I clung to the side of Angela’s tub, the slick tiles cold against my fingers. She deserved better than this. I tried to think of a good prayer for her. At first nothing came. Then . . .
“When the cold steel pulls, the warm blood feels like an invitation you can’t stop. But don’t give in. Live another day. You’re more than what others thought.”
Her lyric.
A sharp pain stabbed behind my eyes. I pressed at my temples with the balls of my hands, but couldn’t make it stop. A wave of nausea gripped me. Feeling suddenly weak, my legs buckled, and I fell forward into the tub. Freezing water engulfed me as I splashed down past Angela’s body. I didn’t thrash or kick. I just . . . floated down. Then Cassius’s giant hand shot into the water, grabbed the collar of my jacket, and hauled me out. He laid me on the tile beside Angela’s pool. “Jack?”
The pain in my head had dialed back by half. “I’m okay.”
I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he helped me to my feet. “Come with me.”
We made our way between several rows of pools and crossed a small footbridge to a tub where fresh water lay splashed all around. Just beneath the surface of the water was Henry’s killer. His bindings had been removed.
“Grab his feet,” I said, reaching in and hooking him by his armpits.
We lifted him out and laid him on the tile. His smeared makeup made him look like a mad clown. I searched his pockets. Nothing.
Then I remembered something Emaline had said about compulsion bindings. I dug out my Zippo again, lit it, and held it on the other side of his face. A thin shadow cast down on the wet tiles. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Nothing I’d read or heard suggested I’d see much from a dead man. His shadow had the grey cast of a vestige, but frozen as if caught in a moment in time, instead of the flickering of gleam notes. A number of occlusions still lay scattered inside the grey.
But inside one of them, I saw something—an almost imperceptible pulse like a heart beating at the longest, most painful intervals. It spread from a raw scar torn in the rough shape of supplicating hands holding Brach’s tobacco leaf, encircled by a chain.
I dug the field manual out of my pocket. Water beaded and rolled off the resin-coated pages. But I didn’t need to read it. I knew instinctively that scars resulting from “crimes against the soul” would never fully heal. Not even in death.
And this scar was a combination of Henry’s and Brach’s personal sigils. I sighed with relief. I had the evidence to put Brach away.
Still dizzy and nauseous, I clambered to my feet. “Let’s get him topside.” As we carried the body back into the octagon, two men and a woman, all in dark clothes, stood waiting for us at the stairs.
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 stoodin 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, grippingit 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’mawareof 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.”
