A Burning in the Bones (Waxways #3)

Chapter 10 Ren Monroe

10 REN MONROE

The mimicry spell grated against her senses.

A prickling up and down the spine. Small sensations running the length of her arms. Anytime she stepped in the wrong direction, her discomfort would spike. That was how this particular spell had been designed. The magic was encouraging her to follow Lana Dawson’s footsteps. Theo trailed behind her like a dutiful ghost—and five soldiers trailed him. Three were assigned paladins from the Brightsword Legion. The other two were guards loyal to House Brood. The retinue was large enough to draw attention from other morning commuters, but Theo had insisted on proper protection.

The prior evening, Ren had taken several hours to find the correct spellwork. Another few hours to acquire and master that magic inside an archive room. Each attempt had pointed her thoughts back to Timmons. After all, the last time Ren had labored over magic like this had been the day before the portal incident. Her friend had offered her enhancement power to Ren so casually and made the magic feel so easy. It was hard not to imagine what it would be like to have her best friend with her now, walking through all of this together. Would it be easier? Would she have found some other way to where she stood now? Some better path?

Ren had been forced to push those thoughts aside. She couldn’t allow herself to be lured into a world that would never exist. This world still needed her. After finalizing the spellwork, she’d been ready to rush out into the night and follow the scent until Theo politely pointed out that pursuing a missing person in the middle of the night to an unknown location was not a rational decision. Ren had acquiesced.

Morning was more reasonable. They’d been on the trail for an hour now. The spell description from the textbook had claimed that wearing the shoes would provide the best results, which meant Ren’s feet were jammed inside the too-tight simulacrums. The shoes led her first to a small apartment in the Dock district. Aunt Sloan had mentioned this was where the girl had lived with her son. From there, the route had gotten more interesting. The trail led them to a magic house. Not the usual entrance for refilling vessels, though. An unmarked back door with no exterior handles. Ren had wanted to press on, but every next step she tried brought the itching sensation back to her skin. It took a moment to figure out what the mimicry spell was communicating.

“She waited here. For several minutes at least. Meeting someone perhaps?”

Theo nodded in response. “We can wait too.”

Ren wasn’t sure that was true. Was time on their side? Was Lana out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued? Or had she simply left behind a life that she no longer wanted? Ren paced until she felt a subtle urge onward. West down Humming Street until it dead-ended into Parsons Avenue. There was a gradual shift in the buildings around them. From residential to commercial. Houses transformed into shops. Then the smaller shops eventually ceded ground to the industrial sector of the city. Full-on factories dominated the area. Workers came and went from unmarked buildings. It was like walking down the city’s metaphorical spine. All the industries to which their lives were attached. On her left, two women were scaling a rusted silo. On her right, a new construction was going up—the base pillars were exposed and a small crew was there, arguing about some logistical issue. The area was truly bustling.

“This is a strange place for her to visit,” Ren murmured, but she kept walking.

The buildings did not grow any smaller. There was no shift back to a residential neighborhood. The factories ran all the way up to the eastern gates. Ren had never visited this section of the city. It felt like the sort of place that you visited on purpose—or not at all.

Finally, Ren felt hives bubbling along her upper back. She tested each possible turn until the shoes responded. The itching subsided. Ren found herself standing before a hunched building. It was not tall but it was certainly long—stretching from where they stood and all the way to the eastern gate. There were no markings other than the address: 52 Prosswimmer Circle.

“She came here.”

Theo frowned. “This building… it’s one of ours. Well, we don’t own the property—but we’ve run it for decades. It was one of the buildings included in that city defense contract. Our men have been locked out. I forget what kind of building it is….”

Ren could see the file in her mind. “Water treatment.”

Theo nodded. “That’s right. The crew is small. Maybe five people? They’re posted here for general oversight. It’s a passive magic facility. So, the place is still running. The viceroy wouldn’t have risked a facility like this stalling out. It’s too important to Kathor’s infrastructure. I’m pretty sure our people haven’t been in there for over six days now. It should be empty.”

Ren frowned. “But this is where Lana came. I can feel the shoes tugging me forward. She’s either still inside there—or she visited this place and left.”

“You’re certain?”

Ren tested right and left. Both options sent unpleasant ripples down her skin. When she stepped toward the door, the effect subsided. “Yes. I’m certain she went inside.”

Now Theo was pacing. “Right. A girl goes missing. We follow her trail—and it brings us here? To an unmarked building that most people don’t even know exists. Not to mention it’s a building that should be locked. How did she even get inside?”

Curious, Ren reached for the handle. The door groaned open. Darkness waited within.

“It’s just open?” Theo asked, disbelieving. “Why did our people report that it was locked?”

“Maybe it was,” Ren said. “But you said it’s been six days. I doubt the workers walked through town every morning to check the locks. They were probably waiting for official word from you. Clearly someone’s visited since then. Lana went in there. We need to go in there too.”

Theo shook his head. “No. They can go first. That’s why we brought them.”

He signaled. All three of the paladins trotted forward. It was strange to watch Theo give them orders, considering all of them were at least a decade older. There were no complaints, though. They accepted his authority easily. Each of them activated divinity shields. The bright lights reminded her of Devlin. She wondered if he’d risen through their ranks and where he’d been stationed. A second later, the paladins ducked inside the building. Theo signaled for his own soldiers to come forward next.

“Head for the back of the building,” he ordered. “Report back if you find anything. No one exits without our permission. Detain anyone who tries.”

Both men thundered off obediently. Theo turned back to Ren.

“I don’t like this. It doesn’t make sense that she’d come here.”

Ren could feel his unease across their bond. She suspected that she was producing her own doses of that emotion. Why had Aunt Sloan’s daughter-in-law come to this particular building? Her initial guess had been that this was a bunch of smoke with no fire. She thought Lana had potentially fallen in love with someone at one of her meetings with the Makers. But this was not the sort of place you rendezvoused with a lover. No, this felt like the beginning of something darker.

Less than two minutes later, one of the paladins returned.

“You’ll want to see this, sir.”

Theo and Ren exchanged a glance before entering. The first room appeared to be a storage room. She saw a table with a scattering of random items, likely left behind the last time the guards had been on duty. The next door opened directly onto a raised catwalk. A network of catwalks, Ren saw, as she looked ahead. Rushing water dominated the space. Echoing off the low ceilings. The building’s exterior made a lot more sense now. It ran all the way to the eastern gates, because that was one of the three locations in the city where the Straywhite’s tributaries ducked under Kathor’s outer walls. This was a water source for a large portion of the city. Lost in thought, Ren ran right into Theo.

“Whoa, sorry—”

“Gods.”

Their raised platform had emerged into the heart of the facility. Below were a series of rectangular tanks—more like narrow pools. Basic logic told her this was where the city’s water was treated for disease and that the cleansed water would funnel out through a network of pipes to the populace. But all the textbook details faded to the back of her mind.

Ren saw why Theo had stopped.

There were bodies.

Bile started rising in her chest. Theo vomited first. Over the nearest railing. The three paladins were gathered on the lower platform, having a quiet discussion. Ren fought off the nausea and set a hand on Theo’s back, urging him forward. He wiped the corners of his mouth before taking a spiral staircase down to the main level.

“How are they just… sitting there like that?” was his first question.

She’d noticed the same detail. The tanks weren’t stagnant. Water flowed in and out of those spaces at a rapid pace. The currents should have been tugging the bodies all around. Instead, they hovered perfectly at the center of their respective pools. The answer felt obvious.

“Stasis spells. I’d guess these currents are very consistent. Always the same amount of water churning through each tank. No outside factors to consider like wind or erosion. It would be fairly easy to create a countercharm if you knew the exact flow rates.”

“And the bodies would just float like that?” he asked.

“Some kind of buoyancy magic. Probably lining their clothing. That’s how I would do it.”

Theo offered a grim look in response to that. One of the paladins backtracked to them.

“There are four bodies, my lord.”

Ren had only noticed the first two. In the distance, there were two other tanks, separated only by a narrow walkway. One body per tank. That detail made all of this even stranger.

“Not just dead,” Theo corrected. “They’ve been mutilated.”

He was right. Ren had been careful to look at them out of the corner of her eye instead of straight on. Her best angle was on the tank to the left. The corpse was a young man with a shaved head. Maybe five years older than her? Whoever had done this had opened up his chest cavity. The skin was flayed at the edges….

Ren saw a flashing sequence of images: Clyde’s burns. Timmons falling. Cora with an arrow punched through her chest. Even Landwin Brood—his eyes dead and his throat marked by those dead-black veins. She spun around in time to throw up in the nearest corner. When her stomach settled, she called back to Theo.

“Describe what you’re seeing. I don’t… I don’t think I can look.”

“Right,” Theo answered. “I don’t know. It’s odd. All the wounds on the bodies are a perfect match. Open chests. Gashes on the upper thighs, the upper arms. I can’t see the other two corpses from here—but I’d imagine they’re the same.”

“Is one of them a girl?”

Theo was quiet for a moment. “Yes. In the front right tank.”

“Short hair? Light brown?”

“Yes. About shoulder length.”

Gods. Aunt Sloan was right. Lana Dawson was in trouble—and now she’s dead.

Ren was about to ask another question when her mind fractured. A new fear pulsed to the forefront of her thoughts. Aunt Sloan had connected Lana to Agnes Monroe. Ren’s mother had been one of those late-night visitors. This—whatever this was—had happened at night.

What if… what if…

She pushed back the nausea and checked the first two bodies. One was a young man. The other appeared to be Lana Dawson. Ren started down the narrow walkway that ran between each of the tanks. The paladins tried to stop her, maybe to protect her from having to see the carnage, but Ren’s voice cracked like a whip. “Get out of my way.”

They parted like a golden curtain. She took the path, ignoring Theo’s questions. She had to know. She needed to see. Please. Don’t let it be her. Gods, it can’t be her. The path between the tanks was slick. She almost slipped before reaching the spot where the first two tanks ended and the next two began. The bodies came into view. One was a man. She dismissed him immediately.

But the other one…

“Oh gods…”

Ren’s eyes hunted through every detail. An older woman. Her skin deeply tanned. A scattering of freckles. She could feel her shoulders starting to slump under the weight of this impossible, impossible truth. Her stomach curling up. Her throat constricting. Like there was no more air left anywhere in the world. But then she saw the woman’s hair. It streamed out where it met the water, flat and dark, but the woman’s bangs were dry. And they were tightly curled.

A ragged breath escaped from Ren.

She fell to her knees. It wasn’t her mother. It was someone else.

“Ren?”

Theo was behind her. He set a cautious hand on her shoulder.

“Ren, what is it?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Theo. I had to know. My mother… she visited Lana… I just thought that it might…”

He pieced it together. “But that’s not her.”

“No. It’s not her.”

His hand squeezed her shoulder in relief. He was kind enough not to mention the other truth that was waiting for them. Like a bridge neither of them wanted to cross. The worst possible fate would have been to find her mother here, sacrificed like these other victims. But the other option was not much better. The reality that, somehow, Agnes Monroe was involved in this.

Not as a victim, but as a perpetrator.

“Let’s get you home,” Theo whispered. “We don’t have to be here.”

Ren shook her head. “No. This is important. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

“Mr. Brood. Ms. Monroe.”

It was one of the paladins. He’d trailed them down the center walkway.

“Pardon the interruption. If I could have a moment.”

“What is it?” Theo asked.

“I think we need to evacuate this building.”

Ren frowned. “Why? Whoever did this is gone….”

“It’s not that. One of my colleagues just pointed out something about the bodies. It appears that they’re… leaking.”

After the terror of thinking her mother dead, the corpses didn’t look nearly so grim as before. The bodies were just bodies. The wounds just wounds. She and Theo squinted at the nearest one. It took a slight adjustment of her angle to see what the paladin meant.

A faint, but unmistakable gas.

“Until we’ve identified the substance, we shouldn’t be here,” the paladin said.

Ren unconsciously tugged the collar of her shirt up over her nose. They didn’t need any more convincing. Both of them were led back down the narrow walkway. This scene was unlike anything Ren had ever witnessed. Even Clyde’s death didn’t compare. That had been gruesome, certainly, but it was not designed with the intention of being gruesome. It had been an accident. Magic gone awry. These bodies with their matching wounds and strange posturing felt more like a form of cruel artwork. Ren found herself hoping that her mother had nothing to do with them.

Outside, Theo ordered the paladins to head straight to Safe Harbor. He wanted their best coroner sent to the facility—as soon as possible. His own men conferred quietly. Ren was still thinking about her mother. The role she’d played in this. As always, Theo had a knack for looking at the larger picture.

“Do you remember the details on this building?”

She nodded. “Most of them.”

“How much of the city’s water supply comes from here? I know there are four treatment facilities, but I can’t remember which sections of the city they’re each responsible for….”

Ren closed her eyes. She could see the pages turning in her mind.

“This one supplies the northern sector,” she recited. “Wedding district, the Stoneback Quarter. Maybe some of the Lower Quarter, too? I’d guess about a third of Kathor.”

Theo was deep in thought.

“And we run two of the other three facilities. Buildings that are unoccupied. What if… what if they were targeting the water supply, Ren?”

A sharp whine cut through the air. All four of them paused, looking around, when a bolt of amplified magic struck the ground between them. Ren saw it happen in slow motion. The way the ground warped. A ripple running over the stones like an earthquake. It shook them off their feet—and while they were still airborne, the magic exploded outward.

Ren felt like she’d been punched with four armored fists. One struck her shoulder. The other her stomach. Two more struck the meat of her upper thighs. If she had not been wearing several of House Brood’s protective signets, she would have died.

The shield activated in time to catch most of the blow, but she was still launched backward through the air. Right into the stone wall of the water treatment facility. Theo suffered the same, thumping into the wall beside her. His guards were not as well protected.

Ren saw the magic rip them into pieces. One lost a limb. The other slumped, his hands pressed to a gaping hole in his stomach. What the hell kind of magic was…

Hooded figures flooded into the streets. Two… four… ten. More than she could even count in such a small space. Ren saw that all of them had vessels raised. Spells were forming on the tips of their wands or staves. She cast the fastest spell that came to mind. It was the concentrated light cantrip she’d used against the wyvern.

The great blast of light blinded their enemies. Ren was moving in the aftermath of its glow. She seized Theo by the front of his cloak and shoved him back onto his feet. The two of them stumbled into a run as their attackers shouted, trying to get their bearings. Ren thought it might actually work. They were about to reach the nearest alleyway when another masked figure stepped out from those shadows. As if he’d been waiting for them there.

He brought his wand slashing downward in a harsh motion. She saw the air fracture strangely. A flickering glimpse of something. Her shield would have protected her from a direct blow, but his magic was aimed downward. The cobblestones threw her briefly into the air. Theo’s hand slipped out of her grasp. Ren saw her momentum was about to bring her down right on top of the masked wizard. He brought a second wand up at the last possible moment. Her wards flashed bright, parrying his first spell, but the timing of his second casting was flawless . It slipped by her defenses entirely.

That isn’t possible.

Bone-crushing pressure seized her. Like she was a plaything in the hands of an angry god. She locked eyes with the masked wizard and saw two slashes of an unnatural green—and then he flung her sideways. Straight into the wall. Ren felt pain running through her entire body.

And then the darkness took her.