Blood and Steel
Nick and Warden eventually found me, after making their way through a convoluted network of tunnels. We emerged from the Vaults into the light of a low sun, which had banished much of the fog and now glared off the snow. I was armed with a military-grade pistol from Elspeth, whose people had been able to build up a cache of weapons over the years, stolen from vehicles bound for the depot. She had promised that if we needed assistance, supplies, or somewhere to hide during our time in Edinburgh, we were welcome to come back.
As we made the return journey to the safe house, I pictured the faces of those who were suffering under Scion. The Mime Order, entombed in the Beneath. The factory hands, shorn and beaten. The Irish, ostracised. The night Vigiles, threatened by a technology that might destroy us all.
Yet now I thought of others, too: the living, the defiant. Elspeth Lin, the last of a family that Scion had torn apart, resolved to fight back. My commanders in London. The Ranthen. The people who were here with me now. I didn’t know if we could stop the machine, but a fire had started deep within it. Even the smallest flame could raze the strongest house.
Some had to suffer. And some had to stand.
Eliza and Maria were waiting for us in the parlour. From their frustrated expressions, their investigations in the citadel had been fruitless. When we entered, Eliza stood.
‘Did you find the voyants?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And they’ll help us.’
Relief crossed her face. ‘And the depot?’
‘It’s in Leith, on the coast. We go now.’
Maria was already entering the district’s name into the tracker. ‘Ah,’ she breathed. ‘Yes. Look at what happens when you try to zoom in on Leith.’ She showed me the screen. The district was a nebulous smear on the coast, not too far from the centre of Edinburgh. Blurred. ‘Scion doesn’t want any satellites to see what’s going on there.’
‘All the more reason for us to go. Eliza, you stay here,’ I said. ‘We need someone on the outside if we get into trouble.’
‘Be careful,’ she said.
We set off for Leith as soon as it was dark. Instead of an Underground or a monorail, Edinburgh had a system of automated trams that ran round the clock. While the Rephaim went their own way, preferring to move quickly through the shadows, the rest of us found a tram towards Leith and took seats at the back, away from the other passengers. We got off at the terminus, where Lucida and Warden were waiting.
A fence stood between us and Leith, covered with red signs. All I could see beyond it was more buildings. I spied a camera jutting from a wall and backed into the shelter of a doorway.
WARNING
SCIONIDE MILITARY INSTALLATION
ACCESS TO THIS ZONE IS RESTRICTED BY THE
GRAND COMMANDER IN ACCORDANCE WITH
SCION LAW. USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORISED.
‘We’re going in,’ I said.
‘How?’ Maria asked, looking mystified.
I lifted an eyebrow.
‘Ah,’ she said, with a smirk. ‘Of course.’
The guard behind the fence was alone. It took me more time than I wanted to worm into his dreamscape, and he made a hell of a fuss as I overcame his defences, but I managed to keep my claws in him for long enough to walk him to the gate and open it. As soon as she could fit through, Maria charged forward and knocked him out with the butt of his own gun. I returned to my body as Nick was carrying me into the facility. The gate closed with a hiss behind us, sealing itself with a throb of red light.
Nick set me on my feet. We were into the military district, edging through the darkened streets that must lead to the depot. Warden and Lucida stayed ahead of us, ready to silence any soldiers that appeared, while Nick kept an eye out for cameras and scanners. With every step, a feeling that we were being watched crept up on me. Had Vance predicted our arrival? Was she here already?
Despite the cold, my nape was damp. A wrong move here could get us all killed. I sensed people in the buildings, but no one was outside on the streets. This section of the military district must be solely administrative, a smokescreen hiding the real secret.
I was proven right when we came to a ten-foot concrete wall. A fence towered at the top, crowned with a corolla of metal spikes, adding another nine or ten feet to the height of the barrier. Yet more signs warned that deadly force was authorised.
We weren’t getting inside this place in a hurry.
‘Somebody give me a boost,’ I said.
‘Wait. I’ll go first.’ Maria tied her coat around her waist. ‘Warden, you’re the tallest. Mind giving a lady a leg-up?’
Warden glanced at Lucida, who was visibly scandalised by the idea. Maria, blissfully unaware of the Rephaite aversion to touching humans, gave him an expectant look.
‘I will,’ Nick said, and cupped his hands.
Nick was strong, but he couldn’t raise Maria quite high enough. She made one grab for the wall that almost unbalanced them both, causing Nick to swear through his teeth and lower her.
‘Sorry.’ When she was back on the ground, Maria grinned at Warden. ‘Has to be you, big man.’
A hysterical urge to laugh seized me. Lucida didn’t seem thrilled by this state of affairs, but we weren’t in a position to debate it. Warden lifted Maria easily, letting her stand on his shoulder. She caught the lip of the wall and scrambled up.
In the moments she was out of sight, I didn’t breathe. I half-expected to hear a gunshot, but her head soon popped over the edge.
‘Come on,’ she whispered.
Avoiding Warden’s gaze, I stepped on to his hand, then climbed on to his shoulder. He held my calf to steady me, sending a shiver right the way up to my back, as I stretched to grasp Maria’s hand and let her take some of my weight. My boots scraped on the smooth wall, seeking traction. When I was up, Maria patted me on the back.
‘Take a look down there, Underqueen,’ she said, a little hoarsely. ‘Just . . . try not to scream.’
I hunkered down on my stomach and crawled to the fence.
What I saw beyond it, I knew I would never forget.
Tanks. Hundreds of tanks. They formed perfect columns on the concrete in front of a jet-black warehouse. Heavily armed soldiers swarmed around them in gunmetal armour. Even in my darkest moments, I could never have imagined that a force of this magnitude really existed. Locked out of the district, the people of Edinburgh must have no idea that they shared their citadel with so many machines of war.
This was what the factories were generating in Manchester, what human blood had been shed to create.
Warden appeared on my right. His eyes torched as he took it in. Nick joined us and dug out his binoculars. I let him absorb it all for a minute before I reached for them and focused on the nearest unit. The soldiers’ armoured backs were stamped with SECOND INQUISITORIAL DIVISION, and I could see now that the rifles they carried had a thin strip of white light along the barrel.