Wax Pushed himself into the air to the corner of Tage and Guillem, which put him at the edge of a maze of industrial alleyways linking warehouses with the docks where canal boats unloaded. Steelsight on and Pushing bubble up, he crept through the mists, but didn’t have much hope. He’d have a devil of a time finding one man alone here, in the dark.
All Bleeder had to do was pick one place and hide there. Many criminals didn’t make the wise choice in this situation, however. It was hard to remain perfectly still, not moving any metal, while an Allomancer prowled about looking for you.
Wax persisted, walking down a dark alleyway, checking the rope at his waist, making sure he could unwind it quickly in case Bleeder was a Coinshot or a Lurcher and he needed to dump his metals. Soon the mists filling in behind him made him feel as if he were in an endless corridor, vanishing into nothingness in both directions. Above as well, only dark, swirling mists. Wax stopped in an empty intersection, silent warehouses like leviathans slumbering in the deep on all four corners, only one of which held a streetlight. He looked about with steelsight, waiting, counting heartbeats.
Nothing.
Either the cabbie had been Bleeder in disguise, or Wax’s prey had slipped away. Wax sighed, lowering his gun.
One of the large warehouse doors fell outward with a crash, revealing a dozen men. Wax felt a sweeping wave of relief. He hadn’t lost his quarry—he’d simply been led into a trap!
Wait.
Damn, Wax thought, leveling Vindication and pulling his Sterrion from his hip. He Pushed on the men in the same movement, which flung him backward toward the cover of a half-finished building.
Unfortunately, the men opened fire before he arrived. Wax’s steel bubble deflected a number of the shots, bending them away to cut empty air. The bullets trailed streaks in the mist. One, however, clipped him on the arm.
Wax gasped as his Push slammed him against an incomplete wall. He fired a shot into the ground, then Pushed on it, backflipping himself over the brick wall and behind cover.
Bullets continued to pelt the bricks as Wax dropped a gun and pressed his left hand to the underside of his right upper arm with a flare of pain and blood. The men on the other side of the wall kept firing, and some of the bullets didn’t have blue lines. Aluminum bullets. Bleeder was far better funded than Wax had expected.
Why keep firing so rabidly? Were they trying to bring the wall down with the force of their shots? No. They’re trying to hold my attention so I can be flanked.
Wax grabbed Vindication, holding his bleeding arm as he raised it—it hurt—just as several shadows wearing no metal ducked into the other side of the building site. Wax plugged the first one in the head, then dropped the second with a shot to the neck. Three others knelt, raising crossbows.
Something pulled one of them into the shadows. Wax faintly heard an urk of pain just before he fired at the second. He turned his gun toward the third to find it slumping down, something stuck into its head. A knife?
“Wayne?” Wax asked, hurriedly reloading Vindication with bloody fingers.
“Not exactly,” a feminine voice said. A tall figure crawled through the mists, moving over a pile of bricks to reach him. As she drew closer, he could make out large eyes, jet hair, and a sleekly elegant gown—that was now missing the bottom half, below the knees. The woman from the party, the one who had tried flirting with him.
Wax flipped Vindication, reloaded, up in a smooth motion, pointing it at the woman’s head. The bullets outside stopped pounding the wall. The silence was far more ominous.
“Oh please,” the woman said, pulling up beside the wall with him. “Why would I save you if I were an enemy?”
Because you could be Bleeder, Wax thought. Anyone could.
“Um … you’re hurt,” the woman said. “How bad is that? Because we should really start running right now. They’re going to come charging in here shortly.”
Damn. Not much choice. Trust her and potentially die, or not trust her and almost certainly die.
“Come here,” Wax said, grabbing the woman and pulling her close. He pointed Vindication at the ground.
“They have snipers,” she said. “On five roofs, watching for you to Push into the mists. Aluminum bullets.”
“How do you know?”
“Overheard those fellows with the bows whispering as they moved around to come get you.”
Wax growled. “Who are you?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Does it matter right now?”
“No.”
“Can you run?”
“Yes. It’s not as bad as it looks.” Wax took off, the woman running at his side. The wound hurt like hell, but there was something about the mists.… He felt stronger in them. It shouldn’t be so—he was no Pewterarm—but there it was.
In truth, getting shot was bad, but not as bad as people often made it out to be. This shot had gone through the skin and muscle under his arm, making it difficult to raise, but he wouldn’t bleed out. Most bullets wouldn’t actually stop a man; psychologically, the panic of being shot did the most harm.