Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

Merion could feel the damned guilty heat rising in his cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’ he whispered.
Surely she could not know …

Then her serious face cracked into a smile, and Merion knew he was safe. He smiled back shakily. ‘You’re one of us now, aren’t you? We are your strange company,’ she said.

‘Ha, quite,’ Merion replied, wondering how long he could wear his smile for. It was already starting to slip. ‘So, a cat?’ he asked, hopping subjects.

‘A cat indeed!’ Lilain manoeuvred a small tray onto her infamous table. On it sat a small object hidden under a little square blanket. ‘Do you like cats?’

Merion shook his head vehemently. ‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Good, so you won’t cry when I cut up puss then,’ Lilain chuckled, dragging the blanket off ‘puss’. It was a mangy tabby, dead as a doornail and slack as a flag on a windless day. Its eyes, which of course were staring right at Merion, were a deep oaken brown. Empty, and flat.

‘Real men cannot be seen to cry,’ Merion told her, sitting a little straighter.

Lilain snorted as she lifted her scalpel. ‘Another of my brother’s gems? Thought so,’ she replied. She waved her blade about in mid-air as her eyes roved over the cat, looking for a spot to strike. But she didn’t move, not for a while. Instead, she looked up at her nephew, still twirling the scalpel, and said, ‘So then. What shall we talk about tonight?’

Merion cocked his head to one side. ‘I’m happy to listen if you’re happy to talk.’

Lilain nodded. ‘That I am. There’s a lot to talk about, Merion, that’s for sure,’ she said. ‘Can I take it this means you’re staying?’

Merion pursed his lips, trying to keep the words from coming out until he had mulled them over first. He didn’t like the sound of them one bit, but they were all he had. ‘For a while,’ he muttered.

Lilain winked at him. ‘Good,’ she replied, obviously thrilled to hear it. ‘Now,’ she said, with a flourish of her scalpel, ‘let’s get on with the job.’

Job
.

Merion held up a finger. ‘Speaking of jobs, Aunt Lilain,’ he began, trying to sound as authoritative and business-like as humanly possible, ‘I was wondering whether we could discuss the prospect of mine.’

‘Ah yes,’ Lilain said, as she slid her blade along the belly of the cat. ‘Now I have to say, you did a good job today. No complaints. Did the work. Few too many questions, but we’ll deal with that. So what do you say? Want to learn what I do?’

Merion forced himself to nod. ‘And my salary?’

‘Ah,
salary
. Now, let’s see. Eugin get’s a sil’erbit and four copper dimes for every body. You’ll have to share a few shifts with him first. Can’t let him go right away, now can I? One sil’erbit a body, for the next week. What d’you say to that?’ Lilain raised her bloody fingers, and smiled. Merion stared into the dead eyes of the cat while he did his sums.

The boy practically sagged under the weight of the numbers as they climbed and climbed. Unless the entire populace of Fell Falls caught the plague and perished overnight, it would take years to raise those damned sixty florins.

‘However, there will be a little rent to pay,’ added Lilain.

Merion met Lilain’s eyes, finding not a trace of humour in them. No wink in sight. ‘What?’ he gasped.

Lilain shrugged casually, ignoring Merion’s fuming gaze. ‘You’re living under my roof now, Merion. Food and keep cost money in places like this. Got bills to pay.’

‘
Bills?
’ Merion found himself spluttering as he hopped down from the stool. ‘What bills? You live in a desert. You don’t even have running water.’

Lilain put her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t have heating either. Don’t forget about that. I’ve got an extra mouth to feed now, don’t forget. And there’s equipment, supplies, taxes.’

‘Taxes?’

‘The world runs on taxes, Merion. You of all people should know that.’

Merion, of all people, knew one thing and one thing only: ‘This is unbelievable,’ he hissed, as he stormed off in the direction of the stairs.

‘You stop right there, Tonmerion!’ Lilain barked in a voice that Merion not heard before, one that stopped him rather forcefully in his tracks. It had that Hark ring to it, that commanding tone he longed to hear in his own unbroken voice. He slowly turned around to find Lilain walking slowly towards him. The scalpel was thankfully on the table where it belonged. Her arms were crossed, but even so, Merion could still tell that her fists were clenched. ‘Now don’t you go shouting at me because you can’t have what you want. So life ain’t fair, and you got dealt a bad hand of cards. I feel for you, but life rarely is fair, and we play with the hand we’re dealt. Nothing you can do to change that. So don’t you go yelling and snapping at me, the woman, the
aunt
, who’s putting you up and taking you in, who’s given you a job that don’t involve dancing with railwraiths. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ Merion whispered.

His aunt leant closer and cupped a hand behind her ear. ‘Do you understand me?’ she repeated.

‘Yes,’ Merion said again, louder this time.

A firm hand directed him back to his stool. ‘Good. Now, fire away,’ Lilain ordered him, and all sternness crumbled away by the time she had returned to her scalpel and her dead cat.

Merion was a little bamboozled, to say the least. ‘What?’

‘Questions. I know you’ve got ‘em, so fire away.’

Merion shuffled on the stool, making it creak. ‘Erm,’ he said, wiping his brow. ‘Alright. Lurker. What’s his game?’

Lilain had already begun stripping the fur from the cat. ‘Gold, nephew, and lots of it. Now before you start thinking about loans and favours, forget it. The man would never lend you a dime. Not a selfish man, by any means. No. He just squirrels it away for some reason.’

‘Don’t people ever try and rob him?’

His aunt laughed loudly at that. ‘Oh, they try alright, the fools that don’t know who he is. You’ve seen how big he is, right? But that ain’t all. Lurker’s got magick in him.’

‘With a k?’

‘Most definitely a k, young nephew.’

Merion couldn’t help but let his eyes grow wide.
Almighty damn this woman and her stories, and this land and its magic too
, he cursed quietly to himself.

Lilain went on, working in her usual calm and precise way. Once again, Merion couldn’t help but watch. ‘He spent some time in the south, or so he’s said. Fighting for Lincoln in the great forests of Missipine. Doesn’t talk about it much. He’s a quiet man, and I know he’s seen things he’d give all his gold to forget. Apparently he ran into the Shohari down there, and they don’t take too kindly to us humans.’

‘You say it like they’re not …’

‘Not what?’

‘Human.’

Lilain wagged her scalpel and tutted. ‘That’s because they’re not. Different physiology. Had a look inside one in Chicago, and believe you me, their bodies are almost more animal than humans. Long necks, big shoulders, long limbs, chiselled features, greenish skin, and blood so dark it might as well be called black. But they are wise, and old, and they have had magick in their blood since the earth was young. It’s kept them wild and fierce.’

‘Animals then?’ suggested Merion.

‘No, you’d be wrong to think so. They’re an intelligent race, Merion, make no mistake. They know more about this earth than all the historians and scientists of America and the Empire combined.’

‘So what did these creatures do to him? Is that why his face is scarred?’

Lilain flashed him a smile. ‘No, they let him go. Something about him stayed their knives. He’s been able to walk their hunting grounds ever since. So, you can imagine the gossip. That’s why he keeps himself to himself.’

‘Why?’

His aunt nodded. ‘Shohari saw the magick in him. Got it from his mother, I hear. They let him go because of that. Rumour has it he comes from an old line of wilder-walkers—explorers and trailblazers to you and me—and the story is that they might have had Shohari blood running in their veins.’

Merion put a hand to his nose. ‘Is that how he does his sniffing thing?’

Lilain nodded, flicking a strand of yellow hair from her eyes.

Merion was not about to waste any time mulling over the answers. He launched straight into his next question. ‘So who’s this Lord Serped?’ he asked.

Lilain hummed as she opened up the cat and bared its organs to the lantern’s light. She was looking for something now, her fingers inching towards the syringe and the empty vial at her elbow. ‘So you were eavesdropping.’

Merion shuffled around. ‘No, actually. I heard his name mentioned today, in town.’

Lilain fired off question after question. ‘By whom?’

Merion answered as fast as he could think. ‘A man.’

‘Where?’

‘At the station. He was complaining about the railroad.’

Lilain wasn’t buying what Merion was selling, not for one moment. ‘Was he now?’ she mused. ‘Lord Serped,’ she began, and here she made a little sound of disgust as she reached for the heart of the cat. Merion leant forwards so he could watch her deftly slicing the connecting arteries and veins. It was gruesomely fascinating, he had to admit. ‘Lord Serped is Empire-born, no doubt an affiliate of your father’s at some time or another. His business is transport. His father designed the roads of Washingtown, so he’s got some big boots to fill, where Lincoln is concerned. So what better way to prove himself than driving a railroad straight to the shores of the Last Ocean, taking upon himself a task that no ship nor horse nor pair of feet has ever succeeded in doing.’

‘Has he bitten off more than he can chew?’

Lilain smirked at that. ‘Probably, but he’s a stubborn bastard. And stinking rich. He’ll see it through.’

Merion hummed. ‘I’m starting to get the impression that you might not like the man.’

‘I’m not overly fond of the kind of men who exploit the desperation of others for profit, throwing the lives of men aside like old handkerchiefs whilst blindingly surging forwards into the unknown without due care, attention, or respect. So no, Lord Serped won’t be invited to sit at my table in the near future.’

Merion couldn’t help but ask. ‘An Empire man, you say?’

Lilain threw him a sour look. ‘Getting more ideas about leaving are we?’

Merion shook his head and looked back at the cat. Its heart now lay in a porcelain dish at the tail-end of the table. Lilain’s hands hovered above it, the needle of the syringe dancing over the organ’s puckered chambers. Lilain’s lips began to move, slowly at first, then faster. Merion watched as she gently slid the needle into the heart and drew back on the plunger. Dark red blood gurgled into the syringe’s glass chamber. There wasn’t much to be had, but Lilain got every last drop. She did not rest until the syringe was over half full.

With a level of gracefulness and precision that bordered on the reverent, Lilain gently decanted the contents of the syringe into the conical vial. When every drop had been squeezed from it, Lilain laid it down, put a tiny cork in the mouth of the vial, and held it up to the nearest lantern.

‘What are you looking for?’ Merion asked. His words shattered the silence, and he felt for all the world as though he had just farted loudly during a church service.

‘Purity,’ Lilain whispered.

Merion pulled a face. ‘Are you …
collecting
that?’

Lilain licked her lips and put the vial down. ‘Let me ask you a question,’ she said, placing her hands on the edge of the table and leaning forwards so she could look Merion clear in the eyes. ‘Have you mourned for your father?’

Merion was quite taken aback. ‘
Excuse me
?’ he spluttered.

Lilain kept on at him. ‘Have you mourned for him, Merion, since leaving the Empire’s shores?’

‘I fail to see why this is any of your bus—’

His aunt’s face was like flint, hard and unflinching. ‘Because it’s important, Merion, even though real men cannot be seen to cry, they are
allowed
to cry. Do you understand me? I guess what I’m asking is, have you wept for your father since he died?’

Merion once again hopped down from the stool, bristling with anger. That old fire was back and burning bright. His aunt had most certainly struck a nerve this time, and a raw one at that. ‘That is none of your business! I wouldn’t dare ask anybody such a question!’

Lilain slapped her hands on the edge of the table. ‘But if you did, I would answer yes, Merion, that I
have
wept for my dead brother. Because it’s necessary for getting the anger and frustration and hurt out. Trust me on this one, Merion.’

But Merion had been pushed too far. ‘I don’t want to trust you,’ he snapped. ‘And I don’t want to talk about this!’

‘Merion …!’ Lilain called after him, but the young Hark was already halfway to the stairs. ‘Tonmerion!’

‘No!’ came the reply, swiftly followed by the sound of a slamming door.

Lilain grit her teeth and thumped a palm against the table. ‘Shit!’ she hissed.

*

‘And what’s the matter with you?’ Rhin asked as Merion stormed into the bedroom. The door almost burst from its hinges he shut it so hard.

Merion paced like there was no tomorrow. ‘That aunt of mine, that
woman
, dared to talk to me about father. Asked me if I’d cried for him, as if that was of any importance!’