Amberlough(112)

His footsteps faded away. The hiss of the suppressor’s metal threads blended into the distant crashing of the waves against the Spits. Cyril realized he had closed his eyes. Seawater slapped at the pilings of the dock, splashing against his cheek. It was summer-warm, and felt like tears.

Then, as he breathed in, deeply as he could despite his broken bones, he heard a sound. Or felt it, more than heard. A deep rumbling, spreading in waves through the air and the dock beneath him. He opened his eyes, wondering if he’d already been shot.

As he did, he saw something so beautiful it could have been choreographed. The blackboot, all alone now, startled at the noise. He flinched and fumbled his pistol. The suppressor struck the planks and rolled away, but the gun fell straight and landed with a solid thwack, an inch from Cyril’s left hand.

He had thought all his ties were cut; that his pliancy came from resignation. But when the pistol’s steel struck the boards he realized that the strings which held him to his life were only hanging loose. He had not been resigned, but patient.

He was a cleaner shot with his right, but that hardly mattered now. He stretched out, every muscle screaming, and hooked his forefinger behind the trigger guard. The Ospie had his mouth open, about to shout. Cyril half aimed, and fired. The noise echoed off the backs of the warehouses.

It was a bad one, too low: between the ribs and groin. Gutshot. Deadly but not fast. Cyril needed fast. Straining, he lifted his arm and fired again. A lung this time. The man collapsed, blood leaking from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. Cyril rolled onto his side, gasping, and put the pistol to the man’s head.

“Hey!”

The other blackboot came pounding down the dock, too late. Cyril pulled the trigger, then turned the gun toward the new arrival. He fired, but missed. The man—so young, almost a boy—skidded to a halt, eyes wide. Cyril tried to steady his shaking hands, sighting woozily down the barrel. If he would just stand still, just for a—

But he turned, and ran, and though Cyril squeezed off one more shot before he disappeared around the corner, it went wide and struck the warehouse bricks.

Well. Now what? He’d bring back others. And where was Cyril going, in this state?

Come and find me, Ari said.

He rolled off the dock. As the filthy water closed over his head, he wondered how far down the docks he’d make it before he drowned or found safe harbor.

*

The blast roared through the city like a tidal wave, rolling between buildings, pushing against Cordelia’s body like a sudden, muffling wall.

Joachim—Zelda’s man—had taken her up to the top of his building earlier in the evening and pointed out across the river. He had a good view of the theatre district, and she could see the Bee’s roof framed between chimney pots. The setting sun turned the brick of the theatre’s backside crimson.

Now, a huge cloud of gray dust billowed up and over Temple Street. Below, on the footpath, she heard sudden silence, then confusion. A shout, from a neighboring block of flats where someone hanging laundry on the roof had a good view.

“Mother and sons!” The rooftop door banged open. Cordelia looked over her shoulder and saw a woman scrambling up, followed by two schoolkids. “Is that the Bee?”

“Can’t tell,” said Cordelia, though her throat was tight. The words came out thick and sounded like a lie.

The woman didn’t notice. She stared across the city at the twisting gray cloud of mortar and pulverized brick. The wind began to catch it, pulling trails of powder through the air. “They’d better clear the block.” She shaded her eyes with a hand and squinted into the distance. “Big blow like that, there’ll be—”

With a sound like ripping fabric, gouts of blue flame tore through the roiling fog.

“—gas,” the woman finished, dismayed. She put an arm around one of the children, who had begun to cry. Little ones like that, they always picked up on it when grown folks got upset.

More people trickled up to join them, until a small crowd had gathered to watch the fire grow bright in the dusk. Engines had arrived by then; their bells echoed faintly from across the Heyn.

“What do they think they’re doing?” An elderly woman with her hair under a kerchief put her hands to her face. “Somebody they don’t like ends up in charge and they think blowing up a playhouse will solve the problem?”

“You don’t know that’s why,” said her son, holding her shoulder. “Nobody knows anything yet.”

“Of course that’s why,” snapped a red-faced grandpa, wrangling baby twins away from the edge of the roof. “Bust up the whole city this week, and then start fires.”

“Someone’s got to do something.” A young razor tore her gaze from the flames. “We all know it weren’t a fair fight. Acherby’s a thief.”

“Even if he is,” the old man said, “at least the blackboots didn’t blow anything sky-high.”

The razor snarled and turned away. A few of the other people on the roof shot narrow glances at the grandpa, but a few others nodded. Cordelia’s stomach went sour, and she moved off a ways.

Joachim came up, eventually. He was a big bear of a man, bearded and soft around the middle. Jolly-looking, especially now, with a job well done.

“Like a solstice bonfire,” he said, softly, so the assembled audience wouldn’t hear. “Harder to jump over, though, I’d wager.”