Crosswind Page 18

  He saw the plain expression of contempt on Ehrlichmann’s face and the glower that creased Taube’s. Both were tinged with fear.

  “I already know they spied on us once,” Beam said.

  “They what? When?” Ehrlichmann demanded.

  “When we had our convocation this morning at the café. They were beneath us. In the catacombs under the city.” Beam smiled warmly. “That’s why I have Branch men on their way to the Primrose at this very hour. That’s why they have a warrant for the arrest of one Jesca Keysor, niece to the mayor-general or Perch, and sister to the nuisance we recently eliminated—Troy Keysor. The traitors cannot hide, you see. Even if I don’t see them, the cythraul do.”

  Winch could not believe his ears. All the precautions—the false papers, the false names, the sneaking about in sewers like rates—all came to naught. His hands trembled. His stomach churned. Allfather, save us.

  “You’re mad.” Ehrlichmann chuckled. “You think you have those beasts at your beck and call. No power from beyond this world can be tamed like that.”

  Cope yanked hard on Winch’s sleeve. “We need to go.”

  “I know.”

  “Now!” Cope hissed between his teeth.

  He pulled harder.

  Winch scuttled backward into Jesca. In his haste to tuck both his camera and the chem-plate into the rucksack, he bumped into Jesca, and she dropped the pencil. It rolled along the wood planking of the catwalk.

  Cope lunged for it.

  He missed it a hair from a wide crack.

  Intense panic unlike anything Winch had ever experienced clawed its way up his back.

  The pencil clattered off metal struts and bounced on the floor.

  “It seems I won’t have to prove a thing, Second Councilor.” Beam stared right up at them.

  “Run!” Cope hissed.

  They sprinted down the catwalk. Shouts chased them. Gunfire came next. Sparks burst all around them as bullets ricocheted off the metal.

  A militiaman appeared at the opposite end of the catwalk. Cope pushed Winch aside.

  “Halt!” The guard raised his carbine.

  Cope fired. The shot sent the guard sprawling, his arms pinwheeling. The carbine clattered over the railing.

  Winch tugged Jesca into the stairwell. They scrambled down, Winch trying all the while to get the rucksack secure around his shoulders. He had to get those chem-plates to the Advocate.

  The door at the foot of the stairs flew open. Another guard burst through. “Don’t move!”

  Winch unlimbered his gun and—before his mind could unleash any arguments for or against his use of a weapon—he fired. The sound beat at his eardrums. Smoke filled his vision.

  The shot went wide. It buried itself in the doorjamb, but it made the guard duck back through.

  “Down!” Jesca’s firm grasp on Winch’s elbow accompanied her stern order.

  The guard returned fire. Now Winch’s ears started ringing. He swore he could feel the bullet ruffle his hair. Allfather, deliver me!

  Winch fired back but missed again when the guard dodged left. Drat.

  Suddenly Cope came barreling down the stairs. His holler filled the enclosed space. The guard jumped out and fired with his carbine.

  Cope fired twice. Winch shot once. The guard shot three times.

  He had no idea whose bullets hit what. All he knew is that when the smoke dissipated, the guard lay dead on the floor. A crimson stain spread across his uniform. Winch patted himself down. No wounds. Thank Ifan. Neither Jesca nor Cope seemed wounded, either.

  “Winch! Get that door blocked!” Cope picked up the carbine and gave it a once-over.

  Winch got the top door closed. He could hear men approaching on the catwalk. If he could lock the door… No, nothing to lock it with. “I’ve nothing to brace it shut!”

  “Confound it—here! ” Cope took a few steps up the stairs and chucked the carbine up at “Prop it against the floor, and put the other end under the door handle!”

  Winch, who caught it. He shoved the barrel into the door handle and propped the stock into a knot in the wood planking of the floor.

  Cope eased the bottom door open. No one shot at him. “Let’s move.”

  They bolted from the side of the rail shed.

  “Wait!” Jesca turned and sprinted back.

  “Jesca, no! There’s no time!” Cope’s voice was an enraged hiss.

  She slammed the door shut behind them. Someone shouted something distant and muffled from the other side. Jesca drew her knife and jammed it hard into the lock then wrenched it down. Her face tightened at the effort, and her cheeks went red.

  Snap! The blade broke off. One door lock jammed.

  “Come on!” Winch called.

  An alarm bell clanged in the distance.

  Cope looked around frantically. “The gate! It’s open!”

  Sure enough, Winch could see right out the main gate. It wasn’t that far off. Fog obscured much of what was beyond, but he could make out the dim yellow glow of the paltry streetlights. The gate was open, apparently, because a line of six motorwagons—some sort of freight trucks—were trundling out. Steam sprayed from their exhausts.

  Thud! THUD! Someone was keen to get out the door. Jesca’s blade tip glittered and shook in the lock.

  “Get to the last truck!” Winch said. “We can hide there.”

  “Good idea.” Cope waved his gun. “You two…”

  BLAM! BLAM!

  Gunshots rang out. Cope threw himself onto the ground. Winch and Jesca crouched beside the rail shed instead.

  Cope fired off a few more shots from his pistol. Winch knew the lever gun carried only eight bullets—he’d have to reload soon. The two militiamen who came running around the side of the massive rail shed took a knee and aimed their carbines.

  Winch sighted down his pistol. So—the guards hadn’t seen him or Jesca. He fired off three shots.

  The nearest guard went down. He shouted in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. His companion seized him by the coat and dragged him back around the corner of the shed.

  Cope hauled himself to his feet. He reloaded his pistol as he ran. “Come on!”

  Winch started after him, Jesca by his side. Cope was a ways ahead. The line of supply trucks was halfway through the gate. The guards came running toward the rail shed, but they were on the opposite side of the trucks by the time Cope reached them. In the gloom and the fog, they must have missed him. Winch, however, realized that he and Jesca were out in the open, and despite the darkness they would be spotted for certain.

  Jesca pulled on his arm. “Back to the shed.”

  “What?” Winch hesitated. “We can’t—”

  “Our only hope is to conceal ourselves somewhere in the yard.” Jesca started to their right. “Perhaps we can hide over here…”

  CRASH.

  Wood splintered, and a heavy object bumped against the dirt. Winch’s heart sank as he beheld the three militiamen pouring out the door Jesca had temporarily blocked. The two guards from the gate joined their compatriots who were hiding around the edge of the rail shed.

  “You two! Throw down your guns! Put your hands in the sky and your knees on the ground!” The nearest militia raised their carbines at Winch and Jesca.

  Winch tossed the pistol aside. He and Jesca followed their instructions precisely. Winch felt sick. He wanted to do something to protect the woman kneeling at his side, and he wanted to make sure Cope had escaped. But he didn’t dare look back.

  Three additional figures approached. Beam, with Sergeant Taube and Second Councilor Ehrlichmann flanking him, broke through the cordon of tan uniforms.

  “You had best explain yourselves, folks.” Beam’s voice was quiet and pleasant, as if he were greeting patrons to the public library. But his eyes were as hard as iron.

  “I thought perhaps you would already know everything from your ghostly accomplices,” Jesca snapped. Winch hadn’t heard that harshness from her before—but these may have been the
men who killed her brother, after all.

  “They wouldn’t deprive me of my greatest joy.”

  “And what is that?” Winch made himself say it.

  Beam stepped closer and looked down at him. “Surely you can appreciate the need to find out the truth, Mr. Winchell Sark of the Perch Advocate.”

  Someone gave Winch a sharp blow to the back of his neck, and he was hurled into darkness.

  Friday

  He was boxed in. The cage was made of rail ties and iron spikes. Nothing would budge, no matter how he hammered at it.

  “Winch.”

  The voice was soft and strong, everywhere and nowhere. It blew down on him like a cloudburst and caressed him like a spring breeze.

  He tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “Don’t despair. I am coming.”

  A pinprick of light appeared in the black. It expanded, barreling down on Winch like a train’s lantern in a tunnel. His feet were frozen, mired.

  “Stop fearing. Be with me, as I am with you. And look—you won’t ever be forsaken.”

  The light was a blazing sun. Winch couldn’t look away.

  “Winch—I love you, son. Love me in return. Trust me.”

  The blazing orb resolved into a man.

  Winch found his voice. “Save me!” It was a muffled, drowned croak.

  The cage around him shook. Rail ties shattered, blasted apart by light. Iron spikes glowed and melted. His cage disintegrated, but nothing harmed a hair on Winch.

  “I already have,” the figure said.

  Everything went black again.

  Throbbing pain in his head grew in intensity. Winch pried his eyes open with all the effort of a cave bear waking from hibernation.

  Blurs filled his vision—bright blurs on grey. People? A wall?

  He blinked. A bright red blur appeared above green.

  Jesca.

  Winch’s eyes flew open. He shook off the blurred vision—that was a mistake. His head hurt terrifically. He found himself sitting in a chair, hands tied behind him, one to each back rail. His ankles were lashed together with leather straps. Other than the headache and a split lip, he didn’t seem much worse for wear. Thank Ifan his glasses were intact.

  Jesca was tied to a chair in like fashion, six feet from Winch. Her blazing red hair was disheveled, but otherwise she appeared unhurt. Dark circles rimmed her eyes.

  They hadn’t broken his glasses, thankfully.

  Winch saw they were in what looked like a dungeon cell. The room was dank, its brick walls stained with calcite. Water seeped from cracks in the cement, forming tiny pools and rivulets on the grey stone floor. The only light came from two small windows set near the ceiling, above Winch’s head. It must be the morning after their South Rail Sheds intrusion. Beyond the rusty iron bars he thought he saw boots march by—he knew he heard the sound. They didn’t come from the single wooden door on the opposite side of the room. He realized then there were a pair of gas lamps by the door, but they weren’t in use.

  Outside, a train whistle echoed.

  Jesca looked at him with concern. “Are you well?”

  Winch shrugged. “Mostly uninjured. Though I do feel as if I’ve been run over by a diprotodon and its wagon. Did they hurt you?”

  “No. That is, besides the initial clobbering to the back of my head.” Jesca frowned. “You would think none of them knew how to treat a lady.”

  Winch gave their surroundings a once over. He couldn’t see any way out even if they hadn’t been tied. “Do those windows lead outside?”

  Jesca craned her neck. “It’s possible. I thought I heard a motorwagon pass earlier. Perhaps an alley? There’s a narrow one that runs behind Peace Branch’s main precinct in the Old City of Trestleway.”

  “I’d wager that’s where we are, then.”

  More bootsteps. Winch craned his neck toward the windows but saw nothing. They came from behind the door, then.

  Jesca’s arms tensed. “Whatever happens, don’t breathe a word of what we’ve done.”

  “I won’t.” He admired her bravery, and he doubted he’d ever meet a more remarkable woman. Save for his own Lysanne, of course.

  The door banged open. Captain Beam and Sergeant Taube stormed in. Winch pulled himself up as straight as he could. For Thel’s sake—and Lysanne’s—he’d be strong for as long as the Hallowed Sepyr would grant him.

  Beam tossed a bundle on the floor. It tumbled to a stop against Winch’s boots. He wasn’t all that surprised to see his rucksack.

  Winch glared at Beam—instant error. Beam smacked him across the jaw. Winch recoiled. Jesca’s startled gasp frightened him even more than the blow. Had Taube hit her too? He managed a glance—no, not so far.

  “Where is it?” Despite the violent act, Beam stayed unflappable. His question carried all the nonchalance of a man asking Winch when the next edition of the Perch Advocate would be available.

  “Where is what?” Winch held perfectly still.

  “The chem-plates from your camera.” Beam kicked the bag. Winch’s camera—the one belonging to the Advocate, that is—clattered onto the stone floor.

  He winced. Oh, please don’t let it be broken. It was a rather petty thought for a man in a dungeon. His pocket watch lay next to the camera. He’d sworn to his father it would never leave him, as his father had sworn to Winch’s grandfather.

  Taube slammed the door shut. He slid open a small hatch at face level that Winch hadn’t seen before. “You two,” he said to someone outside the door, “take a walk until you’re needed. Don’t go far.”

  Heavy footfalls departed.

  Beam reached out toward Winch, but the blow he expected never came. Instead, his throat went uncomfortably tight. His nerves, maybe—Winch coughed in an attempt to breathe freely.

  “Tell me where the plates can be found.” Beam flexed his fingers.

  Winch’s airway was completely blocked. He choked and gasped—just like Cope had, he realized, when Reardon Ray had held him in his thrall.

  It was power of the cythraul, on display for Winch to fear. His vision darkened around the edges, and he was vaguely aware of Jesca shouting his name—

  Air rushed back into his lungs. The grasp lessened to a feather’s touch.

  “Any insight, Mr. Sark?” Beam asked.

  Winch was confused. The plates should be in his rucksack. He’d traded plates with Cope, used ones with new ones, as he’d taken pictures of the gathered army. So he’d naturally assumed Cope had tucked the used ones back into Winch’s bag. “I…I don’t know.”

  Apparently that was a mistake.

  Taube stepped forward to Jesca. “Do you have them?”

  “You needn’t ask her,” Winch said. “She doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  Beam hauled off and hit him again. Winch saw it coming this time and had enough warning to move his head with the blow, blunting the impact. Not that it didn’t hurt intolerably.

  “Stop that!” Jesca could have been lecturing a schoolboy who’d dropped his slate. “Obviously neither of us knows of what you’re speaking. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Nothing wrong? Shut up, you Crims harlot!” Taube frowned. He ticked off a list on his fingers. “You infiltrated restricted Trestleway Locomotive Consolidated property, assaulted militia guards, murdered a man…”

  He went on with his list, but Winch didn’t hear the words. Murdered. He felt sick. So one man was dead because of their actions.

  Beam leaned in close. “Yes, somebody killed one man. The others are recovering—slowly. Won’t be but a matter of time before we match the proper bullets to their recipients. Perhaps to your gun.”

  “Where is your partner?” Taube slapped both hands down on the arms of Jesca’s chair. His face was mere inches from her face. She tried to look over to Winch, but Taube grabbed her chin. He forced her roughly around to look him full in the face instead. “Don’t look at him. Who is this one: little ol’ Mr. Glasses—he your new lover? A bit on the reedy side,
isn’t he?”

  Winch’s face burned.

  Jesca sniffed and made a face swathed in contempt. “Apologies. If you’d be so good as to remove your cigar-fumed face from mine…”

  “Shut up.” Taube sneered at her. “I know who you really are, ‘Miss Thalia.’ There’s only so many places a Crims like you can hide in this city. Try on ‘Jesca Keysor’ for size. Once we found our answers in your room at the Primrose, we didn’t have many questions left to ask. So you spent some time in the telegraph office—until you ran out of secrets to steal from there.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jesca said.

  “I said shut up.” Taube jabbed a finger at her. “Without your wig and makeup, it’s easy to see the resemblance to that troublemaker—your dead-in-the-dirt brother.”

  Jesca spat in his face.

  Winch resisted the urge to cheer.

  Taube drew back. He wiped his face with the broad side of his hand. With the other he slipped a knife from his coat pocket. “You impudent hussy!”

  “No!” Winch strained against his ropes.

  “I wouldn’t move a muscle, were I you.” Beam flicked three fingers of his right hand, and Winch’s chair slid four feet away, slamming him hard against the stone wall. His head banged off the wet surface, and he saw stars.

  Taube brought the knife to Jesca’s chin. “The name of your other cohort.”

  “Rot in the ditch,” she hissed.

  Taube slashed at her. She screamed. He’d cut her left shoulder. A small crimson slash rent her dress.

  “Does it hurt? Not as badly as it will in a mite.” Taube twisted the blade in the dim light coming through the tiny windows. Blood glistened on it.

  Jesca’s jaw clenched. Her breaths came deep and quick, but the fire in her eyes was not extinguished. “We won’t say anything.”

  Winch cringed at the “we.” He’d really rather not have the same attention. Taube glowered at him.

  Beam didn’t twitch a whisker. “I wouldn’t worry too much about their accomplice’s identity. It’s plain enough, especially given the notice in the Perch Advocate. You see, Winchell Sark here was supposed to be off on an expedition with his brother: Copernicus.” Beam nodded slowly. “The brother who is a pilot of some skill and who is possessed of a quick temper, if I recall.”