In the midst of the carnage, the Bian Lian thanatist lowered her lantern and bow, and Swan sauntered over to me, smiling like he’d just enjoyed a sumptuous meal.
“Pity about Life for Death,” said Swan. “They’ll continue on, making this music you so adore, living their dream. But you never will, will you? You’ve taken up someone else’s cause, and at the end of it, you’ll wind up as fragile and marginal as the world you failed to defend.”
Roaring flames continued to consume Tin Pan Alley and its precious history.
“Maybe,” I said, “but I’ll find a way to hold you accountable for what you’ve done here.”
Swan stepped right up to me and narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t understand anything, do you? Tin Pan, once the flames are gone, will return to what it was—a fabrication of the Strata—because of the memories of those who reside here.Except . . . not so bright, I think, what with a handful of its dearest souls burned as fuel for my lamp.”
I tightened my grip on my khopesh. “Doesn’t that hurt everyone?
Why kill them?”
“They were resistors,” he said, “making entirely the wrong kind of music.”
“Resistance music, you mean?” I shook my head. “Or just not Shiguan music?”
“Doesn’t really matter,” said Swan. “Thanks to you,alltheir music will now dim. That is quite obviously what you fail to grasp about the relationship between your world and ours.”
He smiled and started to turn away. I slammed my fist down on the lantern in his hand, driving it to the ground, then stomped it with my boot, shattering the glass and flattening its cylinder.
“You daft twit,” Swan shouted, “typifying with one act of stupidity your entire world’s shabby treatment of the Strata.” He picked up the broken lantern. “And I, myself, am now so lost in the margins that I may never be able to repair such a glorious lamp.”
“Maybe that’s something Tom Edison could help you with,” I said. “It’s a shame, though. I could have written a song about you, help take you out of the margins. But instead, I’ll write songs about the ones you’ve burned up—Bolan, Baring, Faithfull, and all the rest. I’ll make sure?—”
“You go ahead and write them,” said Swan, “and enjoy playing them alone to your wardrobe flat in a stinking backstreet alley. Or did you forget the second side of the Shiguan offer you so blithely turned down?” He smirked. “That is, if you survive the chancery at all. I think, rather, I shall enjoy the demise of you and all your riffraff at trial.”
I glared at him. “Aren’t the Shiguan supposed to protect the people of the Strata?”
“Mr. Chad Varah thought so,” said Swan. I shook my head.
Swan smirked again. “Varah was Shiguan. In life, he founded the Samaritans, the first suicide hotline for troubled young people like yourself. But he wasn’t important enough for your world to remember, so his semblance faded to nothing not a fortnight ago, even as he was trying to help his fellow Strata-folk.”
There wasn’t any defense, so I kept my mouth shut. Swan wagged a finger at me, then strolled back down Denmark Street, sniffing once at the Bian Lian woman on his way.
My hands began to shake. I looked down at my knife, and up at the flames licking the grey bricks.
Then I heard someone moan. Then another. And another.
All around me vestiges were writhing on the ground. Three were blurring badly, a dull blue glow above their bodies. I rushed to them, dropped to my knees, and began refreshing their bindings. More memories rose to mind and disappeared—Dad fixing my bike chain, my acceptance letter from Berklee College of Music—leaving more hollows inside me. It got hard to breathe and sharp pains shot through my chest. When I got to the third body, before I could place my hand on her
wrist, her semblance floated up into the air between us. I stared into her eyes as the light of self-awareness receded, her face went slack, and her spirit faded into the stone beneath us. I’d have saved her if I hadn’t wasted time with Swan. This thanatist stuff was starting to feel like maybe more than I could handle.
The two vestiges I’d rebound looked up at me silently. I sat back and motioned to Lady. She walked over and went to work on their wounds. When she’d finished, they struggled to their feet.
“Thank you. I am forever in your debt,” said the man in the top hat. His shadow, cast by the flickering flames still shooting from Andy’s Guitar Centre, pulsed with an unmistakable primal moment—the birth of his little girl. His love for her seemed depthless.
“What are your names?” I asked. “Loch,” said the top hat guy.
“Darnell,” said the other, who wore a crimson pleated skirt and carried the cudgel. His pulsing primal moment was his father’s military funeral. This man wanted to die in service like his pa.
I gestured back down Tin Pan Alley. “For now, Lady can take you back to the Iron Horse to rest. If you will, talk to Sherzer and Delain, and between you set up regular patrols around the perimeter of the ward. You see anything, report it fast.”
Loch raised a finger. “I’m also Path-Ka. So, if need be, I can travel to other strata and conduct patrols there. Even take along others, so long as they’re bound to you.”
I’d read about Path-Ka—adepts of the Path—who had learned a degree of strata travel. “Good to know,” I said. Then Lady led them all back toward the Horse.
Church patted my shoulder. “I was chuffed when you turned down their offer, Jack.” Then he hurried after Lady.
