She shook her head. She could see their point – once someone started accepting excuses, where did they stop? But she could also see they were taking it too far. She’d heard similar arguments back on Earth, with religious leaders convinced they were in the right and that the other side was pure evil. There was a difference between murder and killing someone in self-defense, but the Fists of Justice had long since lost perspective. All they wanted to do now was impose their will on the entire city.
A loud noise up ahead brought her out of her thoughts. She looked down the street and swore, inwardly, as she saw the crowd gathered outside Bankers Row. They hurled abuse at the bankers, promising to tear them limb from limb as soon as they stepped outside the wards. A couple of banks on the edge of the street had been burned to the ground, while others were so heavily protected that the rioters didn’t have a hope of setting them on fire. But it hadn’t helped some of their staff. A dozen men and five women hung from makeshift gallows, their bodies swinging in the breeze. It looked as though they’d been beaten to death first, then hung. She knew it wouldn’t have been quick.
“We’ll have to use the tunnel,” she muttered. The Fists of Justice were patrolling the edge of the crowd, sometimes flicking their whips at protesters who weren’t enthusiastic enough to suit them. “Come on.”
She half-expected trouble outside the tunnel entrance, but the house looked completely untouched. The wards opened as soon as she touched the doorknob, allowing her to slip inside the house and down a short flight of stairs to the tunnel entrance. She braced herself as she opened the hatch, then cast a pair of light globes as they hurried down the tunnel. Nothing barred their way until they reached the far end, where an iron door was firmly shut. She pressed her fingers against it, reaching out with her magic. The unlocking spell was so carefully hidden that it took her nearly ten minutes to find.
“Neat,” Frieda said. She sounded impressed as more protective wards shimmered into existence. Emily felt her glamour flicker, then fail completely. “If you’d tried to blast the door open, Emily, the blowback would have killed us both.”
“Glad you like it.” Markus stood just inside the door, looking grim. “It took weeks to put it together.”
Emily eyed him, concerned. Markus looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week. His face was pale, there were dark rings around his eyes and his hands wouldn’t stop twitching. He could have left the bank at any moment, she knew, but he might not have been able to get back inside. And yet, who knew when the mob would discover the tunnel? Would Markus be able to escape if they blocked his way?
“You need to sleep,” she said, bluntly.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Markus turned, motioning them to follow him. “I took the precaution of laying in a stockpile of food and arranging for some of my staff to sleep here, but I didn’t expect…”
He waved a hand towards the doors as they entered the lobby. The air crawled with protective wards, but Emily could still hear the braying of the crowd. A couple dozen children, ranging from three to ten, kicked a ball around the room, watched by their parents and older siblings. The men were armed, she saw, and some of the women carried wands, but they couldn’t hope to defend themselves if the wards shattered. And, she saw in their hopeless eyes, everyone knew it was just a matter of time.
“They’re safer in here,” Frieda said.
“Until we run out of food,” Markus said. “I designed this place as a fortress, and the wards will keep out any conventional threat, but we’re short on food. We may have to evacuate in a couple of weeks or so.”
“And then get caught,” Emily said.
Markus led them up to his office and closed the door. “I assume you know what’s going on outside,” he said, as he waved them to seats. “What’s happening?”
“Trouble,” Emily said.
She ran through the whole story, starting with Justice’s appearance and ending with the charmed pamphlets. Markus listened carefully, not saying a word, as she outlined her belief that the ‘god’ was nothing more than a magic trick. But, trick or no trick, Justice was immensely powerful. The spells that had created the entity – and allowed it to channel power to its followers – had to be handled carefully.
Markus chuckled, humorlessly, when she’d finished. “I was still working my way through the papers.” His chuckle became a giggle. “I was wasting my time, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Frieda said. “It looks that way.”
Emily shot her a sharp look. “You have to be careful,” she said to Markus. “The wards are blocking out its influence, but they won’t last forever.”
“A god could snap my wards easily.” Markus jabbed a finger towards the window and the crowd below. “That they haven’t come to crush me suggests they can’t.”
“Unless they want a scapegoat,” Frieda said. Emily looked at her in surprise. “There has to be someone to blame for their failures.”
“And then someone else will ask why they haven’t punished Markus already,” Emily countered, although she knew Frieda had a point. Tyrants found scapegoats useful when it came to avoiding blame for their own failures. And if the scapegoats were powerless, there was no danger of them turning on their enemies. “What answer will they give?”
“Not a good one.” Markus shook his head. “The real joke is that I think I figured out a solution to the mess Vesperian created.”
Emily snorted. “I wish you’d found it a week ago.”
“So do I.” Markus shrugged. “We can’t replace the money Vesperian lost, but we can buy back the notes. Not at face value, I admit…we don’t have that sort of money, even if we pool all of our remaining funds. But we can make sure that some of the investors get some of their cash back.”
Emily considered it. “And it will give you a claim on the railway,” she said. “And its stockpile of goods.”
“Assuming it survives,” Markus said. “There were people talking about burning the station to the ground, before…before Justice made his appearance. We could recover the iron, if someone melted the engines, but it wouldn’t be so useful. There would be a glut on the market.”
“The law of supply and demand strikes again,” Emily said, dryly.