Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall (14 page)

“If I try hard enough, if I pray enough, I won’t know, won’t be able to hear…Me and her, it…I can’t. She can’t. We…I want to not hear, Rojan. I want not to know what’s in other people’s heads.”

The old me would have internally given a little whoop of joy at this news. That things weren’t all sunshine and kittens between them. The new me saw the way his face twisted, how he was being pulled in all directions and none of them good ones.

So instead I said, “It was always going to be hard. You’re both fucked up by what my father did to you. Now you’re Upside and things are different. Very different. It’s going to take time, but if you want to, you can make it work. You will. I promise. But you are a pain-mage and there’s fuck all anyone can do about that. You can’t stop being what you are.”

Then I wondered what the hell I was saying. A quick word here and Jake would have been a free agent, ready for me to swoop in. Yet somehow, this was more important. Pasha had, almost without my realising, become a friend, one of the first I’d managed in long years. Realising that made my stomach twist, and also made me see that I’d changed. The old me would have said for the worse, too, and would have sneered. The new me saw that all my cynicism was still there, but now that I saw what the world did to people I cared about, now that I let myself care about them, all those thoughts hit home a thousand times harder. Made those cynical words choke me.

Pasha rubbed a scarred hand over his face. “I’m not sure what I disbelieve more, but I think you saying that comes out a clear winner.”

“I’m not entirely sure I believe I said it myself. Look, you are what you are. You can’t change it, and I can’t change what I am.”

“A prick?”

“Thank you, yes. There’s not a man in five thousand that can do half what we do. Maybe no one else in the city who can do precisely what you do. And if you hadn’t done what you did—all those kids down there, being told they had to atone, had to hurt if they wanted the Goddess to love them, where would they be? Still believing it, like Jake? Like
you
?”

He flinched as though I’d slapped him and I wished I could take that last part back. To make my own small atonement without anything as tacky as an apology, I said, “Without you using your magic, me using mine, they’d still all be there. Don’t tell me that’s unholy, because I will tell you you’re full of shit.”

That brought back a trace of his monkey grin, but it soon turned wistful. “I don’t want to be different any more. I want to be like them, all the other Downsiders, even if it means the Inquisition takes me.” He waved a hand at the group of buildings ahead that looked as though they were only held up by their neighbours, with spit for mortar.

“I’m going to be, too. Just as soon as that generator is up and running and you don’t need me any more. I—I think I found my parents. I had Dendal send them a message. My whole life has been anything but normal, and that’s all I want. I want people to look at me like I’m a person, not a thing. Like this, I—I can’t. Without my magic, at least Downsiders won’t hate me any more. I’ll have somewhere to be. Me and Jake might be able to…I believe in the Goddess more than I believe in my magic.”

And I couldn’t say a damned thing to that, because who was I to deny what he wanted? Poor bastard had lived a fucked-up life, which was putting it mildly. Hell, he was so screwed up he even liked me. He deserved a bit of normality. Still didn’t stop me thinking dire swearwords at the Goddess, though. So I changed the subject.

“We need to be at the pain room soon, see if anyone’s managed to salvage any of the equipment. Perak sent to Alchemical Research for one of their guys to come take a look.”

Pasha looked sick at the thought of anyone Ministry in the lab, but it was all the chance we had, and a slim one. No one but Dwarf and Lise knew what miracles they could do with machines, or how they worked.

“Why don’t you go and find Jake, have some dinner and I’ll meet you there.”

He nodded wearily, looking more careworn than I’d ever seen him, and I’ve seen him pretty fucked up. “What about you?”

“Couple of people to see. Maybe Dench, if I can find him. See if we can get someone to keep an eye on Guinto.”

“And Abeya? You haven’t changed that much.”

I grinned at him and was pleased when he managed a monkey grin back. “Oh yes, and Abeya.”

I didn’t have to look far for Abeya once Pasha had gone. I stepped back into the temple and there she was, as though she’d been waiting for me. The way she looked at me, I was pretty sure she had been. Always a nice little stroke for the ego.

A rustle of lily-white robes, velvet that clung to her in ways that made some very distracting thoughts flash across my mind, and she was at my side, smelling like an angel.

“I hoped you’d come back.”

The way she looked at me snagged more primal parts of my brain. Sort of naïve, but eager and knowing all at once. Hey, I was a free agent, why the hell not? Had to be better than mooning around after someone who would become available around about the end of the world. Besides which, I needed to find out more about Guinto, and if I could do that while enjoying myself…practical, that’s me. “Who wouldn’t come back, if you were the reward?”

Her smile was reward enough. She took my hand in hers and pulled me to a dark corner. Better and better, though I suspect even I would draw the line at doing that in a templ—

“I hoped you’d come. I wanted to ask you something.”

Oh,
ask
. Right, sure. I gave strict instructions to the more rebellious parts of my anatomy, which, as usual, they completely ignored.

“Which is?”

One cheek dimpled as her lips twisted in a lush and very inviting smile. I wondered if she realised the effect she was having. My ego was positively rolling on to its back and waiting for a tummy rub.

“Dinner? Oh, no, don’t worry,” she said as my face fell at the thought of trying to make a small bowl of grey mush romantic or indeed anything other than disgusting. Then she said the words guaranteed to hook me. “I have bacon. Don’t ask me where from.”

Bacon! No meat to be had for love nor money anywhere and she had bacon! I could guess where from, too—the only people who’d have any of the meat that had been salvaged from the ’Pit were Ministry. My stomach rumbled painfully at the thought, and I tried not to drown in my own spit. There are times when it’d be handy to have a deity to believe in so you can say something along the lines of “Oh my Goddess”, and actually have it sound sincere. I settled instead for, “You say when and where, and I’ll be there.”

I tried not to feel as though I was taking a bribe, but, fuck it, I’d have done anything just to
smell
bacon again. Sometimes I’m so shallow I disgust even myself, but food is food. Bacon doubly so.

“Right here,” she said, sounding more like an angel with every passing minute. I didn’t even care about that. “And right now.”

The door was one of those secret recessed jobs that are impossible to spot until someone shows you they’re there. As soon as she opened it, the waft of bacon hit me and pretty much removed all rational thought for a while. When I stopped salivating like a starving dog, I noticed where I was.

A small room, tastefully done, if rather austere. Plain whitewashed walls seemed more mellow under an oil lamp that didn’t give off the stench of rend-nut. A bed with crisply turned corners, a couple of cupboards, a deep squishy sofa, and a low table, with a plate on it. With bacon. If I’d thought a bit straighter I’d have wondered who in hell precisely she got it from, but, shit, you don’t ask questions like that when you’re starving and someone offers you the food of the Goddess.

I tried to concentrate, to remember why I was here—information. Guinto, murders…Hard, though. We were all slowly starving and I hadn’t had a full meal of even grey slop in days. Might not manage to think again until the smell went. Best to eat the bacon first, stop it distracting me. Yes.

Abeya sat me down on the sofa and I all but sank in up to my hips. She sat next to me and the softness of the sofa pushed us together very pleasingly. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been wrong all these years and had died and gone to heaven. A corner of me actually began to believe it when Abeya leant across, her softness a warm pressure against me, and kissed me.

She tasted salty and yet sweet, and I was so surprised I didn’t move for long heartbeats. She broke away, and her hand traced at my cheek. “Your father…” I managed.

She kissed me again, a kiss that matched how I’d seen her in the temple—naïve, eager, touched with something else. It was pretty hard to resist and I’ve always been crap at resisting temptation anyway, at least where women are concerned, so I thought “screw it”, and kissed her back.

I’d figured she was new to this—that naïve look—so when we fell back on to the sofa I made sure I was underneath, not wanting her to feel blocked in. I’m a gentleman that way, plus she was a Downside girl and maybe she had brands.

When we came up for air, it was the first thing she touched on, all hesitant, as though I might turn her away. Not fucking likely.

“It doesn’t bother you, that I’m Downside?”

It was a hell of a nice view from down there, but I swallowed hard and said, “Not in the slightest.”

She bit her lip in what, it has to be said, was a very sexy way, and let her dark hair fall over her face, as though she was ashamed of the tone of her skin, the blue-white pallor under the more usual dusty tones. “My father says you’re a heretic—that you don’t believe in the Goddess.”

That brought a dash of cold water to my brain, and other parts. Her adoptive father, that’s why I was here, to find out more about him. “That’s true. I’m, er, an affront to his Goddess.” Bad enough she knew that, so I thought it best to leave the whole unholy pain-mage thing unsaid. Why ruin the moment?

I didn’t get any further because the door banged open making us both jump, and Guinto strode in. Abeya leapt off the sofa and I did my best to struggle from its squishy clutches. I needn’t have bothered—Guinto grabbed the front of my allover and dragged me to my feet. He was pretty strong under those robes.

“Out.” His voice was quieter than a temple at midnight and chill enough to make my shoulder blades itch. “I know what you’re doing, but I won’t have this. I won’t have her hurt, not by someone who hasn’t even the decency to pretend he believes. She suffered enough Downside. They were unholy and so are you. I’d rather starve than depend on you for food. So out, and don’t come sniffing around my daughter again.”

“Father—”

“Enough. I’ll deal with you later, Abeya. But I will not have
this
in our house, in the Goddess’s house. Not for this. Not for you.”

It seemed I’d worked my usual trick of pissing everybody off and I wasn’t going to get any more information now, so I inclined my head, extricated my allover from his grip and left with a practised—and hopefully infuriating to Guinto—smile at Abeya.

Guinto looked as though he was about to pop, all red and vein-pulsing in his forehead. Which at least meant he didn’t see me pocket the bacon as I left. Waste not, want not, right?

I’d not been as long as I expected at the temple, so I didn’t go straight to the pain lab to meet Pasha. Thoughts kept scampering round my head and I needed to get them organised. Usually I’d have gone to see Erlat. I’d have had a bath, talked to her afterwards and she’d have made me look at things from a different angle, as she always did. I took a quick detour on my way up, east to the Buzz. Most of it seemed to have made it through the riots intact, though one or two buildings looked even worse for wear than usual.

Erlat’s place looked much the same in the gathering gloom, though there were some new marks by the door. Scorch marks. The riots had made it here, it seemed, even if the bigger fires hadn’t. A whole house full of Downsiders had to be a target. Someone had scrawled something so vile across one wall I didn’t even want to look. I dithered for a bit, unsure of the welcome I’d get, but in the end screw it and do it seemed the best option. At the worst I’d get a new shiner as a pair for the one that was just starting to fade.

I was about to knock on the door when it opened under my hand, and I wasn’t hugely shocked to have a cardinal shove me aside. The fat one from the temple. He looked disgustingly well fed compared to everyone Under, and way too smug for my liking. Behind him, Erlat stood, her face set in her practised look but her hands trembling.

“Are you—”

“If you ask me if I’m all right, Rojan, I will not be responsible for my actions.” One deep breath, and then she was serene again, all elegance and poise. Not even a hint of tremble. “Was there something I could do for you?”

No warmth to it, none of the teasing banter we’d shared before. No one has ever been able to shove me off balance as well as Erlat. I preferred it when she was making me blush, rather than stammer like I was about to.

“I, er, wanted to say sorry.” Goddess’s
tits
, that was hard to say. It seemed to work though, partially, because she softened. A bit. A hint of the teasing smile.

“Do you know what you’re saying sorry for?”

“I—” I started to come out with something glib, some lie to cover up the fact I was totally clueless, but something about the way she arched an elegant eyebrow stopped me. “No, not really.”

Her laugh threw me even further off balance, and I blushed,
again
, when she said, “Oh, Rojan, you’re the funniest thing that’s happened all week. Come back when you know. Now excuse me, I have an appointment.”

I blushed even harder when I turned to see Jake behind me, witness to my embarrassment.

“Come on in, Jake,” Erlat said. “I’m ready for you.”

I hurried away from the laughter that followed me out, and only later wondered why the hell Jake was going to see Erlat as a client.

Thankful that the darkness hid my flaming face, I shoved my memory of the episode to the back of my mind where I hoped it would die a lingering death and made my way straight to the pain lab to meet Pasha.

It wasn’t far, but far enough for me to notice the atmosphere of caged resentment, of hate and fear. It would only take one more thing to set it all off again, and then maybe nothing could stop it. And when that happened, our circling neighbours, who sat waiting and watching as close as they dared, would fall on us. We’d kept the thumbscrews of trade on them for so long, they’d be fools not to.

The stairwell that led to the lab was fire-blackened but the damage seemed fairly superficial. I hoped so—I didn’t fancy the whole place collapsing. I hesitated before I opened the door, remembering the way it had looked the last time I’d been here. Blood and bits of machines, Dwarf’s body looking even more twisted in death than it had in life. I made a mental note to go to the mortuary, make sure he got a proper sendoff rather than dumped into the Slump. I dreaded telling Lise that he was dead, and was surprised to find a Dwarf-shaped hole inside me.

It wasn’t the remembrance of the blood that made me hesitate, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t greet me like a long lost friend, wouldn’t grab me and start showing me some new technical marvel he’d come up with, waggle his eyebrows over his abused-doll face in a way that always made me grin.

I sucked it up and opened the door. Given the choice, I’d have slunk off to the nearest bar and drunk hooch brewed from whatever scraps they’d found this week. I didn’t have that choice, and, Namrat’s arse, didn’t I hate that.

The lab wasn’t much better than when we’d found Dwarf and Lise, but someone had made an effort to tidy up, and the blood was mostly gone. No one was there just then, and I took my time going over what was missing, and what was still there. The spare pulse pistols were gone, leaving only the one in my pocket. The prototype portable magic enhancer, the one that Dwarf had hoped meant we could capture magic in Glow tubes at home, or wherever we were, that’d gone, too. All the little electrical gizmos, the practice sessions for what they wanted to incorporate into the generator and electrical magic enhancer, they were there but in more bits than there are stars. They’d even taken Dwarf’s pride and joy—the detesticliser. Very useful for intimidation, Dwarf had always said, and I believed him. A serial killer in a pacifist’s body, that’s what he’d been, the gruff old bastard. I was going to miss him something chronic.

The door to the pain room opened as I stood looking at all the gaps on the benches, the mangled bits of metal where there weren’t gaps, trying to work out if we had anything helpful left.

Dench came in, his moustache drooping with worry. Perak followed, and behind them came a man I’d not yet met, a furtive looking ferret of a man in a lab coat who instinctively made me check that my wallet was still there. Right at the back, Allit stood with round wide eyes and a fearful look. At least he’d not been murdered yet.

Dench and I looked at each other without speaking for long moments, before he shook his head and said, “How screwed are we?”

“More than just screwed. The generator’s had it, the machine in the pain room is a mess of wires and someone’s offing pain-mages.” It probably came out harsher than I’d intended, but all in all it’d been a crap day. I glanced at Perak. “The Inquisition isn’t really helping either.”

Perak looked guilty at that. “I wish that I could say I could stop it.” He glanced sideways at the man in the lab coat, and I understood immediately that he couldn’t say all he wanted. Where was Pasha when you needed him to rummage in someone’s head? “They’ll finish when their orders are complete. You’re sure about the mages?”

“Two of the boys were just discovering their magic, like Allit here. A third was Taban. And this…” I gestured round the lab. “This wasn’t rioters. This was deliberate. Someone really doesn’t want us up and running.”

Dench didn’t look too surprised about the mages, I noted. No, not surprised at all. “Any ideas?”

“One or two. You?”

“One or two.” His gaze was steady, but it gave nothing away. Guarded to the end, was Dench. Probably why he was in charge of the Specials. Speaking of which. “Your Specials, I know you don’t have much magic, but could they help out? Until we get things back up and running?”

He chewed his moustache thoughtfully. “Don’t see why not. You could do with a guard here, anyway, and I’ve got a few men making sure no one tries for Lise again. Discreetly, of course. I’ll think on it. This is Bulahan. He’s from Alchemical Research, here to see what he can do to help.” The look of disgust that Dench tried and failed to hide indicated the Specials might be a good idea for more than we’d said aloud. Ferret-face was going to be a problem.

Bulahan stepped forwards, neat and precise. A pair of glasses kept slipping down his nose and he’d twitch it to push them back up, reinforcing the ferrety nature of his sharp face.

“I’ve done what I can with the collectors in the pain room. That seemed most sensible to start with. It’s a bit of a rush job, so they won’t be very efficient, but they will work for now. The generator, well, I don’t even know where to start. The way it’s wired—it shouldn’t work. At all. It
won’t
work, I can guarantee it. I’m surprised that anyone thought it would be good to go anytime soon. But given the…less experienced nature of the people you had working on it—”

“I’d be careful how you carry on that sentence,” Perak said and the harshness of his voice surprised me. Perak didn’t get angry, ever. He barely even got a bit miffed. “One of those people is my sister, and Dwarf—Dwarf was more a genius than you could ever comprehend.”

Ferret-face blinked rapidly, but the recovery was masterful. “Well, yes, of course. I mean to come up with the concept of the generator is obviously superb, and, and…”

“And you will continue the work to the best of your ability. If necessary, I will assist.”

The threat of the Archdeacon lowering himself to something so mundane as using a screwdriver shocked Ferret-face into silence. Perak winked at me. Who was this person, and what had he done with my head-in-the-clouds brother?

“Um, maybe we should get started for the day, um, Your Grace, if it pleases you?”

“Certainly.” Perak raised an eyebrow at me. “Where’s Pasha?”

“He’ll be here soon enough. Let’s get started,” I said. Get it over with more like. It was simultaneously the best and worst part of my day.

Perak left, in the company of a phalanx of Specials. Dench hesitated at the doorway and gave me a grave look. “Usual place?”

“Good enough,” I said. “You’re paying.”

He snorted in disgust at that and went, leaving me with Ferret-face and Allit. The boy looked utterly petrified, though it could be for any number of reasons—the pain magic he was getting used to, the thought he might have to work in the pain room though it was far too soon for that. Maybe because Ferret-face was Ministry, and that made me itch, too. I wished Pasha would hurry up.

But the pain was waiting, so I got down to it. Ferret’s rush job seemed to hold up well enough, though I couldn’t get as much into the Glow tubes as usual and what I could seemed dim somehow. But painwise it was no better or worse than usual. Ferret-face didn’t have Dwarf’s sense of knowing when to make me stop and I almost tipped over the edge and into the black. What stopped me was the smallest of noises—a whimper from the other chair. Not Pasha, but someone else. Allit. When I forced my eyes open, Ferret-face had got him strapped into the chair opposite and he was trying to dislocate his fingers as he’d seen Pasha do.

I stood up and almost fell getting to him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I whispered to Ferrety. “He’s not—he only found out he was a mage a couple of days ago.”

I attempted to disconnect Allit, but he kept shaking his head and pulling away, all the while trying to dislocate that finger. Ferrety tried to stop me, too, muttering about “all the Glow we can get”, but I snarled at him and he backed off.

I finally got the boy out and he fell into me, sobbing so hard his lungs must surely ache. “I wanted to help,” he said at last. “Dwarf—he was kind to me and so was Lise, and you and Pasha, you’re helping everyone. And I wanted to help as well, like you.”

Someone wanted to be like me? That thumping sound was probably the Goddess fainting. “Too soon, Allit. You need to practise, start small before you get on the chair. Even if you practise, it’s hard, devilish hard.”

“But I wanted to
try
.”

I was really starting to like this kid. The Ferret started to say something, but I cut him off with a “Your speciality is machines, not mages, right? Go and fix something.” When he’d left, I got Allit sorted and told him to get ready to go out.

“Where are we going?”

I smiled, enjoying the secret. There was precious little else to enjoy that day. “To go and see a man who will teach you all you need to know about using magic. I’ll help you, too, when I get the chance.
Then
you can help. You’ll be no good if you kill yourself with magic. Can’t tell you how many times I almost managed that.”

Facing Lastri with a red-eyed boy in tow was much easier when I could casually toss her some bacon and say, “I brought you and Dendal something to eat, and this boy needs keeping away from the lab now Dwarf isn’t there. I don’t have time to teach him at the moment, so Dendal will have to.”

For a second, I really thought she’d stab me in the eye with a pen, but the bacon made her mouth drop open and I left to meet Dench, thinking I’d scored at least a little victory. It would be the last one for a while.