The Veil

Liam glanced at it, flipped it over to check both sides, then passed the card to Gavin.

“King Sugar Company?” Gavin asked, handing the card to Nix. “That’s the one along the river?”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “It went out of business, but the buildings are still there. I guess someone’s decided to start using them again.” When Nix handed the card back to Liam, he ripped it in half, then again, then again, and walked back into the kitchen. I heard the water running, and assumed he put them down the drain.

“You don’t want to go?” I asked when he came back again.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I know I don’t want someone to find that. Even accidentally.” He put his hands on his hips, looked at Gavin. “What do you think?”

Gavin shrugged. “If it’s a trap, there’d have been much easier ways to do it. They could have just walked into the store.”

Liam nodded, considering, then looked at Nix. “Do you think this is from Consularis Paras?”

“I don’t know. There are other Consularis who are not incarcerated. But I don’t know of this request.”

Liam looked at me. “What do you think?”

“I think we have to go.” I wouldn’t deny that I was tired, but the card was pretty energizing.

Liam considered. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right.”

? ? ?

I was starting to get used to the noises and knocks of Liam’s truck. But he was much more cautious tonight than he’d been in the Garden District.

Every few minutes, he glanced up, checked the rearview mirror. He wanted to be sure we weren’t being followed. I could guess why—to be doubly sure we weren’t heading into a trap.

But we were the only ones on the road tonight, and the only humans I saw during the entire trip. Before the war, people would have opened their doors and windows, let fresh breezes push stale and humid air out of the house. They’d sit on porches or stoops, discuss the day or enjoy the night. But there simply weren’t that many people left. Those who were left were scattered, and many had been too shell-shocked by war to venture outside their homes unless absolutely necessary.

The refinery was huge—several structures spread over half a dozen acres. Less a campus than a really big Frankenbuilding—a main structure with a lot of add-ons here and there. Lungs of big rusting tanks. Tendons of high, covered walkways that connected the parts together. Mismatched limbs—a building dressed in a complicated brick pattern attached to another outfitted with a completely different pattern. And smokestack feet that punched through the air at the end of it.

A chain-link fence circled the site, or mostly did. It was falling over in some areas, nearly rusted through in some others. Liam found a spot where the link was down completely, carefully drove the truck through.

He moved through the web of buildings, watching for movement, then pulled in front of the largest part of the complex, a hulking rectangle of rusting steel marked with rows of windows. They glowed from the inside. Someone had turned on the power.

“I guess this is our destination,” Liam said. He reversed the truck, pivoted until it was facing the exit again. Just in case we needed to haul ass back to the city, I assumed.

We climbed out of the truck, and Liam waited while I walked around to his side. He glanced at me. “You ready?”

“As I’m likely to ever be. Let’s meet our mysterious callers.”

Quietly, cautiously, we moved inside. The building was empty, but absolutely enormous—a long rectangle of space. The outside wall had windows; the inside wall was made of metal and looked to be melting with rust. Steel girders roughly down the middle of the space supported a spider’s web of rusting beams and catwalks overhead and below a ceiling of wooden planks. Lights hung down from the beams. The floor was pitted concrete, marked by pools of bloodred water that had dripped from the rusting wall. It still dripped, sending echoes across the room.

Wings fluttered. Sound filled the room as a flock of pigeons were startled away from a rafter. We ducked as they flew over us, disappearing through broken windows at the other end of the building.

There was another whoosh of sound. We both turned back, Liam with a hand at his weapon, a gunslinger ready to fight.

A man had descended in a crouch in front of us. Wings rose high behind him, the arcs above his shoulders gleaming like white silk woven with gold, a strange contrast to the decay around us.

As he stood, his wings retracted, disappearing from sight.

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