Heart of Iron

Nineteen

Will crawled out of the water with a snarl, his hands coated with grease and blood and a steel tentacle in his fist. His ears still rang, and the pain in his cheek told him he might have broken something. Fury boiled in his blood, along with the creeping lassitude of the aftermath of a rousing fight. He ignored it.

Forcing himself to his feet, he stared down at the limp steel tentacle. Whatever the hell that had been, it was vicious. He’d barely found himself in the water before it was on him, steel limbs thrashing and reaching for him.

He couldn’t remember much of the fight—he never could, really, beyond flashing images of sight and sound—but he could vaguely recall the gaping maw that sucked in water to fuel its steam-driven core, and the razor-sharp threshing blades of its teeth. Smashing his fist straight through the thin steel sheeting of its body. The burning exhale of steam in his face as he tore a tentacle off it, using the weakness of the rivets to his own advantage.

That was where inventors made their fatal flaw with the metal monsters and automatons they created. For a metaljacket, it was the hinge of their knees and arms; for the steel-squid, it was the segmented join of the tentacles to its body. Tear that apart and all you had was a wounded shell that flopped around like a turtle on its back.

Destroying it hadn’t been without cost, however.

Will staggered against a stalactite and pressed a hand to his side. His fingers came away sticky, a result of those iron teeth. Every muscle in his body throbbed with the ache of the fall and the way the smooth surface of the water had felt like he plunged onto heavy cobbles.

He wanted to stumble to the ground and sleep away the hurt. A fatal weakness for his species. Almost unstoppable once they were in a full fury, barely cognizant of injury or pain, verwulfen dropped like stones after the excitement wore off.

Will wiped the blood out of his eyes and staggered forward. Couldn’t sleep. Not yet. Lena was out there. He’d heard her scream as he plunged toward the water, heard the soul-shattering loss in her voice as she cried out.

Whoever had her—and he was starting to get an idea of their identity—they were going to wish they’d never dared touch his woman.

***

They traveled along tunnels worn smooth from feet.

She saw none of it.

The men spoke and laughed amongst themselves, clapping Mendici on the back as though he were a hero.

She heard none of it.

She existed only in a world of dull color and muted sound, seeing Will tumble into the gloomy pit again and again.

He couldn’t survive that. Could he? The thought made her feel ill, a heavy weight sitting on her chest until she was afraid she couldn’t breathe. Oh God, what had she done? She’d blown that bloody whistle, afraid for her life, knowing that he would come for her and make everything safe for her again. But he hadn’t. He wasn’t invincible. No matter how quickly he could heal, how strong he was, he was only flesh and bone in the end, the same as she was.

I’ll always come for you. But this time she was on her own, for Will was…lost. She couldn’t think of the alternative or she’d break, becoming a blind, shivering thing, hovering in her own misery. She had to survive whatever was coming, had to find him, find out if…

She shook the thought away and looked up, trying to focus. Light bloomed ahead. A heavy iron door hung in the shadows, with a man guarding it. She glimpsed cold steel. His hand, a gauntlet of metal, with heavy, slatted plates to his elbow.

Mech work.

Cold etched its way down to her bones, but she felt strangely removed. To endure she’d wrapped away that part that was screaming in grief and forced her mind to work analytically. To examine, understand, find a weakness…

Mech. The word whispered in her head. A mech. Bound to the enclaves and forced to work out their contracts to pay for the technology that had given them life or limb. Less than human, the Echelon decreed. Kept out of sight and out of mind.

“Well met, brother,” the guard said, stepping forward and clasping Mendici’s arm. His curious gaze slid over her. “They’re inside. Waiting. You weren’t followed?”

“We were,” Mendici replied. “The Gatekeeper’s probably picking the remains of ’im out of ’is teeth.”

Another stab to the heart. Lena sucked in a sharp breath. She couldn’t go there, to that cold, empty place deep inside. Not yet.

The stranger nodded, running his gaze over the ragged group. “Get yourself something to warm your bellies. I’ll take her through.”

“I believe I’ll come,” Mendici announced, tucking his thumbs behind his belt. “I’m wonderin’ as to what this is all about.”

“Himself’s in a curious mood,” the stranger warned.

“I’ve as much a right to be there as ’im. I’ve as much a right as any free man.”

“You can explain that to him. Come.” The stranger gestured to her.

Shoving open the iron door revealed a room in the middle of all the tunnels. Crates were stacked floor to ceiling, and candlelight flickered, warming the shadows. Its glow stretched only so far, though. She couldn’t see where the walls began. Only an endless maze of crates.

The murmur of voices drew them out of the darkness like a beacon. Mendici rapped at another door, his gaze dropping away. Not as confident as he appeared.

A slit in the door slid open and a single gray eye stared through. Then the slit slammed shut and the clicking of a lock sounded.

“You’re late.”

The voice was soft, melodic. A man used to the well-toned inflection of command. The door opened and light spilled through, blinding her for a moment.

“Had to take care of a little something,” Mendici replied, stepping through.

Lena glared at his back. His dismissive words hurt. Will was more than a little something. Brave and strong and stubborn, he had more worth in his little finger than Mendici had in his entire body.

“This her?”

Lena felt the shove from behind as she stepped through the door. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light. The room beyond held an enormous table ringed with twelve chairs and the remains of a meal. A pair of women looked up from the table, one sprawled with an arrogant grace in her chair and the other rifling through a sheaf of notes. Her hands were stained with ink, her eyes warm and dark with curiosity. She wore a pair of tight men’s trousers and a white shirt cinched against her lush curves with a gray tweed waistcoat. A pair of magnifying goggles were pushed back on her coppery hair and her right hand was a metal gauntlet, the fingers moving with a delicate grace Lena had rarely seen. A gold pocket watch drew the eye to her breast, but Lena was certain the effect was unconscious.

Another mech.

The other woman wore a black leather coat, buttoned up the left breast with brass buttons. Gleaming epaulets crowned her shoulders, and her boots encased muscular calves. She flicked the ash on her cheroot, her catlike hazel eyes raking over Lena. One glance and the cold gaze moved on, lip curling dismissively. “You wasted all that effort on this?”

A man stepped out of the shadows, the same man who’d answered the door. His hand curled over the woman’s shoulder, slightly possessive. “Patience, Ingrid. That’s no way to treat a guest.” The voice shivered across the skin. A man used to hypnotizing people with that alone. A showman.

A patchwork coat framed his lean body. At first glance the coat looked shabby and mean, but Lena hadn’t spent hours grinding her teeth in boredom over her sewing for nothing. The coat was deceptively fine, the patches quite deliberately placed, she was certain. A stained cravat spilled from the open throat of his shirt, and his black gloves were cut off at the fingers, revealing the tanned skin of his fingers.

But that was not what drew her eye. A leather strap held a monocular brass eyepiece over one eye, his mouth hidden by a brass and leather half mask. Together they obscured his face so that all she could see was one piercing gray eye. His hair was the same dark copper as the first woman’s.

“A guest?” Lena demanded, shaking off her dull wits. “Your hospitality is somewhat lacking. Who are you? What do you want with me?”

“You wished to see Mercury, did you not?” His hands spread wide, palms facing her.

The words stole the breath from her lungs. “Mercury? You’re Mercury?”

“And you, my delightful Miss Todd, are a rather surprising little package.” His fingers absently stroked Ingrid’s thick brown hair. “This is one of our little pigeons,” he murmured to his comrade. “A protégé of the resourceful Mr. Mandeville. And quite resourceful herself. She’s the mind and hands behind our gift to the Scandinavian embassy.”

The way he acted, the slight edge of mocking humor that curled over every word… It made her teeth grate. He’d kidnapped her from the streets when she would have gone willingly. If he’d simply asked, Will would be sitting in the warren, dining with the rest of her family.

Tears sprang into her eyes. The praise was meaningless, the entire cause was meaningless. She could summon nothing but grief. “Why the charade? Your men could have asked me to come. One mention of your name and I would have been willing.” A dark glare at Mendici. “You’ve destroyed my guardian’s carriage, knocked my footmen unconscious, and…hurt a man I consider a friend. Now you assume I should have some goodwill toward you remaining.”

Mercury’s fingers froze, the smile faltering. He glanced at Mendici as if in search of explanation.

“Her guardian’s a bleeder,” Mendici replied with a sneer. “If I could, I’d smash every one of his pretty little carriages. And your so-called friend, my dear, clearly weren’t human. Not to have taken on Percy in such a way, or to cross that cable so swiftly.” His lip curled. “I don’t trust her.”

“Yet you expect me to trust you,” Lena retorted. “I don’t think I want any further part of this. I thought the humanists wished to be equal, but you don’t. You want to reverse the social order instead, to grind the Echelon and the blue bloods beneath your heel. To make of them slaves, or little better.”

“To make them dead,” Mendici snapped back.

“They’re not all inhuman,” she replied. “I have met some few who I consider trustworthy and heroic. My own brother-in-law is the Devil of Whitechapel and considers his men his family. My guardian is equally kindly and treats his thralls with respect—”

“See?” Mendici snarled to Mercury. “She’s a friggin’ bleeder lover! I’ll bet she’s whorin’ for ’em. Daresay if we ever locate that man’s body we’ll find he’s into the first cycle of the craving. Certainly didn’t like the screamer none—”

Lena turned on him in a rage, her fists clenched. “Will is not a blue blood, you filth. If you had half his courage—”

“Enough!” Mercury roared. He pushed away from the wall and threw a dark glance at Mendici. “I believe I gave orders that you and your men were to seek a warm belly and bed. Why are you here?”

Mendici crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Some of the men are wonderin’ about your latest orders. And the lenience you’ve shown the last batch of blue bloods we caught.”

“You’re questioning me?” The words were silky soft. Deadly.

“Me and the men, we don’t like it none.” Mendici scowled. He held up his mech hand. “You promised us revenge, for this. For those hell-spawned enclaves. We didn’t risk our lives, lose our friends, to break out of the enclaves for nothing. I want blood. Blue blood. I want to see all their heads on bleedin’ spikes.” He pointed a finger at her. “Why’s she so important?”

“Because she is a set of ears where we have none,” Mercury replied.

Another sneer. Mendici took a warning step forward, his hand slipping to his side. When it came up, he was holding a pistol. “There’s some as says you’re growin’ weak. Merciful. We’ve been talkin’, me and the boys—”

A pistol retorted.

A small red hole bloomed in the middle of his forehead and, mouth agape, he slowly toppled backward. The clatter of his steel-plated jerkin as he hit the ground jarred her nerves.

Lena scrambled backward, her spine hitting the wall. The room was still as everyone in it turned tentative gazes toward the woman with the smoking pistol.

Her ink-stained hands didn’t so much as shake as she lowered the weapon. Lips thinning, she gestured to Ingrid. “Get rid of him. See that the others understand what we do with those who speak of mutiny here.”

The brunette ground her cheroot out and rolled to her feet. Lena hadn’t realized until that moment how tall the woman was. Nearly a good inch on Mercury, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Only the lush curve of her breasts and hips saved her from a masculine figure.

Wrenching Mendici up by his arm, she threw him over her shoulder with the same amount of effort Will might expend. “You’re certain of this, Rosalind?” she asked. “The men liked him.”

The petite redhead nodded sharply. “I cannot risk insubordination. Not now, when we’re so close. Take him away.” She glanced toward the masked figure leaning against the wall. “Leave us,” she murmured.

His gaze flickered toward Lena.

“She wants to know if she can trust us,” Rosalind replied to the unspoken question. Their gazes met. Held. “Perhaps a show of trust is what she needs.”

With a flamboyant shrug of his shoulders, he stepped toward the door. “On your head, so be it. I’ll go see if I can help Ingrid find out whose tongues have been flapping. And how far it’s gone.”

Two steps and he was through the door, with Ingrid on his heels.

It shut behind them and Lena turned to face the woman. They were much of a height and perhaps even age. Or perhaps not. Rosalind’s pale skin bore the creaminess of youth and her tip-tilted nose gave her a permanently youthful appearance. Yet the command with which she had spoken was not that of someone untried.

You wished to see Mercury, did you not?

It was only now that Lena realized that the man had never directly referred to himself as such.

“You’re Mercury, aren’t you?”

Those plump lips pursed. “I’m not going to harm you.” Rosalind slid the pistol into a holster at her hip with a dexterity and ease that Lena envied.

“Who was he? The man?”

“My brother, Jack. He is also Mercury. As is Ingrid at times. Mercury has worn many names and faces over the years, the better to hide from the Echelon.” Rosalind smiled slightly, gesturing toward a chair. “Sit. Talk with me. We’ve been very curious about you.”

“As am I.” Lena dragged out a chair, giving herself plenty of room to move if she needed to. This pretty, pouting young woman seemed friendly enough, but she wouldn’t forget the ease with which she’d killed a man. Nor the cool, emotionless look in her eyes as she’d done it.

Rosalind eased into her chair, leaning back with her arms slung across the chair backs next to her. Calculation cooled her brown eyes. “There are very few who know the truth behind Mercury’s secret.”

“I would never reveal it.”

“Even if your sympathies toward the organization are conflicted?”

Lena paused for a moment. “I would not betray you. If I choose to turn my back on this, then I’ll walk away and try to forget everything I ever saw.”

“Walk away?” Rosalind murmured. “To where? Your life at court? To beg a blue blood to take mercy on you and take you as thrall? How long do you imagine that will last, with your inability to allow a blue blood to feed?”

The only person who knew that was Mr. Mandeville. The betrayal raked her with iron claws.

Rosalind tidied the piles of paper in front of her, then pushed them across the table toward her. “This is everything that we know about you. Compiled carefully in the last year. Jack and Ingrid might think this a risk, telling you of Mercury’s secret, but I don’t think you’d dare.”

A charcoal sketch rested on top. Lena stared down into her own face. The rendering was exquisite, but the expression was slightly disdainful, one eyebrow arched in dismissal. A pretty, hardened flirt.

She lifted it carefully, revealing details about her and her life. Charlie’s name. That made her blood boil. Honoria. Even Blade and Will. The detail went further, examining the minutiae of her life. When she came and went from Caine House. A brief question about why Leo had taken her as his ward, that had been circled in red ink, and daily details about her relationship with him that were shockingly intimate.

No sign of her sharing his bed. Or her blood. I cannot quite fathom the relationship as yet, but I will…

Another page.

They joked of her sister, Honoria, this morning as if he knew her well. Does the relationship go deeper?

And further down.

I find it curious that the Duke of Caine has forgone visiting the house since the arrival of the girl. I’ve spoken to the servants, the thralls about it. His Grace came regularly each Sunday afternoon to play chess with his son but does so no longer. They have never been close, but one thrall claims that she heard them arguing about Miss Todd. His Grace insisted quite strongly that his son “remove that two-faced snake” from his house but the son refused. Something about this situation strikes me as out of the ordinary. Why would the duke’s heir take such a no-account girl as his ward? The duke was once her father’s patron, but by all accounts that ended badly, though I don’t know why. I will endeavor to find more.

A traitor in Caine House who’d been watching her every move. Icy fingers ran through her. “Mrs. Wade,” she whispered, suddenly afraid for Leo. If anyone realized precisely what their relationship was he’d be ruined. Or worse.

“Her loyalty was easy to buy. She has some outstanding debts,” Rosalind explained. “You were a potential liability from the start. One with access to a great deal of resources. We took a vote on whether you were too dangerous to use. Ingrid wanted to kill you.”

Lena shoved to her feet, the chair squealing on the floor. She couldn’t stop shivering. The sweats from earlier had vanished, her body feeling as though someone had turned a faucet from hot to cold. “What do you intend to do with me?”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be. That was never my intention.” Rosalind gestured to the side. “Would you like some tea? You’ve gone white as a ghost.”

“I don’t want any of your damned tea, thank you very much. And considering recent events I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Mendici? That was nothing.”

“I’m talking about the humanist who held a damned knife to my throat the other day and threatened my brother!” she snapped.

Rosalind stilled. “I know nothing of this.”

Lena licked her lips, uncertain whether to believe her or not. “You want me to break the treaty.”

“You told Mr. Mandeville no, that you wanted to meet with us first.”

“Then someone wasn’t listening,” Lena replied. “I was delivering Mandeville’s message to my contact in the Echelon.” She tipped her chin up. “Someone accosted me and held a knife to my throat. They said I had to destroy the treaty or they’d hurt my brother. They had one of his toys, from his room. A place nobody should be able to get to. And,” she whispered, “they were a blue blood.”

The color washed out of Rosalind’s face. “You’re sure? They didn’t follow you there—”

“They knew the humanist codes,” Lena replied. “Knew things only someone close to the Council could know. About Will’s involvement in the treaty. And where I would be delivering the letter to. It had to be my contact.”

“That had nothing to do with us,” Rosalind said.

“I thought you were in charge?”

A long, drawn-out moment. “Not everything around here is what it seems,” Rosalind murmured. “What if I told you the draining factories were not our doing? That I knew nothing of this threat against you?”

Lena stared her in the eye, forcing herself to be strong. Have courage. Like Will would. No, don’t think of that. She balled her fists. Choked the pain down. She could fall apart later. “What if I told you I didn’t believe you?”

Rosalind grimaced and leaned back in her chair. “What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room.” At Lena’s nod she continued. “As I’m certain you’ve realized, there are two factions amongst the humanists. Those that fight for freedom and those that fight for revenge. It wasn’t always so, but a year ago we made a daring attack on one of the enclaves and freed a group of mechs. We needed their skills in working metal. Unfortunately, they’ve not been as cooperative as we’d hoped for. There’s a splinter group within the faction, taking matters into their own hands and using our name and information to wreak havoc.”

“Why not cut your ties with them?”

Another long look as if wondering whether to trust her. “Come,” Rosalind finally said, pushing to her feet. “I have something to show you.”

There was no point resisting. And she was starting to grow curious now. “Where are we going?”

“To the cellars.”

Pushing into the dark corridor, Rosalind grabbed a lantern from the wall and led her along the tunnel until they finally came to a small door. The smell of chemical lingered in the air. Hanging the lantern from a nail in the wall, Rosalind tugged a key from her shirt and opened the door ahead of them.

Dark shadows waited silently, the faint gleam of lantern light shining off cold steel. Rosalind lifted the lantern and stepped through, spilling light into the enormous cavern and chasing away the shadows. Dozens of enormous automatons sat still and silent, the spark of gaslight absent from their eyes. Dozens more of the metal suits that Rollins had been strapped into. Rows of Percys.

“These are the Cyclops.” Pride warmed the other woman’s voice and she handed the lantern to Lena. Stepping forward, she ran a hand over the hydraulic hose of the heavy steel arm. The hollow tube of the flamethrower on its arm gleamed.

Leaning under the arm, Rosalind hit a button. With a hiss, the chest cavity opened and the head slid back revealing a hollow space wide enough to fit a man. Rosalind stepped up on the Cyclops’s bent knee and hopped into the cavity. Turning around, she eased back and slid a leather harness around her chest and waist. Two handles rested at arm height. She gripped them, pressing a number of levers and twisting a dial. The steel carapace of the chest slid back into place, a thrumming sound coming from deep within.

“Takes a few minutes to heat the boiler packs,” Rosalind explained, her small, heart-shaped face peering over the top of the chest piece. With an expression of concentration, she toyed with something inside and then the hydraulic hoses hissed, the Cyclops straightening to its full height of ten feet. “They’re fully mobile, with more flexibility and control than a metaljacket and run on a liter of water a day.” With a sudden smile, she forced the arm to lift. “We modeled the flamethrowers on the Spitfires. Burns like buggery when you hit something with it.” The fingers on the end of the iron arm gave a wiggle, revealing complete dexterity. “Mech work,” Rosalind explained. “The whole thing is mech work.”

“That’s why you need them.”

Rosalind grimaced and the Cyclops sank back down, its engines fading. She slung the steel chest plate open and hopped down. “Aye. The plans were ours.” A brief look in her direction. “But the work’s theirs.” A rusty laugh. “The Echelon forced them into the enclaves to work steel for them and earn out the repayment of their mech enhancements. Not once did they suspect we’d turn their own technology—the skills they taught the mechs—against them. It’s the one thing we humans have never been able to counter. We might have been able to overwhelm the blue bloods in France and put them to the guillotine, but our blue bloods are smarter and hide behind automaton armies. Human flesh can’t fight metal. So we must even the odds.”

“To fight for freedom,” Lena said, with a slightly sarcastic lilt. “It sounds remarkably like fighting for revenge.”

“Do you think the Echelon are simply going to turn around and give us our rights?” A hint of anger stirred Rosalind’s voice. “Perhaps if we ask nicely?”

“People are going to die.”

“They already do. Four hundred and thirty men and women took to the streets to protest against the latest hike in the blood taxes. The Echelon mowed them down with the Trojan cavalry, leaving barely a hundred alive.”

“They wouldn’t have raised the blood taxes if the draining factories hadn’t exploded. Now there’s a shortage and the Echelon need blood fast. Don’t you see? This becomes a cycle of blood and death!”

Rosalind jerked the lantern out of Lena’s hands. “I’m disappointed. I thought you would understand. Especially considering where the plans for the Cyclops came from.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Your own father. Sir Artemus Todd, with his brilliant, erratic mind. He spent the last year of his life discovering a blue blood’s weaknesses. We use the toxin he created to incapacitate them and his firebolt bullets to kill them. Instead of fleeing from Vickers with you, with his family, he risked his life to place his final plans for the Cyclops in our hands. It cost him everything, but he’ll forever be remembered amongst our ranks.”

Lena could barely remember the night they’d been forced to flee. Being shaken awake early in the morning and bundled into a carriage. Her father demanding that she look after Charlie, and though she’d seen him speaking with Honoria, pressing a coded diary into her hands, she hadn’t caught any of their words.

That night had changed her life forever. Torn from her lessons, her world, her hopes of a future amongst the Echelon, she’d been dragged into the dark, grim confines of the rookeries. All she’d known was that her father’s patron Vickers—the duke for whom he performed his brilliant experiments—wanted them dead.

She’d never known why.

“Father was a humanist?” she asked, her voice breaking slightly.

“To the bone.”

Another shock on a seemingly never-ending series of them. Lena reached out, trying to find the wall as her knees shook.

“That’s why we wanted you,” Rosalind continued. “Your sister had betrayed his memory by marrying a blue blood. She could be of no use to us. You, however, showed some skill with clockwork and cogs. You design things that could be useful—”

Lena’s mind made the leap. “You think I could learn to create the Cyclops?” Then there would be no more need for the mechs. Would Rosalind—or Mercury rather, for she was starting to see the difference between the two—simply have them killed? The way she’d done to Mendici? A shiver ran down her spine. What would Mercury do if Lena said no?

There was nowhere to run. To hide. No allies remaining. Not even—

No, don’t think of him. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep, steadying breath, trying to ignore the nausea.

Think.

The only way Rosalind could have known of Lena’s skill with clockwork was from Mr. Mandeville. Suddenly the way he’d always watched over her so carefully became something far more sinister.

“I design toys,” she whispered.

“But you could make a Cyclops.” Rosalind took a step closer. “The transformational clockwork is proof that you have the skill and the ability to design such things.” Her eyes lit up like warmed chocolate. “You would be a hero.”

A hero. Three weeks ago, she might have still cared for such things. Recognition, finally, but never from her father. He had died for the same schemes that lit this woman’s face with excitement.

Everything in her life was a lie. Mrs. Wade spied on her and Mr. Mandeville too, no doubt. Her father, a man who’d virtually ignored her as some kind of little doll, had designed weapons to take the Echelon down.

And Honoria had likely known.

Lena leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. Who could she trust? There were so many secrets she felt as if her head was going to explode. But then she’d been keeping her own from her family too, hadn’t she?

The loneliness hit her like a punch to the gut. No one to trust, no one to tell. Nobody who knew her secrets or had shared their own. Nobody except Will and he was—

Lena lurched to her knees and threw up, her whole body shaking in misery. She’d been trying so hard not to think of him, trying to keep the hurt buried, but it welled up, choking her, forcing her stomach to heave.

Tears burned in her eyes and she wiped her face with her sleeve. Oh God, what was she going to do? How was she going to tell Blade that Will…that he was gone? The thought was inconceivable. He was so large, so full of life and heat and fire, his eyes snapping amber flames whenever she looked at him. She couldn’t bear the fist of pain deep inside. She needed to see the body, needed to get him back to her. To bury him properly.

To tell him that if she’d ever suspected he might have kissed her back, then she would never have returned to the Echelon. To this mess.

But first she had to get out of here. She looked up. At the pair of shiny boots in front of her, and the rows of metal drones.

“No,” she whispered. “I won’t do it.”

“Not quite the answer I was hoping for,” Rosalind said quietly. The hammer on the pistol drew back. “How disappointing. Come. Get to your feet. I’ve no further use for you.”