Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I shouldn’t be surprised. Modern London and its thanaturgic class are doing what they’ve always done, extending serfdom through enterprise and greed. How might they like it if we opened their gaols and burned their law books?
—Chancellor Wat Tyler, Medieval Stratum,
on the occasion of his Strata Chancery induction
Cassius and I took the back alleys to slip the Shiguan prowlers on our way to Henry’s place.
I asked Cassius to guard the door, and went inside.
The air had gone stale, but everything else was still Henry: pictures with musicians, a console radio and record player given him by his mother, and a large bookcase filled with the most impressive vinyl collection I’d ever seen.
Henry and I had sat at his Formica table every Sunday morning, listening to those old records, Henry doing his deejay routine between songs. He loved playing the deep album cuts, the ones nobody seemed to know. Made us both feel like we were sharing a beautiful secret.
I missed him. I wished I could talk to him just one more time.
I’d come a half hour early to search his flat for anything that could help me renew the ward.
I was also looking for an appropriate urn for his ashes.
I’d just started digging around when two guys stepped into the living room from the kitchen.
One wore a tunic and schenti, with a khat on his head and an ankh tattoo at his right temple; the other had on ratty jeans and a Femmes T-shirt beneath a black leather vest, wore a nose ring, and had the acronym S.L.A.M. burned across the back of his hand.
Each had a compact lantern, bow, and khopesh hanging from their belt.
I drew my own khopesh. “Cass—”
“Please don’t, Mr. Solomon,” said Ankh. “Let’s keep this civil, shall we? We’re here for your own good.”
S.L.A.M. smirked.
Then it hit me. These were reps from two of the schisms. S.L.A.M. was obvious, and the other guy had to belong to the Brotherhood of Heka. “If you knew I’d be here, you’re monitoring me in a way that doesn’t feel too good.”
“We know more than you think.” S.L.A.M. smirked again.
“Mr. Solomon,” said Ankh, “let us be brief. We originally delegated your trial to the chancery on the recommendation of our Shiguan constituents. But, to be frank, we weren’t much aware of Brach’s bolder machinations in the Strata until these last few days, else we might have chosen a different course. ”
I chuckled. “And now it’s too late. Or, if you took the trial back at this point, you’d look—”
“You gotta win, bruv,” S.L.A.M. said. “Otherwise things get real complicated, and neither you nor your friends at the Horse are in any position to handle that.”
The Horse? S.L.A.M. was a Soho rat.
I pointed at each of them. “Maybe the Brotherhood and S.L.A.M. want to help me mount a defense? That why you’re tracking me?”
Ankh cleared his throat. “We’ve been doing what we can without hindering the process, but things don’t seem to be going well, so we’re here with an offer.”
“Separate offers,” S.L.A.M. clarified. “Indeed,” Ankh said. “As a vulgar—”
“We call ’em ‘rogue’ now, yeah,” S.L.A.M. clarified again.
Ankh sighed. “Fine. As a rogue thanatist, meaning unaligned with any schism, your chances at trial are remote. But with the backing of a schism, your odds improve dramatically.”
I should have seen this coming. “I get it now. This is a recruiting visit.” “Ordinarily,” said Ankh, “we wouldn’t approach you simultaneously, but our respective groups agree that for a higher purpose, it is better you find any ally in this particular storm.
And time is of the essence.” “Higher purpose?” I asked.
S.L.A.M. traced the brand on the back of his hand. “If revolution comes topside, bruv, it draws us all in. Everyone has to pick a side. And because schisms don’t see eye to eye, things would get real bloody real fast.”
“Suffice it to say, Mr. Solomon,” said Ankh, “that it’s just best if we squash everything at trial—your guilt, Brach’s revolution, all of it.”
I’d learned in Henry’s books that the Brotherhood were the presiding faction—directing Convocation, managing resources, and overseeing relationships with other cities.
S.L.A.M. had taken over for the Cythons as the Convocation’s arcanum experts.
Either would be a lot of help at trial. “What about the others?” I asked. “The Children of the Ashes. The
Dusk Parade. They not interested in stopping Brach?” “The Children keep to themselves,” said Ankh.
“And the Duskers,” S.L.A.M. added, “well, bruv, they’re a dodgy lot. They may come at you, but throwin’ in with ’em might be worse than going it alone.”
That I could believe, given what I’d seen of them at Rat’s Castle. But what was in this for the Brotherhood or S.L.A.M.?
“Any schism I join would place the Iron Horse under that schism’s control, wouldn’t it.”
The two shared a look and nodded.
“That’s what I thought.” Man, even now they were playing an angle. “Look, I figure Henry went it alone for a reason, and to tell you the truth, I’m not really sure who to trust. So, thanks for the offers, but I’ll take my chances at trial with my friends.”
“Ill-advised,” said Ankh.
“Stupid,” S.L.A.M. added, though his grin belied some approval.
I shrugged.“What can I tell you, I’m from the land of rugged individualism.” Ankh shook his head. “Be aware, Mr. Solomon, that things tend to escalate as trial approaches. Please be watchful. And should you have a change of heart, we won’t be hard to find.”
They each handed me a card. Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, they were gone, disappearing back into the kitchen and out, I figured, through the back door.
I took a moment to try and square this little visit with everything else I’d learned over the last few days, couldn’t really do so, then got back to digging around Henry’s apartment, when a knock came at the door. I walked over and opened it.
“Good morning, Jack.” Emaline was in cowboy boots, jeans, a military-style jacket, and dark sunglasses. Over her shoulder she carried a small satchel.
I resisted the impulse to give her a hug. “Come on in.”
She first extended a hand, but when I reached out, she shifted her fingers and gently took hold of my wrist. The same aching touch that I’d felt the night we met shivered up my arm.
“Good,” she said. “And you’re alone?” “Except for Cassius—”
She turned to Margaretha, whom I hadn’t noticed standing in the alley, and nodded.
Margaretha stepped up near the door, and the two discreetly clasped hands.
I wouldn’t have noticed anything if I hadn’t looked at their shadows—Emaline’s pattern became Margaretha’s; Margaretha’s became Emaline’s.
And Emaline’s shadow still had that strange doubling effect I couldn’t figure out.
Then Emaline sauntered past me into Henry’s flat. I shut the door, took her jacket, and hooked it on the wall rack next to Henry’s coat and old drumstick bag. We sat down in a couple of chairs around a coffee table near the fireplace.
“You were using Margaretha as a decoy.” I’d read about it in one of Henry’s books on vestiges. “A kind of vessel for your soul?”
“A gudgeon, yes. A necessary precaution, especially when traveling topside.” She settled herself. “How was your visit with Madam?”
“She didn’t know anything about the assassination or the wraith.” “And you believe her?” She set down her satchel and held up her cigarillo filter to ask whether she could smoke.
I nodded. “I’ll admit she’s a handful, but I got a chance to look into her shadow. I think she’s a bit of a prisoner herself.”
“Madam let you peer?” She lit her cigarillo and took a long drag. “Peering is either an act of intimacy or an act of invasion—which was yours?” She showed me a suggestive grin.
The intimacy thing piqued my interest, but I explained my time with Madam in the theater and the fight with the wraith, leaving out my wound. I didn’t want to get into that.
“And you dismissed a wraith?” Emaline took another drag. “That’s rather remarkable, Jack.”
“I had a lot of help,” I told her. “The point is we’re back to square one.” “Because you overvalue your vestiges,” she said.
I leaned forward. “Meaning what?”
“Saving Cassius, of course.” She waved her cigarillo.
“Vestiges are, by and large, treated well and given a nearer approximation of life than any semblance in the Strata will ever know. Most of them choose to be vestiges for these very reasons and understand the potential sacrifices they may have to make.”
“What about you, then?” I asked. “You’re not even a vestige, yet you came to me talking about escaping a life of slavery.”
“What are you trying to say, Jack?”
“I guess I’m wondering if this is really about holding Brach accountable.” I watched her take a long drag from her cigarillo. “Or if it’s about revenge for whatever he’s done to you.”
Emaline stood and drew a small cylindrical lantern from her satchel.
She spoke it alight. “Now you,” she said.
I stood, got out my lantern and bow, then spoke my ghost stone to burn, as well.
“Brighten your shine and cast my shadow deeply,” she said.
I pulled my bow across one of my lantern’s brass frame rods in a revelatory stroke; amber light shone, creating a crisp cutout of Emaline across the hardwood floor.
She manipulated the light of her own small lantern with a few whispered commands, washing out all her shadow save a storm-grey occlusion at her navel.
“This, Jack,” she said softly, “in case it wasn’t clear, is peering of the intimate sort.
Now, hold in your mind everything you know about me and add to it this one fact: that my soul was ready to move on and be received into the warmth of my family.
” She paused. “You may now peer into my primal moment.”
Last time I’d done this—with Madam—it hadn’t felt good to discover the person’s secrets. Gave me more empathy for them, but also screwed up my objectivity. This time, though, I wanted to get closer.
So, I peered.