11
—The Prophet’s Modern Translation of the Holy Book
As I stand outside Tuonela’s for the second time in as many days, I wonder vaguely if I’ve chosen the worse of two evils.
After negotiating with Gabriel the previous night, I hadn’t been able to sleep. I’d spent much of the night tracking circles around my apartment, unable to shake the feeling that the Warden might find me before I found him.
He hadn’t come though. The city remained silent save for the periodic revving of a Regiment vehicle making its nightly rounds.
Somewhere along the line, night had bled into day with all the languid excruciation of a seeping wound.
I’d waited impatiently for dark to return, frustration pulsing through me like venom.
I was a ghost, and ghosts didn’t move in the light.
When at last my room was layered in shadows again, I pulled my hair into a knot, shoved my gun and knife into my waistband and boot respectively, and got the hell out.
Now here I am, the reality of my deal with Gabriel crashing over me. I’m about to go after the Warden, knowing there’s a significant chance he’ll try to kill me before I can open my mouth. I’m about to try and convince him to trust me.
My plan is simple: start at the last place I saw him.
Tuonela’s looks notably different from last night.
Patrons aren’t ambling in and out, and the muted glow of ambient lighting is absent.
Instead, there’s only darkness. I don’t like that at all—this should be the start of the speakeasy’s prime hours.
The buildings around it are equally dark and silent.
They seem to crowd up against one another, the edges washed silver-cold where the moonlight touches them.
Relief and frustration collide. The Warden isn’t here, which means I won’t have to face him again. Not yet, at least. But how else am I supposed to find a man nobody truly knows?
I turn my gun over in my hands, considering. There’s a new magazine in it and a couple of backups in my pocket. Obviously I won’t be able to kill the Warden, but he can still be injured. If my plan goes poorly and I need to unload every bullet I have into his flesh, so be it.
I wonder what can kill him. What Gabriel’s plans are once I get his brother to the Reaches.
No sooner do I ask myself the question than I see a pinprick of light in Tuonela’s front window. Not a pale flicker of electricity, but the wavering glow of flame, as if someone has lit a match. The Warden’s words from last night echo in my mind:
Now that Gabriel knows of this place, I’m left with two options. Burn it down, or kill you.
Someone is in there. One of his lackeys, no doubt. They’re in there, and they’re going to torch the place. A cold sweat climbs the back of my neck, but I try to ignore it, grasping instead for determination.
Whoever it is, I’ll use them to lead me to the Warden.
I draw my gun and lunge for the entrance, slamming my shoulder into the door as I turn the handle.
I expected it to be locked, and the force of the action sends me hurtling into the bar in a feral, inelegant display.
I’m breathing heavily, gun pointed at that single flare of light.
The air is thick with the acrid scent of smoke.
It takes me a moment to recognize it for what it is: not the familiar lit-match smell I’d anticipated, nor the cloying fumes of gasoline, but cigarette smoke.
The flame gives way to the barest glow of smoldering ash. I squint at it, an icy sensation spreading through me. Then, suddenly, artificial light assaults my vision. I recoil, blinking hard as the scene before me swims into focus.
The Warden didn’t send someone here.
He’s come himself.
He sits perched atop a barstool like a haughty ruler of old, one arm draped along the bar itself. His legs are crossed, his posture languid. My memory hasn’t done him justice—his handsome profile is all artist’s lines in the feeble glow of the lamp he’s just flicked on.
He looks the way I imagine the devil might, greeting his victims at the entrance to hell.
The Warden doesn’t spare my gun a single glance.
He flicks his spent cigarette away, procures a new one, and lights it.
It looks rather unholy propped there between his lips, flickering in the dim.
Apart from that delicate movement, we might have been frozen in a tableau, both waiting for the other to break the silence. To strike.
Neither of us does.
When he finally speaks, it’s slowly and with precision. “I wondered if you’d return, little sinner.”
I ignore that. “You certainly know how to clear a building.”
I don’t know why those are the first words on my lips. Neither does he, judging by his lifted brows. “I didn’t kill the patrons, if that’s what you’re implying. But I’m giving serious consideration to killing you, so I would start talking.”
“You already tried to kill me once.”
He acknowledges that with a tilt of his chin. “I wasn’t trying very hard. But as far as attempted murder goes, I’d say we’re even.”
I ignore that too. “How did you know I’d come back here?”
“Who says I did?”
“You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Not when I could have told the Regiment precisely where to find you.” I switch my gun to the other hand, slitting my eyes. “You have a source.”
The Warden blows more smoke. “Of course I do.”
“Who is it?”
He chuckles and sits up straight, pointing the cigarette in my direction.
His gaze seems to crackle, alight with impish humor.
“Nice try. I must say though, it was quite unfair of my brother to make you return. He ought to take better care of his possessions.” The Warden takes a drag.
“Well? Go ahead. Make whatever threat Gabriel sent you to deliver.”
“You really think you’ve got everyone figured out, don’t you?” I’m contemptuous. “Gabriel didn’t send me here to make threats. He didn’t send me yesterday either. I don’t know why that isn’t getting through your thick skull.”
This isn’t starting off well. I’m supposed to be trying to convince him that I’m willing to switch allegiances, and yet my first instinct is to insult him. Something about the Warden gets well and truly under my skin, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he wants me dead.
Maybe it’s that he doesn’t deserve to be nearly as attractive as he is. Maybe it’s his aura of cool superiority, as though he’s never taken an order from anyone in his life. He’s untethered, unbothered.
The Warden scoffs. “You claim to be telling the truth, yet you fought against my influence with everything you had. Impressive, by the way. I’m not easy to resist.” His grin reveals those unnervingly sharp teeth again.
“But being so desperate to avoid confession… One might say that’s indicative of a guilty conscience. ”
“I grew up surrounded by liars,” I retort. “Resisting manipulation is kind of my specialty. I have my own reasons for not wanting to confess, and they have nothing to do with Gabriel.”
“Then I suspect you also had your own reasons for engaging me the way you did.”
My cheeks heat at the memory. Of course I’d had a reason—just not the one he thinks. Finding out whether he could divulge any information about the Solemn Apostles seems like such a small, unimportant task now. “You said yourself that you’re difficult to resist.”
“Ah, but I’d hardly even begun to work my charms.” The Warden’s grin takes on a wicked tilt. He’s toying with me.
That’s good—maybe I can still salvage this. I’ve never been very good at endearing myself to people, but when it comes to the Warden, I suspect that isn’t the move regardless. Despite his easy amusement, he’s a man full of rage so potent you can taste it in the air when you’re around him.
I instinctively know that if I’m going to win him over, I need to show him my own anger.
“I only engaged you because I knew it would bother Gabriel,” I say. “I knew he would hate the idea of me hanging around the Trench, getting drunk, and hooking up with a guy who looks like sin on two legs.”
“What a fastidious description of me.”
“I had no idea who you were. I didn’t understand why you were so angry when you saw the pendant. It was only after I returned home that I figured it out.”
The Warden’s pleasant expression flickers. “And who exactly am I, little sinner?”
I swallow. I need to tread carefully. To present the following information as something I’d merely guessed at, and not something that Gabriel confirmed. “You’re the Prophet’s brother. Aren’t you?”
Were it not for the delicate arch of a brow, I might think him unaffected. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“You recognized the Markovich pendant. You’re younger than Gabriel, but not so much that you couldn’t be siblings. Mostly, though, you look alike. Your eyes are the same. Your expressions, and the way your faces move.”
The Warden doesn’t like that. The air in Tuonela’s seems to thicken as he works his jaw. “And what use is that information to you?”
I shrug evasively. “It’s obvious you hate each other. After all, you’re supposed to be dead, right?”
“So they say.” His barely restrained fury urges caution.
“Gabriel made you into a monster. Sundbourg’s own villain. Since you’re still here, that must mean you let him. Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah. Lots of that going around.” In fact, it’s testing my patience. “Try me.”
The scene is a strange one: Him sitting, partially illuminated by the lamplight, and me watching him from the shadows. Him balancing a cigarette between pliant fingers, me white-knuckling my gun. It’s another moment before he replies.
“Why does anyone do anything, little sinner? Gabriel offered me something I wanted.”
I wait.
“Why do you think the Regiment, until recently, hasn’t disturbed the Trench?
My brother loves to speak of some great altercation between us, but he’s always chosen to spar only with words.
He made me an offer: If I disappeared, or at least stayed within the boundary of the Trench, he would ensure the Regiment left me alone. ”