Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(109)

“Still,” TenSoon said, picking his way through the room and speaking as if he didn’t realize the insult he’d just offered, “I do not think Harmony will mind what I have done. These poor souls…” He knelt and prodded at one of the bodies Wax had killed.

TenSoon came up with a thin piece of metal, silvery and perhaps as long as a finger. Did it have a red cast to it, or was that just the blood? He used steelsight and found that while he could see the spike, the line was duller than it should have been. Hemalurgy.

“One spike,” TenSoon said, turning it over. “Any more, and Harmony might have been able to control these beasts. How could such a change be effected by a single spike? This is a level of Hemalurgy beyond my understanding, lawman.”

Wax shook his head, checking on the creatures. Not to see if they were still a threat, but to make sure he didn’t leave one of them here to die a protracted death. He found one woman still alive, paralyzed by his shot into her back. She watched him with those eyes, shaped like a person’s, yet alien and dark. Whatever else had happened to these people, they should have been able to keep their eyes.

Wax put his gun to the woman’s eye and fired, up into the brain. Then he closed his eyes and offered … what? A prayer to Harmony? Harmony hadn’t helped these people.

I have done something to help.… The words whispered to him from the past. A memory of the last time Harmony had spoken to him. I sent you.

Wax wasn’t certain if that was enough this time.

“Tell me you’ll see these people buried,” Wax said.

“I will,” TenSoon said as a howl sounded in the distance. “More come. Do we fight here, or run?”

“Can you get us out?” Wax asked, reloading the shotgun.

“Perhaps. Not by a conventional method, but there could be a way.”

“Then let’s go,” Wax said. “This is another distraction, TenSoon. Those creatures only came for us when we left the other chamber.”

TenSoon nodded, dropping his body to the floor and absorbing the wolfhound’s bones again. Only seconds passed before he’d restored himself, save for the hair. That started to sprout from the skin as TenSoon moved to the door, coming in waves as the kandra’s body arranged it and pushed it out.

Wax grabbed his lantern and they fled, TenSoon again leading the way.

*

“There he goes, boys!” Wayne yelled, pointing into the darkness. “I saw that dirty conner right ahead. You go that way, I’ll head around the other way, and we’ll trap ’im between us, we will!”

The small force of men with him—armed with wrenches and brooms—split off in a cheering, clangorous mass of spit and vengeance. Wayne egged them on while backward-jogging in the other direction. Eventually he slowed, finally alone, and shook his head. Not bad fellows, for all the fact that they had the combined wits of a brick.

Wayne spun a dueling cane in his fingers, rounding back through an alleyway and popping out near the governor’s mansion. He didn’t go toward the front—more and more angry people were gathering there, and some might recognize him from before. On his head he wore a newsboy’s cap, his other hat carefully stowed in a bush along the way. That was fine; he liked this new cap well enough, but he felt naked in another way—he was out of bendalloy. Completely dry.

That was bad. No more stopping time unless Wax had an extra vial for him. The fellow often carried one.

Wayne slipped around the mansion, intending to head toward the back doors, where he hoped the guards would let him in. He’d wasted time, far too much, getting away from that crowd. The sight of that poor kandra melting in front of everyone else haunted him.

Rusts. He wasn’t sure which side of the argument he came down on, but at least he wasn’t going around melting people for an audience. Besides, for the moment he figured he’d choose the side that wasn’t actively trying to kill him.

He strolled and stuck a new ball of gum into his mouth. Then he hesitated, mists swirling around him, the mansion looming before him like a mesa in the Roughs, lit up all white. He heard a voice drifting toward him.

The accent was wrong. Just slightly wrong, but in a profound way.

And suddenly he knew who Bleeder was impersonating.

*

The howls were distant from Wax, but they haunted him more than they had during the first chase, for now he knew what made them. If he survived this, he would have to see something done for these creatures.

TenSoon conducted them through the intestines of the Homeland, eventually reaching a wall full of cracks. Wax raised his lantern, inspecting it. The wolfhound beside him had a pelt that was missing hair in patches.

“Well?” Wax said, inspecting the dead end.

“We have been watching this spot,” TenSoon said. “It cracked long ago, and the cracks seem to have widened over the years. If it opens, it will provide another path into the Homeland, and we wish to be aware of each of those.”

Wax ran his fingers along the cracks in the stone wall. Air moved through them, he thought, catching a whiff of something more … rotten. More like the city he knew. Familiar and disgusting all at once.

He tapped his metalmind, increasing his weight, then threw his shoulder against the wall. This was tricky, as his strength hadn’t increased except in its ability to lift his own limbs and manipulate his heavier muscles. That lent him some ability, but mostly he had to try to force things just right so that he was falling into the wall as much as pushing on it.