Luke could feel scalding tears spill from his eyes and course down his cheeks. Had no idea whether they were shed in fury or grief.
‘Is that so?’ said Rix, looking at him. The kindliness in his voice had entirely drained away. ‘Well, seeing as it’s your fight, I’m sure you won’t mind doing one last thing before we say goodbye. Once we found out where your family was, I knew this would be the perfect opportunity. And when that cretin Gavar Jardine actually brought you here, it’s like it was meant to be.’
He opened the breast of his dinner jacket and from a holster beneath his arm hooked out a handgun. A pistol.
‘You’ll be a hero, Luke.’
Rix reversed the gun so he held it by the barrel, offering the grip. With his other hand, he pointed away through the crowd.
Unmistakable, in the centre of the room, stood Lord Whittam Jardine.
‘No,’ said Luke. Then again, in case the guy hadn’t got the message: ‘No way, are you crazy?’
‘That monster has been plotting his return to power for a long time,’ said the Equal. ‘I know what he intends to do now that he has it. The slavedays are nothing compared to what he’ll bring. Where’s the courage you had in Millmoor? I thought you’d signed up for the long game, Luke.’
‘I quit,’ Luke spat. ‘I’m not playing your game.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’ Lord Rix grimaced slightly, as if he’d just been told that his favourite restaurant didn’t have an available table, or that the rain wouldn’t stop in time for his round of golf. ‘Meilyr didn’t approve of my plan either, though I’m sure I could have persuaded my goddaughter Dina, in time. But we’re all out of time. And the game is more important than any individual player. So here we go, Luke.’
The sensation was extraordinary. Awful. Like being six years old and held in a neck lock by a boy much bigger and stronger, twisted this way and that.
Powerless to prevent it, Luke saw his left hand reach out and take the pistol then disappear under the tray, concealing the firearm.
His skin prickled all over with horror. This couldn’t be happening. He began to walk forward – or rather, something was walking him forward.
Lord Rix’s Skill.
‘Your sacrifice won’t be in vain, Luke,’ the old Equal said, behind him now, as Luke pressed deeper into the crowd.
Panic was swelling in his throat. Luke prayed for it to choke him. To make him pass out.
Equals murmured disapprovingly as he pushed through them. One or two ordered him to stop so they could get a refill. But Luke kept moving, watching it all helplessly from behind his own eyes.
There was Lord Jardine, his cruel, craggy face unyielding as he listened to someone Luke couldn’t quite see. Then the whole group came into view. Lady Thalia stood beside her husband, her sister Euterpe on her other side. The fourth figure was the Chancellor – or ex-Chancellor. And Winterbourne Zelston’s impassioned speech was having no effect whatsoever on Lord Jardine.
Quite an audience for an assassination.
Equals had protective reflexes. Could heal. This would be an all-or-nothing shot. Could Luke close his eyes until it was over?
He didn’t have a chance even to do that. It happened so fast it took him as much by surprise as the foursome around him.
His arm tossed the tray away, champagne spraying, bottles falling. His left hand whipped up, the pistol steady and level.
Then it was as if something was ripping him apart from the inside out, as if he was a walking human bomb. Its epicentre was where he’d felt Silyen Jardine’s Skill at the gate.
He remembered Silyen’s words, in the kennels: ‘You’re bound to the estate. None of you can hurt us.’
Luke’s finger was already squeezing the trigger, even as his arm jerked away from Lord Jardine as if something had pushed it . . .
. . . and the pistol discharged a burst of fire into the face and chest of Chancellor Zelston.
Pandemonium erupted and the air crackled with Skill as the Equals’ defences flared up.
From somewhere far away, Luke thought he heard a man’s voice call his name. Hoarse, horrified. Was it Jackson?
He stared at the mess on the ground in front of him. It wasn’t really recognizable as a man any more. Flesh and bits that you never imagined might actually be inside a person were scattered around. The colours were unexpectedly bright. The gun slipped from his hand and fell heavily to the floor.
He could move his own body again, Luke realized. The vice-like grip of Rix’s Skill was gone.
He wished it wasn’t. He had no idea what to do.
‘Luke!’
Jackson pushed through to the edge of the space that had cleared around the scene. His face was white and he looked stricken, like a paramedic rushing to the scene of a car crash to discover that the victim is his own child.
Winterbourne Zelston was beyond any help the Doc could give now.
Luke, too.
The scream started out quiet, almost inaudible. Keening. A bat squeak.