Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Among the primary thanaturgic catalysts is the khopesh knife, which must be forged from the Endless Dark.
—The Forger’s Art: A Volume of Black Metal Forms
They stood in a deliberate formation—two in front and one behind—blocking the stairs out of the pumping station.
It reminded me of the way the abduction crew had come at me outside my apartment.
The guy on the left had a buzz cut and black fatigues—cargo pants, vest with pockets, and thick-soled boots.
He was lean, with an olive complexion. In each hand he held a metal rod with a ball at the end.
The woman on the right wore a black leather tunic that closed in a gentle arc over her right shoulder. Her dark hair hung in two long braids. She had to go six feet tall, with broad, straight shoulders, and was holding a long, curved sword.
Behind them stood a man in an old-timey suit and a Hulihee beard.
He was taller than the others, but thin, with ruddy cheeks.
In one half-raised hand he held a long, narrow lantern, gripping it by the familiar pistol grip at the center of one thick frame rod.
In the other a violin bow. On his hip hung a curved black khopesh and spindles of thread.
His lantern cast their shadows on the tile floor. The two fighters were vestiges. The man with the lantern, a thanatist.
I still had only my knife, and no catalysts other than the Zippo, if that even counted. Cassius helped me lower the killer’s body onto the tiles next to a canal and stepped between me and the others.
“If we have to fight,” I whispered to him, “my blade won’t even cut their bindings.”
“You should stay back, either way,” Cassius reminded me.
Staying in the rear wasn’t my strong suit. “We’ll try another way.” I stepped forward and addressed the thanatist. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” The fellow’s bushy brows arched. “I am Joseph Bazalgette, engineer responsible for everything you see here. And you, Mr. Solomon, are trespassing.”
“You know me, then?” “I’m aware of you.”
I nodded and peered around the station. “Impressive work.”
Bazalgette sneered. “Of course it is, though the world above hasn’t any use for this particular station, even as a historical curiosity. And the others are now museums, of all the preposterous things.”
“You built all of them?” I asked.
He grinned. “Cholera was killing people. The city needed a sewage plan. I built thousands of miles of culverts, and a half dozen beautifully articulated stations.”
“And connected them to London’s river system?”
“On this stratum, yes. Since here, mass can be influenced by a good engineer’s light and ideas.”
“Wouldn’t this all be drawn from the collective memories of stratum semblances?”
“How many semblances do you imagine remember or care about a sewage station?” Bazalgette chuckled. “So, instead, I’ve shaped the past to build a scalable refrigeration solution for vessels.”
Cassius flexed his grip on his sword handle. “The frigid water preserves them as suitable hosts.”
Bazalgette seemed to take it as a compliment.
“The sewage pumps have been repurposed to draw ice-cold, bacteria-free water into the pools, which prevents predation and abrasion. The pool system then connects to the Tyburn, which flows in from beneath Buckingham Palace. If you don’t think that’s been useful, you’re dimmer than most.”
“Ingenious,” I said.
“You should have seen what I was doing down here before your world stopped caring about me and my contributions.”
“I’m sure it was wonderful. But this time you’ve taken a body that may be material evidence in the homicide of a friend of mine. We’re going to need to hang on to it for a while.”
He stood silent for a second. “Typical. Here I am, doing the best with what I have, doing my part for my fellows, just as I did when I saved London from cholera, and there you are, putting your needs above ours, just as the topside world always does.”
“Look, I can’t—”
“Your world gave me nothing but a plaque on some out-of-the-way street for my efforts.” Bazalgette shook his head. “No, Mr. Solomon. We will not be compelled. As it is, you’re in violation of several Precedent protocols.”
Couldn’t things go easy, just once. “I’ve no beef with you or your friends here, man. I’ll even return the body to you once we’re done with it.”
“You’re in no position to bargain,” said Bazalgette.
“And frankly, Mr. Solomon, you’re in no position for a contest, either.
Your vestige is outmatched, and I happen to know you’ve very little experience with this sort of thing.
” “Cassius can hold his own.” I thought a moment.
“As for you and me, how will it look if you withhold or destroy evidence of the assassination of a thanatist? I can’t imagine the Convocation will approve.
If you walk away now, I’ll forget to mention it. ”
“There’s no conspiracy, Mr. Solomon.” He raised his lantern. “There is simply the way of things.”
“Look,” I said, losing a bit of patience. “My friend is dead. I’m not going to trade threats with you. Either let us leave with the body or try to take it from us.”
Bazalgette stroked his lantern with his bow. An intense beam of light shot into his two vestiges. They both straightened and raised their weapons—a bracing stroke.
The two vestiges split and moved to flank us. Cassius screamed out “Bratros,” the war cry booming through the pumping station. The vestiges paused, shared a quick look, then circled around him.
“I have them,” Cassius said, and moved left. I resisted the urge to follow him—for now.
The buzz cut guy swung his rods. Cassius sidestepped the blows and stabbed the man in the side.
As Buzz Cut fell, the woman with braids thrust her blade at Cassius’s neck.
The centurion ducked but slipped on the tile floor and tumbled forward near Bazalgette’s feet.
The engineer drew his khopesh and lunged for Cassius’s bindings.
Under Precedent Law I couldn’t directly attack the thanatist. But I wasn’t about to stand around doing nothing. I pulled my knife from my pocket and threw it—unopened—at Bazalgette. It whacked him in the chest and drew his glare up at me.
Cassius used the distraction to smash Bazalgette’s wrist with his massive fist, sending the man’s khopesh skittering across the tile. Behind the centurion, Braids swung her blade down at Cassius’s head.
“Look out!” I shouted.
Cassius rolled and jumped up in a fighting stance. While he and Braids circled, Bazalgette aimed his lantern at Buzz Cut and drew his bow across one of the rods framing his lamp. A haunting note sang out, and a beam of light brought the vestige to his feet. Ah, hell.
I didn’t have catalysts of my own yet to do anything for Cassius, but I caught a flash of Bazalgette’s khopesh near the wall to my right and dashed for it.
“Leave it be!” he screamed. “Not hardly,” I said.
I swept up the blade and circled in behind the two vestiges, who were now closing on Cassius. Bazalgette struck his lantern again—a fierce pull of his bow across two contact points. A bright swath of light stung my eyes, and all I could see were dark swirling afterimages.
A few feet in front of me swords clashed and clanged. I backed away, trying to let my eyes readjust to the gloom. Someone groaned.
When my eyes cleared, I found Bazalgette staring at the tile floor beneath me. He reverse-bowed his lantern, shooting light at my feet. The floor under me disappeared, and I dropped into the freezing water of the Tyburn.
A flash of light streaked across the surface above me, then everything went dark.
The f loor had snapped shut, pinning me underwater.
Holy crap. My books had said nothing about this kind of lantern-craft.
The current began to pull me away. Keeping hold of the khopesh, I slammed a fist up into the rough wet timber subfloor to no effect. My lungs began to burn.
Spinning around in the dark water, I saw a glimmer of light. I swam toward it and was nearly there when my lungs gave out. I took a throatful of water and began to cough and thrash toward what I hoped was the surface. I splashed up in a tiled canal twenty yards downriver from the octagon.
The ringing of steel echoed past me. Cassius was still fighting.
I hooked my arm onto the cobbled walkway and pulled myself onto the cold stones.
I hacked up as much water as I could before stumbling back toward the fight.
Navigating between the watery graves, I made it to the octagon unseen and crept in behind Braids.
I plunged my knife down at her neck, cutting loose her necklace.
She bucked like she’d been goaded with an electric prod and whirled on me.
Cassius leapt between us and severed her sword hand—bracelet, blade, and all. She collapsed, howling.
“Clever,” said Bazalgette, now standing next to Henry’s killer’s body.
Buzz Cut rushed Cassius again, swinging his rods in a quick arc.
The centurion parried, ducked, then ran his sword through the vestige’s gut.
The man sank to the wet tiles. I pounced and cut off his binding necklace.
I heard a whoosh of flames igniting and swung around.
Bazalgette was standing next to the killer’s flaming corpse. The sickening smell of
burning flesh wafted into the octagon.
I took a few steps forward, but Cassius grabbed my arm and held me back. “It is thanaturgic flame. It cannot be extinguished by other than thanaturgic means.”
I watched the evidence Emaline had taken such care to provide me burn. Damn.
Bazalgette smiled in the light of the flames. In his fingers he held the killer’s bindings. He rolled them back and forth, like tinder, until they flashed and were gone.
“I wouldn’t linger,” he said, casually strolling toward the cobbled walkway. He paused and looked back. “By the way, your violation of Precedent in openly attacking another thanatist didn’t go unnoticed.” Then he disappeared into the north culvert that followed the Tyburn toward the palace.
When he’d gone, I turned to his vestige warriors. They looked up at me wide-eyed, as their semblances began ripping free from their bodies.