Emily explained. Part of the deal Tomb had going with Valentine involved safe houses. Tomb was one of the most successful of the old families, one of the few to maintain both power and money. They had interests all over Veridon. Valentine was borrowing some of those interests, to hide people and things he needed put quietly away when there was trouble. Emily was aware of the deal, and took advantage. The Cog was buried in one of Tomb’s houses, safe as it could be.
Right where we couldn’t get to it. Right where we’d have to be crazy to break in.
“How do you know about that?” I asked.
“What, The hiding places? I arranged the deal.”
“Not according to Valentine. He told me it was true, that he had been talking to the Tombs, but no one knew it. Not even you.”
Emily flinched and sat down. “Let’s chalk it up to self interest.”
“How?” I asked.
“I’ve been snooping around Valentine, months now. There’s a lot of money going into that operation that’s just disappearing.” She gave me a sick look. “I’m just trying to get a piece. Looking out for myself, I guess.”
“And you found out about his secret deals with one of the Founding Families?” Wilson asked. “That’s some deep secret you dug up.”
“It wasn’t easy. The Tombs were overconfident. One of their couriers…” she looked embarrassed and shot me a hot look. “He likes me. So. I found out.”
“Well. You could have mentioned that earlier.”
“You don’t react well, when I bring up that side of my life.”
I shrugged. Wilson chuckled. “So what now?” he asked.
“You put it there,” I said. Emily was facing away from us again, a little pale. “You can get it back. Right?”
“I was about to say. That’s what I was trying to do, while you were laid up at Wilson’s.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s gone.”
“Gone? What, like someone came through and cleared the place out? Stole it?”
“No, just it. Just the Cog. Everything else was the same, near as I could tell.”
“You tell anyone else you put it there?”
“No.”
“So someone magically guessed that it was there, broke in, and took just that.”
Emily squirmed. “They didn’t break in. There are signs, trustlocks that have to be maintained. Someone in on the deal had to take it. No one else knows the patterns.”
“The deal? The one between Valentine and Tomb, you mean?”
“Yeah, that deal.” Emily turned to look at me. She looked sorry. “So someone on the inside. Valentine’s people, or Tomb’s. No one else knows.”
I sat back. Trustlocks were tricky. It took a combination to open them, a combination based on the configuration of the lock. And when you closed it again, it never went back in the same way. Had to be set. The whole deal was based on one use-codes and algorithms. You could pick them, but you couldn’t put them back without the codes, least not in a way that the next guy opening it wouldn’t notice. Tamper-proof. They got used a lot, by people who didn’t trust each other.
“So one of Valentine’s. Or one of Tomb’s.” I rubbed my eyes. “Valentine doesn’t want any part of this. So let’s say it’s one of Tomb’s. Let’s say the Lady Tomb has this thing, now.”
Wilson sighed. He had taken up a spot in the corner of our little room, sitting on his hands and watching us argue. “What does that mean to us?” he asked.
“If we’re serious about figuring out what’s going on here, it means we have to go get it,” I said. I took my revolver out and laid it on the coat, then started to disassemble and clean it.
“Yeah. So what? We break into the Manor Tomb and steal it?”
“Probably not,” Emily said. “That’s probably too much of a task, even for the great Jacob Burn.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I kept focused on the pieces of the revolver. A simple puzzle, a task I knew. “Probably asking too much that she has it on display somewhere. Probably going to take talking to her.”
“You want me to handle that?” Emily asked.
“You’ve had contact with her?”
“No, I just…” she stuttered to a stop. “No.”
“No, you haven’t. I have. This is my job. This is just the sort of job Valentine hires me for.” I sighed and sat quietly for a minute as I finished up with the revolver. When it was together again I put it into my shoulder holster, then stood up. “Stay here. I’ll be back, soon enough.”
“Like hell,” Wilson said. I paused at the door to the basement and turned. He was standing.
“You don’t trust me?” I asked.
“Better. I don’t even know you. You’re asking us to stay here, to stay put, while you go running around the city. The Badge is looking for you, Jacob, and they’re looking for us too. They catch you, it isn’t going to be long before they get us.”
“Look, I do this kind of job all the time. It’s what Valentine pays me for. Look smart, talk to the pretty people, maybe threaten some milksop then get out.” I turned back to the door. “All the damn time.”
“It’s not like that this time, Jacob.” Wilson walked over to me, wedged himself between me and the door, and crossed his arms. “This isn’t some drug deal, okay? I’m going with you.”
“A bug,” I turned to Emily and waved my hand. “Em, maybe, but I’m not taking a bug.” I stopped talking when I felt the steel against my cheek. I turned, slowly.
“We don’t use that word,” Wilson said. “Civilized people like us don’t use that word.”
“Right. Sorry,” I muttered. He lowered the knife. “I just don’t think Tomb is going to be too friendly to me showing up with an anansi. That’s all.”
“It’s okay,” he said, sheathing the knife. “You’ll tell them that we’re friends.” He looped his arm through mine and pulled me toward the door. “Good friends.”
“Be careful, kids,” Emily said. I think she was chuckling.
“Yes, dear,” I said.
I clambered out of the flooded basement, swirling my coat on over my shoulders. Dusk was settling down on the streets of Veridon. The frictionlamps were humming.
“And while we’re out, we can look for some engram beetles, for your pattern,” Wilson said with a sharp smile and a tug on my arm.
I thought of the sharp legs clawing their way down my throat, the blood and chitin flaking off my lips when I woke up. I grimaced.
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll look.”
It worked like this. The Families on the Council, both the Founders and the new breed that’s buying them out, they have their own servants. Drivers, butlers, handmaidens, stablers… the whole domestic scene. They have their own little brute squads, too. House Guard. Housies, we called them. They, you know, guard the house.
Tomb’s House Guard was nowhere to be seen. The Manor Tomb sits in the older part of town, just on the edge of what could be called respectable real estate. It was high up in the city. It started out posh, but the years had built up and the wealth had migrated. Now the smoke from the Dunje-side factories formed a putrid strata that clung to the streets and scraped against the walls up here. Rich as the Tombs were, they couldn’t afford to move their address. Grandpa was inside, and grandpa was immobile. And when grandpa went, the whole family went, the writ of name already mortgaged off to one of those new families. So. The manor stayed.
The Manor Tomb was an impressive place, all stone and wrought iron, the brows of the mansion scowling at the street below. The wall that surrounded the grounds was stone, and the gate was well maintained and usually guarded. Not today. Today, the gatehouse was empty. Perfect opportunity, right, except for the street around the manor. The street was full of officers of the Badge. They looked like they were preparing for a war, agitated, the men clutching their weapons as they faced away from the manor, like they expected Veridon to rise up and invade the place. Lots of Badge, with equipment and officers and marching orders. It didn’t look right.
It was going to be tough to get an audience with the Lady under those circumstances. Of course, the alternative was to squat in that flooded basement while Wilson stuffed bugs down my throat. I figured to give it the old Burn try, at least.
Wilson and I circled around the Manor, crossing streets until we were out of sight of the wall and then working our way back to the postern. There was Badge back here, too, but they were playing sneaky; hiding in shops, gathering behind the boarded up windows of warehouses. We picked our way closer to the postern, trying to not catch the eye of the Badge. Wilson walked with his head down, his hunched shoulders twitching under his coat.
The grounds of the Manor Tomb were old. The wall was original to the founding, from when the Veridon Delta was still a dangerous place, and didn’t contain that much space. In the generations that had since passed, the Tombs had filled the interior of the wall with buildings and gardens and the like. That left no room for stables or garages for the family carriage. These things were outside the postern now, spilling out into the district.
I ducked into the stables, Wilson close behind me, and hunched my way to the gate. The Badge outside hadn’t stopped us, so that was half the fight. I looked down at my grimy shirt. I couldn’t look too good, I thought, probably not good enough to bluff my way into the estate. Best to be direct.
There were two guards by the postern, looking nervously between me and Wilson. They were armed with shortrifles and had been eyeing us since we came around the corner. I smiled at them and bobbed my head.
“Morning, boys. Here to see the Lady Tomb.”
“Lady’s not taking visitors today,” the OverGuard said. He had his back flat against the iron bars of the gate. Over his shoulder I could see a dozen more Housies, peeking around corners and kneeling behind barrels. He looked briefly at me, and then pointedly at Wilson. Wilson smiled, his mouth full of tiny, sharp teeth. It would have been better if he didn’t smile.
“Something up? Awful lot of steel in the street this morning,” I said.
“Badge is agitating. Say they’ve got reports of a riot in the area. They’re offering security.”
“Generous of them,” I said. “So you said Lady’s not taking guests today?”
“Not today. Considering the situation.”
“Maybe tell her, anyway. Someone who knows something about the little problem she had up on the Heights.”
“That some kind of code?” he asked.
“Nah. But she’ll let us in.”
He grimaced, then nodded to someone behind the gate. A page ran up, got the message from the guard, and ran off again. We all stood around smiling nervously and peering out into the street while we waited. When the page came back there was another guard with him.
“He’s in,” the page said, out of breath. He poked his finger at Wilson. “That one stays outside.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” I turned to Wilson. “You’ll just have to stay here and…”
Wilson, still smiling, leaned close to me.
“If you leave me here I will climb the walls and find you,” he hissed. “I will kill every man, child and widow’s dog that gets in my way. And when I find my way to your bitch-Councilor’s side, I will wrap her in gum and vomit fly eggs down her throat.”
When he was done he leaned away from me again, slowly, keeping his eyes on mine but smiling all the while. I turned to the guards.
“It’s best if he comes with me.”
“Lady said-”
“Angela will understand. Honestly, everyone will be a lot better off if he comes with me.”
They inched back a little. The messenger shrugged, and the watch captain nodded.
“It’s on your head if he causes any trouble,” the captain said to me.
“Sure, sure.”
The other guard unlocked the gate and let me in, then locked it again from the inside. The guys outside showed no sign of having keys.
“They leaving you out in the cold?” I asked the OverGuard. He shrugged, then put his back to the gate and stared out into the stables.
“Come on,” the new guard said. He was a lot cleaner, his uniform fit too well. He probably didn’t like being near the gates at all. I nodded and followed him into the manor. Once we were away from the gate I shot Wilson a look. He shrugged and stopped smiling.
“You aren’t leaving me behind in this, Jacob.”
“I see that. But there’s no need to threaten.”
“Threat is a language you seem to understand.” He shot his cuffs and rearranged the knives hidden in his coat. “But there’s no reason we can’t work together in this.”
“If you say.”
There were a lot more Housies inside, more than I expected. Maybe that riot story was true. They hadn’t even bothered to disarm me when I came through, either. I fingered the revolver at my belt and looked around. The house was quiet.
She met us in the dining room. The long table was clear, the phalanx of chairs tipped against it. The only other furniture was an empty china cabinet.
Angela was standing by the window, looking out over one of the pocket gardens that spotted the grounds. She wore a riding jacket and pants in deep maroon. The guard left us and closed the door. I motioned Wilson to one side, a step behind me. Maybe if Angela thought he was some sort of servant she would ignore him.
“Angela,” I said.
“I thought it might be you.” She had her arms crossed, and didn’t turn. “When Harold said it was someone with news from the Heights. I thought it must be you.”
“I was hoping we could talk about that,” I said. I crossed to the table. “There are a lot of strange things going on. Maybe we can, I don’t know, clarify some things.”
She nodded, almost absentmindedly.
“You were able to get through the Badge?” she asked.
“Yeah. Came around the back.”
“No officers that way?”
“Some. They’re hiding, but they’re there.”
She nodded again, then scratched at her cheek and looked at me. She paused when she saw Wilson, raised her eyebrows and looked at me questioningly.
“A friend,” I said.
“Well. Friends are good,” she said. She sighed, and it sounded like she was enormously tired, like a child about to fall asleep after a long summer day. It reminded me of the younger Angela, the girl I’d known. It was hard to see, in these clothes, in this place. Hard to remember we’d been children together.
“What about the Heights?” she asked. She motioned to the empty table, then walked over and tipped a chair onto its legs. She sat. “What did you want to talk about?”
I took a chair across from her, keeping my hands on the table. Wilson went to the window and pretended to ignore us. “I’ve had a pretty active couple of days, Angela.”
She smiled. “I’m sure. But I thought you were used to that. The stories I’ve heard, you lead a pretty active life.”
“Stories.” I shrugged. “It’s been more interesting than usual. A lot of the things that I know about how this city works,” I spread my hands, palms up. “Haven’t been working. The Badge has been very… persistent.”
“That’s unusual? The Badge enforcing the law?”
“One of Valentine’s men was rolling my room when I got back from your little party. Insisted it wasn’t at the boss’s behest, and later that day the old clockwork told me he couldn’t get involved. Didn’t want me in his gang until this was all straightened out.”
“Until what was all straightened out?” She leaned forward, touched the table with her elbows. She seemed to be hovering, just off the wood.
“There are some names I want to ask you about, Angela. Some people I’ve met, if briefly. Tell me if they’re familiar to you.”
She was very still, watching me. She didn’t say anything. I took the paper I had gotten from Calvin out of my pocket and lay it on the table between us. She took it, unfolded it, looked at it for a solid minute without speaking. Then she folded it back up and set it on the table again. She sighed.
“Where did you find that?” she asked.
“Friends. Part of my interesting life. Now, I know some of those people. I killed at least one of them, and I’ve seen the body of another. And a third I met at your party. Who are these people, Angela?”
“Wellons,” she said. “Is he the one you killed?”
“No. But I saw him, sure enough. In your house. Sloane, too. But it’s Marcus I killed, on the Glory of Day. And he gave me something.”
“A dirty conscience?”
I smiled. “You know what he gave me, Angela.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. She stood and crossed to the china cabinet, ran a finger down across the wood inlay.
“Let’s say that I do,” she finally relented. “What does it have to do with what happened up on the Heights?”
“You saw that thing, Angela. Everyone there did. What are they paying those officers to keep quiet? An Angel, ransacking the Manor Tomb? That can’t be good for your reputation.”
“They’re all good boys, Jacob. Good citizens. They know what to keep quiet.”
“But someone will talk. They’ll get drunk, and they’ll talk. And what are they going to say? They saw an Angel. The myths are real. There’s an Angel in Veridon, Angela.”
“What are you doing here, Jacob? There are people trying to pin you for the death of those Guildsmen, you know. And the Summer Girl. And Register Prescott.”
“You know I didn’t kill them.”
“I know you didn’t kill all of them,” she said quietly. She turned to me. Her eyes were worried. “What’s the Angel doing, Jacob. What did it say to you?”
“It was after something, Angela. Something it thought I had. And so was Pedr, and so is the Badge. Something they all think I have. And I’m hoping you can help me with that, Angela, because we both know I don’t have it.”
“Say we do, whatever it is.” She turned again, refused to look at me. “What’s that matter to me?”
“You know I don’t have it. You’re on the Council. Council holds the reins of the Badge. Call them off.”
She leaned against the cabinet and crossed her arms thoughtfully.
“The Council is a complicated place. Maybe the seats pushing the Badge around right now don’t have the whole picture.”
“You’re saying you don’t have a handle on the army outside your door?”
“It’s an interesting question,” she said. She crossed over to the window, looked out over the grounds. You could see the rooftops of the surrounding district, poking out over the wall like distant mountaintops made of shingle and soot. “What they think they know and what they actually know. An interesting question. But let’s crack to the marrow here, Jacob.”
She went back to the cabinet and slid one of the drawers open. There was a lot of business, sliding things around, fussing with fabrics; then she came over and placed the Cog on the table. It whirled like a hurricane, the inner wheels buzzing in near silent period.
“You have it,” I said. I knew she probably did. “So why are they still chasing me?”
“Because this is just a part, Jacob.” Her voice was fragile. I looked up. She held a pistol, a small, ornate piece, its barrel drawing a line to my eye. “Now, slowly, let’s have that piece up on the table. Very. Slowly. And your friend shouldn’t move. For his own sake.”
I complied. Wilson had stiffened at the window, looking sternly at the two of us. Soon as my pistol was on the table, half a dozen Housies came into the room. Harold was there, looking at me with a disapproving eye. He smiled at me tightly. The old guy had a new scar across his face, and it pinched his cheek when he smiled.
“Not what I was expecting,” I said. “Not exactly.”
“Like you said, Jacob. Strange days.” She leaned her head to Harold. “Let’s get this all out of sight. We’ll have to wait until the Badge gets out of the way before we can act.”
“There is the postern gate, ma’am,” he said. “The carriage could be-”
“They’re out there,” I said.
“Yes, Jacob was good enough to come in that way. They’re hiding around the-”
“No,” I said. I nodded to the pocket garden out the window. “They’re out there.”
Everyone turned. A half dozen Badge were scrambling over the hedge wall, shortrifles in hand. They spotted us and raised their weapons. A bullet splintered the window, then there was a fusillade of return fire. The glass fell like a waterfall. I threw myself to the floor.
“Harold! Hold the room!” Angela shrieked. “Jacob, you will come with me. There are depths they wouldn’t dare breach.”
The door behind us cracked with gunfire, wood splintering under incoming fire from the hallway. The Badge had gained the house, it seemed.
“M’Lady, perhaps now is the time for negotiation,” Harold said. Angela spat angrily, wrenched the man’s pistol from his hand and fired out the window.
“Like that, you sot!” She crushed the weapon back into his hands and then looked at me. “Come on.”
Angela swooped by the table, picked up the Cog and then, ignoring the increasingly frantic skirmish around her, levered open a concealed door in the wood panel wall. She disappeared. Shooting a glance at Harold, who was paying desperate attention to the reloading and aiming of his weapon, I slid my revolver off the table and into a pocket. I lost track of Wilson, turned just in time to see him go into the corridor. No one stopped me, so I followed them through the secret door, hoping Wilson didn’t do something rash before I caught up to them.
The corridor was a small space, wooden walls that quickly gave way to unfinished stone. I put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder as soon as I could. He had the knives out, but gave me a nervous look then let me go ahead. Angela was only a little ways ahead, hurrying through the semi-darkness. We passed various listening holes as we went, placed to spy on the house in secret. There was fighting throughout the manor. I smelled smoke once, but it passed, and I didn’t say anything. Angela must surely have noticed.
“I didn’t want it to be like this, I swear. By the Celestes, I swear,” Angela whispered. “Not my intent at all. You’ve armed yourself again, I assume.”
I took the revolver from my coat and cocked the hammer in response. She nodded without looking around.
“Good. May need it. You trust your friend, there? Is he good with those stickers?”
“Good enough, ma’am. As soon as I figure out who to poke.”
She laughed, not a trace of nervousness or fear in her voice. “I never expected them to make such a vulgar play.”
“Who?” I asked.
She paused at a branch in the passage, considering our path. One way led down, the other up. She looked nervously down, then behind us, over my shoulder. I could hear feet, far behind.
“Can’t risk that,” she said. “Some things can’t be put into play.”
We went up.
“Who’s doing this, Angela? You said someone in the Council was pushing the Badge around. Who is it?” I imagined these things happening at the Manor Burn, my family hiding in the walls, my father arming the manservants and bolting the doors. “This is practically war.”
“It does seem a bit much,” Angela said. We were moving quickly up a tight spiral staircase. We passed through another hidden door and were again in the common hallways of the house. The floors here were dusty, but there were windows and sunlight. The fighting below had quieted, but there were still Badge outside. “I may press a formal complaint in the Chamber.”
She led us to another stairway, another spiral that went up, this one hung in tapestries. We were running now. There was no question of making a stand. We were just trying to find a place to hide. We ended up on a balcony, a tiny cupola that overlooked the estate grounds. Badge were crawling over the grounds, tramping through gardens and kicking in doors. Angela motioned us down behind the railing. Wilson peeked his head over, as though measuring distances and heights.
“If we’re quiet, and lucky, we’ll escape notice. This is a unilateral action, Jacob, what the Badge is doing. Someone is acting without orders, or with secret orders. I don’t know who, exactly. But it’s only a matter of time before the actual authority reasserts itself, and they pull back. We’ve just got to-”
A bullet whizzed off the stone rail by Angela’s head. On another cupola, lower, an officer stood with a rifle. He was pointing at us and yelling to the courtyard below. There were already feet on the stairs behind us, hammering closer.
“I don’t think quiet’s going to be enough, Angela. We’re going to need to secure the door and-”
A loud shot, and fire filled my chest. I looked down to see my shirt blackened with powder. The blood started, hot across my ribs.
Angela turned her pistol to Wilson, holding it steadily at his head. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I can’t let them have it all. If not us, if not the Founders; well, then no one.”
“Yeah,” I choked. I could feel the bullet, grinding against the machine of my PilotEngine. Or whatever it was, whatever secret thing lived in my chest. She probably expected to kill me with that shot. It’s what I expected. “Yeah, sorry.”
I slapped the pistol aside and punched her. She fell in a heap, the Cog falling and rolling to my boot. I picked it up. Darkness was filling my head, an icy void that reached up from my chest to my eyes. I stumbled. Wilson put a hand under my arm. He was clearly torn between holding me up and slitting Angela’s throat.
Blood and the cycle of my heart pounded through my skull. I put one hand on the railing and pulled myself up. In the courtyard below, the little gray officers of the Badge had slowed down. The one with the rifle was still in his cupola, still looking at me. He was shouting, but the noise came through as a soft roar. I remembered the feet on the stairs and lurched to close the door. The lock was simple, but it took my clumsy hands long heartbeats to secure it. I leaned against the old wood. The Cog had slipped from my hand. I bent down to get it again and when I stood a shadow was passing over me.
The Angel. Twenty, thirty feet from the balcony, flying in lazy circles. Wilson was staring at him, his long face slack with shock. I raised my pistol and fired. The bullet went into him, drawing a contemptuous scowl. I fired again, again, the heat going out of my hand, my arm turning into river clay. He watched me, waiting. The hammer fell on an empty chamber. I leaned against the railing and looked down. Long way down. Wilson was standing between us, both knives out. I put a tired knee on the railing and started to lift myself over.
The door behind me opened, the lock popping with barely a fight. Badgemen, their shortrifles glossy black in the sun. They looked at Angela, blood leaking from her lips, then at me. I made ready to jump. Wilson was a clever climber, right? He’d make sure I got down safely. Right?
The Angel hit me, hard, screaming. Bullets ripped past me as the Badgemen fired in blind panic. Hot lines traced across my chest, then I rolled to my feet. Wilson was dragging at my sleeve, blood across his face, one knife sheathed and the other dripping metal blood. The Badge had fallen on the Angel. He stood and shrugged them off in bloody majesty. Wilson and I jumped for the door and stumbled down the stairs in a dizzying array of thin arms and fainting legs. He followed, awkwardly, his wings tearing at the tight walls.
I followed our path back, found the secret door Angela had brought us through. My head was hammering with the grinding tear of my heart. Blood was leaking from my chest, mixed with the oily gunk of my secondary blood. I started coughing and couldn’t stop. Wilson put an arm around me, carried me down. I stumbled to the floor of the secret passage and vomited while Wilson paced nervously around me. He was talking, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Eventually I stood up and continued on. I smelled more smoke, but that might have been me. My mouth tasted like ash. Wilson kept looking at me nervously, moving ahead of me down the corridor, then coming back to make sure I was still moving. Twice we passed dead bodies, Badgemen who had been cut by Wilson’s knife. I no longer heard the angel behind us.
Wilson stopped us at the corridor where Angela had paused. He propped me against the wall and bent to my chest, poking and frowning. Actual smoke was coming up out of the metal of my heart, leaking in oily plumes out of my mouth.
“You’re looking bad, son.”
“Yeah. Feel it.”
“We can’t go much further. That dining room is clogged with Housies. Looks like that Harold guy got his balls together.”
“About time.” I held up the Cog and pushed it against Wilson’s chest. “Get out, bug. Figure out what this is, what they want with it.”
He took the Cog, looked down at it. His eyes looked like a child’s eyes, so full of awe and wonder. Finally, Wilson shook his head and slid the Cog back into my pocket.
“Not yet.” He nodded down the stairs. “What’s that way?”
“The old guy,” I said.
“Seems like a hell of a place to keep your senior citizens.”
“He’s a hell of a senior citizen.” I was feeling a little more stable. The smoke had cut back. I didn’t like that. I don’t remember smoking before. I spat and stood up. “Come on. Maybe there’s another way back here.”
“There’s not,” Wilson said. He took my arm and pulled me towards the stairs. “This is the only way.”
“Well, then. We go this way.”
We took the downward stairs. I could hear the angel behind us, distantly, smashing vases and tearing furniture. He was looking for the entrance to the secret passage. Wilson pulled faster, and we hurried down.
The stairs here were ancient, maybe older than the house itself. They were rock, but smoothly joined as solid stone, as if they had been grown in this form. The air was quiet and wet. The sounds of fighting passed, and I slowed down. Wilson stayed at my side. My legs were heavy lead, and my lungs felt as though they were full of broken glass. I kept one hand, revolver and all, over the hole in my chest, and the other clutched tightly around the Cog. Angela shot me, I thought. She shot me.
We came to a door. It was old and heavy, the hinges gummy with rust. I fell against it while Wilson ran his hands over the surface, looking for an opening mechanism. It was warm, and as I lay against it, the iron seemed to beat like an ancient heart. I was just summoning the strength to stand and try to give Wilson a hand when the door opened. I fell inside, and the door shut behind me. Wilson rushed to support me. He got in just before the heavy iron slammed shut with a tortured grind.
The room was like a bowl, terraced circles leading down to a pit at the center, a stage of dark, polished wood. On each level there was crowded refuse, like a scrap heap, machines that hissed and gurgled and twitched in the bare light. Stairs led down through this mess. There were frictionlamps at regular intervals. They spun up as we came into the room, covering everything in soft, warm light. There was a lot of brass, and a lot of deep, brown leather. The air smelled like a furnace that was about to blow. There was something at the bottom of the pit, something on the stage. It was swollen and alive, like an abscess of the architecture ready to burst. Light shone off metal and coils quivered. Something was breathing with the cold metal regularity of an engine and valve.
I walked down the stairs on stiff legs. The pain in my chest was a searing flare. I’m going to die down here, I thought. I approached the thing on the stage. Wilson hung back, his attention caught by the collected detritus of the pit. He looked at me nervously.
“I don’t think we should be here, Jacob,” he hissed. “I think this is the kind of place the Tombs would kill you for seeing.”
“Tried once, already.” I paused at the edge of the stage, my hand on my heart. “What’s the harm?”
“There’s always harm,” Wilson said. He crept up behind me. “What is it?”
It was a face, iron, huge. It reclined on the ruined wood of the stage, eyes closed, fat cheeks and lips relaxed. It looked like a giant, sleeping. My hand was on the chin. Cables spilled out from all sides, twitching with power and hydraulic currents. I stepped back.
The eyes opened, slowly. Behind the lids were eyes of glass, windows into a tank of green liquid. A body floated there, bloated and ancient, the flesh pale, cables making a ruin of the flesh.
“Patron Tomb,” I said.