Scar Night

17

Angelwine

The poisoner did not rush his preparations. This procedure was too important for mistakes. He cleaned the collection flasks and tubes carefully, reverently, then steeped the distillation cylinder in alcohol and rinsed it four times before he dried its woozy yellow glass inside and out with compressed air. The syringes were disinfected next in the same manner, and then laid out in sharply glinting lines on a steel tray. He even took the opportunity to give a quick polish to the metal stand he used to support the draining tubes. Everything must be perfect. If a priest had been to hand, he’d have had the equipment blessed, perhaps.

When everything was ready, he poured himself a large glass of Rhak and raised it in a solitary toast.

“Presbyter Sypes,” he said, and knocked back the contents in one gulp.

There was an enigma. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that the old priest had deliberately helped him, and that the Spine assassin he’d killed had been the Adjunct’s instrument.

The fat man went behind your back, didn’t he? And now that I’ve been forced to flee, you fear the angelwine is lost to you. Did you plan to take it from me? What did you hope to gain with it? Power? Immortality?

Devon had to know the truth. And for that he needed the assistance of a temple guard.

There was also the issue of the city-wide search for him. Soon the two guards would be reported missing. It was time to acquire some leverage.

But first, he had work to do. He began to gather his flasks, cylinders, tubes, and syringes into a deep, sterile trencher.

Just then he heard a distant boom.

Devon snuffed the lamp, drew back the heavy drape he’d placed over the window. Nothing to be seen. He climbed the drunken stairwell to the tower battlements.

Airships were converging on a blazing fire far to the east, possibly in Merrygate. Devon counted the searchlights and smiled.

One less of them for me to worry about.

Anything might have brought that airship down: aeronautical incompetence; an arrow from some disgruntled commoner; a Heshette saboteur. Or was Carnival finally tiring of the search? The Poisoner didn’t care right now. He had a man’s soul to steal.

When he reached the basement, Devon saw at once who the final soul in his elixir would be.

Angus glared at him from a sweat-soaked face, his eyes red and brimming with pain. Evidently he had been trying to struggle free, for the chains around his chest had scratched and dented his breastplate. He flinched at each of Devon’s approaching footsteps. Behind him, Lars slumped in his chains, unconscious. Fitzgerald still snuffled around the dark corners of the room.

Devon squatted before Angus. “Your companion appears to have passed out. Did you manage to come to an agreement in my absence?”

Angus spoke slowly, clearly desperate to keep a measure of conviction in his voice. “Lars was in too much pain. He agreed…” He lowered his eyes. “We both agreed, I’ll help you.”

“If your friend was conscious, would he tell me the same thing?”

The guard nodded stiffly.

“Shall I revive him? Let him confirm that decision for himself?”

Angus blinked away drops of sweat. “No need,” he said. “He agreed.”

“Still,” Devon remarked, “it seems an unusual decision. He has a family who will miss him, and you apparently do not.”

“Too much pain,” Angus hissed through his teeth.

“Why should I believe you?”

Every muscle in Angus’s face and neck was tense. A sheen of sweat plastered his grey skin. For a long moment he held Devon’s gaze, then finally he said, “Please.”

Devon tapped a finger against his chin while he studied the veteran. Eventually he nodded. “Angus, you are exactly the sort of fellow I need. I do believe I can use you.” He turned to the trencher and began unpacking equipment.

“Alive?” Angus asked.

“What?” As Devon glanced back at him, he thought he saw the chained guard fumble to conceal something behind his back. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Alive.”

* * * *

Mr. Nettle crouched in the dark net and waited—and waited. High above him, the tower’s single window remained dark. Eventually he stood up, shifting his weight as the hemp sagged under him. If he could hook the battlements with a grapple, the slope of the tower would make it an easy climb.

And then what?

He couldn’t squeeze through the narrow window. He needed another place where he could watch the door and wait for Devon to appear. The Poisoner couldn’t stay in his tower for ever.

So he decided to abandon his den and find a place in one of the burnt-out shells on the opposite side of the alley.

From the broken pipes scattered over what was left of the floor, he guessed this had once been a clay pen, but fire had long before reduced the interior to a blackened skeleton. Chains and cables kept the outer brickwork intact, while the lower floor sloped dizzily towards the open abyss. Almost the entire upper floor had collapsed, but a narrow platform of spiked beams and floorboards protruded from the side facing the alley and offered Mr. Nettle a place where he could hide and watch.

He slung his grapple over a broken rafter, pulled himself up, and settled by the window. A few splinters of glass still jutted from its frame.

As the night dragged on, Mr. Nettle crouched among rain-damp wood and piles of rubble, afraid even to light his storm lamp. The smell of rot and ash soaked into his clothes and skin, and stayed there. Stars blinked through the lattice of beams above. No more airships passed overhead, but he heard the distant tremble of their engines from another part of the city. One of them had crashed earlier. None of his business.

Across the lane, the tower kept its secrets in silence.

After a long while the bars of sky visible overhead began to lighten. Angles of wood and rubble stood out more distinctly against the charred brick. The hum of airships faded with the sounds of dawn: birds chirruping, distant shouts and muted clanging from the shipyards.

It grew hot, humid, as morning laboured towards afternoon under a leaden sky. Mr. Nettle shifted position, trying to ease the numbness in his joints. He rubbed tired eyes, then pulled out the flask of water and handful of raisins that were all that remained of his provisions. Both tasted of ash.

His head slumped with fatigue. His clothes, thick with grime, grated against countless small wounds. He cricked his neck and tried to get comfortable. The weight of the cleaver against his leg reassured him.

Murder isn’t something to be relished. Abigail sounded exhausted.

He was too tired to argue.

Gods, how he needed a drink. His gut ached for it. To pull himself back he gripped the handle of the cleaver tightly in his lacerated fist. Something was bothering him: it gnawed at the back of his mind like a rat he could hear but not see. It was something important the Poisoner had said; something Mr. Nettle had since forgotten.

Whatever it was would come to him in time. With some effort he released his grip on the cleaver and slumped back away from the window. The loose bricks all around ground more ash into his clothes. His hands and nails were black from it.

The bastard couldn’t stay in there for ever.

All afternoon the sun made no appearance, cast no shadows. The air stayed thick and humid, almost smothered the distant pounding and clanking from the Scythe shipyards, the shouts of workers, and the occasional chime of bells from the temple.

Mr. Nettle blinked sweat from his eyes, closed them for a moment, distantly aware of the drone of engines.

* * * *

Something was wrong. Mr. Nettle was suddenly inside Devon’s apartments. In his hand, a Cutter’s blade—an assassin’s weapon.

Devon sat there grinning, his head a hideous tapestry of broken skin.

The Poisoner held up a small bottle, in which blood-coloured liquid roiled and sighed, lapping the glass in slow waves, and Mr. Nettle realized there were whispers coming from the fluid, faint moans and cries of grief. This was wrong too: the angelwine had been clear. No, that had been a trick—a bottle of Rhak. He wasn’t thinking clearly. This here was the true elixir.

The Poisoner spoke, but no sound came from his lips.

Mr. Nettle closed on Devon sluggishly, as though wading through chest-high water. He tried to stab the Poisoner, forcing his arm to the motion. But the knife was gone, his hand now empty.

A silent laugh from Devon, cold amusement in his eyes.

Mr. Nettle backed away, felt the window sill behind him. He turned, dragged himself out into a darkness so complete it felt like the abyss itself. Somewhere overhead an airship buzzed like an angry wasp. He reached for the drainpipe he knew was there.

Nothing. Just brick, black and soft with ash.

He felt the Poisoner’s hands on his back, pushing, and suddenly he was falling. The buzzing of the airship filled his head…and, somewhere distant, Abigail screaming.

* * * *

He woke with a jolt. Darkness, ash, engine noise. For a few heartbeats he sat confused, trying to clear the fog from his mind, and then he remembered where he was. He sat bolt upright and peered again out of the window. The alley was empty, faintly silver under moon-drenched clouds. The tower door was still shut.

Mr. Nettle wiped his eyes. He must have slept late into the night. The search for Devon had obviously returned to this district. An airship thrummed somewhere nearby, out of sight.

Was Devon still inside the tower?

An image from his dream flitted back to him. How the knife in his hand had disappeared.

Suddenly he was fully awake and swamped with dread. The nagging doubt at the back of his mind had resurfaced: the forgotten implications of Devon’s conversation with the assassin. He realized he wouldn’t be able to kill the Poisoner after all.

Once the angelwine was potent, Devon would take a sip. Mr. Nettle had accepted that. There would still be enough left to restore Abigail. But he’d overlooked the effect it would have on Devon. Like a dirge, the Poisoner’s words came back to him.

Mortal wounds would become mere scratches.

How could he kill such a man?

Now, before it was too late; he had to stop Devon now . He had to reach him before he took a sip of the angelwine. Mr. Nettle surged to his feet.

The tower door opened.

A temple guard stepped into the lane, his battered armour full of pools of moonlight. His face was shadowed by his helm, but Mr. Nettle recognized him from before. Over his shoulder he carried a shrouded corpse, in his hand his dead colleague’s helmet. The bloodhound loped out of the tower beside him, sniffed the air, and then set off in the direction of the temple.

One of the guards had survived.

So Devon was dead.

Mr. Nettle’s heart thumped with too many rapid questions. The angelwine? Was it potent? Could it still be in the tower? Or would the guard take it to the temple? Either way, he had to find it—quickly, before the priests destroyed it. Mr. Nettle slipped down from his hiding place and went to search the tower for his daughter’s soul.

If he hadn’t already abandoned God, he would have prayed.