When he eventually managed to sit up, peeling his bloody face off the cold stone floor, he saw that there was only one way out of his current situation. The cell door was thick and solid, the lock only accessible from the outside. Four walls surrounded him and no windows.
It was time to call in the cavalry.
As he thought about it, a smile crossed his face. Those fuckers would get such a surprise when they opened up the cell to find him gone.
There was no salt or chalk handy. No chipped stone to make a mark on the floor and not enough dust and grime to mould into the shape of the sigils he needed.
It would have to be blood.
Blaklok only hoped he had enough left to spare; his face and chest were covered in the stuff.
After working his jaw to get the blood-ridden saliva flowing, he let a line of scarlet drool spew from his mouth. It wasn’t much but it was a start. This he carried on for several minutes, shaping a basic summoning circle on the floor. Then, holding his nostril taught, he snorted out some more cruor-riddled sputa within the circle, licked his finger and wrote the requisite sigils required for the ritual. By the time he was on the last symbol his drool was running out. It would have added insult to injury if he’d had to open a vein to finish the cryptograph. He just managed to complete the last part as his mouth went dry.
There was no summoner’s pentacle, he would have to perform this conjuration dry. Well, he was in enough shit already, how much worse could it be if he opened a portal to the Pit with no protection?
Falling to his knees, Blaklok began the incantation. As the black words spilled from his lips, the parched feeling in his throat and mouth was replaced with the taste of hot bile. It was as though his body was rejecting the abhorrent language he was uttering, as though every fibre of his being recoiled in the face of such degrading blasphemy. Blaklok fought for control, struggled to stay in charge of his will and his faculties. Hot winds blew into his face and he felt his bladder suddenly fill. His fingernails dug into his palms and the stench of rotting eggs flared within his nostrils, but still he kept his eyes closed. It wasn’t as if he had never looked into the abyss before, but the sheer memory of the sight was enough to keep his lids firmly clamped.
All the while he continued his foul litany until the words themselves seemed to take over, and he no longer had to concentrate on the pronunciation and inflection. All he had to worry about was not shitting himself.
Then came the noise. It was like ice and fire, high pitched and booming all at once, a raging torrent in his face. He could only imagine this must be the closest he would come to feeling the exhilaration and the shit-storming terror of falling to his death, without actually having to fling himself from the tallest tower in the Spires. At least he hoped he would never experience it.
And then all at once it was gone. The wind, the heat, the fear, all but the stench; that sulphurous linger, now mixed with a damp animal stink.
‘We were not expecting to see you again so soon.’
Rankpuddle’s voice was like slime running over Blaklok’s skin. The spinning had also started in his head and he knew it would only get worse if he opened his eyes.
‘I’ve run into a bit of a problem,’ he said, feeling a little foolish to be having a conversation with his eyes shut.
‘We cannot say we are not a little disappointed. Thaddeus Blaklok came highly recommended. We are finding nothing to justify such a recommendation.’
‘Well boo fucking hoo. Right now I’m all you’ve got. Or is there someone else you can turn to?’ Blaklok paused, waiting for a reply, but none was forthcoming. ‘Yeah, I thought not. So I suppose we’ll both just have to make the best of a bad do. Can you get me out of here or not?’
Rankpuddle began to make a throaty noise, like he was choking on his own vomit. Blaklok could only assume it was what passed for the creature’s laugh.
‘Thaddeus Blaklok asks if we can get him out of here. That is jocular.’
‘I don’t see what’s so funny you stinky little shit. And if you don’t stop laughing–’ He opened his eyes and instantly regretted it. Rankpuddle was standing before him, but the room was reeling, causing the hideous creature to flicker from right to left in his field of vision, then snap back to its starting point like a broken record. Nevertheless, Blaklok kept his eyes open, fighting the dizziness, willing it away.
‘Of course we can get you out of here, Thaddeus Blaklok. As long as you can pay the price?’
Typical demon; always on the bastard want. It couldn’t be much, a low class imp like Rankpuddle wouldn’t dare ask for a bestowal of umbra, not for such a simple petition of aid.
‘All right, what are you after? Is it blood? I don’t know how much of that I’ve got left to give. It cost me enough to get you here.’
‘For this, Thaddeus Blaklok, the price is bone and flesh. Can you pay?’
Blaklok’s fists clenched. Anywhere else, with time to prepare and the resources available, it would have been a simple and easy request. A rat, a chicken, sometimes even insects were acceptable depending on who was asking, but stuck in here there were few options.
‘I don’t suppose I can have this one on the cuff?’
‘For this, Thaddeus Blaklok, the price is bone and flesh. Can you pay?’ repeated the demon.
‘Guess not,’ said Thaddeus quietly.
A toe would have probably been much preferable to one of his fingers but he didn’t have a blade handy and he had never been flexible enough to bite his toenails. Thaddeus looked down at his hands. He splayed his fingers, counting them for the last time, then stuck the little finger of his left hand into his mouth. As he bit down he stared at Rankpuddle. The little stinky shit – there would be a reckoning for this as well as the rest he owed.
The pain coursed up his hand as teeth split flesh. Every fibre of his being was screaming for him to stop, but Thaddeus had long ago learned to ignore the expostulation of his body. In a second he was down to the bone, his teeth grinding against it as he twisted his jaws, and all the while he stared at the cursed imp, fighting the urge to scream in rage lest it be mistaken for pain, or worse – fear. He could hear the crack of cartilage as the proximal separated from the metacarpal, and with one final wrench of his jaws he pulled his hand away.
With his right hand he plucked the severed digit from his mouth and flung it towards the squatting creature.
‘We thank you,’ said Rankpuddle with a smile. His yellow dog’s teeth were bared and Blaklok could see the black gums attached. Then everything began to swim. Not just his field of vision but his hearing too, even the rank smell of sulphur seemed to undulate on his palate, mixing with the acrid stench of burning.
He fell hard.
His back hit a metal surface and pain jarred through him, right down to the tip of his missing finger. Blaklok barely had time to reach out and grip the siderail before he was flung from the roof of the monotrain. Black smoke billowed in his face as the steam engine powered itself along a single elevated track, far above the twisting streets below.
Silently Blaklok cursed the shit-eating demon back to hell. Was this his idea of a joke? Transporting him straight onto the roof of a moving monotrain might have seemed like a laugh, but how was he going to get the Key if he fell to the ground below? He was already a finger down, he doubted he would be in any fit state to finish the job if he was bounced off a pavement from a great height.
The train pulled into the station with a clatter of sleepers and squealing of breaks. Thaddeus was only too happy to jump from the roof, still clutching his bleeding hand.
So many scores to settle and so little time. But they would all have to wait, for now it was back to business.
Enough of the pratting around, there were heads to break and a Key to steal at the Repository. Blaklok’s blood was up and he was ready to do what was asked of him.
Just let somone try and stop him!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He kept to the back streets, striding past the whores and cutthroats, through the slick filth and steaming vents. Even in his fury he knew better than to walk the main thoroughfares and attract attention. In the back alleys no one would pay him much mind. The anger raging in his eyes and the clothes covered in blood would not attract much notice here amongst the pimps and soaks.
Despite his ire, Blaklok’s mind was still churning – rumbling with lucid thoughts, all the whys and wherefores. He had been set up, his name put in the frame for Beuphalus’s death. That could have been done by any one of the three parties he had pissed off in the recent past. Lord Julius perhaps, but Thaddeus thought him too caitiff. Trol Snapper maybe, but why would a criminal of the Cistern have the Judicature do his dirty work for him? Most likely it was the followers of the demon Valac. It was more like the actions of the nobs to get the Indagators to do their shitwork, and Blaklok had pissed them off royally by interrupting their boy-murdering party.
Whoever was responsible, it would have to wait. There were bigger arses to kick right now. The Cult of Legion was abroad and in obvious union with their patrons, from the demonic look about them. The bestial creatures that had broken into Quickstep’s tenement had been human once; you could see that in their eyes. Part of Blaklok pitied them. Most of him just wanted to beat them silly. If Quickstep was right they were after the Key of Lunos, and if they were as clever as they seemed they would know that other parties – Blaklok and Quickstep included – knew about their aims. In turn, that would mean they were probably even now planning their break-in of the Repository, if they weren’t in there already, stealing the Key from under the noses of the Repository’s curators.
This angered Thaddeus to the quick. Didn’t they know the Key was
his
to steal? It wasn’t for a bunch of soul-selling, demon-loving pricks who wanted to unleash hell on the Manufactory!
He was close now, almost at the Repository. Part of him was ready to storm up the stairs to the entrance and start smashing skulls, but he stopped himself. He remembered the custodians in their armour, carbines cocked and ready. It might be easy to take two or three down and maybe he would make it inside the building but he would never get to the Key by taking the direct route.
Thaddeus looked around the grimy street he was on. In one corner he noticed a shifty looking figure in a doorway; pimp or pickpocket, he didn’t know which, and didn’t really care. In all honesty it could have been the most devout and bounteous bloke in the Manufactory, Blaklok would still have picked him.
Without a word he walked towards him. The shady figure saw Blaklok coming and started to look round, panicking as the huge bald frame bore down. He barely had time to scream as he was dragged into the shadows and given a mild pasting.
Blaklok used the bloke’s shirt to wipe down his bloody face. The coat he wore was too small but it still covered Blaklok’s grimy vest. The hat covered most of his bruised and yellowing face, and by the time he walked from the shadows of the doorway he looked almost presentable.
As he reached the Repository’s entrance and strode up the stairs he kept a wary eye on the two custodians who stood guard at the door. Hopefully they wouldn’t question him, but if he was stopped he would simply have to improvise.
One of them glanced in his direction, Thaddeus could see him leering from the corner of one eye, but he carried on regardless, trying to appear as innocent as he could – a hard enough task in itself. Just as the custodian made to move in his direction there was a sudden squeal from the street behind. The custodian stopped, his attention momentarily diverted by the noise, and in that brief second Thaddeus was gone, straight through the door and away. He glanced back before the huge oaken door closed behind him and saw a group of teenage schoolgirls giggling and squealing as they passed. On any other day Blaklok would have found them an annoyance… but not today.
He moved through the museum, gliding past the other patrons and barely noticing the cornucopia of strange and sad creatures. His focus was on the Key, only the Key, and nothing would distract him from it. Several times his shoulders bounced heavily off someone in the crowd but Blaklok never noticed as he mounted the stairs to the mezzanine above.
Something was wrong here; he could feel it. Despite the seeming façade of normality something was up – or at least it was about to be. It was the almost imperceptible rumbling from up ahead that first gave it away. A barely existent murmur amongst the crowd that made him stop in his tracks.
Then he heard the screams, and he was off like the clappers; like a baited hare rushing from its hole. While most of the museum’s other patrons began to head away from the cries of alarm Blaklok headed straight for them, barging his way through the retreating crowd, and as he got within eyeshot of the Key of Lunos he saw the telltale red robes of the cultists of Legion.
The bastards had beaten him to it!
Above, the mezzanine was in chaos, with men, women and children running in all directions in their haste to escape from the fiendish thieves. The creatures were running rampant, clawing and rending at civilian and custodian alike.
Blaklok couldn’t see the Key, it had been removed from its plinth, the sturdy cage that safeguarded the exhibit having already fallen, but there was no one trapped inside.
Two deafening blasts rang out as a custodian let rip with his carbine, but the cultists seemed unstoppable. As Blaklok closed in, one of the red-robed beasts leapt upon the firer, rending and tearing with tooth and claw. Blaklok could hear the strangled screams but he was no longer looking, his eyes busy scanning the rampaging monsters to see which one held the Key of Lunos.
Then he saw it, it was held in an animal’s grip but Thaddeus recognised those keen eyes, those familiar features recognisable as once human. Castor Cage was bounding right towards him, the Key clutched in one black taloned hand.
Blaklok raced forward, determined to bring Cage down before he could escape but at the last minute the cultist changed direction, leaping over the banister of the mezzanine to the ground twenty feet below. Blaklok silently cursed, begrudgingly admiring Cage for his superhuman abilities, and then leaped after him.