Angel of Brass (25 page)

All in all, the effect of the outfit seemed
familiar, although it took him a moment to place it.
The Xatlian
prince’s bodyguards dress like that, don’t they?

“Do you like it?” she asked, spinning. The
parrot feathers decorating her long hair dipped and swayed. “Father
made something similar for you, you know. Here—I brought you some
feathers.”

Uncertain how to react, he took the feathers
from her and began to knot them into his hair. “But...why?”

The smile faded from Del’s face. “It’s for
the mission, Jin. The mission that you and I were
supposed
to go on together.”

“Is he using me as a hostage, to force you to
go through with it? Don’t let him! Whatever he does to me, it’s not
worth this.”

Her expression went flat. “Father isn’t using
you as a hostage, Jin. Why would he? I thought he’d explained
things to you, explained that we’re helping make a better world.
Don’t you ever listen?”

Jin opened his mouth, then closed it again,
feeling as though he’d been punched in the gut. “I...You’re...you
agree
with him?”

“Of course.” Anger crept into her voice. “And
I don’t see why you’re being so cursed stubborn. Maybe you should
try thinking of someone besides yourself for a change.”

“I’ve always thought of you!” he exclaimed.
“If you’re trying to punish me for leaving you, I’ve said that I’m
sorry. I was coming back to get you, I swear!”

“Get me? ‘Rescue’ me? From
what
, Jin?
From our father? From our family?”

“From the man who turned us into a pair of
murderers!”

“He’s our
father
. The one who held us
when we were afraid, who took care of us when we were sick, who
read us stories by the fire. The one who kept us
safe
. Or
don’t you remember any of that?”

“I remember he killed all of our tutors, as
soon as their jobs were done. I remember he murdered Rebecca, for
no better reason than she hurt my feelings. The things he’s
done...they’re wrong, Del. I thought you understood that.”

“It’s you who doesn’t understand.” Her cold,
bleak words cut him. “You’re my brother, and I love you. But it’s
time for you to stop acting like a little boy. It’s time for you to
think about your family instead of just about yourself.”

He grabbed at the last argument he had.
“Father wants us to overthrow the government, Del. How can
committing treason help our family?”

Del sat down on the bed beside him and took
his hand. “Queen Rowena is weak. More interested in appeasing Xatli
than standing up for Eroe’s rightful place in the world.”

“That doesn’t sound like anything Father
would say.”

Del grinned. “You’re right, of course. His
head’s too far in the clouds to care about that sort of thing,
isn’t it? That’s all Duke Reynard. Which doesn’t make it
wrong.”

Jin had thought he was beyond being shocked
by anything she might say. “You’re talking about starting a war,
aren’t you? A war with Xatli.”

“Yes. And Eroe will need more technology,
better technology, if we’re to defend ourselves.”

Malachi’s involvement was finally beginning
to make sense. “And Father will be one of those providing it. The
defense of Eroe will be all the excuse anyone needs to let him
create his abominations. He’ll be able to do it right out in
public, with government funding.”

“And we won’t need to hide anymore. With the
support of the king, we’ll be able to walk down the streets with
our heads high.”

Could this be his chance to change her mind?
“We already can. I’ve been living in the city. I’ve met other
people, and even the one who thought I was a monster to begin with
has come around. I’ve made
friends
, Del. Real friends, who
know exactly what I am.”

For a moment, he thought she hesitated, and
he dared hope that his words had made an impact.

Then she stood up and went to the door. “I
don’t believe you.”

The door shut behind her, and he heard the
click of more than one lock. Stunned, Jin stood in the center of
the room, staring blindly into nothingness.

I thought we were in this together. How could
I have been so wrong? How can she care so much for our father,
after everything he’s done? How can she stand there and say that
all the death and the pain were somehow justified?

I’ve lost her.

That’s it. There’s nothing left.

Numb with despair, Jin sank to the floor and
let the tears come.

Chapter 18

Molly and Liam sat on either side of his
dining table, cups of coffee at their elbows and a map of the city
spread out between them. Molly felt better, having bathed and
changed back into her normal clothes. A few hours of sleep would
have gone a long way, but she didn’t want to waste an instant of
time.

No telling what Dr. Malachi might be doing
to poor Jin
. Just the idea made her feel sick to her
stomach.

“So,” Liam said, sipping his coffee, “would
you like to hear my thought process?”

“Please.”

Setting his coffee aside, he studied the map.
“In theory, the conspiracy could have multiple locations. However,
there is a limiting factor: the shamblers. It takes time to build a
sizable force of corpses, and while you’re busy sticking
controllers into the new ones, the old ones are even busier rotting
away. Dr. Malachi is a genius, but he isn’t a magician—the
controller needs nerves and muscle to work on. A skeleton barely
hanging together with a few scraps of dried tendon isn’t going to
get very far.”

“The shamblers I saw were being stored in a
refrigeration unit,” Molly said, sipping her hot, bitter
coffee.

“Precisely. Now, I know it’s winter, but
Chartown weather being what it is, it could be snowing one week and
balmy the next. Simply stuffing them in a closet and hoping that
the weather stays cold isn’t going to work. They need something
more reliable.”

Molly nodded slowly. “Right. And the old
refrigeration unit in the resurrectionists’ house was impossible to
move. They’d need to build a new one.”

But Liam shook his head. “I don’t think they
had the time. After all, they left in quite a hurry. What they
needed was a new location that already had a refrigeration unit set
up. Moreover, they needed one large enough to hold plenty of
shamblers. A commercial unit, in other words.”

Molly sat up, feeling the first stirrings of
excitement. “Which means a brewery or a meat-packing house.”

“Given the nature of what they were storing,
I imagine a meat-packing house would be better suited to their
needs.” Liam put down his coffee and tapped the section of the map
showing the southern factory district.

Molly leaned in, studying the area intently.
“On the one hand, the rail line could be useful,” she said slowly.
“But that district is too crowded. Too many people, too many
chances of someone noticing something suspicious.”

“So, within the district, but not too close
to the rail line. And the building will probably look abandoned.
After all, you don’t want any surprise visits from health code
inspectors.” Liam sat back, seeming satisfied. “That narrows it
down quite a bit.”

“Liam, you’re a genius!”

“I try,” he said with a wink. “Unfortunately,
that still leaves us with a lot of ground to cover.”

“True.”
Not to mention that, even if we do
find the building, we’ll still have to face down smiling men,
shamblers, and saints know what else. But we can worry about that
later
. “Our search will go faster if we aren’t on foot. What we
need is a steam car.”

“And I don’t suppose you happen to have one
just lying about, do you?”

“No.” She rose to her feet. “But I do know
where we might be able to get one.”

* * *

No one responded to Molly’s insistent knocks
on the door of the Singhs’ residence. The curtains in the front
rooms were all drawn tight, and the once-cheerful pansies in the
window box were dying. Three newspapers lay piled on the doorstep,
all of them wrinkled from the rain.

Have they left? But the car is still here; I
can see it. Surely Master Singh wouldn’t have just abandoned
it.

“What are we going to do, then?” Liam asked.
He stood by the wooden fence that separated the side yard from the
street, looking up at her with concern on his face. A satchel slung
over his good shoulder carried the anti-controller; although Molly
hoped they wouldn’t be giving it a field test, she wanted it with
them just in case.

Molly chewed a fingernail for a moment while
she contemplated the closed door. “We’ll just have to take the car,
I guess. We can leave a note.”

“What are you going to say? ‘Dear Master
Singh: sorry we burned down your shop, and by the way, we’ve stolen
your steam car, too.’”

Molly shot him an annoyed look, then began to
dig through her tool belt, looking for a scrap of paper and pencil.
“I’m going to explain that it was an emergency, and that I’ll
return it as soon as I can. In the meantime, why don’t you see what
needs to be done to get the car running?”

By the time she finished the note and slid it
through the mail slot, Liam had opened the doors to the shed,
checked the water levels, and located the coal stash. Although his
injured arm limited his usefulness, he was able to be of some help,
and before long the gauges showed a nice head of steam building
up.

“Climb in, and pull down your goggles to keep
insects out of your eyes,” Molly said. Liam did so, glancing
uneasily at the various levers and gauges in the interior of the
car.

“You have driven this thing before, right?”
he asked nervously.

Molly climbed into the driver’s seat. “Well,
not this one.”

“But you have driven a steam car before.”

She found the lever controlling the brake.
“Not on a street,” she admitted. “But I’ve moved them in and out of
the shop plenty of times.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

Molly ignored this bit of negative thinking,
set the car in gear, and steered it through the gap in the fence,
only scraping the front bumper a tiny bit. The wheels jarred over
the cobblestones, and she had to swerve hard to miss a velocipede
going in the other direction. The rider yelled an imprecation at
her, and she wondered uneasily if there were rules for this sort of
thing.

Oh well, if there are, I’m sure I’ll figure
them out fast enough. How hard could it be?

Pulling the map from her belt, she started to
unfold it with one hand, while steering with the other. With a
curse, Liam snatched it away from her.

“
I’ll
navigate,” he said. “
You
steer.”

Even with the other traffic on the road,
Molly was surprised how quickly they were able to make it to the
factory district. The district, which had looked so neat and tidy
on the map, in reality proved to be a confusing sprawl of narrow
allies and crowded streets. Bells rang, cows bawled in terror, and
both pedestrians and other drivers yelled curses as they
passed.

“We’ll be all right,” Molly said, biting her
lip and checking the compass mounted on the dashboard. “We just
need to keep going west.”

Liam didn’t reply; he was too busy clutching
at the door and muttering what sounded like prayers under his
breath.

Eventually, the area became increasingly
dilapidated, with fewer people on the street. A burned-out factory
appeared, followed by what looked like empty warehouses, their
windows broken out. Railroad tracks crossed the road, but they were
choked with weeds.

“This must be the old Dirna-Eroe line,” Liam
said. “It was abandoned after the conflict. That explains why this
part of the district suffered—the new rail line was built to the
east.”

Weeds had sprung up in the streets in places;
many of those had been crushed recently, as if vehicles had passed
over them. Molly slowed the steam car, following the tire tracks.
“We’re close.”

“Look.” Liam pointed to a building at the end
of the block. Although it was in better shape than most of those
surrounding it, the elements had taken their toll. Painted above
the door was a faded sign that read: “THEOPELES MEATS AND
SAUSAGES.”

Liam swallowed nervously. “So. What now?”

“I...” Molly stopped abruptly. “Wait. Do you
hear that?”

Faint but unmistakable, the strains of a
violin drifted from the factory.

* * *

Eventually, Jin found that he couldn’t just
sit and mope anymore.

He’d escaped once; he would do it again.
Maybe not today, or next week, or even next year, but someday. The
first time any of his guards slipped, the first moment of
inattention from Malachi, he’d be gone.

And this time, I won’t worry about Del.

Her betrayal hurt, worse than a knife to the
gut. They’d grown apart recently, but he’d never,
never
imagined just how deep her ties to Malachi ran.

Lacking anything else to do, he removed his
violin from the case and set to the tasks of rosining the bow and
tuning the strings, letting the familiar activities soothe him.
Molly had wanted him to play for her someday, and he clung tight to
thoughts of her as he set bow to strings.

He didn’t know how long he played, lost in
the music, sometimes standing still, sometimes dancing around in a
tight circle near the window. Hours passed, the day turning to
afternoon, with nothing but the music to distract him.

Until, that is, a pebble bounced off the
glass panes of the window.

He jumped in surprise, the bow screeching
discordantly across the strings.
What the hell?

A second pebble came sailing up. Thoroughly
confused, he opened the window and peered out between the bars.

Molly stood in the street below, holding a
length of chain in her hand. The other end was securely attached to
a steam car, with Liam at the wheel.