Scar Night

Part II  Murder

* * *

11

Scar Night

Rain fell in sheets, rattled catch-pans or gurgled through gutters and into the throats of cisterns. Chains steamed and dripped endlessly, shifted, groaned under the weight of waterlogged buildings—like dull iron voices in every part of Deepgate. The evening light dwindled and died, but no lamplighters appeared to brighten the streets, and soon the temple districts, the Warrens, and the League of Rope filled with darkness.

Twelve Spine assassins had gathered in Pickle Lane: gaunt-faced ghosts, unmoving; rain hissing off leather armour; knives, swords, and crossbows within easy reach of their pale hands. Of all the twelve, only Rachel shivered. She had seen the others many times before, yet knew none of their names.

A dead-eyed man with a hook-shaped scar that curled around his nose addressed her. “You will be bait.”

“Why me?”

“You have the capacity to enrage her.”

“And you don’t?” Rachel snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. Open your mouth and say anything, she’ll be pissed, I guarantee.”

“Provoke her, Adept. Carnival will respond to you—to your insults. You have a talent for applying such emotional…devices. You will be bait.”

Conversations with the Spine were typically wooden. These were the times Rachel was almost glad she’d been spared the needles, the torture, the brutal tempering which would cleanse an Adept and allow one to function without the burden of emotion.

Almost glad.

“And, of course, you are expendable.” This came from a rakish woman with full, bloodless lips. She stood beside a slender girl who might have been her sister, a young thing with deep bruises under her vacant eyes.

God, do I look like this? Like these ghouls? These husks?

Rachel glanced from one hollow stare to the next, found nothing there. “Expendable,” she muttered. “Yes, I forgot. Stupid of me. Thanks for that.”

The rakish woman nodded stiffly.

Insults, sarcasm, irony—all wasted on her peers. Rachel would have slapped the woman if she’d thought it would anger her, but where was the satisfaction in striking a brick wall? And yet Rachel envied her, envied them all. Tempering offered an inner silence for which she would not mourn the loss of her sense of self. “Just get out of my sight,” she snapped. “I’ll meet you at the planetarium.”

The dead-eyed man said, “You will not engage Carnival until the trap has been sprung.”

“And if she attacks me before then?”

“Do nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That is correct.”

Rachel clenched her fists. “Whatever you say.”

The dead-eyed man tilted his head. “Darkmoon is rising.” At this unvoiced command, the Spine slipped away into the night, leaving Rachel alone.

Do nothing? She turned one way, then cursed and turned back again.No, I’m going to find a tavern, bang on the bloody door until they letme in, then sit and have a drink like a normal person. Maybe meet a man…Maybe…

Maybe it wasn’t too late for her.

She stormed off into the rain. The streets were deserted, but she sensed atightening in the air all around her. A thousand noises came from the dark homes: shutters checked; nails driven into wooden boards; doorjambs and iron grates secured; chains and padlocks locked and tested. Deepgate was tensing for battle.

“Coin for a pilgrim?” A filthy figure huddled in a doorway, long, greasy strands of hair and a food-crusted beard poking from under his hood. “Sir, the darkmoon is coming, the rain is fresh and clean, and here we are alive. You have blood in your heart, and I have glue in mine. What a glorious thing! Spare me a coin.”

A Glueman? The skin beneath those rags would be yellow and viscid; the tongue thick and weeping chemicals. His blood…unusual. “Sir?” she replied.

“Ah, good lady, then. Young by the sound of your voice, pretty too, yes, yes, now I hear the breasts, oh my, the thighs, the strain of some tight fabric—is it leather? How wicked. Yet without a man to walk at your side on this foul night. Has he thrown you out, or died and left you wandering dazed and broken by grief? Severed? My condolences, poor puppet.”

Rachel realized he was blind. That’s why he heard me pass . “All this from one word?”

“Six words now, kitten, each weighted with enough pain to crack cobbles. And longing too. So conflicted, confused, poor thing. I hear an undercurrent of desire. I hear…” He paused, as if listening, then lowered his voice. “Oh, my shame, that’s it. You are quite wet, aren’t you, quite wet?” He began to rock backwards and forwards. “Speak two words for me. Two words to know your soul. For me, please, please.”

The assassin sighed. “Which two words?”

The beggar shifted closer in his rags, whispered, “Dirty boy.”

“You want me to say…those words?”

“Say them, I beg you.”

“I will not.”

“Please,” he said.“Please.”

“Not a chance, beggar.”

“Puppet, have pity. Look how broken and lonely I am, how desperate. My brothers lost in rendered shipyard nets. My wife disappeared with a penniless reservist of dubious gender. My old Glue-father snatched away for throwing pebbles at the Avulsior. My mother—”

“All right.” He was going to rouse the whole neighbourhood. Sheepishly, Rachel swung a look around her to make sure no one else was nearby, then quickly muttered, “Dirty boy.”

“Lust! Delight!” the beggar cried. “Now come here, sit in my lap.”

Rachel frowned.

“I heard that frown.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Sitting on the ground, begging.”

Rachel’s lips quirked. “Very clever,” she said. “Can’t you find somewhere safer to sit than this doorway? Your Glue-blood might protect your soul, but not your flesh. Nothing is certain tonight. You’re still in danger.”

“Ah, but Carnival and I have an understanding.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t kill her, and she doesn’t kill me.”

“A fair deal.” The Spine Adept found herself smiling. “You’ve spoken to her, then?”

“I heard her wings above me and called out to her. She swooped low and gave me a gift.”

“A gift?”

“A fine gift! A haunch of lamb, sweetly cured and smothered in redberry sauce. Look here…” The Glueman reached inside his rags, drew something out.

A dead rat, the head chewed down to the bone.

Rachel’s smile withered. “She gave you…this lamb?”

“On my soul, I swear it. And so you see I have nothing to fear.”

“You are…fortunate.” She reached into one of the pouches at her belt, pulled out a copper double, and carefully pressed it into his hand.

“Vengeful Ulcis bless your nights,” the beggar said, then more quietly, “and spiteful Ayen bless your days.” He winked a sightless eye. “Not that I pray to either of them. I am bound for Hell.” He said this with pride. “So I embrace Iril: there are wonderful benefits in being damned. The Maze is growing. I hear its stone passages creeping through the derelict places in the city. Sometimes I hear the thump of blood.” He pocketed the coin. “This will buy wine for our feast. You must share it with me, I insist. There’s meat for two, and with you so recently widowed, so supple, we might—”

“Thank you, no. I must get back to work before…” The words were out before she realized.

“Work?”He scrambled away from her, and hissed, “Spine. Get away from me, bitch.”

Rachel just stood there, unmoving.

“Ichin Tell’s whore,” the beggar growled, clutching his rat. “I’ve nothing for you.”

Rachel wheeled, her heart stuttering.

“How many knives have you cleaned in your life, Nightcrawler?” the beggar cried. He was eating his trophy now. “Scar Night is her night…The dark of the moon…One soul for the angel…Spine blood for Iril…” He giggled. “But no souls to nourish the Maze. You gave them away already!”

The assassin strode away, leaving the beggar to his feast. She walked on for miles, losing herself among the dripping chains, and passed four taverns, but did no more than glance at their solid, bolted doors.

* * * *

The rain had ceased at last, leaving the night air scrubbed and cool. Fresh wind from the north gusted and dragged rags of cloud across the stars. Snake-scale tenement roofs glistened faintly, but the streets between were dark. Every shutter had been drawn against the night, every brand smothered, and every gas lamp left unlit. Very few were abroad in the city now. No one but herself and those who hunted her.

With ragged wings folded tight against her back, she squatted on the roof of the Ivygarths watchtower, bracing herself against the chill wind, savouring its force. Tall stone falcons perched at each of the eight corners of the octagonal watchtower, blindly observing the city with grim determination. Carnival’s face was expressionless. Her long black hair whipped around countless scars: scars across her cheeks and forehead, scars across her nose, her neck; scars beneath her moondark eyes. All of them knife cuts, except one.

These watchtowers had been built an age ago: Carnival could not remember when, only that there had been a time when the skyline was different. From their weather-bitten stones she judged them to be more than a thousand years old. Perhaps the Spine had once used them? A vague memory stirred in her, like poison bubbling over the lip of a cauldron.

Another watchtower…Crumpled battlements…Smoke…Blood.

Scars tightened around her heart. She almost cried out, drove her nails into the heels of her palms until the emotion passed and she was left breathless and trembling. Something terrible had once happened in Barraby’s watchtower, the place they now called Sinners’ Well. She did not want to know what.

Other parts of Deepgate pained her too: Canner’s Nook and the Thousand Brick House and the nets below Chapelfunnel Market. Fragments of old, old memories surfaced whenever she drew near to these places; memories that drove her away from them, snarling and gasping. She had been in those places once, she supposed, and people had died.

The abyss was the worst. She had tried more than once to fly down into that darkness, but each time the rope scar around her neck constricted until she clawed for breath and thrashed back up towards the city. The abyss terrified her.

Now she surveyed the city patiently. Her hunger was building—she could feel it behind her eyes and in her veins—but it had not yet grown beyond her control. So she waited, searching for some overlooked weakness: a forgotten attic window; loose tiles on a storm-damaged roof; a smokeless chimney or an unlatched shutter thumping against its frame in the wind.

Nothing. There were no obvious openings, no easy ways into the houses. Her prey had long since learned to be thorough.

Carnival was pleased.

A mile to the west, she spied a shadow move. One of the Spine, a heavy crossbow in his arms, ran crouching across the rooftop of the Goat and Crab Inn in Merrygate, and ducked out of sight behind a chimney. The ninth assassin she’d seen tonight.

His leathers so much darker than the slates. Does he know? Is this poor camouflage deliberate?

Carnival gripped the ledge tighter as the scars on the back of her hands began to itch. Her heartbeats quickened; she moistened her lips. Part of her wanted to go after this assassin, yearned to go after him. She clamped her jaws together, and squeezed the ledge until her fingers hurt, then gasped. The hunger subsided.

A trap. It has to be.

She closed her eyes and listened for quiet sounds beneath the buffeting wind. Fragments of hushed conversations drifted up from the nearest homes.

“…no, both of them, sleeping…” A mother’s voice, concerned for her children.

“…it’s locked, I checked…” Another woman, older, speaking to her husband.

She heard the crackling of coals on a hearth, footsteps on a wooden floor and the clink of cutlery. She heard someone crying and the shreds of an argument.

And then she heard the drunk.

“Goddamn bitching murdering bitch!”

Her eyes snapped open, and she darted to the other side of the watchtower, heart racing, blood pounding behind her scars, making them throb.

“Filthy scar-faced whore.” He was down in the street a few blocks away, shouting up at the rooftops. A big man, staggering all over the place, swinging a cleaver at the shadows with one hand and waving a bottle at the air with the other. He lurched suddenly to one side and crashed into a pile of crates. For a few moments he lay there, grumbling incoherently, then he picked himself up and continued zigzagging along the street. “Come out, you murdering bitch!” Twenty paces later he fell to his knees, retched, then slumped to one side and lay unmoving.

Rushes of sharp, delicious pain prickled over Carnival’s skin. “Shhh,” she said, placing a finger to her lips, “I can hear you.” Her finger traced the gossamer lines around her mouth, then down across the raised white scars on her chin, before it lingered at the deep rope-mark around her neck. A thin smile stretched her lips.

Then she sprang from the watchtower and dove into the night.

* * * *

Oberhammer’s planetarium perched on the clock tower of his pinched grey mansion like a huge glass egg ready to topple to the lane below. Vines and brickleweed clutched its western curve and reached inside the brass skeleton, where facets had been smashed by thrown stones or decades of winter frost. But most of the panes were intact, painted black and dotted with pinholes. On sunny days these holes had once been stars to viewers within. A platform with twelve comfortable chairs remained inside, at one time kept perpetually level, through some mechanical wizardry, while the globe revolved on its wheels and simulated heavens rolled overhead.

Seated now in one of the observation chairs, Rachel gazed up at real stars shining through the broken glass and imagined illusions.

The planetarium had never been operational in her lifetime. Church intolerance had seen Oberhammer die poor, another crank who’d killed himself after his fortune dwindled. Like most developing sciences, astronomy had been frowned upon—decades of study brought to the temple, locked away, and forgotten. The masses need not be educated. Where was the merit in that when Ulcis waited beneath their feet, when Ulcis was everything? In another generation few would remember the scientist’s name.

Now Oberhammer’s mansion mouldered: windows boarded, its walls wrapped in chains to keep them from bursting under the weight of his folly above. The clock tower forever displayed thirteen minutes past nine, the time for rats and bats and lunatics, for every ghoul and demon conceived by Deepgate’s commoners. The scientist had stopped the clock at that moment, retired quietly to his drawing room, and opened his wrists with a razor—his valediction to the Church. Now the place was said to be haunted. Iril’s doors had opened here, and when the Maze opens its doors something is always left behind. Rachel recalled the stories from her childhood: the Grey Mummer, the Chain Creeper, the Nunny Lady—ageless sinners who had escaped an overflowing hell to walk in the house below her.

For an angel, there were so many ways into the planetarium, and so many escape routes. It was an impossible place to set a trap, and this, of course, made it perfect.

Rachel rose from damp cushions, feeling moisture seep into her trousers. Both planetarium and mansion hoarded old rain. Water dripped and trickled through the dank sealed rooms below and softened the fabric of the house. Corridors wept. Staircases slumped and ticked. Paintings blistered under bowed ceilings. She shivered, imagining the Creeper working his way up through the house to find her, the Nunny Lady stalking its corridors with her hatpins.

A flourish of controls reached towards her over the front of the viewing platform: a mechanical arm of tarnished levers and heavily corroded wheels. The chains linking this to the great clockwork engines below had been removed, presumably by the workmen who had originally closed down Oberhammer’s house, but Rachel tried turning one of the wheels anyway. It was immovable, welded with rust.

A howl, somewhere close to the south, made her tense. Carnival was nearby. Rachel fought the urge to leave her post, to scale the planetarium and find a vantage point where she could watch the angel’s approach. But her job was here in this cage. The Spine would steer Carnival towards the trap. All Rachel had to do was attract her attention. She slumped back into the seat, loosened the straps around her throwing knives, and waited. Oberhammer’s mansion grumbled beneath her, the way old houses do.

* * * *

Aseries of sharp concussions woke Mr. Nettle. He lifted his head, winced at the pain in his skull. There was a stink of whisky and dung smoke, and he was lying in an alley he didn’t recognize. Cobbles, wet with starlight, shifted and blurred before him, then bled together into a sloping channel that lurched sharply to the left, fifty yards ahead. Tenements brooded on either side, like flint muscles straining against chains. He heaved himself upright and tried to figure out where the hell he was and what he was doing here.

Then he remembered.

He turned round just in time.

Carnival flew at him like a demon, wings wide, hair wild, eyes black with fury.

Mr. Nettle raised his cleaver.

She grinned.

Then veered to the left as a score of crossbow bolts smashed to fragments on the cobbles between them.

Mr. Nettle wheeled.

Spine, dozens of them, on the rooftops. “Civilian,” a voice called down, “get indoors immediately. If you do not have a residence in this district, temporary sanctuary may be granted in one of the Church boltholes or beggars’ nooks for a fee of six doubles or one and a half pennies—”

“Piss off,” Mr. Nettle yelled. He turned back to the angel.

Carnival was thrashing skywards through a second barrage of crossbow bolts. Several ripped through her wings, while others punched deep into her ancient, mould-patched leathers. She howled and headed away from the Church’s assassins.

Mr. Nettle ran after her.

The alley emerged into a broader lane he recognized at once. Narrow and undulating, Cage Wynd sank gradually from the old planetarium in Applecross, running south over a series of humped bridges towards the shipyards. Its name came from the grates and spikes bolted over every window and door. The chainmen and yard workers who lived here had access, more often than not, to more iron than the smithies did. Everyone but the Church knew they were at it: for every two tons of iron that went missing in Deepgate, one of them ended up here, smuggled in and put to use securing local homes from attack. Whole façades of heavy bars and plate and needle-sharp points—it felt like you were standing in the open jaws of a monster. With its sheer weight of metal defences, it was a wonder Cage Wynd hadn’t dragged the whole district into the abyss years ago. Even the old planetarium surmounting the mansion at the top of the lane had been stripped of its cogs and support joists—the brass and steel recycled into makeshift armour for the many tenements below. Little more than brickleweed held the heavy globe to the clock tower’s summit.

Mr. Nettle heard a sudden hiss and looked up to see dark shapes swarm over the rooftops opposite. The Spine were loosing dozens of bolts at a spot higher up on his side of the street, just a short distance to the north. The scrounger grunted and set off again, crossing the lane to give him a better view of the assassins’ target.

They appeared to be driving Carnival north, towards the planetarium. Bolts glanced off flint, iron plate, and roof slates, thudded into exposed beams.

“Bitch!” Mr. Nettle threw his arms wide.

She twisted in midair, diving towards him.

Again, the Spine crossbows forced her back, further up Cage Wynd towards the planetarium. They would harry her thus till dawn, keep her moving away from the temple districts and the Warrens. Out of his reach.

The scrounger roared, and surged after her.

Whenever the Spine hurt Carnival she took vicious revenge. The more she was hurt, the worse her retribution became. Even the strongest barricades couldn’t keep the angel out when she was injured. Ropers and beggars hated the Spine for it, for they suffered most. Their pulpboard shacks in the League might as well have been made of paper. Those who could afford it had cages made inside their homes, and locked themselves and their children in. Sometimes it kept them safe; most often not. Carnival had been known to rip through a dozen such homes on Scar Night, tearing whole buildings free of the chains which supported them.

The Spine were hurrying now, their silhouettes converging on the planetarium under a vast expanse of stars. They had stopped shooting.

“Here, whore!”

But Carnival ignored him. Something else had caught her attention—something inside the planetarium itself. Cursing, Mr. Nettle studied the mansion below the huge brass globe. The old house stank of Iril. The clock tower had been bound in chains to keep the crumbling stone together; the windows had been boarded up, but there were wide gaps visible between the planks. Mr. Nettle thought he saw movement within: oddly shaped figures capering. Some said the corridors inside the house moved and shifted, constantly forming new mazes to keep the things trapped there entertained.

He hesitated for a heartbeat before setting off again. When he reached the chains around the clock tower, he began to climb.

* * * *

Asilhouette suddenly covered the stars that were visible through one of the missing windows. Rachel leaned back in her chair, just enough to make it creak. The silhouette changed shape. Carnival had seen her, but didn’t move yet to engage.

No wonder you suspect a trap. Those idiots have stopped shooting, now they’ve got you in position. And I’m supposed to sit here and do nothing.

So Rachel threw a knife, aimed to kill.

Carnival flinched away from it, snarling. But still she didn’t attack.

Come on, you bitch, come get me. The assassin threw another knife, and another, but the angel avoided them as easily as if they were wind-blown leaves. How can she even see them coming? Rachel pursed her lips. Provoke her, they said .

“Hey, freak,” Rachel yelled out.

That did it. Carnival dove.

Rachel leapt forward and sideways just as the chair she’d been sitting in smashed to pieces behind her. She rolled across the observation platform, pulling another knife from her sleeve, and at that same moment heard the heavy crossbow hidden on the mansion roof below fire its payload.

A steel-mesh net engulfed the entire planetarium. The whole structure shuddered as the heavy bolas wrapped around its base.

The angel growled.

Now the scary part. I’m trapped here too. Rachel threw the knife, but heard it clatter against a strut in a different direction to the one she’d thrown it in. Shit shit shit. Carnival knocked that knife aside. I may as well be lobbing balloons at her . She got to her feet, drawing her sword. In the starlit gloom the angel’s wings loomed huge and black.

“You are to be sacrificed,” Carnival hissed.

“Not if I can help it.”

Carnival charged her, a blur of darkness. Rachel lunged out with her sword, felt it deflected. The angel merely pushed the blade aside with the heel of her hand, moved inside Rachel’s reach. Oh God . Suddenly Rachel felt overstretched, vulnerable to attack, and Carnival was reaching for her throat. Rachel flexed at the knees, dodged beneath her assailant’s hand, and, thereby unbalanced, had no option but to throw herself backwards. Carnival’s own momentum shot her clear.

Pain jarred through Rachel’s neck, a chair collapsing under her shoulders. She didn’t have the luxury of worrying about that, for Carnival was moving again, turning, coming for her. So fast! The assassin rolled over, scrambled away, lashing her sword blindly behind her. I’m fighting like some frightened recruit . By luck, the clumsy manoeuvre bought her just enough time to regain her feet.

Glass burst inwards overhead.What? Rachel whirled round. For a crazy moment, it appeared to be raining again, though the sky above was cloudless. Water streamed through missing panes, dripped from the planetarium’s skeleton struts. Carnival recoiled from the downpour, widening the gap between them. A drip splashed over Rachel’s hand, greasy on her skin. Then she recognized the dense, chemical odour, and she realized what was happening.

Not water. This wasn’t part of their plan. Not part of the plan they told me.

Evidently the angel had noticed the smell too. “Sacrifice,” she said with a mocking grin.

Rachel heard the flame arrows before she saw them. The first struck the brickleweed growing on the west curve of wall, fizzled for an instant, then erupted. The second smashed through one of the constellation-etched facets in the eastern side of the globe and lodged inside the viewing platform. Flames blossomed around it. Half a dozen more arrows followed.

Lamp oil—they’ve drenched the place in it. They’re going to burn us both alive.

In as many heartbeats as there had been arrows, Oberhammer’s planetarium was ablaze.

“Spine,” Rachel snarled. “The utter bastards.”

Carnival’s eyes narrowed to slits; her scars seemed to turn blood-red in the firelight. She lashed her wings and lifted herself six feet above the platform. Flames reached out and plucked at the air around her.

Expendable? Rachel lowered her sword. They weren’t joking .

Carnival, however, did not appear to share her fellow captive’s resignation. Wreathed in flames, the angel’s wings thundered in the centre of the globe. She paused to gather her strength, then threw herself against the southern curve of the planetarium.

Rachel felt the jolt through the floor as all of the facets on that side shattered. Glass exploded outwards, showered into the lane below. Metal groaned under the impact.

Oh shit, she’s not going to…She can’t…This globe must weigh a hundred tons.

Carnival drew back, tensed, and then slammed herself again against the inside surface of the globe.

A deep grinding sound. The planetarium tilted.

Flames had taken good hold of the viewing platform and were rising, crawling over the rows of chairs. Smoke hissed from their padding, rose in billowing columns to spread across the roof. Twists of it spiralled behind Carnival’s outstretched wings. The heat forced Rachel back, closer to the southern edge. Hand over her mouth, she hopped down from the platform itself and clung to a curve of metal protruding between two broken facets. She pulled at the steel net, uselessly. The planetarium’s brass skeleton gleamed in the firelight, sweated streams of green and red and gold.

Carnival pulled back again, whipping the flames around her into a frenzy. She closed her eyes, gave a roar, and plunged forward again.

Grrrrrrnnd.

Rachel heard stone crack and crumble below her. Metal grated, moaned, buckled. The brickleweed trembled, crackled, and then tore apart.

Oberhammer’s folly toppled.

* * * *

Mr. Nettle was two-thirds of the way up the external wall of the clock tower when the fire started. He paused, breathless and uncertain, his boots wedged between the supporting chains and the mouldering wall. He’d seen the metal net go flying over the planetarium and the bolas wrap themselves around the pinions at its base. He’d cursed the Spine for that; now he cursed them for the fire. Three thousand years of battle and they manage to best Carnival tonight ? The notion sat in his belly like poisoned meat. Stinking luck: the angel didn’t deserve to die at the hands of the Spine. She deserved his cleaver in her skull. Maybe he could still get to her before the fire took firm hold. Wouldn’t matter if he burned too, as long as he got one good swipe at her, left one deep scar behind for Abigail.

He looked down. Spine had gathered on the roofs on either side of the lane below, twenty or thirty of them, armed with crossbows. Cage Wynd dropped away between them, sank down the hill towards the cranes and airship pits in the yards.

The scrounger sucked in a breath through his teeth. He wasn’t going to let the angel burn until he’d gotten his revenge. He turned to face the wall again, began hauling himself up faster.

Above him, the planetarium tilted. Stone and mortar crumbled, showered past. And then the whole huge brass globe came loose.

Mr. Nettle pressed himself tight against the wall. Heat slammed into him as the planetarium roared by. It struck the tenements below, smashing into eaves on both sides of the lane with a thunderous boom. Clouds of dust and burning embers bloomed skywards. But the globe itself was wider than the lane. It had lodged there, pinned by iron façades, eighty feet from the ground. Spine scrambled away from it as chimneys toppled. Landslides of slates slipped from roofs into the lane below.

Mr. Nettle grinned. He had her now.

Then his grin faded.

Still blazing and wrapped in the tight steel net, Oberhammer’s planetarium let loose a mighty groan and pitched forward, smashing roofs on either side and crumpling eaves and dislodging gutters, and began to roll along the top of Cage Wynd down towards the dockyards.

* * * *

The impact knocked Rachel from her feet. Every facet in the globe exploded, and painted shards of glass rained down on her. She fell through a square gap between adjacent brass struts, one leg dangling through the enveloping steel mesh. Far below, glass tinkled on cobbles. Rachel winced as Carnival howled with pleasure.

Shit.

The fall could have killed her.

Fortunately the planetarium was wide enough to get trapped above Cage Wynd, the lane’s iron-plated façades proving strong enough to support its weight. They had fallen only thirty feet from the summit of the clock tower. Rachel eased her leg out from the mesh of net and lay back gasping. The globe was still on fire, and she was still trapped inside it with Carnival. She had to get out of here.

Then came a groan like the cry of a wounded god.

The whole structure began to roll.

Shit shit shit shit.

The viewing platform, chairs ablaze, tipped vertically, then rose higher till it loomed overhead like a burning ceiling about to collapse. Still clinging tightly to the net, Rachel followed it up and over. She looked down to see Carnival hovering six feet above the brass curves now shifting beneath her. Through the smoke, Deepgate seemed to be tilting towards Rachel, rising up to fill her field of vision: crowded alleys of iron-clad tenements, a labyrinth of rain-soaked roofs, the temple…

The shipyards.

Cranes loomed over spaces large enough to swallow airships.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

Rachel held on grimly. The globe revolved over and down again, crunching through slates and eaves on either side. When the metal structure beneath her levelled, she pushed herself upright and hopped from strut to strut like a rat in a wheel.

Carnival thumped her chest. “Come on.”

Rachel closed on the angel, brought down her blade, and swung it hard to the right, anticipating deflection. But Carnival merely backed away, laughing, making no effort to push inside the assassin’s reach. Now Carnival was behind her.

Unable to stop moving but vulnerable at the rear, Rachel ran even faster. She scrambled up the inside of the planetarium, gripping the steel net, and lashed back savagely with her blade. The blow hissed an inch in front of Carnival’s chin, halting the angel’s attack. Rachel kicked out and caught her opponent in the belly, sending her tumbling away.

The flames! She must be almost blind in this light.

Oberhammer’s folly blazed. Burning brickleweed whined and popped and whirled through the turbulent air. Rachel picked herself up and ran. The viewing platform surged overhead again and back down towards her. She leapt onto it, sprinted along an aisle between burning chairs, and jumped down off the other side. She grabbed the net and pulled at its steel links, using all of her weight. Her muscles bunched, strained, but the net would not break. She held on. The globe rolled faster, bumping and pitching as it hurtled down Cage Wynd.

Carnival had by now recovered. The scarred angel took to the air again, pounding her wings to keep well in the centre of the globe, away from its spinning walls. Rachel slipped beneath her, rose up on the other side. Debris rained down: pieces of a broken chair, burning leaves and snarls of branches. Flames whipped and roared. Deepgate reeled across the heavens—cobbles, gas lamps, brickwork, chains—while stars raced underfoot.

Picking up speed now.

The force of spin pushed Rachel back against the net. She arced once more under Carnival, up one side, overhead, back down. She struggled to move but the impetus held her firm. Her bones felt brittle, ready to snap. Faster and faster—now she was directly above the angel. The planetarium struck something solid, jumped, and for a heartbeat Rachel was weightless.

She kicked away from the net with every shred of strength she had left.

Carnival twisted to one side, but she wasn’t quick enough. Rachel’s sword clipped the angel’s knee, drew blood, and then the assassin collided with the net below. The globe smashed back into the eaves above Cage Wynd, lurched forward faster.

Carnival launched herself at the spot Rachel had occupied moments before.

But the assassin was already above the angel again. She ripped a knife from her sleeve, threw it. The blade sank into Carnival’s shoulder.

Carnival shrieked, tore the knife free. “Spine,” she snarled, her voice murderous, “I’m going to come for you when it’s dark. Do you hear me? When it’s dark, when I can see, I’ll find you and rip your f*cking heart out.”

Rachel doubted the angel would get the chance to act on this threat. The globe was spinning so fast she herself could hardly move. And it was getting faster: each jolt punched her in the ribs and whiplashed her neck. Her leathers were singed from the flames, her hands blistered; she smelled her hair burning. Loose embers and burning feathers whirled and looped and spun. One instant Carnival was there in front of her, the next below her, the next upside down. Rachel felt sick. She pulled at the net behind her, tore at it desperately, kicked it. Though of steel, the mesh was thin. Any Spine Adept could have broken it apart.

Any Adept except her.

She focused, heaved herself at the net, muscles screaming.

Nothing happened.

Rachel Hael collapsed against the net, making no effort to quieten her breathing. Carnival was somewhere overhead, or behind, or below. It didn’t matter now: she couldn’t fight her, couldn’t stop her. She had never been ready to confront the angel. Now she never would be. There was nothing more she could do. Her tenure with the Spine ended here.

And then she spotted the hole.

In a facet four feet away, the steel mesh had been shredded and hung in tatters. She hadn’t noticed it before because of the flames.

Half the net must have been ripped away. Gods below, I’m lucky I haven’t already fallen through.

Teeth clenched, the assassin dragged herself towards the gap. She could hardly breathe. She seemed to be climbing and falling all at once, didn’t know which way was down or up. Flames spun and howled and tore at her exposed hands and neck.

“I hear you,” Carnival growled.

Rachel caught a glimpse of the angel: eyes screwed shut, wings smouldering, face livid with scars. Then everything around her was smoke and fire.

With a final push, she heaved herself through the gap, through the severed net, and out into fresh air. Cobbles and stars swam before her. The city wheeled drunkenly, rings of light and darkness. She felt Carnival grab her foot, kicked out at her, and then she was free and falling.

One moment she was sinking towards the heavens, the next towards grey slate roofs. Blissful silence but for the rush of wind, and so cool, the air silken. Exhaustion enfolded her, wrapped soft arms around her body. Rachel closed her eyes.

She hit something solid, felt her hip jar, but distantly…heard a crash, then she was falling again. Another collision, then more falling. Finally she landed with a thump in something soft. Grit pattered against her face.

“Mother!” The shriek sounded as though it came from another world. “Mother, a woman fell through the roof!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Another voice, this one from even further away.

“She’s here in my bed!”

“Get to sleep. I won’t tell you again.”

The Spine assassin smiled, but didn’t open her eyes. The second voice was right: she desperately needed to sleep. And nothing was going to wake her until the morning.

* * * *

Why are you doing this to me?” the girl pleaded.

Devon stopped reading to glance at her. The poor thing was a mess: her eyes were red and choked with tears, her face much paler now, almost translucent, but slick with sweat and veined with inky hair. She still wore her blue and white striped scullery apron, now sprayed red up one side from his struggle to get the needle in. Purple bruises bloomed darkly on the white of her arms where he had manacled her to the chair, and again on one wrist where he had inserted the tube that leached the blood from her.

“I am looking for God,” he said.

When the girl started crying again, Devon wondered whether he ought to administer more sedative. The bottle sat to one side of the scattered pages on his desk, the syringe still protruding from its top. The flask at her feet was almost two-thirds full of blood, so he decided against it. There was too much at stake and sedation would only extend the purification process further. He could not afford to spend any more time on this. The previous flasks were set to one side against the wall, deep red and safely out of reach. He’d moved them there once she’d started kicking.

Beyond the heavy shutters, Scar Night’s darkmoon would be rising over the city, and Carnival would be out hunting vermin in the cold streets. But here in Devon’s study it was bright and warm. Rich with waxed wood and oil wicks smoking behind crystal, it had been transformed into an ad hoc laboratory. Firelight played across a clutter of glass receptacles, the steel distillers, and the brass clamps and stands that crowded every surface. Several gilt-framed oil paintings of long-dead scientists leaned neglected against the wall beneath the scrawled charts that had replaced them.

Only one portrait remained hanging on the wall. It depicted an elegant woman, austere in expression but for her soft amber eyes and the trace of a smile on her lips. His beloved Elizabeth. Devon looked deeply into her painted eyes, as though for reassurance.

Will the Spine come for me? Are they stealing up the steps to my apartment even now, blades oiled, crossbows coiled and ready?

No. Someone powerful was protecting him. Someone had already provided him with the means to save himself.

Someone high up in the Church.

It had happened seven months ago, when Devon had returned to his apartments to find an innocuous package: the ramblings of one of his chemists, he’d presumed. He’d left it for a while and almost forgotten about it, but when finally he’d opened it he’d been shaken to the point of terror. In his hands he held the journal of the Soft Men: three scientists named as Mr. Partridge, Mr. Hightower, and Mr. Bloom. It contained pages and pages of notes, hundreds if not thousands of years old. In archaic script the pages outlined the process for making angelwine.

There were no clues as to who had delivered this package, but Devon had developed his suspicions. The journal could only have come from one place. The Codex.

Had Presbyter Sypes delivered it?

Why?

The question plagued him endlessly, but he felt it would be imprudent to confront Sypes directly. His mystery benefactor clearly wished to remain anonymous. And what if Devon was wrong? One misplaced word could end his own life. The Spine would not look kindly upon the reappearance of such a work.

He let his gaze drop from his late wife’s portrait to the mantelpiece below it. An ornate clock ticked the moments away, lost amid a clutter of chemical bottles with handwritten labels and sugar-crust corks. Poisons for making angelwine.

Devon sniffed. A faint odour of sulphur hung in the air, pleasantly unpleasant.

He went back to the journal, tapping a pencil against the gold rim of his spectacles. Fluids leaked from the bandages covering his back. A little fresh blood had gathered in the crook of his arm: not much, but enough to add yet another stain to his already ripe tweed jacket. Devon didn’t care; his looks were of no concern. Elizabeth had still loved him.

Cracked lips pursed while he considered the pages before him.

Blood contained energy: a life-force—or soul, as the Church named it. This journal presented him with a method of extraction, a way to remove the spirit from the blood. To bottle it. Flesh withers. Everything material is poison, everything we consume. Even the air we breathe destroys us. But when we nourish the body with spirit, feed the flesh with something ethereal …Somewhere outside was a creature who did just that, and had done so for thousands of years.

“Please,” the girl said, “stop this.”

Devon glanced again at the flask of her blood before returning his attention to his notes. He had followed the letting and purification processes to the letter, but as yet there had been no sign of the expected results. Was his transcription at fault? Had he overlooked something? Impossible. There had been no error, he felt sure, in his preparations or implementation of the technique. What else could be missing? Some extra manipulation that had not been recorded? It seemed unlikely. The journal, for all it infused mysticism with science, appeared to be complete. Devon chewed the end of his pencil. A pollutant in his materials? Hardly. He could not make them any more sterile. He’d even had the containers blessed. For all the good that will do. And he’d used minimal sedative in the blood itself.

Then what? What was he missing?

The girl’s pleas came in fainter gasps. “You’re…killing me. Please…stop.”

“Hush, girl,” Devon said.

“My name is Lisa,” she wailed. The effort left her breathless.

Devon rolled the pencil between his fingers. A blister opened, leaving the wood slightly damp. Perhaps the souls were tainted, in some way damaged by the process of removal? Or was he failing to extract the entire soul? The Soft Men had taken thirteen souls before the elixir reached saturation point, when spirit could no longer be absorbed by the physical solution. Only then had the recipient flesh been able to absorb the angelwine. Devon had already harvested ten souls. After this girl he required two more. But as yet there was no sign of the elixir nearing saturation point, and this troubled him. Was a soul quantitative?

“My father is Duncan Fry, a lieutenant of the temple guard,” the girl panted. “We have money. He’s saved some, I know he has. He’ll give it to you.”

Devon slammed his palm flat against the desk. “Can’t you see I’m working?” Pain clenched his chest and he grimaced. “For what, what, do you wish to be saved? What are you hungry for? A life toiling under Fondelgrue’s sweaty palm? The grunt of some malodorous swine as he stuffs you? The skin-stretched years spent raising his litter? Iril take you, girl, have some self-respect.”

She flinched, her head twisting away as far as the bonds allowed. Her lips trembled as she spoke. “I’ll…do anything you want. I’ll give you anything you want.”

He tried to review his notes again, but it was useless. The girl’s pleas had broken his train of thought. Instead, he got up from his desk and approached her, then crouched on the carpet before her chair. He lifted her face to his, forcing her to look at him, at the sores and seeping cracks.

“But that is exactly what you are doing,” he said with a crooked smile.

A fresh bout of sobbing took hold of her. Mucus ran from her nose on to his arm. Devon wiped it on her apron and put his arm around her shoulders. “Life’s greatest mystery,” he said, “is death. What happens to us? Where do we go? You believe in God, don’t you? You believe in the soul?”

The girl sniffed and nodded, raised her eyes to meet his.

“Then you must believe Ulcis can release it from the blood.” He smoothed back some of the hair from her face. “If the soul truly exists, take comfort in knowing that yours will not be wasted.” His expression softened. “I intend to put it to great use. One more plump little grape in a rare bottle of wine, eh?”

She wailed and shook her head, sending more hair tumbling over her face.

“Hush, girl, you shouldn’t worry. It will all be over soon.” He gave her his warmest smile, wincing inwardly at the pain it caused him, and cupped his hand to her cheek. Tears spilled over his fingers. He leaned closer, speaking gently. “Shhh…You must try to be brave. I know we shun death: we lock it away, forget about it, until one day it rattles the box and reminds us it’s there. For me that day arrived when my wife fell ill. But Elizabeth had an implacable beauty that no force of man or nature could have soured. Even at the end, when her skin wept like mine, she remained beautiful—to me.”

The girl’s breathing was softer now. The clock on the mantel ticked steadily and the logs crackled in the hearth. Devon rested her head against his chest and held her gently until she died.

* * * *

For the love of God, woman, for the sake of all that’s sacred and good, will you not shut up?” Doctor Salt’s hands gripped an imaginary neck.

Rosemary Salt stood with arms folded, blocking his escape from the parlour. “I will not let you talk your way around this one, Arthur. I don’t give a damn what night it is.”

“She’ll hear you,” Arthur Salt hissed. “And then none of this is going to make a blind bit of difference. Do you want to get us both killed?”

His wife didn’t budge. “Twelve bottles, Arthur? How in God’s name did you get through twelve bottles in a month? You must have been permanently ratted.”

Doctor Salt threw out his arms, his fingers splayed. “I didn’t drink them all myself. I’ve had all these functions to attend lately—you know that—and I can’t very well turn up without bringing some token.”

“Oh, bring a token, yes, fine. Next time bring your own thick skull full of Warrengrog, but don’t you dare dip into my bonus from the distillery. That case was supposed to do us for a year. What about the bottle I’d promised my father, and the one for your brother, for that matter?” Rosemary Salt stabbed a pudgy finger at her husband. “You think I don’t know what’s been going on? It’s Jocelyn Wilton, isn’t it? You’re always round there.”

Doctor Salt eased his reply through clenched teeth. “Visiting Patrick. I can hardly refuse an invitation from the faculty head, can I? He needs someone to talk to. He’s worried about Jocelyn’s health, that’s all.”

“Her health!” Rosemary cried. “Next to you, she’s the biggest drunk in Deepgate. You could pickle eggs with her blood.”

“Will you keep your voice down? Surely we can talk about this another time. I’ll buy you some more bloody whisky.”

“You’re damn right you’ll—”

There was a rap at the door.

Rosemary Salt froze. She stood with her mouth open, her tongue sticking out absurdly. Doctor Salt looked past her, wide-eyed, into the hallway. “It can’t be her,” he breathed. “I can’t imagine she’d bother to—”

Several more knocks, urgent.

Doctor Salt swallowed. “We don’t have to answer it.”

His wife had a hand pressed to her mouth. “What if it’s not her?” she murmured through her fingers. “It might be one of your patients. We can’t leave them outside tonight.”

“We damn well can.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

“Sod it.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Three more knocks.

“I’ll go ask who it is,” Rosemary said. She lifted the lantern from the dresser and crept into the hall, before stealing a backward glance at him. “We don’t have to actually open the door.”

He followed her, nerves tense as twisted wire. The front door was bolted; no sounds beyond but the wind gusting outside. The wooden panels shook with the force of it.

“Who’s there?” Rosemary asked.

A cold voice answered: “It’s Jocelyn. Let me in.”

Doctor Salt’s muscles unravelled. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, he moved towards the door.

“Wait.” His wife grabbed his arm, and glared at him. She whispered, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Like burning hair, or—”

More knocking. “Will you let me in, please?”

Rosemary turned back to the door. “Jocelyn, what’s wrong? You sound different.”

“Of course I sound different. I’m terrified.”

The voice did not sound terrified at all, but what did Doctor Salt know? Women were entirely unfathomable at the best of times, scared women more so. He shrugged off his wife’s arm and moved again towards the door.

Rosemary Salt grabbed his sleeve and yanked him round to face her. Her eyes, bulging with silent protest, held his own while she spoke. “Why are you here, Jocelyn? You know what night it is.”

“It’s Patrick, he’s suffered a fit.”

Doctor Salt reached for the door but his wife stopped him again. She mouthed the words We can’t be sure .

“Sod you,” the doctor said. “I’m not leaving her out there a second longer.” He shoved his wife aside, snapped back the bolt, and threw open the door.

* * * *

This was going to hurt. Dying always hurt. She never got used to it. She had ratcheted the chain taut, then locked it. The excess swung through a dim beam of starlight, creaking under the hook in the rafters. She had bound the doctor’s mouth and hands, manacled his feet, and hung him upside down so that his head brushed the floorboards. His breath hissed through the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wild, bare chest wax-white and heaving, face bruised and swollen with blood and streaked with his tears. He twisted his feet against the manacles, dragged his shoulders up from the floor, then collapsed once more, his body swinging in and out of shadow.

Carnival would abandon the attic after it was done. The smell would bring Spine, and the blood would bring demons. She’d take the hook, ratchet, and manacles to another dark, derelict place, but she’d leave the blood-soaked chains. Deepgate had no shortage of chains.

She steadied him and scraped a pan across the floorboards, edging it under his torso. Her stomach was a fist. She looked at him for as long as she could bear.

His eyes flicked to the knife in her hand and away, silently screaming. The air through his nose came in quick, insistent rushes. She could have removed the gag: now he would do nothing but fight for breath.

She grabbed his wrist and felt him spasm. His bladder relaxed and urine ran down his chest and over his chin, and pattered into the pan. Carnival ignored it, knelt, cut once. Blood welled. He trembled as she brought her lips close to his skin.

Delicious warmth filled the attic. The chains creaked gently back and forward as she drank. Back and forth, slower, slower.

Carnival gradually relaxed. The ache of hunger melted away.

Darkness slid in thickly and filled the attic. It soaked into wood, into flesh and blood. Above her, the chain settled to silence. The man was still now. Only Carnival’s throat moved.

When she was sated, she stood up and looked down at the dead man’s wrist. She had bitten it more than she’d meant to, torn the skin badly around the original cut. She let his arm fall loose, scattering stars of blood across the floor.

Carnival wiped her mouth, and lifted her knife again. Blood dripped from the tip.

She waited, trembling.

And then she died.

And was reborn.

Pain ripped through her, so intense it seemed to scour her soul. She fell forward, gasping, onto her hands and knees, her own blood screaming in her ears. Her stomach buckled and heaved. She clenched her jaw and forced herself upright.

Her head felt light. For a long moment Carnival didn’t know where or who she was, and then she saw the blood and remembered.

What have I done?

A different kind of pain then consumed her, one that clawed her from the inside, like the talons of an animal trying to break free. She wheeled round, took a few steps forward, then turned back, not knowing where to go. Her fingers made vague shapes over her chest.

Blood everywhere. Blood on her hands, on her clothes.

What have I done?

She hesitated, turned away, turned back. A wave of sickness rose within her.

She looked down at her thigh and stabbed the knife in deep. She felt it glance off her femur. Blood spewed over her leg. The pain was frightening, exquisite. She savoured it, clung to it, twisted the knife and opened the wound further. Fresh pain blossomed; she closed her eyes and drew a long, shuddering breath. She wrenched out the knife, dropped it, agony building, hammering through her heart and bones. Her hands contorted like claws. Saliva—or blood—dribbled down her chin. She sucked in another rasping breath…and wailed.

Gradually, the pain ebbed.

The wound on her thigh was already healing, leaving its scar.

The pan was spattered and filthy. The man’s arm still swung back and forward over it, dripping. Carnival pulled a filthy square of linen from her pocket and wiped her lips, her face and throat. She bunched the linen and rubbed it over her hands. She threw the scrap away, then picked briefly, uselessly, at her cracked nails. She licked her teeth, and spat, then spat again. She tried to drag her fingers through her hair, but couldn’t—her hair was too matted and tangled. For the first time, she noticed the smell: blood swelling over the floorboards, foul and sweet. By morning, the attic would be seething with flies.

Carnival turned away, trembling, fighting the urge to retch. She stumbled a few steps, her feet slipping on the wet planks. She crouched, feeling the dull throb of the new scar on her thigh and the heavy pounding of her heart, until she couldn’t bear the sensations any longer. She cried out, spun round, and lashed a foot at the dead man’s head. His neck snapped like dry wood.

Carnival crumpled to the floor again, her arms wrapped tight about herself. Chains and hooks creaked above her as she wept. Her body convulsed with great racking sobs from the pit of her stomach. She grabbed the knife again, lifted the blade, and drove it back into her thigh, splitting open her newly inflicted scar—again, again, again.

The wound hurt savagely, but not nearly enough.