"Trying to start a fashion, boys? You won't get new shirts when winter comes, you know. You'll freeze your stupid asses off."
"Yes, sir." Kieran let the struggle to keep a straight face show; he'd look like that no matter what his reason for having torn the sleeves off Ash's shirt. He wasn't nervous yet; there was no way for his face to betray the fact that a scrap from one of Ash's sleeves was holding a flap of hammered-flat spoon over the lock mechanism of their door, poised to pivot when the tier was opened, and that Kieran had just heard it clink perfectly into place. The guard glanced between them, alike in sleevelessness, and at the rag of blue-gray cloth Ash was wearing as a bandanna, and let it go.
"Go on, get in line."
Ash muttered, "You mean it gets cold here ever?"
"Sure it does. Freeze the tits off a statue," Kieran replied.
"No talking! Straighten it out, there."
As the line moved out, Kieran darted a glance back, but couldn't see the rag or the spoon. That was good. No one else would see it either.
Padding barefoot along the stone, Kieran picked a particularly gritty bit of corridor and did a startled shuffle-step, went the rest of the way at a half-limp. Once inside the mess hall, he dropped out of line to lean against a table. As he pretended to pry a splinter out of his foot, he watched Ash go through the supper line in his usual place. He kept up the splinter act just long enough to be last in line.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ash leave his tray and walk straight to Sona's table. Not so obvious, idiot! It looks planned! But neither of the two guards near the door reacted. Come to think of it, people really did plan that kind of thing, brooded for days before calling someone out, so Ash's awkwardness was right in character. The white boy bent over Sona, talking in a low voice, and Sona jerked upright with a look of angry suspicion.
Come on, come on, take the bait. It didn't look like Sona was going for it. Kieran was at the end of the line, the last lump of boiled vegetables was being dumped on his tray. If the distraction didn't happen, today was a no-go. If it happened late, this whole part of the plan would have to be reworked before they could try again. The cook shoved the ladle back in the pot of vegetables and turned away. Now, damn it! Say anything, just get him mad already! It's not like the man is a fucking saint --
Ash stepped back and threw his hands up, giving in -- then suddenly flicked Sona's tray into his lap with a nasty smirk. In an instant, the Iavaian was off the bench and swinging.
Perfect. Kieran didn't watch the rest. In that first moment of noise and sudden movement, when all eyes automatically jerked to the disturbance, Kieran's hands went to work. One to the coffee urn, one into the back of his collar where the opium was hidden in a ball of rag. Open the urn, shake out the rag; close the urn, hide the rag. The whole operation took two seconds, tops.
He drew off a tiny splash of coffee into his cup, to keep anyone from remembering a suspiciously clean cup after the fact. He turned around just in time to see a bloody-nosed Ash floor Sona with a beautiful right backfist to the jaw.
The guards hadn't moved; a glance showed one slapping the other on the arm, waggling fingers in the universal sign for 'pay up.' Kieran grinned, lengthening his stride to cut off a handful of inmates who looked as if they'd decided to play too.
"That's enough, Ashes," he said.
Ash turned to him, wiping blood from his face, eyes shining. "How was that, Teach?"
"You won. That's all that ever counts. Now go eat your damn supper." He shoved his tray at Ash. To Sona, he held out a hand. "Not dead yet, I hope?"
"Unfortunately." Sona ignored the offered hand. He used the edge of the table to haul himself upright, rubbing his jaw. "You put him up to that?"
"Wasn't me who stepped on his glasses. Give people something to prove, they prove it." With that, Kieran went to join Ash.
"Did you see that?" Ash greeted him with a huge smile. A smile on Ash's face after the past few morose weeks seemed like a lucky omen. "I kicked his ass!"
"Good work. Keep your head, now. This is where it might get sticky."
Ash leaned in close. "You think they saw you?"
"No. But watch my back anyway."
"I see them. They're just standing there."
"One of them bet on you, you know."
"I wonder how much he won? Not that it'll do him any..." The redhead's joy at winning the fight crashed into the fact that people were going to die because of it. Kieran felt sorry for the softhearted little twit. If there'd been a way they could do this without killing, Kieran would have done it that way, for Ash's sake.
"Yeah, okay. Let's just hope they're all in a coffee mood tonight." And that the coffee's bitterness hides the taste. And that I put in enough, and it dissolves fast enough, and they don't start dropping until they're at their posts, because if they get replaced right away this was all for nothing.
He had to wrestle with himself not to stare at the coffee urn. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched it the whole period. No inmates went back for a second cup -- they seldom did, the stuff tasted like turpentine and they had no reason to stay awake. Halfway through supper, a cook opened the urn and poured in a fresh pot, and didn't seem to see anything amiss. Kieran imagined the swirl of boiling coffee stirring the dissolving drug, melting it into a potent soup of sleeping death.
"God," Ash said, "I'm so nervous."
"You're doing fine. Just remember to be a sulky bitch like you've been the past few weeks."
"Asshole." Ash made the insult sound affectionate.
"Eat. You don't want to do this on an empty stomach."
"I'm too nervous. I'll puke."
"No you won't, because I'll kick your ass if you do."
They both managed to force their food down. The bell rang, and they were let into the yard. Kieran imagined he could taste the heaviness of the impending storm, but that was wishful thinking. Through the side of the fence that faced west, he could barely make out that the mountains looked a shade smoother, a hair closer than usual.
"Are you sure --" Ash began.
"Yes. Quit talking about it."
"Sorry."
"Now we're going to practice like we always do."
"I'll screw up."
"So?" But he didn't need Ash acting weird, missing moves he'd had by heart yesterday. "We'll do kicks. Yours suck, so nobody'll be surprised if you do it wrong."
"Oh, thanks."
"Don't mention it. Floating stance. Bend your knees more, weight over your back leg. Good. Snap kicks, right here. And try not to break my hand, I'm going to need it."
He'd been right: Ash's kicks were awful, and no one noticed that it was because he was nervous.
"You kick like a constipated priest," Kieran said after a while.
"Well," Ash huffed between awkward efforts to reach Kieran's head-high hand, "you smell like one and the southeast tower's empty have a look."
Mentally congratulating Ash's even tone, which no one would hear even if they heard it, he circled under the guise of making Ash pivot. The kid was right; there was no one up there. The swivel gun was unattended, pointing at the sky. The other tower was still manned, and the guard there didn't seem alarmed. Those guards shouldn't have eaten yet -- could they be already shortstaffed? Better than he could possibly have hoped. He just knew something was going to go wrong to compensate.
Time passed. Kieran got tired, didn't have much strength to spare after getting zapped by the Director, so he stopped the lesson. There was nothing to do then but wait.
"Is it just me," he heard someone nearby comment, "or is it starting to get dark?"
"We shoulda been inside by now," was the puzzled answer.
There were no clocks, but the sun had fallen behind the cloud bank over the mountains, which at best guess made it nearly an hour later than they usually went in. Kieran imagined the confusion that must be occurring inside, as the prison administrators tried to compensate for the droves of guards that must be falling ill right about now. It rankled that this part of his plan's success or failure was invisible to him.
A careful study of the guard schedules had led him to decide that those who ate their supper after the inmates were a combination of two shifts. Both the afternoon people going off duty and the night people coming on would have a chance to sample his special recipe. Depending on how many came down sick, there might be almost no one in the towers or on the gates outside, because when missing half their staff their best option would be to put what guards they had as close to the prisoners as possible. Where Kieran could get at them. He hoped.
When the prisoners were finally let back inside, their escort wore white uniforms instead of tan. Kieran silently rejoiced. His brew must have been both potent and popular; they were so understaffed they'd had to pull people out of Testing just to get the inmates out of the yard.
They filed back into their cells. The White Watch men stood warily to their unaccustomed duty while a lone, nervous, tan-shirted guard went about hauling the levers that closed the cells. Kieran smirked at the Watchmen as he passed them. They couldn't use their magic inside the wards any more than he could. They were just men, in here, and they could smell a predator. One shifted his rifle to cover Kieran; the other stupidly stared at the business with the levers. Kieran hoped no one took advantage of this slackness to start a riot, because killing these idiots now wouldn't get anyone out of the cell block. But the only advantage the prisoners took was to talk and laugh while they were locked up, though they were supposed to be silent until the doors were closed. Only Kieran and Ash didn't have anything to say. They avoided each other's faces until, with a familiar clank and grind, the bars closed them in once more.
It was torture to wait until all the guards had gone down to the end of the tier, out of earshot. When he was sure it was safe, Kieran wedged his foot in the bars and hopped up to see how his clever little mechanism had worked.
It hadn't.
"What's wrong?" Ash backed away from the look on Kieran's face. "What is it? Oh, hell. I told you the lock bar was too heavy. It bent, didn't it?"
"Shut up." Kieran sat heavily on his bunk and put his head in his hands. "Shit. Shit. Well, there goes everything."
With his face in his palms, he couldn't see Ash's expression, and he didn't want to. He didn't want to see his misery mirrored there. He didn't look up even when the bed sagged under Ash's weight and a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Look, Kieran..." Ash's voice was careful. Humoring him, or afraid of him. Like everyone else. How could he have ever mistaken that for respect? "We'll think of something. Maybe the sickness dodge will work after all, what with everyone going down --"
"They'll know what it is by then. We have to wait for the storm, remember? If they can see us they'll gun us down, you know that." Kieran jerked his shoulder, trying to dislodge Ash's hand, but failed. "We're fucked. I fucked us. Quit trying to be nice about it."
"I'm not. Okay? Kieran, look at me. At least we're taking a bunch of them down with us, right?"
"Now you sound like me. Stop it."
"Kieran."
"I said stop!" Kieran forgot about not looking, but the expression he found on Ash's face was not the one he'd feared. Far from being miserable, Ash was burning bright again. The pale blue eyes were all the way alive, at this worst of times to lose detachment Ash was completely present. "Don't you care?" Kieran snapped.
"I don't believe it's over. Something will come up. We'll think of something. We're smart, we're smarter than they are."
With a shaky breath he regretted letting Ash hear, Kieran reached down behind the bed. He pulled a sliver of sharpened spoon metal from its hiding place inside the mattress and showed it briefly before palming it. "I'll send you off whenever you're ready, then do myself. I can do it so it won't hurt. I just want to hear that storm first."
Ash looked startled. He shook his head.
"Think about it, Ashes. When my 'supplier' talks, when it all comes out... they don't waste pain, around here. They'll probably make me kill you, then keep me alive to study how I did it. If I'm going to kill you, I don't want to have to live with it more than thirty seconds." He stopped, shocked at himself. Ash didn't speak for a long moment, biting his lip and searching Kieran's eyes. Then he nodded.
"Not until I tell you," Ash said. "I want to know for sure there's no hope first. Promise."
"I promise. Not until you tell me to."
There was nothing to say after that. They watched each other's faces. Kieran found himself oddly detached, caught by the complexities of iridescence in Ash's eyes, lulled into a kind of peace.
The lights went off. They sat together in the dark, not speaking or moving. Kieran heard the guards on the stairs, meaning they were walking both sides, just three guards for the whole place, but it didn't matter anymore. He thought of how they'd been planning to do it; sliding open their door under cover of the storm's noise, slipping out to catch the guards unawares, opening the cells and in the safety of a mob swarming through the mess hall into the yard, over the fence, capturing the towers, opening the gate, escaping into the wild dark while the rain erased their tracks...
It wasn't going to happen.
I'm going to die in this place, he thought. But I gave myself up for dead months ago. All this has been borrowed time. Is there anything I regret?
"Ashes," he whispered.
Ash's hand tightened on his shoulder briefly.
"Ashes, I read your diary. The other part of the book -- I've been reading it for weeks."
There was no reaction. Ash continued to watch him without expression.
"So I know how you think you feel about me. And, um, I think I want to apologize or something. For not being who you think I am. I know I have a pretty face, it confuses people into thinking I'm pretty inside. I'm not. I'm all rotten in there. And I'm sorry for that."
Slowly, Ash's hand slid from his shoulder. "What is this, a deathbed confession? I'm not giving up yet."
"Don't tell me you're not mad."
"Livid. Mortified." He just sounded tired. "Kieran, I think I get why you can't believe I might be right about you. But I'm right. You're not nice, I know, you're a killer. But your mind, your soul, is beautiful. Like a storm is beautiful, like the desert is."
Kieran gave a short sigh. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. I know, I started it," he added to forestall protest. After all, it was something like a deathbed confession, even if Ash chose to believe they might still somehow escape. "I'm grateful, I guess. That you see something in me. But you don't understand, Ashes, I'm dead inside. Cold. Cold like a dead thing."
"I could warm you."
Anger sparked. "You think it's always cheap for me? You think I'm cheap? Say something nice and get it for free?" He had to take a calming breath to keep his voice to a whisper. "We're going to die tonight, I'm trying to be honest. Not that it'll keep me out of Hell. I just want to be honest right now, okay?"
"Okay. I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean it like that." Though the light was dim, he could see the shine in Ash's eyes, the tremble of his lower lip as words were discarded before they formed. Eventually Ash went on, "I wish I had my Talent right now. Then I'd know if you wanted me to believe you or not." He breathed a faint laugh. "It's a relief to have it out in the open. But it seems so much smaller, when it's not a secret. Hello, yes, I'm an invert too, and I want you desperately, I might be in love with you, is that all right? It seems... stupid."
"It's not stupid. I'm just sorry I can't deserve it more, is all."
"I won't waste time arguing whether you deserve it. I just want to see you smile and mean it, once. What do you want right now?"
"I want to leave," Kieran said. He heard sullenness in the words, the useless petulance, and perspective opened for him. He'd known it forever: nothing matters when you're going to die anyway. Why were they bothering to talk at all?
He reached, despite everything surprised that Ash didn't flinch, and brushed a tendril of dirty hair away from Ash's lips, which moved under his fingertips as Ash turned to chase the touch, eyes flicking closed. A hitch in Ash's breath caught Kieran in the chest like a bullet. He swallowed hard, heart suddenly hammering. He bent and covered Ash's mouth with his own.
Something strange ran between them in that kiss, some current of new energy. Contact shocked him; with its immediacy, with how incredibly good it felt to be touched, close, wanted. It hurt, it was delicious, it made him weak, he needed it more than breath.
He pushed Ash down on the bunk, one hand knotted in the soft curls at the back of Ash's neck and the other sliding down his hip. Ash's arms were around his waist, clinging desperately. As his weight bore down, pinning Ash to the mattress, Ash groaned into his mouth and shuddered all over, squirming, aroused beyond bearing and ignorant of what to do about it. Kieran released Ash from the kiss and moved to graze teeth along Ash's jaw and neck, making him gasp.
At first, the thunder was buried under the pounding of his heart; the taste of the skin of Ash's throat interested him more. When he noticed the hiss of rain, it seemed only fitting, a background for the storm in his blood. His fingers were trying the drawstring of Ash's trousers, making the muscles of Ash's stomach jump in interesting ways. Nothing else seemed remotely interesting, compared to that. It was the hail that got his attention. It sounded like gunshots.
Half reluctant, half irrationally relieved, he pulled away by stages until he could look at Ash's face. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, if he even meant to talk at all, but the option of speech was lost in a shock of breaking glass.
There were shouts, reminding him that they were not alone, that he had been about to undress Ash in full view of anyone who happened to walk past; more crashes sounded, and time returned in the clatter of debris striking the cell block floor. Lightning showed faces pressed against bars, eyes turned up, mouths round and black, rain and bigger things frozen in midair. The next flash was longer; he saw a jagged clump of ice the size of his fist hit the floor and blow like a grenade.
And behind all that noise, he sensed a different kind of sound. It reached him through the soles of his feet. The whole mountain hummed with it.
He took Ash by the arms and pulled him off the bed. Ash came trustingly, though he kept looking back at the spectacle of breakage in the middle of the cell block. They crouched in the back corner, against the wall. Kieran was grinning so hard it made his face hurt. "Come on," he growled through his teeth. "Come on, rip it down."
"What is it?" Ash shouted over the rising wind. Deep inside as they were, it was blowing into their cell and it was hot -- night in the desert and the wind was hot, and smelled burnt and wet at once. Rather than try to answer over its howling, Kieran wrapped Ash in his arms and pulled him down. Ash seemed to get the idea, tried to make himself small.
The wind's noise took on rhythm. It was a harmonic throb now, thrumming in his bones. It sounded like a race between the nine fastest trains in Hell, as heard from inside an oil drum the size of a cathedral. It reached inside Kieran, that sound, and shook him, more alien than the stars and at the same time just like coming home. Tornado. A big one, a huge one. What a wonderful way to die! Things were flying around -- paper, clothing, broken glass -- the air was cloudy with dust and mist, mud pounded to a vapor. Kieran bent over Ash's head, not trusting the northerner to protect his own eyes and lungs. He squeezed his own eyes shut against the abrasive air, snatched a handful of his hair over his mouth, wishing he'd thought to grab a blanket to cover them. It was too late now. Even in the back of the cell, the wind was buffeting them painfully.
The floor and wall gave a series of shudders, more tangible than audible. Kieran's ears popped. There was a dull, crunching thud, and everything got louder.
Time lost meaning. Everything was happening at once. A fine crack ran across the floor right between his knees, and he knew the storm would go on until everything was ground to dust. It felt right. He was aroused by the way Ash shivered against him, and that was not out of place either. The noise was infinite. There was no end to wind. His mind shuddered, and he knew that the wards were about to go, but they didn't.
And then the wind was not so loud, and nothing else was falling. The air went cold, and then there was only sighing rain, and distant rolling thunder. Darker than usual, because most of the lamps had smashed, the cell block looked strange.
He realized, abstractedly, that he was sorry it was over. Uncurling himself carefully, he checked Ash for damage. A few scratches, nothing even really bleeding. Ash was watching him expectantly, caught between fear and excitement. In the weird light, he saw with dismay that the cell was intact. They were still locked in. Voices were beginning to murmur, rising in astonishment; from the piles of debris on the floor, from the rain pouring in, he understood that the roof of the central area had been torn completely off.
"Holy shit," he said. His voice sounded strange in his aching ears.
Ash's mouth moved, and the words reached him from a long way off: "I thought it was going to kill us."
A flash of thought, his brain restarting -- hope bubbled up, unfamiliar and urgent. He launched himself at the front of the cell, scrabbling among the debris, and came up with a daggerlike shard of glass ten inches long. It was scary-looking, but not very sharp. He handed it to Ash. "Hold this."
Taking it, Ash was all eagerness. "You have an idea?"
Kieran couldn't find his makeshift knife. There was no time. He selected the thinnest sliver of skylight he could find and sawed it across the skin of his ankle, high up where his pants would cover it.
"What are you --" Ash stopped when he saw what Kieran was doing, ripping the cheap cotton of his shirt, smearing the blood on his hands and chest. Ash pressed the sharp tip of the shard against the floor until it broke off flat, held the larger piece out for Kieran to spatter. "You want me to yell for help."
"You're quick." Kieran placed the flattened end of the shard against his ribs, making sure it looked right. He dropped to his knees, curling over it as if in pain, and nodded. "Be realistic."
Ash took a deep breath, and for a moment Kieran thought he'd screech like a harpy and be totally unconvincing. But he started out only a bit louder than usual. "Kieran? Oh shit. Oh shit, okay, hold still." His voice began to climb and crack. "Help? We need help down here! Don't, don't, don't try to move it you'll make it worse -- we need some help here!"
The occupants of nearby cells took up the cry, moved by the usual human urge to be busy when things are weird. Kieran wanted to applaud. Instead he dabbed blood on his chin, set his teeth in his lip, and gave a hideous drawn-out groan for the pair of grubby, wild-eyed Watchmen who came to fumble at the lock of the cell.
"Hurry," Ash urged, hovering at Kieran's side.
To their credit, they were wary of Kieran. One covered him with a rifle while the other knelt to examine his wound. Their mistake was discounting his frantic, knuckle-biting cellmate. One moment, Ash was whimpering and fussing; the next, he shoved the rifle upwards and head-butted the guard in the nose, transformed in an instant from a comic-opera nancy-boy to a snarling fury.
Kieran made the nearer man swallow his exclamation of startlement, along with a few teeth. The angle was bad, so the beginning of the fight was awkward, and he took a solid punch to the ear that set his head ringing, but once he got his feet under him he dispatched the man in short order and turned to rescue Ash.
Ash didn't need rescuing. He was choking his man with the rifle. Seeing that Kieran was done, Ash flung his victim free and clubbed the man upside the head with the stock. He offered the gun over the Watchman's twitching body. "Got you a present," he grinned.
When they ran out of their cell, someone cheered. Another voice joined it, and another. Then demands and instructions swelled over the cheers and overwhelmed them. Kieran saw the one remaining guard running toward him and worked the rifle's bolt, but the man skidded and changed direction. He went for the exit on the far end. He'd be through it and raising the alarm before anything could be done about it, unless Kieran made a lucky shot -- in the dark, with a pounding heart, using an unfamiliar weapon, he doubted he could drop the man in time. He chose not to bother shooting. They weren't going out that way.
Climbing over rain-slick piles of broken stone, he felt his ankle begin to twinge where he'd cut it. He shut the pain away. Reached the lock lever and hauled it down. With a clang, the tier unlocked, the doors swung open in unison. Ragged, dirty men swarmed out, cheering.
He wasn't going to waste time on the other three tiers. "Let everyone out!" he shouted over the general hollering. "The more get out, the less get caught!" A glance at the rifle showed him it lacked a strap, so he tossed it aside. He made a stirrup of his hands, nodding to Ash. "Go."
Boosted onto the lock box, Ash hesitated a moment, trying to fit his fingers and toes into the cracks in the wall. There had been no way to practice for this.
"Go!" Kieran bellowed, and somehow Ash found footholds. Kieran was right behind him.
It seemed to take hours to climb the wall. Below, faces swarmed and shouted. There was one gunshot, but it wasn't followed by any change in the general commotion. Kieran could see that Ash's limbs were shaking; his own were beginning to tremble as well, reminding him that he'd been through Testing that same morning. A moment's dismay broke in his mind. We're not going to make it. But right on its heels came the realization that half an hour ago he'd been making final confessions, and now he was halfway up the cell block wall, heading for open sky. More than halfway. Almost there. And they were pulling themselves over a lip of broken wall, between twisted slats of metal that had once barred the skylights, into the full blast of the downpour.
Lightning flashed, showing him the wreckage all around. The tornado had broken down walls and snarled fences like yarn. He spotted a relatively clear hole and pointed it out to Ash, getting a nod in answer. Beside his feet, a knotted strip of torn blanket thumped across the top of the wall; the less limber prisoners had made a rope and thrown it up to him. He didn't have time to help them, but he did it anyway, tying the blanket rope to a solid-looking bit of skylight frame before he took off running.
A shout, several shouts from different directions, muffled and meaningless. Then a shot. He ignored it. The rain was bucketing down. No one could shoot straight in this, he could hardly see ten feet in front of him. They were running downhill, he could tell because rivulets of runoff were forming and flowing the same direction. Ash was pulling ahead despite his shorter stride, not bothering to pick his footing but trusting to pure luck. There were more shots, more shouting, falling behind. A heap of fence loomed on their right, eerily tall the way the winds had twisted it, and then they were through.
Suddenly he was no longer blind. Ahead of him, Ash stumbled and slowed, then settled into a smoother gait, subject to the same sensation: seeing with something other than eyes, knowing in a way he had never even noticed before it had been taken away from him. They had passed the ward's edge, they were finally really out.
And we're going right back in if we don't put some serious miles behind us, he reminded himself.
It was easier to run, outside the ward. He had a general sense of the terrain around him, allowing him to pick smoother ground. He'd never thought about that ability before, but now he realized most people must not have it. He could sense that the ground here was flat and sandy, that the puddles and rivulets forming on it were shallow and solid-bottomed. Fluttering blue from the clouds showed him that it looked the same for a ways ahead; hard to judge distance in this light and veiling rain, maybe half a mile. Beyond that was just a dark jumble, which he could only guess must be a bit of hilly terrain.
Ash was faltering now. That first burst of speed had worn him out. Kieran took his arm, made him stop, and they took ten seconds to catch their breath. Put their heads back and gulped rain. Then Kieran clapped Ash's shoulder to get his attention and led him out in a brisk walk. He hoped Ash was a good walker. He himself could keep up this pace all night, even tired as he was, but Ash was looking worn. The climb had been hard for him. He might have torn muscles.
"You're fine," Kieran said. "You'll make it."
In reply he got a wild-eyed look he couldn't interpret. It could have been fear or elation or anything. He darted a look back at the compound, but aside from a general impression of untidiness he couldn't see anything that was going on back there.
Downhill, the slope becoming more gradual as they left the vicinity of the immense mesa, they began to encounter knots of scrub, lumps of rock. His feet were starting to hurt; though he'd grown used to going barefoot, no amount of callus could save him from all this gravel. He hoped they didn't step on anything poisonous. In a rain like this, critters could get flooded out of their holes, and in their panic they'd sting or bite anything that got near them.
The rain seemed to be letting up, so what was that roaring? Water was doing something large up ahead. Kieran wanted to uncurl his senses and reach out to it, but he wasn't sure how. His mind was too sore, this particular skill too unpracticed. He slowed his pace, mindful of the dangers of a desert rainstorm.
It was fortunate that he did, because there was no lightning to show him the sudden river that cut their path. Only the sense of surroundings that came with Talent kept them from falling in. Not, he realized, that he could sense the river itself. In fact, it was blank, a wall of emptiness, snatching away any senses that were extended toward it.
"Now what?" Ash's voice was a shade too high. Starting to panic. "Can we go across?"
The experience of his whole life told him that you never, never cross unknown water in the desert, never go down in a wash in a rainstorm, never linger in a slot canyon at any time, because the water might not follow the regular water rules. It might suddenly swell, might drop on you a wall of water ten feet high, or it might do the opposite and be suddenly sucked away, leaving you buried in cemented mud. It might carry you off, slam you against rocks, wedge you in holes, and of course it would always do its best to drown you. In this darkness he couldn't tell how wide this flood was, but from the sound and the way it blocked his mind it had to be big. So the idea that came to mind was probably suicidal.
"It'll cover our trail. We go in."
"What? No, no we don't."
"Grab onto me. Here, not just my hand, that won't work. We'll lean on each other and try to stay upright, but if we fall -- can you swim?"
"Not in this!"
"Sure you can." Arms locked around Ash's waist, Kieran stepped into the water. Ash had no choice but to do the same.
The current snatched at their ankles, rose around their knees. Debris knocked and scratched, snarled weeds wrapped and tangled. Step by laborious step, they made their way downstream. The rain was beginning to let up. A glance back made his stomach clench -- there were lights at the prison again. The search was beginning. With luck, they'd round up the weaker ones first, the ones who hadn't made it this far, but he couldn't leave it to luck. He and Ash were still close enough that a searcher with a lantern might locate them by sight alone.
"We have to go faster."
"We can't," Ash protested. "We'll drown."
"You can swim, right? We'll ride."
"No. No. Kieran --" Ash's objection ended in a splutter as Kieran pulled him deeper into the rush of water. It snatched them both instantly, knocked their feet out from under them and whirled them away.
Aware only of his struggle to breathe and to keep hold of Ash's shirt, Kieran didn't know how long the flood carried them. Longer than minutes, less than hours. His strength was ebbing fast, the chill of the water stiffening his muscles. More than once, he took on a lungful of water and thought he had drowned himself. He threw a mental apology to Ash for his stupid idea, which had surely killed them both. But at last sandy ground scraped under him and rolled him over, and he was beached, panting in the icy night.
The darkness was total. The water had shelved, spread out maybe, and he lay on his back in inch-deep mud. He still had a handful of Ash's shirt; Ash was attached to it, and alive, wheezing and coughing. Relief turned his guts to warm jelly, making him feel even weaker than he already was.
"It's cold," Ash said shakily, when the coughing was over. "Where are we?"
"How should I know? It's as dark as the inside of a dog. We should get up. We should walk, to keep warm."
"I can't."
"Me neither." Kieran rolled over, spit out a mouthful of grit. He tugged at Ash's shirt, tried to get closer. By shuddering stages, Ash climbed into his arms and huddled there. It seemed forever before the space between them grew warm. Kieran would not have been surprised if his wet shirt froze to his back.
"This would b-be a s-s-stupid way to die," Ash chattered.
"We'll get up and walk in just a second. As soon as the moon comes out."
"Okay."
"Won't be long now."
"Okay."
Gradually, their shivering subsided. In the storm's wake, the damp air was not so cold, and clinging together like this was warmer than Kieran had thought it would be. With warmth, though, came exhaustion. He heard it in his own voice when he spoke.
"They won't find us. We must've rode that river for miles. We got out, Ashes."
"You got us out." A ghost of a laugh. "Kieran Trevarde, you are significantly larger than life."
Discomfort woke Ash; a long list of discomforts. Heat; itching; buzzing; things were walking on him. One of his hands had gone numb. He kept his eyes closed for a long time, nonetheless, sleepily convinced that he was hiding.
Last night surfaced in little bubbles of memory; they were running, were they still escaping? Or had they escaped? Was it safe to move? That was Kieran's bony shoulder under his head, Kieran's chest under his arm, which would have been lovely except that there were flies walking on his face. He snorted them away from his nostrils, rubbed at his eyes; mud flaked under his hand. It felt hot to the touch. When he opened his eyes, brightness gave him an instant headache.
Inches away, Kieran's face was dusty and gilded. This was, Ash realized, the first time he'd seen Kieran sleeping in a good light; that might account for the way Kieran's beauty shocked him. His eyelashes were astonishing. His lips, slack and soft in unconsciousness, were pure drunkenness, and Ash remembered with a surge of gladness that he had tasted them the night before. Kieran's long, callused hands were draped loosely around Ash's waist. His pulse beat in his throat. He looked about fourteen years old. He looked innocent. He was real, all this was real, they were really free.
Ash closed his eyes again, pressing his cheek a little closer against Kieran's shoulder, everything else flying away for one moment. It wasn't possible that it had all turned out so well. Things this good simply didn't happen.
He couldn't avoid the world forever, though. It was getting really, really hot out here.
Where was 'out here'? Ash moved to sit up, and discovered aches in muscles he didn't even know he had. The groan he let out woke Kieran, who immediately answered with a groan of his own.
"Ow. Shit. Ow. What died in my mouth?"
So much for innocence. Ash couldn't help smiling. "Good morning."
"Yeah." Kieran stretched, wincing. He scratched a shower of dirt out of his scalp. He looked at Ash and burst out laughing.
"What?"
"You should see yourself."
"What? I'm dirty, I know."
"You're the mud man."
"I can see you."
"Yeah, but your hair is doing this." Kieran grabbed a hank of his own matted hair and splayed it atop his head, making a face and a rude noise.
Laughing, Ash got himself vertical and dusted himself off. There was an Ash-shaped outline on the ground where he'd been lying, an imprint still damp in a field of mud cracked into irregular polygons. The sun was over some hills in one direction, there was nothing but cracked mud in all the other directions, and though he was fairly sure direction one was therefore east, that didn't help a whole hell of a lot. "Where are we? Are we lost?"
"For now. We'll get unlost later."
"I'm thirsty."
Kieran feigned surprise. "Don't shock me like that."
"And I want a bath."
"You should stay dirty, actually. Not that you have a choice. It'll keep you from burning. In fact --" Kieran grabbed a handful of mud and smeared it around on the back of Ash's neck. He conducted a thorough inspection of the public parts of Ash, anointing him with gritty slime. Ash squirmed when the process tickled, laughed, enjoying it, until he noticed that Kieran had suddenly gone serious.
"Something wrong?" Ash ventured.
Kieran stepped back, dusting his hands. "There. If it gets wiped off, or if you sweat it off, rub more dirt on. Otherwise you'll fry, you're so white."
"I didn't burn much when we were out in the yard."
"You're going to be in the sun for the next ten hours. Not the same."
"Oh. I guess so." That idea took a moment to sink in. "Ten hours?"
Kieran squinted at the sky. "Well, it's late spring, looks like the sun's been up for an hour or so. And we'll have to do it again tomorrow, maybe the next day, depending on where we are. I never saw Churchrock on a map. All I know is we're somewhere northeast of Burn River, maybe closer to Trestre. We're north of the main rail line -- that's what we have to find."
"Okay. And then where do we go?"
Kieran took a long breath and blew it out in a sigh. "We don't go anywhere. I go west. You go east. We hop freights in opposite directions."
Something unpleasant happened in Ash's stomach. He couldn't answer. Couldn't even breathe, for a long moment.
"Don't look at me like that," Kieran said. "You knew it'd end this way."
"No. I didn't."
"What did you think was going to happen? You were going to follow me around forever?"
"Yes. I guess I did think that."
"You want to be a killer too? You want to be a real criminal now? Should I teach you how to murder strangers for money?" Kieran sounded terribly tired.
"Kieran, if -- okay, I hear you, but I can't -- what was that then, last night? You kissed me, we almost --"
"I thought I was going to die. It doesn't count."
"It doesn't count." Ash gave a breathless, brittle laugh. He turned away, looking at the cracked dirt in the palms of his hands. "I see."
After a pause, Kieran said, "Maybe you believe me now."
Ash didn't have to ask about what. "So it meant nothing to you."
"Not nothing. It was a comfort. It wasn't a beginning. We don't have time for this."
Ash surprised them both by rounding on Kieran in a bellowing rage. "Make time! This is important! Explain it to me! Make up your mind! Waking up in your arms made me so -- happy -- how can you think I want to go back north? Do you care about me? Because I thought you did!"
For a long moment Kieran stared, and though he was stone-faced and cold-eyed, Ashleigh thought he might be about to weep. Then his lips thinned and his chin lifted. "Just 'cause you're wet don't mean it's raining." Kieran turned on his heel and strode off across the cracked mud toward the blank horizon, leaving splintered footprints in his wake.
Ash watched him go, momentarily overwhelmed by an urge to just sit down and let the desert have him. So that's how it's going to be. Wild, melodramatic thoughts coursed through him, the need to beg and plead warring with the resolutions to go far away from Kieran as fast as possible. Underlining all of it was a shame so strong he wished he could murder himself with a shotgun, because thirst and hunger were too gentle a death.
These blind emotions faded as Kieran grew smaller in the distance. Others welled up gently beneath them: He's got other things on his mind, like surviving, and maybe drug withdrawal. I expected something he doesn't have the strength to do. It was unkind of me. And he was right that there isn't time for this kind of thing; he knows how to find water and I don't.
Wincing at the soreness in his abused muscles, Ash set off after him at the best pace he could manage.
--==*==--
They didn't speak until what was probably something like noon, when Kieran found a puddle shaded under a snarl of broken brush. Even then, he didn't say much.
"Don't stir up the bottom. I don't want to drink mud."
"Okay." Ash made a careful scoop of his hands and drank. The water tasted delicious as candy at first, but as his thirst was slaked he noticed a swampy flavor in it. When he was done, he looked into what was left and saw little squirmy motes wriggling in the puddle. "Ew. There are buggy things in this."
"Won't hurt you." Kieran bent to the little pool and slurped it right down to the mud layer; he must have finished off half a gallon of the filthy stuff. "Wish we had something to carry this in. Just going to piss it right out, drinking it all at once like this." He stretched, making his spine crack, then looked around. He pointed out a low violet irregularity between them and the far-distant line of the mountains. "We should make those hills in four or five more hours. Should be more water there."
"Without bugs in?"
"Probably not." Kieran started walking again, and that was the last thing he said for almost three days.
--==*==--
Time blurred into a nightmare spin of speed, with unkind slow intervals of clarity. Despite his coating of itchy mud, renewed periodically with dust, Ash's skin burned in streaks where his sweat revealed it. His scalp was especially vulnerable; the dirt in his matted hair made it itch furiously, and when he forgot himself and scratched, it hurt like fire. Sometimes he thought he must look like a sick monkey, what with the scratching and wincing and the gingerly way he walked on his flayed, blistered bare feet. All day he sweated and longed for night, and at night he cursed that wish as he shivered, as if night wouldn't have come if he hadn't wanted it.
When there was shade, they rested for long stretches during the day, which allowed them to use more of the night for walking. Exhaustion always claimed them in the end, though, and they had to find some hollow or corner, chase out the poisonous wildlife, and curl up as small as they could make themselves. They slept wrapped around each other like cats, but there was no affection in it.
The first time Kieran had embraced him against the night's cold, Ash had allowed himself some hope -- had snuggled close and whispered Kieran's name, begging -- but had been given only silence in return. Kieran was as empty of comfort and caring as the desert sky. He was only trying to keep warm.
Hunger was a constant sickness. Ash discovered that it didn't confine itself to his gut after a day or so, but spread through his body, so that he could amuse himself by listing all the parts of him that were hungry. His ankles were hungry. The backs of his ears were hungry. Sometimes Kieran killed something, barehanded or with a rock, and they ate raw meat that tasted of salt and metal, which only served to make him queasy for a few hours before the hunger returned. Ash thought snake meat tasted worse than bugs or mice, but it was fun to watch Kieran catch snakes in his hands. Sometimes they ate plants, usually dry chewy ones that did nothing against the hunger at all. Some flooded his throat with bitterness; others were simply something to have in his mouth for a while so it wouldn't be so dry. The best was a sort of cactus leaf that had to be carefully denuded of thorns and then broken open -- the pulp tasted horrible, but it was wet.
All this time, they didn't speak. There wasn't anything to talk about. There wasn't even anything to think about. The desert was beautiful and boring. Long flat bits of plain, covered with prickly weeds and scrub, divided strips of rocky hills paved with sharp gravel. Ash became certain that Kieran had no idea where they were going, and they'd just keep walking until their feet fell off and they died. Sometimes he looked forward to that, because it would be nice to be done.
--==*==--
At first he thought he was hearing the cry of some strange desert animal. It sounded familiar, and a little frightening, and in his half-asleep state he pondered it until it faded into the distance.
Only then did he realize that animal noises didn't fade off like that. He sat up and shook Kieran's shoulder.
"Hey," he rasped.
Kieran sat up, squinting. They were hiding from the midday sun under an overhanging bit of stone; while they'd slept, the stone's shadow had shrunk, and sitting up put Kieran's head in the glare. Knuckling dust from his eyes, he gave Ash a questioning look.
"I heard a train."
Kieran thought a moment, nodded, and lay back down.
Frustrated, Ash considered shaking him again, but he doubted it would change anything. Hearing the train's whistle meant the end of the nightmare to Ash, but maybe to Kieran it meant something else. The end of quiet, maybe.
I'm an empath, shouldn't I be able to tell? But in all this time, he'd sensed nothing from Kieran. His Talent was too weak to be any use. For a moment, he was bitterly jealous of Kieran's powerful ability, even if it was only good for killing. To have that kind of strength would make a person different inside, might make a person confident and cold like Kieran was. Might make a person afraid to feel anything, lest he understand what he is. Maybe Ash's weak Talent wasn't to blame. Maybe there was just nothing there to sense.
Weary with despair, Ash lay down to wait until Kieran was ready to leave.
--==*==--
The tracks had a smell. Ash was surprised by that. Growing up in Ladygate, the second largest city in the world, he'd seen thousands of trains and all their steely habitat, and never noticed the particular reek of tar and metal that rails had. He smelled it before he saw them. Now he copied Kieran, kneeling to put a hand on one rail's polished surface. It was hot; he snatched his fingers away. Kieran held the pose a moment longer. Then, with no word or look to explain himself, he turned and walked off down the embankment, toward the distant cut the train would eventually come from to take him away.
Exasperated, Ash began to trot after, until he saw what Kieran was doing -- gathering up fallen chunks of coal and pitching them idly into the undergrowth. He wasn't going anywhere, just waiting. Ash sat down where he was. He heaved an enormous sigh, the kind that ought to produce a feeling of relaxation. It only served to make him more tense. This was it, this was where he let Kieran Trevarde remove himself the way he'd come in. On a train. The irony of that kind of closure wasn't quite enough to make him smile. Not even a bitter smile. A grayish grasshopper landed on his knee, big enough that he felt the weight through his prison pants, but he was too tired to flinch. Dozens of the creatures fled before Kieran's footsteps, red underwings flashing. The whirring of their panic told him where Kieran was. He didn't have to look. Didn't want to. But he did anyway.
Weary as they both were, dizzy with starvation, Kieran still projected a large predator's grace. Nothing feline, he was too angular for that, but some kind of canine, something that was to a coyote what a tiger was to an alley cat. He had that loping stride, that swing-limbed inevitability. Some kind of skinny, hot-climate dire wolf. Ash shook his head at his thoughts. They were silly, not poetic -- what Kieran most resembled was himself, an overgrown child who had never once been safe. No wonder he wanted to part ways. Ash was just a liability to him. How could he protect someone when he couldn't quite protect himself?
"Damn it," Ash muttered. That wasn't strong enough. "Shit. Fuck." He snorted. He'd never been much good at cursing. "Gwnorregh!"
Kieran's laugh sounded loud over the hissing of his feet in the weeds. "What did you call me?"
"Nothing."
"No, seriously." He began wandering back, still flinging coal chunks across the tracks.
Scowling, Ash repeated the curse. "I don't know what it means, so don't ask. I just know my aunt says it when she hits her thumb with the hammer. And I thought you weren't speaking to me."
"News to me. I was thinking."
"For three days?"
Kieran looked surprised, as if everyone could keep their mouths shut for seventy-odd hours at a time. "What was that word again? Canorra?"
"Close enough."
"Yelorrean?"
"Yes."
"Know any other good swear words?"
"Yes."
He thumped down next to Ash and threw the last black rock of his handful. "Well?"
"Why should I bother teaching you? You're leaving me any minute."
"Leaving you." Kieran raised an eyebrow. "Okay, think of it like that if you want."
Ash felt his face burning, his eyes stinging; he knew his face was red, and childish tears starting to run; he was too exhausted to care. "You know what? You want to know something?" He didn't wait for Kieran's indifferent shrug. "Not everyone is you, all right? Not everyone is numb and powerful and big and scary and hollow. And you can go around knocking people over all your life, and then you'll get old and sick and you'll know exactly why you're dying alone, because you're the kind of cold bastard who sees those things. And maybe you'll think of me and you'll wonder what my life was like. And you know what? I can tell you right now. For your future self. You tell yourself this: Ash Trine's life was good, it had colors in it and people smiled and there were dogs and flowers. And then you remember to tell yourself you could've been in it but you were too much of a stiffnecked paranoid prick to try."
Kieran was unimpressed. "Been saving that up, huh? You're such a kid. But I do love to hear you talk."
Ash put his hands over his face and gave up to crying. His heart was breaking; he understood that phrase now, because he felt the crack run through, ripping him apart.
"Oh for -- stop it, you baby!" Fingers closed on his wrists, jerked his hands down. Kieran was scowling at him, but beneath that there was...
Gasping, Ash reeled under a rush of understanding. "My god."
"What?"
"You -- you unbelievable asshole."
"What, already?"
"Half this pain is yours! You're all ripped up inside, you want me to come with you, you want it so bad -- god damn it, Kieran!"
"I want you to go home." Kieran's voice was flat and tight.
"My empathy's back. It's been back all this time. I thought it wasn't working, because all the feelings felt like mine, but that was only because yours are the same. You don't want to leave me behind."
"Bullshit."
"No, I know now because, because just now I was so hot and salty inside that finally it was different from you and there you were, right in front of me."
Kieran made a dismissive noise. "Think whatever you want, it doesn't --"
"But it hurts you so much, and all you have to do to make it stop is admit it! God, it makes me so mad! Do you like festering away like that?"
As an answer, Kieran went to touch the rails again. His voice was dry and hard when he said, "Here we go. Should be the 4:20 out of Salt Rock, so I'll be going first."
Ash scrambled to his feet. "You're such an idiot!"
"I could kill you right there, boy, and you are baiting me. Who's stupid here?"
"And don't call me boy! You're no older than I am!"
"Nineteen." Kieran looked bitterly amused.
"One year."
"Decades." The Iavaian threw his head up like a horse scenting the wind. "If you're done having histrionics, you better listen up unless you wanna walk home. You let the engine get past, don't let 'em see you. Then you get up a good run. Pick a car where the door's all the way open or it'll slide and knock you on your ass. Grab the side and swing in. You watch how I do it. Your train oughta be 'long in a couple hours."
Now that his Talent had returned, Ash understood that tone as he never had in Churchrock. When Kieran's drawl thickened like that, it was time to shut up, or someone was going to taste blood. The unfairness of it made him sick to his stomach. "I hate you," he said tightly.
"Good. Makes it easier for you. Now get back under that brush 'fore someone sees you." Kieran took another look up and down the track, then backed beneath a twisted miniature tree that was as hard and thorny as he was. A distant engine noise began to make itself heard over the other sounds.
Ash obeyed, shaking, still crying. How could someone be so stupid, so blindly wrong, so -- scared, so lonely, so certain that anything bright dangled before him was bait for a rust-toothed trap -- and he's just as hungry and exhausted as I am, and look how that's making me act. He took a shuddering breath. "Kieran, I'm sorry."
"Okay. Now shut up."
"I don't hate you."
"Don't matter."
"Can we please say goodbye like civilized people? Please."
In his nest of thorny weeds, Kieran grimaced and stuck out a hand. Ash offered his own, let it be swallowed up, seeing its red-knuckled paleness folded in that big brown hand for the last time. That touch held a moment too long, and in it he felt Kieran digging down into his pain like a toad in mud, hiding in it, believing stubbornly that it sheltered him. He was ditching Ash because it hurt, because nothing that didn't could be trusted. There was no way to change his mind. Up until now, that assumption had always been true. Ash blinked his eyes clear and let his hand fall.
Kieran gave an explosive sigh. "Look --" he began.
"I forgive you."
"What?" A startled laugh.
"Any sentence that comes out of nowhere and starts with 'Look' --"
Kieran's laugh came again, a shade more genuine. "Yeah. Okay. I forgive you too. Just remember the good stuff, okay?"
"Okay."
"We were friends."
"If you ever run into me again, as far as I'm concerned we still will be."
At this, Kieran's face, for just half a second, showed something fragile before the bitter husk snapped closed again. And the sharp pain under Ash's ribs rang with harmonics, like a bell when its neighbor is struck.
The train came upon them suddenly. One moment a distant grinding, the next a swell of noise that rumbled the ground, it came burning out of the distance at a hellish speed. Ash swallowed hard. There was no way to touch something like that. The task was impossible. The noise was immense. As it drew near, he counted four engines pulling in tandem, and the back end was still not out of the cut. The first few dozen cars were coal hoppers, piled high and shedding dust and little coal lumps at every jerk of the chuffing engines. Behind those, there were boxcars, dull green and rust-red and gray.
Kieran burst out of his hiding place and worked himself up from a jog to a sprint. Ash staggered out of his own bit of cover, watching Kieran run away from him. Long legs flashing, Kieran matched speed with the train. He pulled even with a red-slatted wooden box like the side of a barn. Grabbed with both hands and hauled himself up and vanished.
Didn't even look back or wave or -- or anything --
Ash didn't mean to run after. Never actually decided. It was as if a hook was set in his ribcage and the line just fished him in. He was running as soon as Kieran's dust-bleached feet disappeared inside the car; maybe before. His lungs burned, he could hardly see, he stepped on sharp things and knew he'd lame himself, but that only made him tuck his head down and sprint harder. He'd never run so hard in his life. But he was doing it, was actually beating the train, if he could only keep it up long enough to reach that red car with the open door --
And he was there, and knowing it was going to get him killed he grabbed the door's edge and pulled as hard as he could. Rolled across filthy, humming boards. Raised his head to see Kieran slumped in a corner with his arms wrapped around his knees, misery still etched into the shape of his face.
"I'm coming with you," Ash gasped.
Kieran's eyes were enormous, and in the dusty shade looked more yellow than green. His voice was wondering, joyful, and a little frightened. "I guess you are," he said.
The men guarding the platform snapped to attention and saluted as their visitor stepped from the train. Those engaged in the work of rebuilding the prison's defenses knew better than to stop work, but were still tempted into risking a few glances. The Director was a figure almost of myth, the ideal of all the Watch stood for. A young man, some said only thirty, he was wiser than the eldest of his advisors. He was said to have been selected by his predecessor from a group of children brought in for Survey, and raised specifically for the office. He was said to be incorruptible, without weakness or mercy, more powerful in magic than any lesser officer could ever hope to become. It was said he could not be surprised, that he was bulletproof, and that he never slept.
All this was true.
Thelyan chose to allow the rumors, because they were useful to him. He was aware that their whispered transmission prevented them from being taken seriously. Their truth could not hurt him. What he truly was, no one had the frame of reference to guess. This body was even younger than the thirty years ascribed to it. He'd accelerated the useless years of childhood; when he'd met the previous Director, he'd been an adolescent of six.
When he'd created the Watch, centuries past, he'd implanted in the arcana of the Director's secret knowlege a pass-phrase by which he could be recognized. Should a Talented child utter this phrase, he was to be trained to the directorship as quickly as possible. By this means, he'd assured he could take the reins of power personally whenever he chose to incarnate. There was a similar system in place in the Church proper, should he ever wish to be Heirophant. So far he'd never found that position useful; too much public scrutiny, not enough real power. If he needed the Heirophant to announce a new scriptural interpretation, he was perfectly capable of sending inspirations.
He waited on the platform until the head of the Research Division arrived with a four-man escort for him. Colonel Warren was bright red, huffing as he hurried in the desert heat. His salute was adequate.
"Welcome back, sir. We -- er, as you can see, the --"
"Yes." Thelyan lifted his chin to indicate that he saw the wrecked fences, the shattered hole that was the cell block. "I'm not here to direct repairs. Is there anywhere sufficiently intact for us to speak privately?"
"There is, but I must warn you, there is a possibility of cave-ins --" He broke off at Thelyan's look, realizing that the Director could probably outright remove the mountain if he so wished.
"Are the wards intact?"
"Yes, sir. They held."
Thelyan nodded. He had set those wards himself. They were burned into bedrock. He had not expected a simple phenomenon of weather to break them, but it had crossed his mind that this particular storm might not have been natural. Later, he would examine the traces it had left, just to be sure. "And my particular test subject? I expect you've recaptured him by now."
Warren was too red to blanch, but his cheeks went blotchy. "I'm sorry to report that we have not, sir."
After two seconds' thought, Thelyan chose not to respond to this. Neither encouragement nor chastisement would affect the outcome in any way. The Colonel, like most others of his rank and many lesser members of the Watch, knew of the Director's particular scientific interest in Necromancers. Trevarde was already their highest priority, Thelyan was certain. After all, no one was ever dismissed from the Watch. Those who failed in their duty were removed from the chain of command in other ways. Thelyan had learned, through long study, that the human animal was perfectly capable of threatening itself; duplicated threats merely made it surly and prone to rebellion. He gestured for the Colonel to lead him, and the man sprang to obey with the alacrity guilt provided.
The office to which he took Thelyan was not his usual one. On the way, Thelyan cast an interested eye over the damage the storm had wrought. It had been an exceptional bit of weather, apparently. In his long existence, he had encountered a storm of such destructive power only twice before, and thus it was tempting to ascribe this one to the same source. A clear mind could not succumb to such thinking, however; Thelyan had not, after all, made a study of severe weather. So he observed the cracks in the stone, the collapsed buildings and half-fallen tunnels, and remembered them, and made no judgement. Deeper within Churchrock's stone, the hollowed rooms and passages were intact.
It was a shame that some of it had been wrecked. He did not enjoy destruction, or indeed unnecessary change of any kind.
He took the offered chair in a room that had previously been a storage area. It was still lined with file cabinets. Thelyan made a mental note, if the various rebels and criminals ever left him some free time, to familiarize himself with the contents of these files. He let Warren sit, waved the escort away, and closed the door from a distance with a gesture and a word. Another gesture, a few more words, drew a veil of silence around the room that only he could penetrate. Warren looked impressed, as he should; magic outside one's Talent, pattern-magic, was nearly effortless for Thelyan. The same effect would have required a five- or ten-minute ritual for Warren. Thelyan didn't even have to stand up. But then, he was the one who had invented the method.
"I have your report," he said, "but of course it's out of date. Have you recovered all the subjects of special interest?"
"All but Trevarde, sir. And one Ashleigh Trine, who was classified special interest because we were using him as training material, but he's only an Empath."
Thelyan raised an eyebrow. "And a rebel propagandist, as I recall. He yielded us a large group in Ladygate this past winter. How do you suppose he managed to evade you?"
"My guess is that he's with Trevarde. The two were confederates in the escape. See, Trevarde used --"
"In a moment, Colonel. In your report you mention that the northern section was damaged and a number of subjects lost. The wording is vague. Do you now have a better understanding of the situation?"
Warren shuddered at the mention of the northern section. It wasn't his responsibility, and Thelyan got the impression he avoided it as much as possible. "The, um, the Section Head hasn't reported yet, sir."
"Very well, I'll speak with him later. Who's in charge of rebuilding? You? You've made the perimeter fence a priority, I assume."
"Yes, sir. I've made it clear that the placement must be exact."
"Good. Now. I believe you were about to tell me how the most secure detainment facility in the world suffered an escape of such excessive scope."
Warren's jowls quivered, and his chin bobbed. "Your Mr. Trevarde was the instigator, sir. He somehow got hold of a quantity of prepared opium and introduced it into the coffee urn at the end of the inmates' dinner period. He was able to do this unobserved because he'd engineered a fight between two of his confederates, which distracted the guards."
"The confederates' names?"
"Trine and Sona. Sona's the one we brought in as a --"
"Yes, I remember. Has Sona been recaptured?"
"No, sir, but he isn't with Trevarde. We had his trail following the south road, but he lost us in a wash."
"Very well. Advance his capture to a priority just below Trevarde's. Were there other confederates?"
"No, sir."
"I presume the guards who allowed themselves to be distracted were reprimanded. The policy of non-intervention in prisoner conflicts exists to prevent just such an eventuality."
"They're dead, sir." Warren shrugged. "They drank the coffee."
Thelyan nodded. "Continue."
"The men went to their supper while the prisoners were in the yard. Nearly all of them drank the coffee and were poisoned. However, because the cooks refill the coffee urn several times during the course of the meal, the poison was diluted by stages, so that not all the men showed the same symptoms. Our initial diagnosis was food poisoning from the corned beef, which was the only item the guards ate that the prisoners didn't. The symptoms were consistent: dizziness, vomiting, sudden fatigue.
"This was in the report, but I'll recap: we had four fatalities, nine men unconscious, and three more conscious but too ill to perform their duties. I pulled everyone from Research to hustle these fellows out-Ward for Healing. I distributed our remaining personnel with an emphasis on the outer barriers, as per policy, and had the prisoners locked down for the night.
"We'd been aware for some time that a large thunderstorm was approaching. By ten-thirty, when it struck, the medical section had revised their diagnosis to opium poisoning, though they hadn't yet discovered which of the dishes had been poisoned. My judgement was that it was most likely introduced into the food stores during transport, as part of a rebel plot to attack the compound from outside." Warren's face was drawn with guilt. "I was disastrously wrong, as it turned out. Thinking that the attack would take place under cover of the storm, I pulled men from barracks to fully man the perimeter.
"The hail was between four and six inches in diameter. There were at least two tornadoes in the area, as well as straight-line winds and subsequent heavy rains. We lost eight men to the storm, sir. Another five were injured.
"The prisoners' escape through the broken roof of the cell block was detected immediately by a Watchman named Sarsen Cowder, who fired several shots and attempted to raise an alarm. Unfortunately, Cowder was immobile with a broken leg, having been thrown from a tower post by the wind. He was unable to give chase or shoot accurately. By the time others came to his assistance, forty-six of one hundred two prisoners had vacated the premises.
"I was out there myself, sir. We needed every gun we had, by then. This decimated us."
Thelyan nodded to indicate that he'd absorbed all this; he'd found that if he didn't give some kind of acknowledgment, people repeated themselves. "Have you discovered yet how they escaped their cells? Your report claimed the doors were opened from outside, with the tier mechanism."
"Yes, sir. It was difficult to ascertain when I wrote the report, because the three guards who were on duty in the cells are all dead. One apparently ran from the cell block and was killed in a tunnel collapse. The other two were beaten to death by escaping prisoners. They were found in 2-E, though. Trevarde and Trine's cell. I've since interviewed many of the prisoners who failed to escape or were recaptured. Apparently Trevarde feigned an injury and Trine yelled for help. I know, sir," Warren held up a hand to forestall criticism. "That kind of ruse shouldn't have worked on them. All I can say is that their knowlege of your particular interest in this prisoner might have been a factor."
"I see." He considered this. Knowing of Thelyan's intention to further study the subject Trevarde, the guards had most likely weighed the possibility of duplicity against the possible death of the Director's special project, and chosen to risk the former. A not illogical decision, if an unfortunate one. "Very well. How many prisoners were killed by fire from the gun posts?"
"Well, none, sir." Warren looked puzzled. "We couldn't man the posts during the storm."
"I would have thought those would be more essential than men on the tiers, Colonel."
"I thought you knew, sir. Those posts get flooded in a heavy rain. We speculate that the whole cell block area was some kind of reservoir, before. You know, for whoever dug the tunnels in the first place."
Thelyan waved that aside. "You Surveyed the cooks to be sure about the poisoning, I assume?"
"No sir, just questioned them."
"Survey them. Have you discovered yet how the prisoner obtained the drug?"
Warren went fuschia again, deeply embarrassed. "Yes, sir. It was brought in by a guard. A man named Kerr Pastachan. He used the drug as a... a trade item. To obtain a hold over various prisoners from whom he extorted... sexual favors. We have him in lockup now. I thought it best to await your judgement in this matter."
The Director leaned back in his chair, thinking about the implications. Trevarde must have whored himself, and repeatedly, to get a quantity of the drug sufficient to use for mass poisoning. The one Thelyan sought would not do that. That one's arrogance would be intrinsic, even in a mortal incarnation. Allowing himself to be humiliated would be impossible for that one. However, this was balanced by certain evidence on the other side of the equation, sufficient to warrant continued study.
He'd learned all he needed to from this meeting. Thelyan disposed of the rest quickly. "Pastachan must have had confederates. Men who knew what he was doing and didn't report him. Find these men and hang them. Report Pastachan executed, and place him with the prisoners. Should his Talent be of interest you may use him as a test subject. If his Talent is not on the list for investigation, let him experience the lot of his former charges for six months -- if they let him live that long. Then shoot him."
Hearing this, Warren went pale, but he made no objection. "Yes, sir."
"You've been insulated, Colonel, here in Research. But you must not allow yourself to forget that order is the first business of the Watch. Our conduct must be spotless."
"Yes, sir." This speech seemed to give Warren strength. "I understand."
"I'll remain here as long as I can. The situation in Rainet is under control, pending further developments, so I can guarantee my presence through tomorrow. Barring events that require me elsewhere, I'll supervise the whole of the recapture process. The first item of business is Trevarde. Tell me how you lost him."
"The rain washed out the trace. No doubt he's somewhere in the desert to the west of the compound, if he survived. I have a pair of men out there right now, but I believe I've mentioned I'm understaffed."
"They may as well continue, in case he intends to wander the wilderness, but it seems more likely he'll make for a population center."
"Trestre is closer, sir, but I seem to recall Trevarde had some organized crime connections in Burn River."
Burn River; named for the waterway that drained from the locus of concentrated power that people called the Tama Burn. Thelyan, knowing its source and function, was interested to know whether the connection between Trevarde and the Burn was coincidental. "Send a team there to investigate. There's no permanent Watch office in the town, is there? Authorize them to get assistance from the local police."
He unsealed the room so that Warren could dispatch these orders. Then, satisfied that events were well in train, Thelyan turned to the less interesting business of his office. "Let me see the repair estimates. I'll see what I can do about your funding."
"There's a trick to it." Kieran was instructing Ash how to jump right, because it was dodgy enough having the northerner tag along without him breaking his leg. "You watch real close when I do it. And for fuck's sake don't jump in any holes or bushes or anything."
"Sure. I can do it."
"Hope so." Kieran leaned out, watching the lights of Burn River spread, flickering, across the horizon. There was still a wash of purply-orange light across the western sky, and they'd have to jump while that still gave them enough to see the ground. Otherwise they'd have to wait for the lights of the city, and someone was sure to notice them. "All right. Flat place coming up. Remember, if you can't hit the ground running, then drop and roll."
He judged the train's speed and the terrain, and leapt; the ground jammed into his feet painfully hard, but he managed a few awkward chicken-steps before falling to his knees, and it didn't feel like anything was actually damaged. Half fearing Ash would just stay on the train, he got up and jogged alongside.
Nope. There went Ash, flailing, tumbling, landing flat on his back. He gave an abortive couple of gasps, then wheezed in a huge breath and started coughing. Kieran went to help him up. "Quiet!" he ordered.
"Sorry. Got the wind knocked out of me."
"Well, keep it down." He gestured around the area they'd landed in: deeply gullied urban-outskirt wasteland, populated by tin-roofed shacks and rusting machinery. More of the latter than the former. "There's bums and whatnot out here. I don't feel like getting in a fight right now."
"I can take 'em." Ash made a few weak punching gestures, grinning to show it was a joke.
Kieran shook his head. "Come on." He set out down the railbed, fatigue keeping his pace down to a weary trudge.
He was having trouble thinking straight. It was the hunger. Fortunately, he'd planned out this part while his brain was still working, and all he had to do was follow the program. He just prayed certain people still remembered him, and others didn't learn he was in town. And that Ash didn't screw things up. The kid was way too nice for this kind of thing. Too idealistic. Obviously thought his deprivation-fired crush on Kieran was True Love and meant to hang around until hanging around got him shot.
Kieran had tried again to explain, in the boxcar, though he'd known it was useless; evidence that his mind was gimping from lack of food. You should have gone back north, Kieran had told him. You've got friends there. They would've hidden you.
I wouldn't have made it there, Ash had replied. I'm not as good at surviving as you are.
I'm not sticking my neck out to save yours, if we get in trouble, Kieran had warned. From the martyr face Ash had put on, he'd believed it. Not thinking straight either, apparently, not putting two and two together. He's surely seen Kieran's agony of relief at when he'd rolled into that boxcar. Kieran figured, if he hadn't been on magic-wrecking rails at the time, sensitives from coast to coast would've sat up at the same moment and thought: oh thank you fate -- never let me leave you again.
But Kieran was damned if he'd admit it. His intention to split up had been the correct one. Their chances of survival had gone down the crapper. He really shouldn't be so happy about it.
They walked through the dusk, and as full night fell the city's glow began to brighten overhead. Burn River was a major shipping nexus, point of departure for loads of ore from the mountains, point of arrival for everything heading inland to Canyon and Trestre; produce, dry goods, the raw materials for manufacturing, and people fleeing the overcrowded north to strike it rich on the frontier. What these arrivals usually found instead of wealth was drunkenness and social diseases, drugs and robbery, all indulged by an underfunded, understaffed police force, half of whom were on the take. It was a sick town, a canker, a giant bird dropping on the clean surface of the desert. It was also busy, vital, interesting, and a very good place to get lost.
To Kieran's surprise, coming home felt like coming home. He breathed in the scent of the factory smoke, horse, and fried food, and some knot in him loosened. He was on his own ground now. An animal response to territory. As they drew near the switching yard, the deep mourning howl of a freight sounded; soon the heavily laden beast was grinding past them at a snail's pace, three engines pulling some fifty or sixty cars of taconite.
Kieran remembered playing games with those rusty, slightly squashed pellets of raw iron; they made inferior marbles, but excellent slingshot bullets. He remembered climbing the sand piles behind the glass factory. Remembered lying on his cot in his mother's room, looking at the brown square of city glow on the wall opposite the window, the mottled piece of wall that always seemed frescoed with dancing figures when he was half-asleep, listening to the sound of trains hauling.
The sense of peace brought by coming home loosened his tongue so far that he even told Ash about it. "I've always loved trains. They're freedom, you know? I would have liked to drive one. But natives are banned from those jobs. The only way to get on a train is as a porter, and that's all yessir-nosir."
"Not your style," Ash said quietly, with a smile in his voice.
"At all," Kieran agreed. "I invented jumping boxcars all by myself. Didn't know anyone else did it until I hopped a Canyon local and found four old guys already in the car." He chuckled. "Hopped right out again."
"Probably wise."
"I was a skittish kid. Makes sense, I guess. I was in the way. Kind of extraneous. And you get to the point pretty early on of saying, all right, there's no place for me, I'll just dig a place. Kind of under and between. That was why I loved the trains. I can't explain."
"No, I understand," Ash said. "They're ignored space. Temporary, mobile -- they don't seem to belong to anyone. That empty boxcar was like a safe little burrow, all the safer because it was moving."
"Exactly." Kieran looked at Ash in surprise. "Yeah."
Ash smiled slightly. "For me, in Ladygate, it was libraries and schools and churches. They're full of extra rooms no one ever goes into. And you can find the most marvelous things in there. I once found a sapphire earring. Just one, stuck between the boards of the attic floor, in the South Bank Library. I kept it in a box with all this other junk -- I'm kind of a magpie, actually. I've been feeling naked for a while now, not having any possessions."
"Well, they'd be a pain in the ass while you're running."
"Oh, I know. But I need worthless gewgaws or I'm not happy. You wait. As soon as I have pockets I'll start accumulating junk. Keys and pebbles and broken jewelry and that kind of crap."
"Huh." Kieran considered this, a way of being that seemed similar to the hoarding habits of whores, but different in that it seemed to have no reference to wealth nor impact on status. Maybe it was just Ash's way of being nuts. Everybody, Kieran was certain, was nuts in one way or another. "Never trusted stuff, myself. Can't rely on it. Gets lost, broken, taken away, et cetera."
"Ah." A long pause. "My aunt never took my stuff away. She even brought me things. A whole ring of numbered key tags, once -- that was my favorite. Gold pen nibs, beach glass, a crystal stopper from a broken decanter --"
"She was as crazy as you are."
"Absolutely."
Kieran laughed, and Ash joined him. It was a moment of friendship, laughing together in the sharp, dry night air, just as Kieran recognized the row of dark warehouses they were passing and got another dose of homecoming. It was pleasant. It was a little marred, though, by his uncertainty about the reception they'd get when they reached their destination. He'd been away a long time. He wasn't sure the same people would be there, or if they were, how they'd feel about seeing him.
He was so tired and hungry that he had no idea what he'd do if they wouldn't let him in.
This was Andel Street, he knew, though there were no signs this far from the city's center. They were in the right part of town, but if they stayed on this road they'd be seen. Andel turned into pubs and boardinghouses five or six blocks up from here, and while prison clothes didn't look that different from an ordinary worker's outfit, he himself was kind of conspicuous, big as he was, and their filthy, barefoot condition would draw interest. He peered down each cross street they came to until he recognized Caire and turned them north on it.
This took them even deeper into industrial territory, but Ash never questioned him. The northerner was reeling, stumbling, with a fixed smile on his face, but still he trusted Kieran absolutely.
Quit trusting me, Kieran thought. I don't want that kind of power over you.
But that wasn't the sort of thing you could say out loud, not even to an empath. He supposed Ash would be disillusioned soon enough. Kieran couldn't go on protecting him forever, after all. Though he meant to try. He'd made his effort to make Ash go home, and that was it, he'd shot his bolt, he didn't have the strength to try again. It was a surprise to realize this, and a relief. He'd gotten used to watching over Ash in Churchrock, he guessed, and now it was just the only way he could be comfortable.
Past the factories -- not the only industrial district in town, but the cheapest -- came an area of long, low houses, all perfectly dark: worker barracks. Curfew was strictly enforced in those places, at least so far as lights went, but that didn't keep the men from slipping out to visit the one house in the neighborhood that had a light showing.
It had been three years since his last visit, and while he still remembered how to sneak around back, the gap in the fence that had been a tight fit for a rangy sixteen-year-old was impossible for him now. He found a bit of rusted barrel hoop in the alley, smashed it flat on the ground, and slipped it through the back gate to pop the latch. To his relief, it was still the simple affair it had been before; if they'd put in a real lock, he supposed he'd have had to climb the fence, and in his present state he wasn't sure he could have done it.
Muffled laughter came from the house, the artificial kind he remembered hearing so often. Fortunately, no one was using the back yard. Paper lanterns hung forlorn from the half-dead trees; rusted iron furniture was scattered about, and some wooden tables, one with an assortment of empty bottles on it, labels warped by water; there had not been a party here since before the rains.
"Where are we?" Ash whispered.
Kieran shushed him. He closed the gate and discarded his impromptu breaking-and entering tool. "Just look harmless."
"My specialty."
It felt strange to climb the three steps to the back porch. Stranger to do it with longer legs, bigger feet. To hear the boards that had once chirped at his bird-boned weight now groan under his heavier step. To have to bend to look into the kitchen window; to tap on the glass and see a total stranger start and squeak in surprise.
The girl at the kitchen table sat staring at him for a long time, hand to chest, cup forgotten in her hand. She was wearing a ratty yellow robe over some kind of frothy underwear, her hair frizzled and her makeup smeared. She was white, blond, a bit pasty. She was probably frightened to see a big, filthy, tattooed native staring in at her, unsettled that it should occur in the one room in the house that clients never saw.
Kieran mouthed his question at her, aware that she would not hear it unless he yelled, and unwilling to yell. When this failed to conquer her fear with curiosity, he turned to his companion.
"Ash, look pitiful."
"Not hard," Ash said with a rueful grin. He waved at the girl, waggling his fingers like a child. "Hello? Miss? Could you open the window?"
Either Ash's waifish face did the trick, or she realized that they could go around the front if all they wanted was to come in. She crossed to the window and bent to open it a crack. "What do you want?"
Kieran tried to sound friendly. "Is Shou-Shou still here?"
"What do you mean, still here? She supposed to go somewhere?"
"It's been a while since I was in town. Could you get her to come talk to me?"
The girl looked suspicious. "Depends on what you want."
Kieran sighed his exasperation. "Girl, if I wanted to make trouble I'd just do it. Go get her. I'll wait on the porch here. Oh -- and not that you would, but if you tell anyone else about me, Shou-Shou will pull out your neck hairs with a tweezers."
The girl raised an eyebrow, but shrugged her acquiescence as she shut the window. Maybe his knowledge of the way Shou-Shou punished girls who annoyed her convinced this one that he knew what he was talking about.
"This," Ash said abruptly, "is a bordello."
"That would be dignifying it."
To his credit, Ash accepted this and let the subject drop.
A few moments later, a far shorter time than he had expected, he heard the click of the kitchen door's deadbolt. It opened to reveal a plump, sagging native woman of middle years, clothed in purple, her hair bleached an unnatural orange, a grin spreading across her face as she looked at him.
"Well," she said. Then, sounding more pleased with every word, "Well! Fuck me blue. Little Kieran. Little Kieran has come home to roost. I was sure they couldn't kill you."
"Little Kieran," Ash whispered, grinning.
"Who's your friend?" she continued. "No, let me guess. This must be that Shanin Dyer they talked about."
Kieran felt a wince go across his face, and saw it echoed in Shou-Shou's as she realized she'd blundered. "No," he said simply. "Shan didn't make it. This is Ash Trine."
Ash made a deep, theatrical bow. "At your service, ma'am. I hesitate to cut short the reunion, stranger that I am, but any minute you're going to let us in and I'd like it to be now. I promise I'm housebroken, declawed, and I barely shed at all." He put on his most pathetic face. "Feed me?"
Shou-Shou laughed. "Get your skinny asses in here. There's a pile of leftovers, some customers ordered a banquet and then got too impatient to eat it. You can sleep in the attic -- good god, boy, you look like you been the cat's dinner, and you ain't had no dinner yourself for a long time."
This as they came inside, into the light. Kieran looked down at himself, then at his reflection on the inside of the window glass.
It was a shock. He'd known in the abstract that he was thinner, that he was dirty and bedraggled. But it was still unpleasant to see it. His eyes were hollow, as were his cheeks, and all the roundness had gone from his muscles until he looked like a sculpture of wire and bone. Mud and blood crusted his skin, matted his hair into clumps. His lips were chapped and cracked. His eyes looked huge and strange in his face, luminous, feral, like those of an injured animal.
This inspired him to take a closer look at Ash. The white boy was, if that were possible, even thinner, even dirtier, all his exposed skin crisscrossed with scratches. His hair stood out in snaggles all over his head, so dirty it looked dark brown instead of red. He needed rest and food. Kieran was prepared to grovel to get it for them, but knew that Shou-Shou was proof against histrionics. He spoke calmly instead.
"I'll tell you the truth, Shou-Shou. We've escaped from prison. They'll be hunting us."
She looked skeptical. The blonde hovering at the other end of the kitchen just looked confused.
"There was a storm," Ash put in. "Broke the place open. We're not the only ones who got out."
"We covered our trail pretty well," said Kieran, "but they will be looking for us. If they find out you've sheltered us, you'll be in trouble. It's up to you. If you tell us to go, Shou-Shou, we'll go."
For a long second, she considered the risks. Then she snorted. "Looking like that? I don't think so. Sit down, both of you, and stop talking noble bullshit. Ami, get the boys something to eat." She glanced over her shoulder at the door that led to the public part of the house. "I've got customers." She swept out, closing the door firmly behind her.
Kieran turned to Ash, ready to fish for praise at this satisfactory solution. The northerner had his head down on the table. He was sleeping like a child.
The blonde burnt some beans and rice and scraped it onto a plate for them, unspeaking, then fled the kitchen. Kieran nudged Ash awake and shoved a fork at him. They both ate with heads drooping, chewing slowly, like cows. The cheap, greasy leftovers were delicious.
Shou-Shou poked her head into the room when they were almost done. "No one's in the bath, and you're not sleeping on any bed of mine all filthy like that. Use the plain soap." She waited for the beginning of Kieran's nod, then vanished again. Despite how late it felt, it was really only mid-evening, and she had business to conduct.
"Bath," Ash said in a stunned tone.
"This way." Kieran stumbled back out onto the porch, with Ash reeling after. He led the way to the most sheltered side of the house, where a lattice of wooden slats screened the bath pool from the world.
It was a social space for the girls, not a working one, and it was a mess with their special towels and scents and brushes scattered all over. The water was well cooled, edged with floral-smelling scum. Kieran stripped off his dirt-stiff prison clothes and threw them aside; they'd probably have to be burned.
Climbing into the water, he instantly started shivering. It was freezing. He looked up to warn Ash, and found that the northerner had made no move toward the pool, but was staring with glazed eyes, swaying slightly.
"Ash. Snap out of it. Gotta wash or Shou-Shou won't give us beds."
"Hnf. Oh. Uh-huh." Ash shucked his clothes with movements as creaky as an old man's. His emaciated body was livid with scratches and sunburn. Though once Kieran might have been aroused or embarrassed by Ash's nakedness, now he could only pity. He reached up a steadying hand to Ash's wrist, fearing a tumble and a broken neck.
The water seemed to wake Ash up, though it made his teeth chatter. Kieran located the cheap soap, used it, and gave it to Ash. He had to keep reminding the white boy of missed spots. "Duck your hair again." "You planning to wash your other arm too?" After he'd rinsed the desert off himself, he took the soap away and scrubbed Ash's back for him, and finished off washing his hair, since he seemed to be having trouble holding his arms up long enough.
He could barely climb out. Then he had to clasp Ash by the wrists and drag him out by main force. Ash couldn't stand; he knelt on the wet boards of the porch, wracked with shivers. Kieran, nearly as exhausted, made an abortive attempt to towel them both dry, then gave up and stole a couple of bathrobes off the row of hooks on the wall. Shrugged into the largest one himself. It was still far too small. Wrapped the next-largest around Ash, and wrapped himself around Ash as well, and stayed like that until they'd both stopped shivering.
After a time, he moved to stand, but Ash had buried his face in Kieran's chest, and refused to budge. Kieran sighed. "Are you asleep again?"
"No," Ash murmured.
"Do you want to be?"
A pause. "Yes."
"Then we gotta get up. Come on, you can do it. I'll help you."
He coaxed Ash to his feet, but the northerner was still refusing to look at him. At last he took Ash by the shoulders and pushed him off. Ash turned his head, but not fast enough.
"You're crying? Ash, of all the stupid..."
"I'm just tired. I'm sorry."
"Well, after everything... look, it's all right. Let's just deal with stairs now. Okay?"
A sniffle. "Okay."
Getting up the back stairs to the attic was less of a chore than he'd feared it would be. Ash steadily put one foot in front of another, and though he occasionally reeled backwards, he did it slowly enough that Kieran could catch him. The attic door was standing open. By murky streetlamp light reflected off the sloped ceiling, Kieran could see that a mattress had been laid out for them between rows of steamer trunks and hat boxes, with clean bedding on it.
Ash let out a weak chuckle. "Only one bed. They must think we're..."
Not bothering to answer, Kieran shut the door and helped Ash to the bed. He separated sheet from blanket and tucked the blanket around Ash. Rolled himself in the sheet and lay down.
Suddenly the silence was deafening. When Ash's breath shuddered and hitched, the sound ran across Kieran's skin like a wind.
"Please stop crying," Kieran murmured.
"I'm s-sorry." Another whispered sob. "It's nothing, I'm just so tired."
"Then sleep. That's what you do when you're tired. Not cry. Sleep."
No answer.
Kieran sighed exasperation. He raised himself on one elbow and took Ash's shoulder, made him turn over and show his face. Ash did look exhausted, so fragile and sunken-eyed, but he was also clearly miserable. He rubbed a chapped-knuckled hand across his nose, stared wet-eyed at Kieran, and said nothing.
"Spit it out," Kieran demanded.
"I'm... I'm so --"
"Sorry, I know, I heard you. Now what's really wrong?"
Ash stared hopelessly for another long moment, then surrendered with a sigh. "There's nothing I can do about it. All right."
"About what, for fuck's sake?"
"I'm afraid to sleep because I know you'll ditch me. You don't want me around. But I'm just embarrassing us both. I'm sorry, I'd be stronger if I weren't so damned tired."
Kieran blinked, amazed. "You really think I'd do that? Sneak out? Leave while you're sleeping?"
"You're saying you won't?"
"It never crossed my mind."
"Okay." Not completely convinced.
"You win, Ash. You were right, I didn't want to split up. Figured we should, but we didn't, and I don't want to fight about it anymore. I can't stand it when you cry. It's not goddamn fair."
"And I can come with you? Wherever we go from here?"
"If you wake up and I'm not there, I'm just taking a piss or getting coffee or something. Swear I won't ditch you. Cross my heart and hope --"
"Don't." Ash's fingers stilled his lips. Kieran smiled and kissed them, took the hand's wrist and kissed the palm. Ash's eyes went round. "Kieran..."
Feeling half like a liar and half in love, Kieran kissed his mouth lightly, then burrowed in behind him and snaked an arm around his waist. "Sleep," he commanded. "I cannot believe how fucking tired I am. Sleep now."
One last shuddering exhalation, and Ash relaxed all at once. Leaning back against Kieran's chest, his damp hair cold in the hollow of Kieran's throat, his thin body feverishly warm. Precious. Perishable. Kieran thought distantly, Maybe we'll be lucky. Maybe I can keep him alive long enough to dump me. Because once the novelty wears off he'll get tired of me real fast. Wonder if saying I-told-you-so will make it sting me less when he changes his mind. Oblivion killed the thought and dragged him under.
Slowly, luxuriously, Ash floated through layers of dream to gentle wakefulness. The knowledge of where he was filtered into him bit by bit. A smell of food and soap and cosmetics. Mildew and chemicals. A mattress beneath him that was wide and soft, though a ridge where a rip had been repaired dug into his hip. Golden light and a growing warmth, approaching the threshold of unpleasantly hot but not quite there yet. He was clean, wrapped in cotton sheets worn soft with age. Under the sheets he was wearing only a too-small robe of yellow silk with frayed cuffs.
He was alone. For the first time since his trip in the jail car, he had a space entirely to himself. It was a narrow, peaked room, painted white with thick, gloppy paint. There was a small window at one end, admitting bright sunlight. His bed was a mattress on the floor, hemmed in by battered trunks and crates overflowing with dusty clothing. A fly beat itself against the upper part of the window. The lower part was open. Midday, from the way the light lay on the floor.
He remembered Kieran's assurance of last night, and was able, for the moment, to believe it; that though he'd been left alone in this room, he was not alone in the world. He wanted to think that his sense of Kieran's presence was empathic power rather than wishful thinking.
He threw off the covers and examined his body. He was thin, his hipbones standing out like knives. All the little cuts and scrapes that had annoyed him so much yesterday were scabbed over now, and no longer felt like anything. His feet were a mess, cracked and blistered. There were streaks and patches of sunburn on his arms and hands, pink but not painful or itchy, just a bit warm. He knew from experience that these would fade in a day or two back to his usual whiteness, their only lasting effect to increase the general profusion of freckles.
Adjusting his borrowed robe for maximum modesty, he cautiously opened the door. A smell of food and faint sound of conversation drifted up from the stairway at the end of the hall. He followed it.
Downstairs, the soothing white walls gave way to garish flowered wallpaper, the whole decor pink and gold like a girl's bedroom. Which was probably the point. There was a hallway lined with doors, each door labeled with a flowered plaque: Kitta, Darcy, Jeri-Lou. The hall was L-shaped, and at the corner of the L was an open room furnished like a sort of parlor; he put his head in and saw a piano, several couches, a cheap rug, a lot of dirty dishes and empty bottles. The occupants of the house had not yet cleaned up last night's debris. Not early risers. Understandable, he supposed.
Overlaying the perfume and spilled beer he smelled a delicious waft of coffee. He let it lead him to another stairway, this one opening out into a large area a bit like a shabby gentlemen's club, with deep chairs and bare wood floors, a bar occupying one corner, brass-bound kegs gleaming. This, he supposed, was how the house pretended to be a legal operation -- though he guessed that there were a few bottles of bootleg hard liquor around here somewhere. A door beside the bar stood open; the streak of light that fell from it was eclipsed by a moving shadow, and he heard a clank of dishes and a grumbling female voice.
When he appeared at the kitchen doorway, the three women in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at him. Kieran wasn't there, just these women. One, a handsome woman with skin so black it looked almost dusty, like a plum, burst out in loud laughter.
"What are you supposed to be?" she said. One of the others, a plain brunette, gave a chuckle. The third woman was Ami, who looked a bit sulky, and didn't smile.
The brunette gestured to his bare legs with a coffee spoon. "You look like a chicken," she said in a lovely, smooth voice. "Is Shou-Shou hiring boys now? Is that the deal? I thought she had an agreement with that place. What's it called."
"Cat and Peaches," the black woman filled in. "They're going to make a stink." She had a faint Prandhari accent, though her skin marked her as Paiwaar. A world traveler. "Isn't that one of Ami's robes?"
"Er." Ash didn't know whether to challenge their misunderstanding or not. "Can I have some of that coffee?"
The black woman shrugged. "Help yourself."
While Ash was busy with finding a cup and wrestling the huge kettle, Ami spoke, sounding more apprehensive than sullen, though she still looked pouty. "Where's Kieran?"
"I don't know."
"Are you his boyfriend?"
"I don't know." It didn't seem odd to be asked that question so bluntly here. Maybe rooming with whores wasn't such a bad prospect. He sat down next to her, giving her a crooked smile. "You sound like you know him. But last night you didn't look like you did."
"Didn't recognize him." Ami looked like she was going to say more, but thought better of it.
The brunette leaned over the table, looking eager. "This sounds like gossip. Who's Kieran?"
The black woman, checking something on the stove, turned with a gunky spoon in her hand. "Before your time, love. You ever hear Shou-Shou talk about a girl named Rasa?"
"The one who died in Pinkie's room?"
"That's the one. This wasn't such a nice house then. It was before Shou-Shou took over. Run by a man at the time, and you can guess what that was like."
The two white girls wrinkled their noses. Ash did arithmetic in his head and realized the black woman must be a lot older than she looked.
"Anyway, she had a kid already when she came here. Boyfriend ditched her or something. Most of the girls liked the kid, but the owner didn't want him around. Kept bugging Rasa to get rid of him or put him to work. Finally just pimped him out without telling her. She found out and tried to leave. There was a big scene, and the owner kicked her in the stomach, and she died the next night. That was what made Shou-Shou take over the business, but by then the kid was already gone."
Ash drank coffee to cover his discomfort; it burned his tongue. "How old was he when this happened?"
"Nine or ten, I guess." She looked at him more closely. "I bet you are his boyfriend. You're just his type."
"I am?"
"You sure are. You got eyes like big blue china plates. Bet he couldn't tell you 'no' if his life depended on it."
In light of yesterday's events, that was almost literally true. Ash wasn't sure that was a good thing. "I don't think he's happy about it though."
She chuckled. "Typical." Then, to the brunette, "Anyway, he used to come around sometimes. When he got too beat up or hungry. Never stayed long, though. He's like one of those cats, you know, come around to eat but never let you pet them. He was turning tricks, of course, and Shou-Shou would've let him do it here but he wouldn't. Never liked to have a closed door between him and the desert. After a while he stopped coming around."
"I know where he was," Ami blurted. "He was killing people." Then she looked past Ash at the door and blanched.
"We don't need to talk about that," said Kieran's voice.
Ash turned with a slightly pained smile. The pain went out of it when he saw Kieran smiling back. And not his public smile, either, but something a little bit wry and hopeful, for Ash alone. The rest of the world seemed to gray out. That's it, I'm definitely in love with him, no question anymore. It's him, not just his looks. Though -- fiery hell he's gorgeous.
A robe was apparently beneath his dignity; he'd constructed some kind of kilt out of a dark blue bedsheet. His hair was freshly brushed, gleaming smooth as black water over his shoulders and past his waist. Unbearable glory. Ash considered testing the theoretical utility of blue eyes in the ordering about of Kierans by commanding him straight up the stairs to bed, but it looked like he was in taking-care-of-business mode. In one big, knuckly hand he held a cup with a brush and razor sticking out of it.
"Found this lying around," he explained, offering it. "You might want to use it pretty quick here. You're starting to look like a grownup."
Ash made sure to touch Kieran's fingers when he took the shaving mug. Despite his calculation, he still felt his face go pink. Kieran looked amused, but his eyes were burning darkly, and their green fire promised that it wouldn't be long before the last distance between them was erased. Ash had to turn away quickly.
The brunette at the table raked her eyes up and down Kieran's body. "Now that's more like it," she purred.
Kieran grinned. "Sorry, sweetheart. You've got the wrong equipment." To the black woman he said, "Jindallie, wasn't it? You remember me, right?"
"Mm, not so big or smiley, but sure I do. I guess you want some of this." She waved the spoon.
"I don't want to piss off Shou-Shou. We need some clothes, and she might not give 'em to us if we've been eating up all her food." But he was joking; as he spoke he was getting bowls down from a cupboard, going right to them as if he knew where they were kept.
They didn't speak while they ate. Ash gloried in the food and the sunlight, in the rays of contentment that beamed out from Kieran's smile and warmed him from the inside. He had never seen Kieran so peaceful -- so beautiful, when he was happy, that it made Ash's heart ache.
Over the next couple hours, different women filtered in and out of the kitchen; some sampled Jindallie's cooking, others pronounced themselves too hung-over to eat. Most were white, and had Rainet or Eskard accents. Ash guessed that they had come south to seek their fortune just as so many men had, but found as little honest work available here as there. According to the wisdom of the Church, a woman existed to be a wife; those who couldn't or wouldn't marry were beneath its notice, as much in the south as in the capitols of the Commonwealth.
They didn't seem unhappy. Rather, no less happy than the women who sold hot pork buns on the streets of Ladygate, or the ones who mended clothes or nets, or most of the wives either. Ash was beginning to think that people's happiness had very little to do with their lot in life. It was annoying to find such a smarmy truism borne out in experience.
The whores sat at the table or leaned in the doorway, went out into the yard to squint at the sun, praised the food or complained of their hangovers, yawned and scratched. Ash went looking for a mirror and shaved, then came back for more coffee. The women teased him about how young he looked without stubble. He found himself becoming more and more at ease in their company. Kieran interjected the occasional dry comment in an amused rumble, and every word he spoke reached out and wrapped Ash in a sense of belonging.
The older ones remembered Kieran, and had to talk about how ridiculously tall he'd become, criticize his tattoos, and cluck over his scars. The younger ones seemed at first apprehensive of him, but were reassured by the others' acceptance. Ash got his fair share of attention too; praise for his pretty hair, laughter for his knobby knees.
Everyone wanted to know how long they were going to stay. Only Ami asked as if hoping to hurry them away. Ash supposed these women didn't see a lot of men who weren't interested in their physical charms, which probably made Kieran and Ash the ideal guests. All talk of the duration of their stay was met by the statement that it was up to Shou-Shou. They were all waiting for her.
When at last she arrived, she was wearing a walking dress of modest construction, carrying a pair of canvas shopping bags. These she thumped down on the table, saying, "Nothing's going to really fit you, Carrots. You wouldn't wake up when I wanted to ask your size. As for you, my boy, we're going to make you so handsome --" She paused, noticing what Kieran was wearing. "Tell me you didn't go outside like that."
"Why would I? It's not a political statement, Shou-Shou. It's just a bedsheet."
"Am I missing something?" Ash said tentatively.
Kieran explained, "Traditional dress. Forbidden, like the braids. Have to wear pants." To Shou-Shou, "Tell me you found something long enough."
"Not nearly, but the boots will cover it." She upended one of the bags. Its contents occasioned oohs and aahs from the women. Most prominent were a pair of tall black boots, used but not used hard, with steel toes and half a dozen square steel buckles running up the calf of each. There was a pair of black leather trousers, a bit worn at the knees and seat but otherwise in good shape, also fastened with buckles. There was a black shirt of what looked like raw silk; not all its buttons matched. There was a long coat of gray leather that had probably once been black, and a large black kerchief embroidered with small red squares along the hem.
"I remember you always wore black whenever you could," said Shou-Shou. "Theatrical little monster that you are. Go on, see if it fits." When Kieran hesitated, she laughed and added, "Child, what do you think you have that we ain't seen a million times?"
Kieran smiled back. "It's for your sakes, dears. The little ones would swoon." He collected the clothing and took it out of the room.
Ash reached for the other bag. "Is this for me?"
"Like I said, it might not fit." Shou-Shou scattered out a bunch of brown and blue. "It's your own fault for sleeping so hard."
"I don't remember you trying to wake me."
"Exactly."
What she'd brought for Ash didn't get much of a reaction from the women. He didn't blame them. Tan canvas trousers, a white shirt, a medium-blue sweater unraveling at the hem, brown workman's boots, and a coat of brown sheepskin lined with its own fleece. It all looked functional, durable, and drab.
"Perfect," said Ash. "I just wish you'd got me a hat. My hair's kind of obvious."
"There's lots of Yelorreans around here," one of the women said.
"And you boys won't be wandering around town," Shou-Shou added. "That would be idiotic."
"That's a point."
Ash reached to gather the whole pile, at which Shou-Shou sighed exaggerated annoyance. "All this modesty. Just put the clothes on."
Ash opened his mouth to protest, then hit on a solution: he put the pants on underneath his robe. There were groans, then laughter.
He had to borrow a belt to cinch in the trousers, which were too big in the waist, though the length was good. The shirt, similarly, billowed around his chest but was the right length in the arms. Putting socks on was luxurious after weeks of bare feet; the women laughed at the way he wriggled his toes and sighed. The boots were a bit too big, but they stayed on. "Marvelous," he said with a big smile.
"Put on the sweater," Shou-Shou ordered. "I got it to match your eyes."
"It's too hot." He held it up to his neck instead, batting his eyes to make them laugh.
Then Kieran came in, and turned his knees to water.
It didn't matter that the clothes were secondhand; Kieran looked like a bandit king. All that black made his skin look more gold than brown, made his eyes glow like a cat's. Made his teeth flash startlingly when he smiled. "You're a miracle, Shou-Shou. I owe you."
"Good," she said briskly. "Because I have a job for you. And some for you too, Red. Put away what you're not going to wear and get Jindallie to show you the holes in the fence."
This made the women laugh more, but Ash was content to be put to work. He let himself be handed a hammer and some nails and pointed at the front yard.
It was only fair, after all. Even secondhand, those clothes would not have been free; more to the point, by being here, he and Kieran had endangered the house. The local police might overlook the brothel's existence, especially if they got free service now and then, but they couldn't ignore the harboring of fugitives. Ash wondered what work Shou-Shou had found for Kieran. Something in the house; cleaning, maybe. The thought of Kieran in an apron with a dust mop made him laugh.
"A couple things have changed around here since you've been gone."
"Well, yeah."
"I mean, in relation to your arrest, your supposed death."
"Tell me."
They were speaking Iavaian now, sitting in Shou-Shou's private office. She'd told him only a couple of the girls had any Iavaian, and that just pidgin, but she'd still closed the door. Kieran guessed that the job she had planned for him was a bit less wholesome than fixing fences.
Shou-Shou located a bottle of smuggled single-malt and two glasses before speaking again. She threw her whiskey back in one practiced motion. Kieran sipped his; he'd never liked being drunk.
"When you left the White Rose boys for the Dyers, it weakened them. You were so public about it. Everybody knew they didn't have their big threat anymore. And if they could let you go, maybe others could break loose. So there was chaos. A lot of splinter gangs. The Rose couldn't punish them all."
"I know that, Shou-Shou. I was there."
"I'm just explaining. You were down in it. This is what it looked like from outside."
"Okay. Go on."
"You know that the Rose was after you and the Dyer brothers. What maybe you don't know is that Kinter was obsessed with you. He let a lot of smaller fish get away."
Kieran nodded. He'd noticed that the old halfblood who ran the Rose had seemed especially stubborn about trying to have the Dyer gang destroyed. There'd been a period of several months when Kieran hadn't had to buy ammunition, getting all he needed off the corpses of the Rose boys sent against him. He hadn't known that Kinter was neglecting his other business.
"Sounds like him," he said.
"When the Watch got you, and the papers said they'd shot you, the Rose started gathering in its strays. They didn't like the way you turned into a martyr, but -- did you know someone wrote a song about you?"
"What?" Kieran laughed.
"It was pretty lame. Made you look like a hero, though, so of course the guy who wrote it got arrested. Anyway, after you 'died,' there was a bloody time, bodies turning up everywhere, the cops were afraid to go out. Now I'll come to the point: I guess Kinter wanted to make sure he had the whole town under his thumb, because he started expanding his interests. Now you can't find a bar, gambling house, or brothel that isn't paying protection to him. Including this one."
Kieran blinked, seeing the implications. "Oh."
"We're paying off the Rose and the police. It's cutting into our operating expenses. I want you to take care of it."
"Shou-Shou..." He shook his head slowly. "I can't stay. I have to disappear. You don't seem to understand, having me and Ash here could bring the whole Watch down on you. They won't just shut you down, they'll put you all in work camps. Do you know what those women's work camps are really for?"
"Hell, we're just about doing that already. Cops and Rose boys scare our paying customers away -- we're like their little private harem, only we have to pay our own rent and water bill. I'll take the risk."
"Well, I won't. What are you asking? You want me to stand at the door and pitch them out?"
"No." Her eyes glittered. "I want you to kill them all."
Kieran opened his mouth for another protest, and forgot to shut it as understanding hit him. He laughed in admiration. "Shou-Shou. You are an amazing woman. You don't just want this house, do you? You want the whole poppy trade."
She smiled. "It's about time I took a hand in this town. You know I'd do a better job. Kinter's old. And he's a man -- they get too emotional. Present company excepted, of course."
"You can't afford me," Kieran said, though he felt like he was backpedalling. "All I really owe you is a meal and clothes and one night's lodging. What, twenty, thirty signets? I used to charge fifteen hundred thrones for a job."
"How often did you see it, though?"
He couldn't reply to that.
"Kinter held your fees. He just kept you smoked up. You only got cash when you worked for some out-of-town colleague of his."
"How do you know that?"
"Ami."
"What's she know?"
"Don't you recognize her? She used to be one of Kinter's little pets, until she started looking like a grown woman. Then he fobbed her off on me. This was while you were still a Rose boy. But I guess you didn't see those girls much, did you?"
Kieran was suddenly tired. He wanted to take Ash and go; get away from all this sordidness into the clean emptiness outside. "Shou-Shou, I'm grateful to you. I owe you. But I don't owe you that much."
She poured another brace of whiskeys and waited for him to drink. Then she said, "You've got no choice. Ami will have gone to them already. They'll be here as soon as they can load their guns and tie their shoes."
He stood, overturning his chair. "You bitch!"
"You should thank me. I'm handing you your revenge."
"You think I need that from you?"
"Kinter was the one who told the cops where you and Shan were hiding. He sacrificed that Burdock creature, that Pyrokinetic of his, to make sure they believed it and knew to call in the Watch." She watched calmly as he clenched his jaw. "Still want to leave your hometown in Kinter's hands?"
Through his teeth, Kieran said, "I don't give half a rat shit what Kinter does. And I'm not going to risk my ass just so you can turn into him."
"I saved something for you." She reached beneath the desk and brought out a bundle wrapped in a towel. It made a heavy thump when she set it on the desk.
Kieran brushed the towel aside; his hand eagerly grasped the thing this revealed before his eyes had quite seen it. His own gun. The one he'd had custom-made when he joined the Dyers. Hart & Sons' brand-new design, an auto-loading pistol that carried a magazine of nine bullets, his little advantage over his adversaries' five- and six-shot revolvers. He ran his thumb across its lapis-inlaid ebony grip, and the familiar weight and texture weakened his knees. He felt whole again. He hadn't realized how weak and cornered he'd been without it.
Closing his eyes, he deliberately slowed his breathing until it was normal again. Then he took the time to examine the gun carefully. Shou-Shou had kept it in good shape. All four of its magazines were nestled in a further curl of the towel, and they were all loaded. Shou-Shou dug in her purse and produced two yellow pasteboard boxes, more familiar to him than the label of the whiskey bottle or the names of trains -- how many times had he said those words at various tack-and-saddle shops all over Iavaiah? Hart's Standard .40-Gauge Rimfire, Fifty Rounds. He snatched them into his pockets, scowling.
"You're overestimating me, you know. A lot. I'm not sure how many men I can handle at once. I hope you put Ash somewhere safe, this isn't his fight."
"Isn't it? Looks to me like he'd walk through hell for you."
"I don't want him to. I'm telling you, Shou-Shou, this is not going to work. You're just going to get a lot of your people killed."
She sniffed. Stood, put away the bottle, rolled her shoulders. "Probably about time to get ready. Now, don't get stupid just to prove me wrong. You know you can do this, Kai."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, and slammed out of the room.
As he stormed to the front door, he heard Shou-Shou in the kitchen telling the girls to go upstairs. Kieran grabbed Ash's bundled coat and sweater off the hooks by the front door. He hated to walk out on a debt like this, but Shou-Shou was asking too much. What she wanted was impossible.
Maybe she'd fed him a few times over the years. It might even have kept him alive once or twice when he wouldn't have made it otherwise. But she hadn't kept his mother from getting killed. She'd waited just a little too long before taking over. Now she wanted to be Kinter. Let her. But not with Kieran's help. He threw open the front door.
They were standing in the yard. Three of them, and Ash, looking wild-eyed with a pistol pressed to his throat.
Kieran's options flashed before his eyes, and every single one of them was unacceptable. The fear on Ash's face was unacceptable. The sudden flame of fury rising in him was unacceptable. He couldn't act, couldn't not act; his mind was reduced to a single glyph of refusal. Half a second later, he was a passenger, and something else had the reins.
He ducked back inside and slammed the door. In the same motion he dropped to the floor and rolled aside. A rifle bullet splintered a hole in the door. Missed him by a mile. He heard a startled sound from the direction of the stairs, someone frightened by the gunshot, but that wasn't his problem. Drawing as he dashed across the room, he put his other hand in his pocket and came out with all his spare clips arrayed between his fingers.
He darted for the back door, dropping to one knee as it began to open. He had put himself in the shadow of the stove, where his dark shape would blend with the black iron and confuse the eye. He didn't wait to see the man's face. As soon as the door was out of his way, he opened fire.
Luck was with him; his first adversary had pushed at the door, rather than holding it, and when he fell backwards he didn't close it. There were a few scattered thumps and clangs as the Rose boys beyond the dead man tried to find a target, drowned by the thunder of the Hart. Kieran felt their deaths, one after another, like hot breaths on his skin, and then there was no one alive out there. He dropped his clip and slammed another home as he dove back into the front room, making for the shadow of the stairs.
He wasn't quite there when two of the three from the front yard burst in, firing at random. They were using a tactic common in gang warfare -- the usual human urge when bullets are flying is to freeze or run, self-preservation conquering any urge to fight. Those who could return fire would do so wildly, accelerated heartbeat shaking their aim. But all Kieran saw was a pair of targets; everything else was simply gone, the hammer of gunfire just so much background noise. He put holes in the two Rose boys until they stopped being people. There was still a round left in the clip, but he dropped it anyway, not certain what he'd find outside. Not a conscious thought, just the way it was done; conscious thought was gone now.
Kieran knew that the man outside would most likely shoot anything that came out, but there was a good chance his trigger finger would be a little slow, anticipation messing up his sense of time. He took the door at a run, leaping over the crumpled bodies that held the bullet-pocked wood open, not even listening for gunfire -- he'd be hit or he wouldn't. Without pausing to look for his target, he vaulted the porch railing, hit the ground and rolled to his feet.
The last man's gun was following his path; in the heartbeat before that man could correct his aim, Kieran whipped his remaining clip at the guy left-handed. The man's eyes followed the blocky black object flipping toward him, and then red blossoms thumped across his chest and up his face, and he fell.
Kieran looked around for more targets, but there were none. He heard nothing but his own ragged breathing, his own heartbeat, slowing. The rattlesnake mind that had moved him suddenly dropped him back into control, and terror for Ash overwhelmed all else. The last man Kieran had killed was the one who'd held the gun to Ash's throat; had he relinquished his hostage, or killed him?
He heard a whimper: Ash, hurt -- dying hurt, from the sound of it. Kieran was charging for the source of that whimper before he even saw where he was going, tearing out dead rosebushes by the roots to get at the pale shape huddled under the corner of the porch. He didn't feel the thorns lacerating his hands. He wrapped those bleeding hands around Ash's bowed head and raised it to look into his eyes. Blank eyes, like blue paper; he'd seen those before.
"Look at me! Where'd they get you, Ashes? Show me!"
Ash replied by fainting.
Only then did Kieran see that there wasn't a mark on him.
The only blood was smeared on his face from Kieran's hands. His light-colored clothing would have showed any injury, and though Kieran searched for something hidden, a graze across his back or on his inner thigh, felt his boots for holes and checked through his hair for bumps or soft spots on his skull, there was nothing. Terror peaked, tightening Kieran's chest, and then all at once let go. Panic wasn't helping. There was something wrong; Kieran knew the difference between some girly swoon and a real loss of consciousness, and this was the latter. He hauled Ash out into the yard and checked him over again.
Ash was pale, his pulse slow and hard, as if his heart were laboring. His skin felt clammy. His white shirt was half translucent from sweat, and more still poured from his skin, chill and reeking of fear. Something had happened to him, but damned if Kieran knew what it was. He wished there was someone left to kill.
Well, there will be, if I hang around here any longer. The cops'll take their time, they don't care what happens on this end of town, but Kinter's not going to give up. Dumbshit doesn't know when he's beat. It was hard to leave Ash lying there, but dragging him inside didn't make sense, not when Kieran would just have to drag him out again a minute later. He dashed in, jumping the bodies again, to gather his spent magazines.
Shou-Shou was coming down the stairs as he finished. "You're getting sloppy, hon," she said. "Was a time you wouldn't have let them get a single shot off."
"I oughta charge you full price for every one of these assholes," he growled. "Would, too, if I thought you had the money." He bent over the meat that used to be an en