High Voltage (Fever #10)(40)
While uncovering their legends perhaps I’d stumble across a story about a god that had long ago been wont to abduct adults, leaving their children behind. Discover the why of it, a name. A way to defeat him. Granted, a contemporary book wouldn’t yield nearly the detailed information of the abbey’s private libraries, but it was as good a place to start as any.
Beast first.
I decided, even though BB&B was gone, to head straight there. Not only was it closer, but the wards were decidedly Barrons-esque. Perhaps both owner and establishment had miraculously reappeared; one could always hope. Besides, when I’d discovered it missing the other day, I’d not scouted the lots with my customary attention to detail, aggravated by its disappearance and on the trail of prey. If BB&B yielded nothing, I’d head straight for Chester’s.
As I moved briskly across Ha’Penny Bridge and entered the south side of Dublin, I encountered my second anomaly of the day.
It was Saturday, but this morning at seven-thirty the streets teemed with people in suits and dresses who looked suspiciously as if they were going to work. As a pedestrian plowed down the sidewalk toward me—a woman in her late twenties or early thirties who was peering intently down at her cellphone—I said politely, “Pardon, what day is it?”
She raised her head, absorbed me, noting the hilt of my sword poking over my shoulder, the many bulges in my pockets, perhaps she just didn’t like my face. Her eyes narrowed, she clutched her purse more tightly and darted around me, sprinting off in high heels.
I glared at her retreating back, “Right, because monsters don’t exist and you don’t need people like me in the world,” I muttered as I reached for my phone. When I’d read my text messages earlier, I hadn’t paid any attention to the date. There’d been no reason to. I sleep a few hours at most and can go days without it. But yesterday was a bit more eventful and I’d slept closer to four hours.
I gaped down at the screen.
It was Tuesday.
I shook it. Hard. It still said Tuesday.
That was impossible. I narrowed my eyes as the tatters of a dream I’d had last night—or rather days ago—surfaced in my mind. Ryodan. Tracing symbols on me. Murmuring.
That prick. I’d awakened feeling so unusually fine because he’d spelled me into sleeping from Friday night until Tuesday morning!
Bristling, I pivoted sharply and stormed in the opposite direction, crossing Barrons off my suspect list. Ryodan had used his powers of “relaxation” on me in the past. This was a Machiavellian move, taking me out of the game so he could leave Dublin on his own timetable.
If Ryodan wasn’t at Chester’s, I was wrecking the place. Trashing. Maybe torching. No, I wasn’t done searching it. But definitely wrecking.
Nobody knocks me out for days. Especially not after being gone for two years. Especially not after I saved his ass.
As I stalked toward 939 Rêvemal Street, my brain processed a third anomaly: an inordinate number of blue-collar workers, laborers from the looks of them, were marching in the same direction, belts swaying, heavy with tools. They were bright-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, talking loudly with excitement.
I moved in behind the fast-moving throng to eavesdrop.
“I heard there’s a year’s work, maybe more,” one of the men exclaimed.
“I heard two. Christ, that’d be something.”
“Ballocks, it’s good to be working again! The construction business has been deader than a bloody doornail. Too many buildings, not enough people to fill a tenth of ’em.”
“Nice to see someone willing to put the money into new construction.”
“Right, that. With folks worrying about what tomorrow might bring.”
Part of me was pleased by this turn of events. Someone was building. Making jobs for those who had none. Electricians, plumbers, specialty skills were still in demand. But builders, men that cut lumber and hung drywall, metal workers, men who tiled and framed, simply weren’t needed anymore. No one was building anything new and probably wouldn’t for a long time.
It wasn’t as if these men could get additional training to learn a more useful skill. We were back to low-or no-wage apprenticing, a long way from staffing universities again. There was too much unrest, a deep unease about the future. We were a society fractured in countless ways. Those gainfully employed filled essential positions: food production, crucial technology, law enforcement, news. Jobs were hard to find, hence the high rate of crime in our city. And it got a lot worse the farther out you went.
“Who’s funding the project?” a newcomer to the conversation said.
“What’s-his-name…bugger, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. Weird name. Riordan? Same guy that turned things around a few years back, when those black holes were everywhere and we were running out of food. Got the papers out. Put the city back on track. He’s been gone awhile. Glad to hear he’s back. We could use more men like him around this city.”
I scowled. A bigger part of me was distinctly not pleased.
I’d been here, humping the grind every day for the past two years, working tirelessly to save my city. And what did I get? Scowled at and run away from, merely for asking a polite question. My hands fisted and my frown deepened.
I was willing to bet half the money I’d stolen from Ryodan that these ebullient, newly employed men were headed for Chester’s.