me through.’

  And Kessler dragged himself upright, hatred in those piggy eyes, and led them down the corridor. Abi counted the doors as they went.

  ‘That’s the way to the rivergate,’ Gavar sneered, as they passed an otherwise nondescript door. It tallied with the one Abi had memorized from his instructions. ‘That’s where my wife caught your little friend. And now we’ve got you back, too. Maybe I’ll put you both in the same cell so you can swap your sad stories.’

  Kessler snorted. He wouldn’t be smiling if he knew the real reason Gavar had pointed it out. That was her escape route. Abi was stumble-dragged past the door to Bouda’s Office of Public Safety, her eyes rolling to absorb every detail and store it away.

  ‘I’m not letting go of this one,’ Gavar told Kessler, when they reached a metal door set into the end of the corridor. ‘You open it.’

  The outer door opened with a card like Gavar’s, and led into a small holding area with sparse metal seating moulded to the floor and walls. The next door had both a card panel and a numeric keypad. Kessler’s fingers moved swiftly across the keys, shielded by his bulk. Gavar had told Abi the code was the day, month and year of the very first Blood Fair. A nice touch.

  ‘The runt is the only detainee we have right now,’ Kessler said as they walked along a narrow corridor. ‘So there’s only one of my boys on watch down here. Shah!’

  He bellowed down a metal staircase into the darkness below, his voice muffled by the soundproofing all around. Abi’s fear welled up again. There was a reason it was soundproofed. This was where Astrid Halfdan did the dirtiest work of Whittam Jardine’s regime. Yet torture wasn’t just inhumane – it was pointless. You’d never know if your victim’s confession was reliable, or simply screamed out to make the pain stop. Abi suspected that getting at the truth was only part of what drove Astrid.

  As the new guard appeared up the stairs, Gavar dismissed Kessler. The man hesitated, but not even he was fool enough to contradict an Equal – especially one who was his match in size and his master in power.

  ‘Heir Gavar,’ said the new Security man fawningly. He held a large gun across his body.

  ‘You’ve got a new prisoner,’ Gavar told him. ‘You have keys to these cells. Where are they?’

  ‘Right here.’ Shah patted his belt.

  ‘Good. Now go wait at the top of the stairs.’ Gavar gave a predatory smile. ‘I want a little privacy with the prisoner before you lock her up, if you get my drift. Watch the corridor.’

  That fear again. That fear. Because in just a few moments, it would be Abi’s turn to take over this rescue. Gavar had been chillingly convincing. Abi suspected that the roles of autocrat and brute hadn’t required much acting.

  Shah obeyed. Gavar opened a door – and pushed Abi into a room that stole her breath with horror. It was a steel-and-white operating theatre.

  Not equipped to take away pain, but to inflict it.

  ‘Look at all of Astrid’s toys,’ Gavar said, running his fingers along a metal trolley where trays of sterilized instruments waited. ‘Not that, though. That sends you to sleep – which would be a shame with what I’ve got in mind.’

  His touch rested on some syringes, each sealed in a sterile packet and containing a pre-measured dose. When he turned away towards a surgical trolley, as if to test the mattress, Abi knew it was down to her, now.

  She snatched up a syringe, ripped the packet, and lunged for Gavar. When they’d spoken, she’d argued that she didn’t want to have to actually inject him, but he’d insisted. Its effects would last ten minutes at the most, thanks to his Equal metabolism. She sank the plunger into his neck and, clawing at the trolley so he didn’t make a sou
nd, he fell to his knees.

  Abi pulled the handkerchief from her mouth, then bent to tug Gavar’s pass from his pocket and the taser from his belt. He’d told Kessler to make sure the gun was active, so all she needed to do was pull the blocky trigger. Creeping up the stairs, she took aim at Shah, whose back was turned as he watched the corridor. For a few moments, Abi didn’t breathe. This was it. Another boundary crossed.

  Then she remembered the easy way Shah had turned away when Gavar had asked for ‘privacy’, knowing full well what he was implying. No regrets. Abi squeezed the trigger.

  The tiny metal harpoons hooked into the guard’s back, electric threads unspooling, and Shah went down with a cry. Thank goodness for the soundproofing. Abi dropped the weapon, now useless with its spent single-use cartridge. Gavar had tricked the man into revealing where the keys were on his belt – and Abi unclipped his taser, too, in case Kessler was in the corridor.

  Her hands hovered a moment over the gun. But it was too heavy, too complicated. Too lethal.

  Speed was all that mattered. She went back down the stairs to where six cells ringed the hallway around the door to Astrid’s chamber of horrors. Renie’s face was pressed against a tiny window in one, her expression frantic. Abi put a finger to her lips, then tried the keys in turn, her hands shaking. The third one did it, the cell door sprang open, and Renie thudded into Abi’s chest with a hug hard enough to wind her.

  ‘Come with me,’ Abi whispered. ‘Keep quiet, and stick on my heels.’

  ‘One sec,’ Renie hissed.

  She darted into the white room. She emerged seconds later with a flash of metal that she slipped into her pocket. They ran up the stairs and stepped over the groaning guard. Shah made a feeble swipe at Renie’s heels, and the kid stamped on his throat without hesitation. Then they fled along the corridor. Abi stabbed in the numbers, pressed the card to the panel, and ran to the outer door once it opened. When the hydraulic bolts hissed back, Abi motioned Renie behind her, then cracked it open to peer through.

  Empty.

  Abi slipped out, tugging Renie behind her. And it was the hardest thing in the world to walk up the corridor, instead of running. Wherever Kessler was, he was nearby, and running feet in this tomb-quiet wing of parliamentary offices would be a giveaway. Abi could only pray he wasn’t monitoring the CCTV somewhere.

  ‘D’you hear that?’ Renie said.

  Abi strained. A crackle. A Security radio. Someone, somewhere, must be watching the security cameras – and was notifying Kessler.

  She sprinted for the door that would lead, eventually, to the rivergate. They were nearly there when Kessler came charging out of the Office of Public Safety at the other end. Abi slammed the pass against the touchpad as Renie yanked at the handle, and as one, they dove through.

  ‘Gerrof!’ Renie cried, and Abi saw Kessler’s hand reaching through the doorway to claw at the kid’s back.

  She threw her shoulder against the door. It was too much to hope that she’d break the bastard’s wrist – but maybe she had come close, as he yelled and his fingers uncurled.

  ‘I said, gerrof, you git,’ Renie hissed, and with a flash of metal, she jammed a scalpel into Kessler’s palm.

  He roared and burst through the door, sending Abi spinning back against the wall. But Renie had bought the time Abi needed to steady her backup taser, and she squeezed the trigger, having dialled the voltage up to maximum. It was a fierce satisfaction to watch Kessler jerk as the energy discharged.

  ‘Simple,’ she told him. The word he’d used to explain their family’s non-existent choice between resisting or submitting, when they were first picked up to do their slavedays. ‘That’s for Luke, you bastard.’

  She tossed down the spent device. If CCTV had caught their escape, then it would catch their felling of Kessler, too. Not to mention that the guy was now lying pretty conspicuously half in and half out of the open doorway, and they weren’t stupid enough to try and move him and risk him regaining consciousness.

  She remembered the instructions Gavar had drilled into her, and let her feet lead her. Had Luke run like this, in Millmoor, with this tough kid by his side? People who just wanted to be free, and the world to be fair. They were always running.

  Renie grabbed Abi’s jacket and she nearly fell over, until the girl’s scrawny arms went around her middle and pulled her behind a doorway. A moment later, voices and feet passed by. Not Security, it sounded like, but voices deep in conversation. Parliamentary staffers, working late. Abi’s heart was hammering, and who knew that just breathing was so noisy? She held her breath until Renie nudged her back out again.

  Gavar’s pass got them through another exit. Beyond it, steps led down into darkness, ending at a heavy oak door that reminded Abi of the ones at Crovan’s castle. She shuddered. Her brother was still there. And she felt a momentary surge of resentment at Wesley, for being quick enough to suggest freeing Renie as Gavar’s proof of good faith. If Abi had been thinking ahead, she could have suggested a rescue of Luke, instead.

  But then Abi felt Renie’s springy hair brush her arm as she bent to inspect the door. Remembered that the kid had only been retaken because she’d come here looking for Abi after they’d been separated in Gorregan Square. Her face heated with shame.

  Midsummer had promised Abi hard choices. This was what they looked like.

  ‘It’s just a bolt and a latch,’ said Renie, ‘then we’re out on the terrace, by the river. But we’ll have to go up to the bridge, coz I can’t swim.’

  ‘No need,’ said Abi. ‘They’re waiting for us.’

  On the lapping shore of the Thames, the air thick with tidal brine, the pair watched the masked light of a boat ripple across the water towards them.

  Abi nudged Renie into the shallows, and when the kid was knee-deep, hands reached over and hauled her on board.

  ‘I can do it myself,’ Abi said, as they stretched for her, too.

  But all of a sudden, the strength had leached from her, and she let Wesley’s strong arms pull her up. Abi lay propped against the shallow hull, as the oars dipped in and out and sped them upstream to Vauxhall. The night sky was dark, the moon barely a sliver, and the facade of parliament was a long, low silhouette broken only by its clock tower.

  But there at the heart of the Westminster complex, burning with a fire that never went out, was the House of Light. Abi didn’t take her eyes off it as the boat moved away.

  7

  Silyen

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Silyen, barely glancing up from his book. ‘I’m a prodigy of Skill, not a missing persons’ database. Here’s an idea: do you have any of your sister’s clothing? Dog could sniff it and go track her scent.’

  From the rug by the fireplace, Dog wheezed with amusement. Perhaps he’d enjoy sniffing Abigail’s clothes. Silyen winced. Not a good mental image. And Luke, as ever, wasn’t getting the joke. He was pacing up and down in a way that made it difficult to concentrate on one’s reading.

  ‘If you won’t help, then fine. I don’t know why I even thought you might. But I can’t sit around not knowing where she is.’

  ‘You know, I’m spotting a problem right there: you don’t know where she is. Our island is eighty thousand square miles. In which of them do you propose beginning your search?’

  Luke’s chest was rising and falling, his blue eyes blazing. The boy really was distracting when angry. But on balance, Silyen preferred it when he wasn’t. This was the third time they’d had this row since the conversation with Gavar, and it was getting tiresome.

  ‘Look, your sister is resourceful. You describe her as the clever one of the family – which I can well believe, though you should give yourself more credit. Yet you’re carrying on as if she’s run blindly into danger and needs you to rescue her.’ Luke’s hands flexed and those eyes narrowed. Yes, that point had struck home. ‘When I said in Gorregan Square that you can’t save everybody? Well, I should also have said that not everybody needs you to save them.’

  �
��You’re hardly the authority on saving people. You wouldn’t piss on your own family if they were on fire.’ Luke paused reflectively. ‘In fact, you’d probably be responsible for the fire.’

  ‘If you had my relatives, you would be too.’

  ‘If I had your relatives, I would have stockpiled every box of matches in the country.’

  And there, at last, was a smile. A half-hearted one, but still . . .

  ‘But what can I do?’ the boy cried, scrubbing a hand through his hair and flopping into one of Far Carr’s soft leather armchairs. ‘Maybe my sister has a plan and is fine. Maybe the rest of my family is fine-ish, too, though I doubt it. But there’s a friend I left behind at Eilean Dòchais; other folk from Millmoor I need to know about. Meanwhile your father is massacring people in the middle of London, and I want to help stop him but I don’t know how any more. I’ve been locked up for months, and the Equals I knew are dead.’

  The boy looked frustrated. Exhausted. At his wits’ end.

  Luckily Silyen had wits enough for both of them.

  Prior to Luke’s interruption he’d been enjoying a curious account of the history of his estate, accompanied by a pot of surprisingly good coffee from the Far Carr pantry. Now he set down the book and slid off the sofa, crossing to perch on the arm of Luke’s chair. Perhaps this would distract the boy. At the least, it might stop him yet again tiresomely mentioning this female ‘friend’ at Crovan’s castle.

  ‘What if I told you there was something more important than any of that?’

  ‘I’d say that I’m really not interested in how, five hundred years ago, Lord So-and-So did such-and-such a Skillful thing that no one had ever done before. I’m sure old books are fascinating, Silyen, but people are dying out there, and—’

  ‘What if I told you about the king? The one we saw at Eilean Dòchais.’

  That got a reaction. Luke looked up warily.

  ‘The one with the stag? In that golden place.’

  ‘The very same. Do you know where that place was?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Nowhere. Some kind of hallucination, caused by the pain. I figured it was my brain trying to make sense of what was happening. There were walls, which I guess represented Silences, and Crovan was attacking one . . .’