The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Chapter 17

TO MAKE A HAND OF GLORY REQUIRED FIRST OF ALL A HAND cut from the corpse of someone who had died violently. The shock of sudden death was necessary because it flooded the flesh with endorphins and endorphins were essential to the spell's puissance. Luckily, Jane had access to the anatomy morgue. She smuggled the hand out in her purse and pickled it in a solution of salt and nitre in a jar at the back of her closet. Drying it in the sun would have taken weeks, so she flash-froze it and sublimed the ice in a vacuum chamber.

The City was bright and hard through the windows and radiated cold into the lab. The last pale lights of a dead sunset flickered like corpsefire on the horizon. Jane sat cross-legged atop a high stool, lashing candle stubs between the fingers of the hand. She hadn't turned on the lights for fear of discovery. But in what light there was, she could see that the hand was coarsely proportioned and that its former owner had been a nail-biter.

The blue hour was the best time for this sort of work, for the influences of sun and moon were roughly equal then and would distort the results least. The candles firm, Jane took out a penknife. Carefully she carved runes between the second and third joints of every other finger, a sfwa on the thumb, ya on the middle finger and sig on the pinkie, so that together they spelled out the hidden name of the Goddess in her aspect as Assigner of Dreams.

All that remained, then, was to rubber-band one of Galiagante's credit cards to the palm.

When the work was done, Jane dumped the ball of twine into her equipment drawer and hopped down from the stool. The hand of glory she dropped into her knapsack along with the pry bar, the suede gloves, and the flashlight.

She'd chosen her clothes for indistinction: black hightops, black denim jeans, and Puck's leather jacket to top it off. Her knapsack was by good luck a dingy gray. She slung it over her shoulder and pulled on a wool watch cap. It was not so striking an outfit as to draw attention to itself; in it she would be as close to undetectable as made no difference.

Her mother's teaspoon she had drilled a hole in and hung on a cord around her neck. Now she drew it from under her blouse and kissed it for luck.

Time to hit the street.

It was a bitter cold night. A sharp wind picked up bits of trash and made them dance in circles. No one was about. She hurried down streets that were empty and silent, past Branstock, Pentecost, and Lonazep, ducking briefly into Anowre's lobby to warm up her cheeks and ears and the fronts of her thighs, where the cold denim stung them, then trotting quickly by Cadbury and Sewingshields, Lombard, Worm, Altaripa, and Melvales. The occasional dwarf or night-gaunt that she saw was huddled and anxious to get back inside, as much in a hurry as she herself. At last she came to her destination.

Caer Gwydion.

She stared up at its bright glass walls, its smoothly gleaming surfaces rising up forever into the night, and for an instant her spirit quailed. It was a citadel, unassailable. She was so small and insignificant before it! Then, squaring her shoulders, she ducked into an alleyway and went around to the rear.

The back of the building was totally unlike the front, a stained cinder block wall with loading dock, dumpster, and an incinerator gently smoldering. It was as if an enchantment had been removed from Caer Gwydion, revealing it as it really was. Jane lit a cigarette and faded back into the shadows, watching.

Time passed. An ogre emerged from a service door, lugging a trash can. He emptied the can into the incinerator and scuttled back inside. The door swung to after him.

Jane lit another cigarette to give the custodian time to find work elsewhere. She smoked it slowly, savoring its warmth, and ditched the butt with regret. Then she pulled on the gray suede gloves and got out the hand of glory. Holding it by the wrist, a disposable lighter ready in her other hand, she went to the service door. She pushed it open. Barrels, brooms, cleaning supplies. Old rags. The custodian was nowhere to be seen. From the gloom, a black iron monster of a furnace hissed at her. "Hello?" she said. "Is this where I'm supposed to come to see about work?"

No one answered.

Jane let the door close behind her. Her heart was racing. Fighting an absurd urge to slink, she advanced into the room. It was warm inside. Her cheeks and the lobes of her ears tingled painfully. Somewhere, a television set murmured. Ahead, a freight elevator waited for her, doors open. She got in.

According to the contents of Galiagante's wallet, he dwelt in the penthouse. Shifting the hand and lighter temporarily back to the knapsack, Jane closed the doors and seized the controls. A gleeful exultation filled her. She was pulling it off! This was brilliant, better than drugs, better than sex, better than anything she'd ever experienced before. Everything seemed preternaturally clear and vivid, as if newly dipped in cool liquid glass. It was a fantastic high. She ran the freight elevator up as far as it would go.
* * *

The walls slid by, doorways opening and closing like bright mouths. She had brief, disconnected glimpses into the passing hallways and work spaces. Occasionally she drifted past voicesarguments, sardonic laughterbut she saw no one, and drew no attention. She felt invisible.

The elevator came to a final stop. She stepped out into a darkened kitchen.

The silence was absolute.

Holding the hand of glory before her like a shield, Jane investigated the connecting rooms. It didn't take much exploration to determine that the entire floor was given over to housekeeping functions and that the staff had been dismissed for the night. Still, she held the lighter cocked and ready.

A private lift just off the kitchen doubtless led where she needed to go. But an odd aura infused it, a cold feel of menace that radiated from the emblematic vulture-heads adorning the panels of its bronze doors. It had to be wired to an alarm. She would have to find another way up.

She thought. Where food was prepared at a distance from the dining room, serving time was paramount. Hand-carried to the lift and then up, it would be already beginning to cool by the time it reached the table. There had to be some faster way to transport it. A dumbwaiter.

Once she knew what to look for, finding it was no big trick. The dumbwaiter was in the kitchen across from the ovens.

She climbed in.

It was a snug fit. She put her knapsack in first, then folded herself about it. Drawing knees to chin, she managed to wriggle in. The hand of glory bumped against her nose.

When she pulled the door shut, the dark closed about her like a fist. She could see nothing. Taking a deep breath, Jane seized the rope. She began to pull herself upward, slowly, so the pulleys wouldn't creak.

Hand over hand, the dumbwaiter inched into the dark.

It was a long way up.

Later, Jane would learn that Galiagante's apartment took up four floors, the lowest for the servants, the upper three for himself and the occasional guest. But in the slow, blind oven of the dumbwaiter, it felt like twenty floors at least. The journey seemed to take forever. Though she tried not to dwell on it, the fancy grew that she was trapped in a box crawling through the infinite space between the stars.

Her shoulders began to ache, and then her arms as well.

Sweat rolled from her armpits and down her sides. Her blouse was soaked through. Jane cursed herself for not having removed Puck's jacket before getting in. She was sweltering in it. She was going to broil in this thing.

The cart was padded with leather. The studs dug into her ass. She shifted slightly, but to no avail. Hand over hand, the rope slid by. Her stomach cramped and one leg went to sleep. It was all pins and needles. She stopped, wrapping the rope around one arm to anchor the cart, and tried to massage some life back into it. All the time she was listening for voices, for footfalls, for the sound of someone stirring. She'd risen a long way by now. If she slipped, the fall would surely kill her.

Her palms were sweaty. One by one she wiped them against her jeans. She started up again.

Up and up, through darkness.

At last a crack of light descended, came even with Jane's eyes, sank down to her feet. Her hands slowed to a stop on the rope. She held her breath and listened.

Somebody was moving around out there.

Clumsily twisting the rope about one leg so the cart wouldn't slide down, she took up the hand of glory. The need for silence made every motion excruciatingly slow. She squeezed the lighter from her pocket.

She kicked open the door.

A dwarf in Galiagante's house livery looked up, startled. "Hey!" he cried, "What are?" She touched lighter to wick. A flame was born.

The dwarf's eyes caught the flare of the candle and widened. A tiny point of light danced at the black center of each.

Jane lit the second candle. "Where is Galiagante?" she asked. The dwarf was holding a silver tray. On it were two wineglasses, napkins, and an empty syringe.

They stood at one end of the dining room. An impossibly long table studded with great silver candlesticks tried but failed to reach to the far end. The dwarf half-turned and gestured with his chin toward a distant door. "In the master bedchamber," he said thickly. "With a friend."

She lit the third candle. "Is there anyone else anywhere in the apartment?"

"No. Just him. Me. The other." A fourth flame kindled. Eight smaller cousins burned in his eyes.

"I think you want to go and lie down for a bit."

"Yes." Dazedly, the dwarf walked past her and into a hallway. The lift recognized him and opened its doors. He vanished.

There wasn't much time. Once lit, the hand couldn't be rekindled. It would last her about twenty minutes.

Jane set to work.
* * *

It was harder finding something worth stealing than she would've ever imagined. Avoiding the master bedchamber, Jane prowled quickly through the other rooms. They were all large, well-appointed, and useless for her purposes. She passed by tiger maple escritoires and wonderfully carved mahogany highboys. Crystal vases held sprays of albino tulips or pale, night-blooming fungi. Her feet trod rugs that had devoured lifetimes in the weaving. The credit card rubber-banded to the hand of glory was supposed to guide her to Galiagante's wealth; but the hand was drawn toward whatever she turned it to. It was maddening. Everything here was expensive and nothing pawnable.

Six minutes gone. Fourteen left.

Swiftly, silently, she prowled through room upon room. On the salon walls were paintings of screaming wrestlers in glass boxes and elegant lords leaning heavily over white porcelain sinks. Nothing but the best for Galiagante.

Nine minutes left. Jane found herself dead-ended in a windowless dressing room. The hand of glory turned icy cold and twisted in her grip. She opened the closet, shoved silks and tweeds aside, and unveiled a wall safe. It was a little tricky, but at last the safe recognized Galiagante's credit card and opened for her. Inside was a stack of bank notesshe riffled through them; enough here to pay for all her needsas well as a selection of legal papers and a minor hoard of jewelry.

At last! Jane slipped the knapsack from her shoulder and crammed in the bank notes. The papers she left behind. Rings, pins, diamond bracelets she stuffed into the pockets of her jacket.

Four minutes left.

She was passing through the dining room on her way out, when her eye was caught by the candlesticks. They were heavy and had the soft gleam of silver. Almost as an afterthought, she reached out to grab one.

A shock of electricity shot up her arm. Her gloved hand clenched on the candlestick and would not let go. Her muscles had spasmed. "Master!" the stick screamed, "A thief! Master!"

"Let go!" Jane cried. The candlestick could not be moved. It seemed to be anchored to the table. And all the while it continued to shout. "A thief! A thief!"

"What's going on out here?" A door slammed open.

Jane twisted about and saw Galiagante in the doorway. He wore a silk robe hastily cinched at the waist. Behind him was a half-canopied bed. Its frame was white and its pedestals carved in the likeness of two whippets reared on their hind legs and holding the ends of a sheet in their teeth, so that the upper line of the sheet formed the top curve of the base. On the cushions was a ball of white light, elongated into a sort of cocoon. Something could be glimpsed within it, half-dissolved, writhing. A nymph.

The door closed. Galiagante strode angrily forward. His eyes were terrible, and he stood revealed as a Power. A wind rose up from the elf-lord. It battered against Jane, driving her hair back in a lashing fury. She held forward the hand of glory. Its flames fluttered, guttered, and went out.

Jane tried to back away, but the damnable candlestick held her prisoner. "Master! Save me!" She could hardly think for its noise.

"I know you." Galiagante stood frowning down at her. "The… alchemy major, are you not?" He snapped his fingers and the candlestick fell silent. The wind sank down.

With surprising delicacy, he took the knapsack from her back and rummaged through it. The bank notes he neatened into a stack and placed aside. Leaving the sack on the table, he reached into her pockets twice and removed the jewelry. Jane didn't try to resist. She was caught.

"This is an opportunity, I think." A strange little smile flickered like fire on his lips. He was looking her up and down. "But what kind?" he went on musingly. "Whatever shall I do with you?"

Involuntarily, tears welled in Jane's eyes. "Let me go," she whispered.

Galiagante had picked up the hand of glory and was studying it. He made a clucking sound with his tongue. "Don't spoil the good impression you've made so far," he said with a touch of asperity. He put down the hand and reached out to unzip Puck's leather jacket. The smell of rancid sweat came off her like a wave when he held it open. "What's this?"

He undid the top two buttons of her blouse and lifted the Ikea spoon from around her neck. "Oh, my!" His amusement was manifest. He dangled the spoon from his fingertip. "I imagine that I shall have to"

The bedchamber door clicked open and a naked and disheveled figure appeared there. "When are you" She stopped, and in a bewildered voice said, "Jane?"

Galiagante stiffened. Without looking, he snapped, "Wait for me in the bedchamber. Shut the door after yourself."

She obeyed.

"That was Sirin," Jane said.

"Forget about her." Galiagante's face grew distant, faintly irresolute, as if he hesitated on the verge of a decision. "Her doom is hers. Think to your own fate." Then, abruptly, he laughed. "I'm going to let you go."

"Thank you," she said humbly.

"And I'm going to make you an offer."

Jane shivered, said nothing.

"Should you survive the Teindand by the looks of you that's a very big ifcome by my office and talk to my people. I'll have employment for you. Profitable employment. Even pleasant, by some standards."

He snapped his fingers again and the candlestick released her. She backed away a step, rubbing her elbow. Her arm felt stunned and painful.

Galiagante returned her knapsack, but kept the spoon. He gestured toward the elevator. "You may leave now. Not by the dumbwaiter, if you please."

Then he hoisted the candlestick and tossed it to Jane. Reflexively, she caught it. "Here. Take this. As earnest token of my sincerity."

Even before the elevator arrived, he had returned to the bedchamber. She watched the door close behind him and then she went home.
* * *

Jane sleepwalked through her classes the next day. The midwinter thaw had arrived at last, and everywhere students had forced open windows, so that cold, fresh air breezed in and chilled the thermostats, driving the radiators into steamy frenzies of effort to compensate. Small thermals fluttered papers and sent dust spinning in little devils down the halls.

It would have been pleasant, if she hadn't felt so disconnected. Everything was dreamily distant, as if she were a ghost wandering a world whose importance to her she was rapidly forgetting. This couldn't go on. Something would have to break soon. Maybe tonight the Teind would arrive at last and put an end to this provisional, waiting sort of half-life. In the meantime, everything was so awful she just couldn't bring herself to care.

Even when Ratsnickle came up behind her in the line at the lunch counter in the Student Center and mimed a big, sloppy kiss she merely shrugged and turned away. She had a glimpse of his face turning nasty when she did so, and knew this ought to worry her. Nothing she could have done was more calculated to enrage him.

Still, what was she supposed to do? There came a point where it all became just more of the same.

She carried her tray to a plastic table under a potted thorn tree and sat down. A shrike was fussing about in the thorny depths, hopping from twig to twig. There were four chairs about the table. Ratsnickle took the one directly opposite hers. She looked down at her salad. "You're not welcome here, you know."

Ratsnickle plunged a fork into the greasy sausage on his plate and waved it in her face. "You're going to get sick eating all that green shit. You need to put some meat in your mouth." He bit off the end and, chewing open-mouthed, continued, "Tell you what. Why don't you join Monkey and me for a little midnight snack tonight? We'll put some meat on your bones. Get a little protein into you."

Jane put her fork down. "If you can't"

Abruptly, Sirin slid into the chair at Jane's side. Without preamble she said, "I've got to explain to you about last night. Just so you don't get any wrong ideas."

Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail today, and she wore just a touch of white lipstick and matching eye shadow. A black turtleneck sweater. On her it looked good.

"I think I understand it well enough."

Ratsnickle cleared his throat. "It's good to see you too, Sirin," he said loudly.

"Lo, 'snickle." Her glance at him was so fleeting as to be almost nonexistent. "You don't know what it's like to have appetites thatwell, maybe they're not exactly respectable. But they're mine. You can see that, can't you? They're a part of meI can't deny them."

Embarrassed, because Ratsnickle was hanging on their every word, Jane said, "You don't have to explain to me why you like Galiagante. Different folks like different things. I can appreciate that."

"Like Galiagante!" Sirin loosed a silvery burst of astonished laughter. "Wherever did you get a notion like that? Galiagante has nothing to do with it."

"It's not the individual so much as the Idea of the domineering male," Ratsnickle volunteered. "All those pheromones we put out."

Sirin waved off his remark with a little flip of her hand. It was marvelous how Ratsnickle's barbs glanced off her. "I like the way he treats me. I like the way he makes me feel. If I could find somebody more convenient to do that for me, he'd be history. But you can bet the new guy wouldn't be any improvement on him. That kind of guy never is."

"You won't know until you've tried me. Maybe I will."

"Sirin, why are you telling me all this?" It was unimaginable to Jane being this open, telling one's secrets in front of everyonein front of Ratsnickle!as if it didn't matter at all what other people knew. As if they wouldn't take advantage of what they heard.

"I had a dream. About my doom." Sirin's face was drawn and tense. "I dreamed that Galiagante. That he. Oh, I can't tell you how nasty it was. It woke me up and all I could think was: Not like that. Jane, you're always so sure of yourself, so strong."

"I am?" Jane said, astonished. Ratsnickle's grin was lewd and calculating. She could almost see the gears turning.

"I thought maybe you could move in with me for a few days. You know, just talking and hanging out and things. Just to make sure I don't do anything foolish." Sirin's voice sank. "I know it's not much of a plan."

Stiffly, Jane said, "I told you. I feel bad for you and I wish I could help. But there's nothing I can do."

"But I'm asking for so little."

Just then Billy Bugaboo appeared behind the only empty chair that remained, tray in hand. "Is this seat taken?"

"Oh, for!" Jane stood. "Take it! Have my lunch! I don't care! What have I done to deserve you on top of everything else that's happening to me?"

He stared at her, stricken. She fled the room.
* * *

That evening, rather than chance encountering anybody in the cafeteria or one of the usual student hangouts, Jane went out into the City and ate supper in a diner in Orgulous. She had meat loaf and mashed potatoes. A dwarf tried to hit on her and when she began shouting at him the management asked her to leave.

The evening was soft and pleasant. The traffic sounds were muted and the air was almost warm. Jane strode along hunched into herself, hands deep in pockets, scowling. How long, she asked herself, how long?

Jane had traveled to Orgulous by way of Senauden and on impulse hired a private car to the street. When she stepped into Bellegarde's lobby, she suddenly realized that, what with one thing and another, it was the first time she'd been there in months. She also realized that she'd left her elevator pass in her purse back in the room. "Shit!"

It made no sense to waste good money on something she'd already paid for, so she took the back corridors into the service areas in search of a freight elevator. It wasn't permitted, but students used them all the time.

Almost immediately, she became lost. A stairway drew her down into the basement and when she tried to retrace her steps she couldn't find it again. So she went on, through a series of ever-darkening storage rooms that smelled of turpentine, pitch, vinegar, and moldering books. She was just beginning to panic when she saw a green-painted steel door beside a coal bin. She stopped.

For no reason she could name, an overwhelming intuition filled her that what she was looking for was right behind that door.

She opened it.

Great masses of black iron loomed in the darkness. She sniffed grease and oil in the air. The light of a single bare bulb glinted on an enormous construction of steel and malice, one that was as familiar to her as the back reaches of her own soul. It was No. 7332Melanchthon.

The dragon grinned.

"Are you surprised to see me again, little changeling?" The heat of his derision was like a blast furnace opening in her face. The door dissolved in Jane's hand and the darkness about her intensified. In all the universe nothing existed save for the dragon and her. Melanchthon's cabin opened soundlessly. "Come in. We have a lot to talk about."

There was nothing else to be done. Jane climbed in.

The pilot's couch looked newer than she remembered it being. But when she sat down, it settled about her in a way that was intimately knowing. Soft lights gleamed from the instruments. Things crawled in the blackness at the corners of her eyes. Somewhere, a meryon screamed and was silenced.

"You abandoned me," she said.

"Now I'm back."

Jane's hands clenched the armrests. One twist and the needles would slide into her wrists. The wraparounds would descend to plunge her into the dragon's sensorium. She did not twist the grips. "You're looking prosperous."

As intended, this offended him. "You are as dull and slow-witted as ever," Melanchthon said scornfully. Deep within his thorax an engine roared to life. Its vibrations shook the cabin. "I have come to bring you death, blood, vengeance, and a small share in the greatest adventure since the first act of murderand you offer me pleasantries."

"Pleasantries are all we have to say to one another."

"Talk all you want," the dragon said with furious impatience. "Taint as much air as you like with your stale and vapid words, words, words. But you and I have lived within one another. We have shared essences, and we can neither of us be free of the other ever in this lifetime." In the silence that ensued, Jane felt a sickening conviction that he was right.

When the dragon spoke again at last, he had mastered his passions. His tone was cool and dismissive. "How can you have lived so long and experienced so much without ever once asking yourself who was the author of your misfortunes?"

"I know my enemy well enough. Down to the op codes I know him."

"Me?" the dragon said mockingly. "I am at most a symptom. Was it me who created the world and involved you in it? Me who said you must live and love and lose and grow old and die? Who poisoned your every friendship and drove you away from those you most desired? Who said that you must learn only by making mistakes and that the lessons you learned must then do you no good? That was not I. You are caught in a pattern spun by a greater power than mine.

"I know your enemy, for she is mine as well. Compared to my hatred for her, our enmity is like a candle held up to the sun. Understand me well: You are within my grasp, and it would give me great joy to play with you, even as a cat does with a captive vole. Yet I will let you walk free, for we have common cause. You also must set aside all lesser emotions. Focus on your true foe. Hate her with all your might. Fear her, even as do I."

Jane had always thought that blood could not run cold, that those who said theirs had were employed in wordplay and metaphor. Now she knew better. "Who are you talking about?"

Was it mere theatricality or something deeper, a savoring of his own blasphemy, that made Melanchthon hesitate? With quiet satisfaction, he said, "The Goddess."

"No!"

"Come now. You never suspected? Deep in the sleepless night you never saw that life itself is proof that the Goddess does not love you? That her regard is malevolent at best, and that your pain must surely amuse her, for what other purpose does it serve? You cannot shirk your doom. You have a small part to play in her destruction. You should feel proud."

"You're mad," Jane whispered. "Nobody can destroy the Goddess."

"Nobody has ever tried." Melanchthon's voice was smooth and plausible, the antithesis of madness. "Our time apart has not been wasted, I promise you. I have seized control of my own evolution and made myself mighty beyond the normal range of my kind. I have the destructive power, never doubt it. But there is no future for a renegade dragon, oath-broken and lordless. The skies are closed to me. I can either crawl forever about the roots and cellars of the world or enjoy one last fatal flight. I'll not catch the defenders of the Law napping again. Well, so be it. I will make a fourth flight through Hell Gate. I will assail Spiral Castle itself, and obliterate it, and drag the Goddess from its shattered ruins.

"And by all that is unseely, I swear I'll kill the Bitch."

"It's impossible," Jane said weakly.

"You are still infested with hope. You think there is a life worth living somewhere, and that some combination of action, restraint, knowledge, and luck will save you, if only you can get the mix right. Well, I've got news for you. Right here, right nowthis is as good as it gets."

"Things will get better!"

"Have they ever?" The dragon's contempt was palpable. The cabin hatch hissed open. "Go. Return to your dormitory room and enjoy your present. Come back when you've grown large enough to look upon futility without flinching. Come back when you've despaired and moved beyond despair to vengefulness. Come back when you've decided to stop lying to yourself."

"What present?"

The lights dimmed. Melanchthon did not speak.

"Enjoy my present, you said. What present?"

Nothing.

"I've been through all this before. I'm not going to play any more of your stupid f*cking mind games!"

Silence.

Jane struggled to fight down her anger, her fear, her outraged sense of impotence. It took some time. But finally, she climbed down out of the cabin, just as Melanchthon had desired.

As usual, it was the only thing she could do.
* * *

Somehow she made it back home to Lady Habundia. As her hand touched the door, an icy spear of premonition pierced her. She hesitated, unable to turn the knob.

This was silly. There was nothing insidethere couldn't be anything insideany worse than what she had just faced in the cellars of Bellegarde. It was just Melanchthon, out of simple spite, twisting the knife. She threw open the door.

Monkey and Ratsnickle lay dead on the floor.

A small, inarticulate noise came out of Jane's throat. This was surely Melanchthon's idea of a joke. Or maybe it was just his grotesque version of what Galiagante had called an "earnest token," a courteously intended removal of two petty annoyances from her life.

The lights were on. That's what made it so awful. If there had been a touch of shadow anywhere, her eyes might have fled thither and sought refuge in it. But in the cruel, flat lamplight, her vision was pinned. There was no looking away. There was no denying what lay before her.

In death, Monkey's face had turned gray and Ratsnickle's a ghastly white with blue highlights. Their irises had dissolved completely, leaving behind featureless crescents under purple lids. Their mouths were slack and open. A moist trail of drool ran down Ratsnickle's chin and a single drop clung to its underside, maddeningly refusing to fall. It was as if time had come to a halt.

The needle was still in Ratsnickle's arm. He must've shot up Monkey first and then turned away to inject himself, not seeing her slump back against the bed. Then, as the bane reached his heart, he had simply sagged to one side. His head pointed toward the door. Even in death, he leaned away from poor Monkey.

Jane stood frozen in horror.

In the distance a siren raised its voice. A second joined it and then a third. Soon all the City was a symphony of horns and alarms.

The Teind had begun.