A day passes. Not a lot happens, so I won’t waste your time with the written record. I burn a credit chip that Electrofuck foisted upon me to buy some food. I won’t be feasting any time soon, it’s just some snacks and a few nutriblocks. Not a rich cornucopia or anything, but the blocks are cheap and they’ll keep me upright long enough to see me through the next few days. I eat the strawberry one. It’s like a cake, but one that’s been left in a pressure cooker for a few months. Like trying to eat a vaguely fruit-flavored couch. The whole block is something like twenty-four thousand calories, with every conceivable kind of nutrient a human body could require. And I had no idea how badly I needed some of them. I can almost feel my stab wound cinch tighter with every bite. Then I pass out, because I haven’t slept properly in a few days.

Deepwell shows up with the splat gun early the next morning. He regales me with how much fast talking he had to do to check it out, and assures me that if I don’t get it back to him in one piece, he’ll take the price tag out of my skin. I assure him back that his expensive fancy gun could not be in better hands, and bid him ignore the fact that it does not fit into those hands, precisely. Shooting this thing is going to be a real pain in the ass.

He gives Littlerock’s book back, along with a bound printout of its contents, completely translated. Says it was a pretty basic cipher his crypto friend has seen dozens of times. There’s nothing interesting in it. Except for the last entry.

It looks similar to the rest of the entries, which are all transactions. Date, location, how much was sold, for how much, to who. Enough thump to last a third year university student about two weeks, but at a way lower price than most of the rest of the transactions, for some reason. To be sold to one Aklei Horsebreaker. I guess the kid isn’t as well-behaved as his parents would have preferred.

But the deal isn’t finalized like the rest of these are. It was to occur, scheduled, but never completed, according to this.

If Littlerock stayed underground and went from his hole to Seventeen, that would take him right under where the priest was killed, and right under where Rediron was killed. Very interesting. If our killbot saw fit to stalk Littlerock on his way to his dealings for whatever reason… that’s where some opportunities could have opened up. And it would have given it a shot to take both Littlerock and Horsebreaker at the same time, while they did their deal in a dark alley.

Hard to know for sure unless I get over there.

Deepwell wishes me luck and takes off. I get ready and march out the door not long after him.

----------------------------------------

Back in Seventeen. Glorious, how the vapor and smoke rises from all the rendering and processing plants here. Billowing fingers of many colors, reaching up to the sky. Normally there’s the morning sun to cut through them and make them glow. Not today. Cloudy again. People are starting to get antsy, you can feel it. First Rain soon.

Off the train, instead of going left like I went to get to Horsebreaker’s place, I go right, to the East. It’s a good thing Littlerock was pretty fastidious with his paperwork, or I wouldn’t have had Deepwell’s chance at a marathon of ever finding a reason to look for it, let alone find it at all. It gets intestinal back here. These side streets almost stop being streets after a while - they start winding up and down, punching down into the sector platform and mixing with the top layer of the Subterrane to the point where the boundary between them blurs. It’s all warped concrete and sheet metal. Whole sections are just… empty. Abandoned. Home to only leaking pipes, creaking supports, and scumbirds. Great place to hide and do drug deals. Great place to get murdered.

I walk into the slum stack that matches the address Littlerock wrote down. It rises up high above me along with the rest on this block. Orderless towers, where the poor build what they can and make do. Wires crisscrossing over my head from one side of the street to the other, from tower to tower, like the webs of a great electric spider.

Inside, it’s dimmer, but the walls are blasted in by rust and time. No one lives here anymore. This slum is only waiting for its chance to collapse. It’ll be piles of recycling material soon.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, exactly, so I cast a wide net. Bring my vitae out. Not to my muscles, just a little trickle into my brain and sense organs. To the surface of my skin, my nose, my ocular nerves. The hair on my arms stands up with phantom electricity. New things become apparent to me, as I stand completely alone in some sad corrugated metal box that used to be someone’s home. Sound of a flock of scumbirds, squabbling and fighting a few layers above me, up through the angles. The rust and aluminum groan of all these heaped semi-structures, threatening a slumslide but idly, without a lot of intent behind it. Yet. I need to be careful where I walk anyway.

Smells. A complete barrage of them, now that I’m borrowing a better animal’s nose. Death and burning, mostly. This is Sector Seventeen. Putrefaction and fire are a way of life here. Under the blanket, right here around me, there’s the city, the epidermal shell of aroma you can’t get away from. Metal. Wet concrete. Oil. Steam. Birdshit. Ozone. All mixed into one hissing, rumbling plate layer that sits on top of Wellspring City like armor.

But just under it… I take a deep breath, lifting up that plate to see what’s beneath. There’s something… where is that coming from? What is it? I’m standing right at the exact street coordinate Littlerock wrote down. This blown out apartment stack, or what’s left of it. They might have met in this exact room.

An electric wind blows in through the shattered windows. Smells like incoming rain. Tugs at my hair and the dangling hem of my coat. Cool. My arm hair stays on end, and my neck hair joins it. I can hear the slum stacks around me churning in the breeze, like stacked teacups. Precarious. I close my eyes. Let the wind bring it to me. Let the city say what it wants to say.

The life energy thrums in my head, opening my senses. Metal groan. Concrete creak. Wind blow through this barren, stained box I’m standing in. Through me.

Inhale. Let it in.

…

There.

Something red. Something hot. Life and death. Salt and iron. There’s not much of it, and it’s old and dried, but it’s here, nearby.

Eyes open. Look around… not in here. I open a door into what might have been an attempt at a stairwell. Climb a ladder that just barely holds my weight. The ghost draws me upward, beckoning me with a red claw. Onto a platform that bends underfoot. Step around, back toward the street, then… across a rickety wire-and-plank bridge to the next stack down the line. Must be the third or fourth floor now, high up. Need to watch my feet. People like me aren’t supposed to come up here.

Where are you…

Another door. Up another bending staircase, reinforced with wire ties and industrial rubber. Across. Then down some. Hunting. It’s getting more intense. That smell. It’s of fear, days old and curdled on the concrete. Unnatural. Abnormal.

Deep breath. Yes. You’re around here somewhere. This room… what’s this?

Damage. Not from neglect, either. Time can’t swing a hammer. Sections of this wall were blown outward by something heavy, hard, and fast, and recently. The abandoned furniture in here… must’ve been some family’s den. The windows are long since blasted out, but that wall used to be whole. It doesn’t make sense for the furniture to be thrown around like it is here. Strange patterns in the dust. Something was here, and it was violent to its surroundings. Like a tiny storm.

And here’s part of that smell, that the plate was trying to trick me from.

Scorch marks. Blackenings, on the walls. None on the far side of the room, but several on this side. As if two pyromancers stood over by that door there, and defended themselves against something approaching them, from where I’m standing. Smell of heated metal, burnt dust. But that’s just a part of the picture, here. Where’s that red, that throbbing, low heat...

Here. By the door. Found you.

Blood.

Not a whole lot, but enough to threaten, to terrify. Red flag signaling something bad. The pattern… Thrown. Splattered across the floor, this plaswood door frame. A line. Cast by either a bleeding arm flailing, or a bladed weapon that’s had its drink. Almost completely dried, but still a little shiny.

You don’t just bleed a bit and then stop. Where did you go?

Through this door. A bloody smear, crashed through quick. On the other side, more scorch marks. Our firebugs cast at their pursuer as it came through. Didn’t do enough damage to discourage it, I guess. Out across another bridge. I look down to make sure no one fell. Nothing. A fall from this height would have left a body, or the stain of one. Into the next tower. This room’s got a collapsed floor, sloping down into the story below. A few drops here and there, spread further apart. Running. Kept running from it.

The debris in here… Weird. The dust isn’t right. There are patterns on the flat surfaces, some old countertops, the parts of the dead linoleum flooring, where it looks like the grit and grime were washed on, in ripples, like sand on a beach. Like this whole place was flooded through at one point. I didn’t see this in the previous rooms. Our killer can wield water - trying to wash out its firebug prey? Trip them up, douse their flames? Thankfully the deluge missed some of the blood. There’s still a trail leading down and out.

Through an empty doorframe, but the left side was crashed through, completely. Splintered plaswood, hinges bent outward. Must’ve missed, just shouldered through it. You’d need strong magic, slab muscle, or automech steel to smash through a wall like this.

Next room. Like a tornado came through here. Old ruined furniture all over the place. Door to my right, wall on the left completely blasted away, gone. I can see the pieces thrown into the street down below.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

This right wall… painted butter yellow. Old and faded, but someone cared. What’s here?

Bloodstain. Pattern looks like… a cut and bleeding forearm, pushed against the painted plaster. I can even see the streaks where the arm hair was. But… it’s higher up than either Littlerock or Horsebreaker are tall. Higher up…

Another bloodstain. Round. Little crater in the plaster. I can see a stuck hair or two.

And on the floor here, where I’m standing… big, big scorch mark. Huge blast of greasy, smoky fire came down right here.

I raise my hand up toward the wall, like I’ve got a normal-sized person by the neck.

Yep.

The predator lifted one of the two pyromancers up and slammed him against the wall. Looks like they blasted it from where they were being pinned, but… no way to tell if it had any effect.

I scan around. Blood here. Blood there. Scorch here. Scorch everywhere. What would have happened next? If someone died here, there’d be some kind of sign. Something.

Wait… a different smell. Acrid. Acidic, foul. It strikes the skin of my brain like a bandsaw against the strings of a violin. Where…

Here. By the door, over near the corner. Dried up puddle of… yes. Vomit! Hooray! I’ve never been so happy to see an old pile of puke in my life.

This means that someone else had to have been here. Unless this puke is from some unrelated vagrant, but it looks about as old as this blood, and coincidences are as useful to me right now as a sandpaper blanket. Someone to pin a pyromancer against the wall here, a pyromancer to be pinned, and a third party. Our third man has a delicate constitution. Crumpled in the corner here, cowering, and his guts protested against what he was made to see.

But what happened next?

I look around the room. I exit and move on through to one of the other ones nearby. No sign that anyone’s been through in months. Same with another connecting box. All the dust where it should be, furniture still mostly upright, no burns, water, or blood. I go back into the puke room. For some reason, the trail ends here.

More vitae. The creaking, aching power howls in my head. Batters my stupid human mind into submission. Stop thinking for a moment. Sense. Sense everything. Broaden, widen. Awareness to every corner. Ripple out like vines across a trellis.

Blood. Fear. Rage. Acid. Horror. Despair. And…

Agony.

Agony? The feeling of a torture, a languishing, stretched out far, far too long. But why? From where?

I put my hand on the yellow wall. My hand jerks back.

At the pain of it.

The door. Over by the puke. What’s behind this wall? Where does this go?

I pull the handle. Nothing. This frame has been warped. Dented in. Looks like it was… What? This has been crimped, like a fucking pie crust. By hands stronger than steel. Won’t open normally.

I take my sword off my back. Fuck you, then. We’ll open abnormally.

Wind way back… and smash. The stone slab crashes into the plaster and brickwork around the door, sending shards and powder raining out of the wall.

Once more. Back… and swing.

I step back and admire my handiwork. Most of the material blasted off. This wall is cheap - old rotten drywall, crumbly brick. I test it with my hand. One more ring of the bell.

Up high over my head, back muscles coiled... and down.

CRASH.

The wall to the left of the stubborn door gives up and explodes inward, sending a cloud of plaster dust everywhere. I cough a few times and let it blow away in the clammy breeze, cinching my sword back on. Every bit as good as a sledgehammer. Maybe even a little better.

I kick some pieces in to make room, turn sideways, and scramble through the new hole, getting gray drywall powder all over me. And fiberglass. Yay. Itchy shower for me later.

Through here is another room, longer. Like a hallway, going back to what might have been some bedrooms, punching into the belly of the slum stack. Someone put a rug here, to bashfully hide the bare concrete. It’s ancient and moldy now.

Blood. Not a bucketful, but some.

Threads of a horrid stench. Obvious even without boosted senses. Stinks of shit, piss, sweat. Not quite death. But very close.

And…

No. Why? How? It’s a fuckup, my brain is scrambled off the extra energy. There’s no way…

But there is.

Vitae.

So fucking faint that I could only barely detect it through that wall. Only lingering as a vague sense of rotten pain.

There’s someone here. Alive.

I surge forward like a meat avalanche. Where. Where are you. Which door. This one? No. This one. Further back. Down at the end of the hall. White paint, old plaswood. Energy crashes into my arms and I tear the fucking door clear off its hinges. Splinters fly everywhere, I throw the thing to one side. C’mon. C’mon, be alive. Just let me tell this kid’s parents that he’s fine, that he’ll be back home playing his fucking guitar safe and sound-

Inside is darkness. Horrible, cloying, decayed darkness. And the stench. Filth. Just filth, like an open sewer. Old bathroom. I shove in through the door, flick on night vision.

Dear gods above and below.

In the bathtub, twisted and crumpled together, are what remains of Aklei Horsebreaker and Monnert Littlerock.

Pain. Pain. Pain. There are two beating hearts here. Two precious, precious beating hearts. Each in such fucking agony that I can barely describe it, don’t want to describe it. But alive.

Horsebreaker moans, and his eyes widen, very slightly, at the sight of me. He can’t make words. Can’t move.

Littlerock’s lights are on, but no one’s home. He stares into the absolute nothing, completely unaware of me.

The two men are tangled over one another, thrown into the tub like laundry. They’ve been here for days. I can’t see any obvious injuries aside from Littlerock’s pitifully oozing arm. The long cut has evil-looking red streaks radiating from it. On a death march into infection. Something… something is wrong with their skin. It’s gray, like human skin should never be. Eyes milky. I reach out and put two fingers on Horsebreaker’s neck. He’s…

He’s cold.

But there’s a pulse. It’s pathetic, like the last few flops of a landed fish, but it’s there. I check Littlerock. Even weaker. Barely there at all, and arrhythmic. But he’s got one.

They’ve been lying here, paralyzed in their own filth, for days. They have barely any vitae at all. I’ve seen fucking lizards with more life force than these two men combined. That’s wrong. Two pyromancers should have a whole goddamn bonfire’s worth.

I don’t know what’s been done to these men, but I need to get them out of here and into medical care. I don’t know what moving them is going to do. But I have to try. You can’t just leave pyromancers in the dark like this, they need sun, like plants. It won’t cure them, but… they’re fading. Need to get them into the light. Up and out of the dark.

I scoop the two of them into my arms, as gently as I can, like a pair of kittens. Horsebreaker says, “Uahh.” Littlerock doesn’t give an opinion.

Quick as I can, I sweep out of that dark, filthy chamber and out into the blessed wind. Fucking clouds. I don’t know why I think direct sunlight would be the best thing for them now, but the fresh breeze, the weather on the air and what sun can come through it are going to have to do. I pick my way, carefully and deliberately like a spider, down and out of the slum stack, trying to jostle the two men as little as possible. The wretched jumble tower gives us up, and we’re out onto the bare, cracked pavement. I don’t see anyone around. It’s a ghost town in the middle of another town.

I set the two pitiable, dying men on the pavement, with nowhere better for me to lay them. I try to make them comfortable, but there’s fuck all for options. Horsebreaker, lying on his back under the padded sky, looks like he’s being blinded. He’s visibly breathing. Still not really moving, not able to speak, but he’s at least responsive.

Littlerock is still down there, still somewhere cold, somewhere dark. I took him out of the building, but not out of the depths. I can feel his vitae wink and gutter like a candle reaching its very end. Moving him didn’t help. It might have done the opposite. Stupid, dumb fuck, should have just called the wagon and gave them instructions. I’m not a fucking doctor.

I connect to the city’s wireless and ring Seventeen’s clinic. I tell them there’s two men lying in the street, give them the exact location. Unknown injuries, but unresponsive and critical. They say they’ll have a wagon over in five minutes.

I can’t be here when they show up. I cannot, will not answer questions about this. It’ll go to the Watch, and I’m not getting wrapped up.

He’s fading. Burning down to almost nothing.

I kneel down next to him. He’s barely breathing. No light in his eyes, no fire, not even an ember. His vitae could be mistaken for a fish’s.

Littlerock. Littlerock you worthless sack of garbage. You can’t die. I put in too much fucking work for you to die now. I pulled you out. I found you. So meet me halfway here, you piece of shit. Reach up. Out of whatever fucking mire you’re in and take my goddamn hand. I know you have a shitload more snot thump to sell, because I stole some of it. So come back. I need you to fucking live.

My vitae roils and surges under my skin. At the indignation. At the stupidity of it. This might be the most pathetic, ignoble loser I’ve ever encountered. A sad, sad fucker with a sad, sad life. But that doesn’t mean he deserves to go out like this, winking into nothingness at the bottom of some unseen chasm. It’s fucking wrong. It’s not fair.

My glowing fist smashes into the concrete, cracking it under the weight of all the anger.

“Live!”

Something in my chest flares, like a green-gold lightning strike. It vanishes. And at the same time, a light just like it flashes in Littlerock’s chest. Then something roars up from out of him, from somewhere way, way down, like a gas explosion in a mine. It’s red and yellow and bruised, fucked up and old and angry, full of scars and hatred and regret, but it’s fire, wrathful and vengeant and beautiful. It surges through Littlerock’s organs and limbs and he gasps, sucks in an eager breath, clawing himself up and back into the world.

He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he can’t. Maybe that comes later. His skin is still shitty and gray. But his eyes have that mean, stubborn flame in them, and he’s breathing with strength that he didn’t have before. He’s not healed, but he’s here now, and ready to start the climb.

I don’t know what I just did. But I can feel that it’s enough, for now. They’re both going to live. I don’t know what that life is going to look like, but death is going to have some huffing and puffing to do if it wants to catch up with them.