Shadows of Self (25 page)

That guy had been some other kind of mole. He shook his head.

“Where’s Drim?” he asked the guards. “I wanna show him what I’ve got.”

The guard leaned over, looking at Wayne’s notepad. “All that’s on there is a bunch of scribbles.”

“It’s for show,” Wayne said. “Makes people talk more if they think you’re writin’ stuff down. Dunno why. I sure wouldn’t want anyone rememberin’ the slag I say.…” He hesitated, then shoved aside the guard, looking into the middle of the pile. Drim wasn’t there, and neither was the governor.

“What’d you do with him!” Wayne said, turning on the others. A smug group of bastards, they were.

“It was best everyone thought he was still here,” the guard said. “In truth, he and Drim headed to a secure location ages ago. If we fooled you, then hopefully we fooled the assassin.”

“Fooled … I’m supposed to be protectin’ the guy!”

“Well, you’re doing a rusting good job of that, mate, ain’tcha,” the guard said, then smirked.

So Wayne did the only reasonable thing. He spat out his gum, then decked the fellow.

*   *   *

Wax rarely appreciated the city as much as he did when he needed to get somewhere quickly.

To the eyes of a man burning steel, Elendel was alight and full of motion, even while shadowed by darkness and mist. Metal. In some ways, that was the true mark of mankind. Man tamed the stones, the bones of the earth below. Man tamed the fire, that ephemeral, consuming soul of life. And combining the two, he drew forth the marrow of the rocks themselves, then made molten tools.

Wax passed among the skyscrapers like a whisper, the motion drying his clothing. He became just another current in the mists, and moving with him in radial spokes was a majestic network of blue lines—like a million outstretched fingers pointing the way to anchors he could use along his path. When even a galloping horse was too slow, Wax had steel. It burned in him, returning to the fire that gave it shape.

From it he drew power. Sometimes that wasn’t enough.

But this night, he exploded through the lit upper windows of the Harms dwelling, rolling and coming up with guns leveled. Lord Harms swiveled in the chair of his writing desk, knocking over his pot of ink. The red-faced older man had a comfortable paunch, an easy manner, and a pair of mustaches that were in competition with his jowls to see which could droop farthest toward the floor. Upon seeing Wax, he started, then scrambled to reach into his desk drawer.

Wax scanned the room. Nobody else there. No enemies in the corners, no moving bits of metal in closets or the bedroom. He’d arrived in time. Wax let out a sigh of relief, standing up as Lord Harms finally got his desk drawer open. The man whipped out a pistol, one of the modern semiautos that were popular with the constables. Harms leaped to his feet and rushed over to Wax, holding his gun in two hands.

“Where are they!” Harms exclaimed. “We can take them, eh, old boy?”

“You have a gun,” Wax said.

“Yes indeed, yes indeed. After what happened last year, I realized that a man has to be armed. What’s the emergency? I’ll have your back!”

Wax carefully tipped the point of Lord Harms’s gun downward, just in case a bullet was chambered—because, fortunately, the man hadn’t locked a magazine into the pistol. Wax glanced behind at the windows. He’d flung them open with a Push as he approached, but they were meant to open outward,
not
inward. He’d ripped both right off their hinges, toppling one while the other hung by its corner. It finally gave way, crashing to the floor, cracking the glass inside the wooden frame.

Mist poured in through the opening, flooding the floor. Where was Bleeder? In the house somewhere? Impersonating a maid? A neighbor? A constable passing on the street?

Standing in the room with him?

“Jackstom,” Wax said, looking to Lord Harms, “do you remember when you first met me, and Wayne was pretending to be my butler?”

Harms frowned. “You mean your uncle?”

Good,
Wax thought. An impostor wouldn’t know that, would she? Rusts … He’d have to suspect everyone.

“You’re in danger,” Wax said, sliding his guns into their hip holsters. His suit was basically ruined from the swim in the canal, and he’d tossed aside his cravat, but the sturdy mistcoat had seen far worse than this. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“But…” Lord Harms trailed off, face blanching. “My daughter?”

As if he had only one.

“Steris is fine,” Wax said. “Wayne is watching her. Let’s go.”

The problem was, go where? Wax had a hundred places he could take Harms, but Bleeder could be lurking at any of them. The odds were certainly in Wax’s favor, and yet …

Bleeder is ancient,
Harmony had said.
Older than the destruction of the world. She is crafty, careful, and brilliant.… She spent centuries studying human behavior.

Any option Wax chose could be the very one Bleeder had predicted he would choose. How did you outthink something so old, so knowledgeable?

The solution seemed easy. You didn’t try.

*   *   *

Steris left ZoBell Tower to find Wayne sitting across the street from a huddle of bruised and obviously angry men. Wayne was eating a sandwich.

“Oh, Wayne,” she said, looking from the hostile, wounded men and back to him. “Those are the governor’s guards. He’s going to need them tonight.”

“’s not my fault,” Wayne said. “They was bein’ unaccommodating.” He took a bite of his sandwich.

She sighed, settling down beside him and looking up through the mists toward the tower. She could make out the lights on various floors glowing like phantoms above, leading all the way up to the very top.

“This is how it’s going to be, with him, isn’t it?” she asked. “Always being left behind in the middle of something? Always
half
feeling as if I’m part of his life?”

Wayne shrugged. “You could do the noble thing, Steris. Give up on the whole marriage. Let him loose to find someone he actually likes.”

“And my family’s investment in him and his house?”

“Well, I know this here is revolutionary words, Steris, but you can loan a chap money
without
him havin’ to jump you in appreciation, if you know my meanin’.”

Good
Harmony
he could be shockingly unmannered. He wasn’t like this to others. Oh, he was crass and whimsical, but rarely blatantly rude. He saved that for her. Was he expecting her to fight back, prove herself somehow? She’d never been able to figure this man out. Preparing what to say to him only seemed to make him more vulgar.

“Did he say where he was going?” she said, trying to remain polite.

“Nah,” Wayne said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “He’s chasin’ Bleeder down. Means he could have gone anywhere, and so tryin’ to find him is useless. He’ll come back for me when he can. If I leave, I’ll just end up missing him.”

“I see.” She settled back, crossing her feet on the curb and staring up at those lights. “Do you hate me because of what I represent, Wayne? The responsibilities that called him back?”

“I don’t hate you,” Wayne said. “I find you repulsive. That there is an important distinction, it is.”

“But—”

Wayne stood up. He shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.

Then he walked over to the guards that were glaring at him and sat down. The implication was obvious.

I’d rather be here.

Steris closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, and tried to pretend she was someone other than herself for a time. Eventually, sounding bells announced the arrival of constable carriages. She stood up and composed herself, relieved when Marasi exited one of them and hurried over.

“Waxillium?” she asked.

Steris shook her head.

“Get in,” Marasi said, pointing to one of the carriages. “I’m sending you someplace safe.”

“I think the danger has passed here,” Steris said. “Unless Wayne is picking fights again.”

“No,” Marasi said. “The danger has only just started.”

Something in the younger woman’s tone gave Steris pause. Other constables weren’t piling out of the carriages. In fact, they seemed to be waiting for Marasi. They weren’t coming here to investigate the man Waxillium had chased off.

“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Steris asked.

“Yeah,” Marasi said. “Wayne, get over here! We’ve got work to do.”

*   *   *

Wax stashed Lord Harms at the very top of Feder Tower. He’d chosen its location on the city map by picking random numbers; hopefully Bleeder wouldn’t be able to outthink a plan with no thought involved. Harms had instructions to lie low, hide in the darkness and stay quiet. Even if Bleeder could Steelpush and search in the night, the chance of her happening upon Harms was ridiculously low verging on impossible. That didn’t stop Wax from worrying. Steris’s father was a silly man, but good-natured and amiable.

It was the best Wax could do, as he needed to locate the governor. That hunt took Wax longer than he’d have assumed, which was actually a good thing. It meant that Drim, despite his dislike of Wax, was doing his job properly. Best Wax could determine, they had sent at least three unmarked carriages away from ZoBell Tower: two decoys, and one with the governor inside. He spotted one on Stanton Way, and dismissed it. Too obvious, with the guards riding on top. Guessing that another had gone east, he found it driving around in a circle in the Third Octant, also trying to draw attention. It was moving too slowly.

Besides, the governor wouldn’t go that way. Innate was a fighter. He wouldn’t want to be seen hiding. So it was that Wax found himself perched on the top of a building near Hammond Promenade, a few streets from Innate’s own mansion. He’d return here, eschewing safehouses in the city. He’d want to be in his center of power and authority.

The mists seemed to glow here in the city, lit by a thousand lights—an increasing number of them electric. It took long enough for the carriage to arrive that Wax was starting to second-guess himself. But arrive it did: a tall-topped enclosed coach with red curtains. Yes, it was quite nondescript. The horses, however, were from the governor’s prized breeding stock. Just like the two decoys.

Wax shook his head as he jumped and Pushed his way to the top of the stone archway outside the First Insurance Bank. The coach moved at a fair clip and held no obvious guards. They must have taken a very roundabout way to take so long to reach here. Wax leaped off the bank’s facade and Pushed on a streetlight, hurling himself after the governor’s coach. He landed on its top and nodded to the surprised coachman, then swung down alongside the vehicle and knocked on the coach’s door, hanging by one arm above the blur of cobblestones beneath. They were certainly running the animals hard.

After a few moments the window shade opened, revealing Drim’s surprised face. “Ladrian?” he said. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Being polite,” Wax said. “May I come in?”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then I
stop
being polite.”

Drim sneered, but glanced to the side, where the governor rode with his hat in his lap. The man nodded, and Drim sighed and turned back to the door.

They didn’t stop the carriage. So Wax had to let go, drop a bullet casing, and Push back to the carriage as Drim opened the door. He grabbed it by the handle, Pushing off a passing light, and ducked into the vehicle, ending up seated opposite Drim and the governor.

Drim would be a perfect person to imitate. As would the carriage driver, as would basically anyone with access to the governor, including his wife and family.

“Lord Ladrian,” Innate said with a sigh. “Breaking up the party wasn’t enough for you? You have to harass me on the way home from it as well?”

Wax shrugged, then moved to climb back
out
of the carriage. He had the door half open before Innate, sputtering, snapped, “What are you doing now, you fool?”

“Leaving,” Wax said. “There are thousands of places I could be right now, most of them more pleasant.” He hesitated, then pulled out one of his Sterrions and flipped it in his hand, holding it grip-first to the governor. “Here.”

The governor’s eyes bulged. “Why would I need a gun? I have bodyguards.”

“So did your brother,” Wax said. “Take it. I’ll feel guilty when you get shot, if I haven’t done
something
.”

“… Shot?” Innate blanched. “My brother was killed because of his flirtations with the underbelly of Elendel. They wouldn’t dare touch me.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” Wax said, leaning out the door, then hesitated again and looked back in. “You know how to spot a kandra, right, Drim?”

“A what?” the thick-necked bodyguard said.

“Those are myths,” Lord Innate said.

“Are they?” Wax said. “Then the one I met tonight must have been lying. Not sure how she made her skin transparent though. Oh well. Guess you have it in hand.”

“You mean to tell me,” Innate said, stopping Wax with a touch before he could move out the door again, “that one of the
Faceless Immortals
was at my party tonight?”

“Two, actually,” Wax said. “One came to help. I would introduce you, have her prove her nature to you, but it does seem that your mind is made up. The other one at the party was the person who killed your brother. You sure you don’t want a gun? No? All right, I’ll just be—”

“You’ve made your point, Lord Waxillium,” Innate said, sour-faced. He settled back beside the carriage’s lantern, which burned gas with a proper light.

“My lord,” Drim said, looking to Innate. “This is stupid. The Faceless Immortals? Every second person claims to have met one, just to get their stories in the broadsheets! You’re not really considering these claims, are you?”

Innate studied Wax.

“He is,” Wax said. “Because he knows
something
strange happened to his brother. Killed in his saferoom, guards murdered from behind by someone they trusted—and Winsting Innate took his security
very
seriously. More seriously than you do, I’d suspect, Mister Governor.”

“You can introduce me to one of the creatures?” Innate asked. “Offer me proof of their existence?”