9. The Mourners Arch #2
“Was he?” Gabriel’s laugh was brittle. “Vellast is just as rotten. He was a partner in every sense that mattered except the vampirism. But the Order didn’t touch him, did they? They stopped at the monster and left his conspirator.”
“Because the monster was illegal,” Genna said.
She waited for Miles to utter the command words before shaking out the next tarp.
As the body hovered in the air, she continued.
“The Order operates in the margins, Gabriel. We’re a secret operation, not the municipal police.
We fill the gaps the law ignores. But we aren’t an army.
We couldn’t declare war on a dozen noble houses. ”
“So we utilized the leverage we had,” Miles said, guiding the corpse through the air.
The strain was building behind his eyes.
“Madaze was a vampire. An abomination. Even some of his allies might have turned on him if they knew. That made him vulnerable in a way Vellast isn’t.
Vellast is just... a cruel, powerful aristocrat.
In Averly, that’s not a crime. It’s a career path. ”
“That’s my point,” Gabriel snapped. He watched the body descend, his eyes dark.
“We’re cleaning up the mess, literally dragging the skeletons out of the closet, while the people who funded this,” he waved a hand at the room, “are waiting to see if I’ll play along.
The Order gave us a sword when we needed it, Miles, and I’m grateful for my life, but they didn’t solve the real problem. ”
“We survived,” Miles said. He shut off the flow of magic, the disc cooling in his palm.
He needed to believe it was enough. He needed the violence of that night to have meant something beyond just survival.
“We removed a predator from the board. That is a victory. It’s messy, and it’s incomplete, but it’s real.
Look at this room. It’s empty of him. That counts. ”
“Does it?” Gabriel looked at the wrapped shape on the floor. “Then why do I feel like we’re just making room for the next horrors?”
“Because you’re smart,” Genna said, blunt as a hammer. She grabbed her corner of the tarp. “And because the world is terrible. Grab a handle. The sooner we clear this death out, the sooner we can figure out how to keep the rest of them from moving in.”
They worked in a dogged rhythm after that. Lift, float, drop, wrap, drag.
Miles focused on the mechanics. Angle of ascent.
Velocity of drift. The ache in his arm. It was grounding.
It kept the memories of the shouting, the blood spray, and the terror of that night six months ago at bay.
He felt a strange, detached sense of accomplishment with every body that hit the cart bed.
He was solving the problem. He was tidying the narrative.
When the last tarp was loaded, the cart was full, a sad if tidy mound under the gray sky.
Genna reached into her apron and pulled out a small glass vial stoppered with cork. The liquid inside was murky, the color of old moss. She uncorked it with her teeth, spat the stopper into her palm, and began walking the perimeter of the cart, flicking droplets onto the tarps.
The smell—that strange ammonia reek that had clung to Miles’s coat and lodged in the back of his throat—didn’t vanish. It changed . The rot became earth, loam, the clean scent of a forest floor after rain. His nose stopped protesting, and his gut settled.
“What is that?” Miles asked, curious despite his exhaustion.
“Hedge-witchery. Not in your Guild books, but if you’re very nice, I’ll share the recipe later.” Genna recorked the vial. “Help me with the cover.”
They unfolded the final tarp together, the heavy canvas snapping in the breeze that still swept through the manor’s open windows.
Miles took one corner, Gabriel another, and Genna and the carter grabbed the remaining two.
They stretched it over the mounded cargo, tucking the edges under rope loops bolted to the cart’s frame.
Miles pulled the last knot tight. His fingers fumbled the canvas, coordination eroded by the drain of the spell work. The cart looked almost innocent now: just a delivery wagon, nothing more.
The carter didn’t say a word; he just climbed onto the bench seat and waited.
Miles stood on the steps, wiping sweat from his forehead. The headache was a pounding rhythm now, but the house behind them was clear. Stained, dusty, and echoing, but empty of corpses.
“It’s done,” Miles said, the words heavy with exhalation.
As if in response, a whoosh of air swept past them from the interior.
With a series of soft, decisive clicks, the latches on the tall windows snapped into place.
The glass panes swung inward, sealing shut against the afternoon chill.
The heavy velvet drapes, however, didn’t move.
They remained tied back, leaving the room bathed in the natural light, stripped of its shadows.
“Well,” Genna murmured, looking at the shut windows. “It seems the house agrees. The airing out is finished.”
“Or,” Gabriel said, staring at the empty drive where the cart had disappeared, “it’s just closing the mouth we just emptied.” He turned to Miles, his expression weary but resolute. “We should go. Let’s finish this.”
The mule’s hooves clopped a slow, mournful rhythm on the damp cobblestones.
Ahead of them, the cart trundled along, its cargo shielded by waxed canvas that rippled occasionally in the river breeze coming off the Aver.
The carter, a lump of a man who hadn’t spoken a word since loading the last body, kept his eyes on the mule’s ears.
They were descending from the Spires, the air changing from the scent of old money and wet roses to the briny, fishy tang of the river. Gabriel walked with an exaggerated sashay, his gaze fixed on the cart’s wheels as if counting the rotations.
“So,” Gabriel said, his voice low enough not to carry to the driver. “What is the protocol here? Do we roll them into the river and hope the wyrms are hungry? Or what?”
“We aren’t dumping them,” Miles said, adjusting the collar of his caster’s coat. They were exposed out here, hauling evidence of a massacre through the streets in broad daylight, hidden only by canvas and the towering indifference of the city. “They’ll be taken care of. ”
“Taken care of implies a process,” Gabriel pressed. He looked at Miles, his blue-gray eyes sharp. “A process usually involves questions. ‘Who are these men?’ ‘Why do they have stab wounds?’ ‘Why have they been dead for six months?’ I don’t recall us filling out any permits for mass disposal.”
Genna sighed, the sound sharp like a blade being drawn. She caught Miles’s eye and jerked her head back. They slowed their pace, letting the gap between them and the cart widen until the rumble of the wheels drowned out their whispers.
“It’s handled, Gabriel,” Miles said, trying to infuse his tone with a reassuring finality. “We have... a contact.”
“A contact,” Gabriel repeated flatly. “An Order contact? Or a different flavor of vigilante?”
“It’s an Order matter,” Miles said, keeping his voice hushed. He hated the secrecy, the way it forced a wedge between his loyalty to the cause and his devotion to Gabriel, but the vows were explicit. “Secrecy requires—”
“Oh, save the cloak and dagger for someone who hasn’t scrubbed blood out of the floorboards,” Genna interrupted. She looked at Miles with mild annoyance. “He was there, Miles. He knows we exist. Hiding who runs the local cell is just bureaucratic vanity at this point.”
Miles straightened, offense stiffening his spine. “The Vow isn’t vanity, Genna. ‘I will see what is overlooked.’ It relies on anonymity to—”
“To protect us,” Genna finished for him. “And since Gabriel hasn’t said a peep about what he knows to this point and shows no sign of an oncoming fit of gossip, his ignorance protects no one.” She turned to Gabriel. “The cell leader is named Viz Gardmore. He owns a funeral parlor by the Arch.”
Gabriel stopped walking for a second, blinking. “Gardmore’s Restorative Services? The place the high-society widows use because he makes the corpses smell like lavender before they’re given to the sea?”
“The very same,” Genna said, nudging him to keep walking. “Viz believes in tidiness. Justice is messy, but the aftermath shouldn’t be. He’ll process the bodies, prep them for the sea, and launch them tonight with all the others he’s been hired to do. No questions, no records.”
“He’s the one who cleans up the Order’s messes,” Gabriel mused, a dark amusement curling his lip.
“Fitting. I suppose you have a man for everything. A man to kill the monster, a man to dispose of the bodies... tell me, do you have a man to deal with the monster’s business partners? Because Vellast is still breathing.”
Miles felt a spike of defensive heat. “Viz does what is necessary to keep the city stable. We all do.”
“Stable isn’t the same as clean,” Gabriel countered.
He looked toward the distant archway of the Mourner’s Arch, a bridge which loomed like a gray rainbow against the overcast sky.
“Maybe I should have a word with this Viz. If he’s the one directing your little band of merry murderers, maybe he can explain why the Order stopped at Madaze and left the rest of the ring intact. ”
“Gabriel, no,” Miles said. He grabbed Gabriel’s sleeve. “You know why. You do. Viz is... pragmatic. He is doing us an immense favor tonight. You do not walk into his parlor and critique his strategy. We are asking for help, not filing a complaint with management.”
“We just hauled seven rotting carcasses out of my foyer, Miles. I think I’ve earned the right to complain to management,” Gabriel snapped, though he didn’t pull his arm away. The anger was there, brittle and sharp, but beneath it, Miles sensed the exhaustion.