Chapter Thirty-Five Police Business
Chapter Thirty-Five
Police Business
After several nights of searching for his men without success, Hasan finally tried Samina’s home.
He hadn’t wanted to bother her at first, especially since her injuries would not yet have healed.
But everywhere he went, he found nothing.
The police presence didn’t help with the search, either.
He’d almost run into them twice, which was two times too many.
He could not understand whom or what they were looking for.
Paranjay was still in custody. Zeyar had joined their side.
So what were the police doing in the Virian quarter of the city?
He hadn’t figured it out yet, but once he rescued Paranjay, perhaps they could solve that mystery together.
Samina lived in a small, single-room flat with her brother, who was one of the gang’s vasudhakt runners.
The flat had been ransacked, just like Kaushal’s.
The bed had shifted, the sheets rumpled and pillows slashed.
The closet doors gaped, clothes strewn over the floor.
The window was unlocked, but when Hasan opened it and looked out onto the roof, no one was there.
He had almost resolved to leave when he heard it: labored breathing, coming from inside a vent in the wall.
He took a single step backward, squinting between the grills.
Sure enough, a shadow lurked within. He clenched his fist, daivyakhi at the ready. Then he tore open the vent cover.
A dark, blurry shape hurtled past him. He lunged, taking the other person down with a grunt.
They kicked and squirmed, but he managed to grab both their arms and pin them down.
Now that the person had stopped wriggling, Hasan realized his catch was a skinny boy no older than fifteen, all knobby knees and elbows, like a foal.
“Sanjiv?” he asked, astounded. “What on earth were you doing hiding in the vent?”
“I thought you were the police,” Sanjiv said. “I thought they had come back for me.”
Hasan let the boy up, brushing the dust off his shirt and hair. “Come back for you?” What would the police want with a fifteen-year-old boy, especially one who was merely a runner? “Where’s Samina?”
Sanjiv’s eyes grew glassy. “The police took her first.” He sniffed. “That’s why I thought they had returned, to take me too.”
Hasan froze. “They’ve arrested Samina?”
“Just yesterday.” Sanjiv’s voice trembled. “She opened the window and told me to hide outside, on the roof. When I climbed back in, she was gone.”
Hasan could picture it easily—Samina had left the safe house before her wounds had fully healed. When the police had come for her, she wouldn’t have been able to fight or run as well as she normally could, and she would have never allowed Sanjiv to try and defend her.
“Do you know if they’ve taken anyone else?”
“I don’t know. Samina told me it’s too dangerous to go out, so I haven’t. The police are stopping everyone. There’s a curfew on our side of the city, and they set up checkpoints everywhere.” Sanjiv blinked furiously, fighting back tears. “It was already hard enough to survive.”
Hasan loosed a ragged breath, patting the boy on the shoulder awkwardly. Samina would kill him if he left her brother here alone, but he couldn’t possibly take Sanjiv with him. “You should leave Marnapur. There’s a safe house in Sanivali.”
“I won’t leave without Samina,” Sanjiv insisted fiercely.
The boy’s sense of loyalty lodged in Hasan’s chest, twisting in the wound Zeyar had left. “I’m looking for her,” he said. “Go, and I’ll find her.” I’ll find them both.
· · ·
Hasan had to reconfigure his plans. With most of his daivyakt fighters missing or arrested, he didn’t have the manpower required to overwhelm the police. He couldn’t leave Marnapur empty-handed, but charging the police station on his own would be a suicide mission.
Tired and hungry, after another full night of disappointment, all he wanted was a warm meal and the comfort of his own bed. He returned to the flat. Inhaling slowly, he flipped the lights on, bracing himself for the rush of melancholy.
What he hadn’t been bracing himself for was the figure sitting on his couch, flipping through one of Zeyar’s old newspapers. Hasan whipped out his pistol, but the person holding the newspaper responded to the safety being clicked off by merely turning the page.
“Relax.” Harithi rolled her eyes over the top of the paper. “It’s only me.”
He lowered his gun in disbelief, putting the safety back on. “How’d you find me?”
“After you ditched me at Sanivali, you mean?”
“No one knows about this apartment. Who told you?”
“No one did.” Harithi tossed down the newspaper. “I have my ways. You’re avoiding the question. Why’d you leave me behind?”
“I didn’t need you with me,” Hasan retorted. “Did Zeyar tell you about this place?”
“He didn’t! I told you, no one told me.” Harithi straightened her back, glaring. “What’s the big deal about me knowing, anyway? I’ve been a part of this gang almost as long as you.”
“You’re not a Devar,” Hasan snapped. Harithi flinched, the expression of pain on her face so rare that it took him a moment to recognize it.
He backtracked, lowering his voice. “It was a promise we made to each other, as brothers—we’d never tell anyone else about this apartment.
No friends, no lovers—no one. I never doubted that the others followed the rule, but ever since Zeyar—”
“I get it.” Harithi softened. “What he did tore a thread loose—and now you can’t stop pulling, even if it means unraveling everything.”
After a long pause, he tucked his gun back into its holster. “I’m sorry.” Then he frowned again. “Why did you follow me back to Marnapur?”
“Because you obviously have a plan,” Harithi said, “and I’m going to be part of it.”
“You don’t even know what I’m planning.”
“And whose fault is that?” She pointed at him. “Get me up to speed.”
He balked. Given the way his plan had gone so far, he hated to admit that there wasn’t much left of it at all.
Meanwhile, Harithi had interpreted his silence differently.
She rose from the couch, punching her finger into his chest. “The problem with you Devars,” she said, “is that you never share what you’re thinking.
When things get tough, all of you run off and do your own thing, trying to be the hero that saves the others instead of working collaboratively.
If Zeyar had shared what he was thinking with me—if I had followed him to the city—”
Jaw clenched, she broke off, looking equal parts angry and mortified that she’d revealed so much of her thought process. Hasan didn’t attempt to soothe her. She’d take any sympathy he offered her as pity, and if there was one thing that she hated, it was pity.
“I didn’t bring you because you disagreed about attacking the precinct when I first suggested it.” Hasan ran a hand through his hair, then added, “It’s starting to look like a suicide mission, anyway.”
Briefly, he explained his plan to recruit his fighters and storm the police precinct to free Paranjay. Then he recounted how every daivyakt fighter’s house he’d been to had been raided or abandoned.
“So you’ve been out there all night?” Harithi demanded.
“Yeah.” He yawned. “I need a new plan. This one isn’t going to work.”
“What you need is sleep.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she stamped her foot. “No. Go and sleep. You’re useless to Paranjay if you’re not at your strongest.”
Hasan sighed. “Fine. But when I wake up—”
“We’ll make a new plan,” she said. “Now go rest.”
· · ·
When Hasan woke later that afternoon, he found Harithi eating in the kitchen. A second plate sat covered beside her.
“Feel better?” she asked, pushing the plate toward him. “I made some rice and dhal, but the meat and vegetables were spoiled. I had to toss them out.”
“I haven’t really had time to do groceries,” he said wryly. He pulled his plate closer. “Thank you.”
As he ate, Harithi caught him up to speed with what she had learned since returning to the city. “The Marnapur curfew was mandated by the viceroy himself,” she said. “It flew through the House of Representatives and had the signatures of all four men on the Council of Lords.”
“What was the rationale behind the bill?”
“Sutherland said the city had fallen into a level of chaos that wasn’t conducive to the economy.” Harithi rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I think what we did, setting that fire at the museum, has scared a lot of people.”
“What about the arrests?” Hasan asked. “Any word about why they’re taking our men?”
“No,” she said. “But now that you mention it . . . have you realized that all the gang members they’ve taken are daivyakt? Have any of our vasudhakt members been taken?”
“I—” He hesitated, his face warm. “I didn’t think to check on the vasudhakt ones.”
“Hasan,” she said, her voice full of reproach.
“I wanted fighters, not informants or runners,” he said defensively.
“In case you haven’t noticed, the Welks are doing just fine fighting without divine energy,” she huffed. “Maybe it’s time we started giving more importance to vasudhakt members.”
“I can look for them tomorrow,” Hasan said.
“No need. When I returned, I searched for you at several of our hiding spots. Everywhere I went, the vasudhakt gang members are still around. Some of them are scared—a bunch of them have left the city—but, for the most part, the police haven’t bothered them at all.”
“What could it be?” Technically, the use of magic was not illegal, but the act of making naumya was. And all of his daivyakt members were no fools when it came to hiding their pantheons.
“It can’t be that they’re looking for us,” Harithi said. “Zeyar said he got us immunity.”
“Unless he was lying about that,” Hasan said sourly. “Wouldn’t be the first time he was dishonest with us.”
“He’s lied about many things, but I don’t think he lied about this. If he hadn’t gotten you immunity, Richard would have had you arrested at Sanivali. He had no reason to spare you otherwise.”
“Fair,” Hasan said. Maybe Zeyar had done him that one favor. “But then what could it be?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but what I do know is that the arrests were made by members of Montrose’s squadron.”
Somehow, this didn’t surprise Hasan. “What the fuck is Montrose up to now?”
“Well, at first I thought he was being paranoid because of the wedding,” Harithi said. “But then why would they increase security in the Virian neighborhoods?”
“Wedding?” he repeated. “What wedding?”
She rolled her eyes. “I swear, Hasan, it’s like when you put your mind to something, you get tunnel vision.
I don’t know how you managed to block out everything else, but Poppy Sutherland’s wedding is all anyone is talking about.
The wedding of the viceroy’s only daughter would have been a large enough affair, but this one is laced with so much scandal.
Her origin story, but also the fact that she was missing for nearly three weeks after her engagement party.
The tabloids have been minting money for a month. ”
“I thought . . .” He’d thought what? That Poppy would protest? Richard had not gone to all that effort to get her back just to listen to what Poppy wanted. He had seen how she’d struggled against him, how he’d dragged her toward the car carelessly. Men treated donkeys with more care.
“She’s being forced,” Hasan said quietly. “I know there is nothing we can do for her now, but I vowed to be her ally. It feels wrong to allow it to continue.”
Harithi sighed. “You said it yourself. There is nothing we can do for her now, Hasan. We have to stay focused on Paranjay. Poppy will have to save herself.”
He snorted, and she gave him a sharp look. “Don’t underestimate her. She was a pawn in a game, but she bargained her way into being a player. She’s craftier than she looks.”
“I suppose,” he said, but he didn’t see how Poppy would be able to work her way out of her current dilemma without allies. “So how do we find out what Richard is really up to?”
“The maids inside Montrose Manor may know something,” she said. “They tidy office spaces, bring tea and refreshments whenever there are guests. I’d wager many of them know more than we’d think.”
“With all these new checkpoints, I won’t be able to cross Morning Bridge, let alone infiltrate Montrose Manor,” he scoffed. “They’d arrest me in a heartbeat.”
“No, you can’t.” Harithi smiled, teeth flashing. “But I can. Give me some time, and I’ll figure out how to get through those checkpoints. Sounds like a plan?”
“Barely.” Hasan grimaced. “But it’s as good as we’re going to get.”