Tim Akers - Heart of Veridon

I sighed and finished my drink, then found Harold and plucked at his sleeve.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Those Guildsmen, the Artificers. Did they already head home?”

“No, sir. They’ve been made comfortable.”

“Where?”

“Sir?”

“Where are they staying? What room?”

“The, uh. The entertainment, sir, does not usually mingle with the guests.”

“Just tell me what room, okay?” I slipped the only hard currency I had brought with me into his palm. “Let’s just say I’m a curious guy.”

“Of course, sir. They are housed in the servants’ quarters, near the zepdock.”

“Stairs down somewhere?”

“Near the kitchens, sir. Just this side of the theater.”

“Thanks.” I cuffed him on the shoulder, then headed to my room. Didn’t want to look too anxious.

The storm kept going, maybe even got worse. Angela had given me a third floor room with a window. Not a benefit on a night like this. The room had been closed up all winter, only opened hours earlier by the servants. The air was stale, and the sheets smelled like dust and cobwebs. The heavy curtains gusted with the storm outside, evidence of drafts in the old walls.

I lay in bed, fully clothed, until I figured everyone else was asleep or passed out. I took the pistol out from where I’d hidden it, checked the load again, then snuck out into the hall.

The lights in the hallway were dimmed. The carpet swallowed my footsteps as I crept downstairs. I got down to the servants corridors without anyone seeing me. It was quiet down there too, and dark. No windows out, just cold stone floors and wood paneling. I crept along, quiet as a cat. There were a lot of doors down here. Perhaps I could have gotten a little more detail out of Harold for my money.

I didn’t have to look long. They left the lights on, and their door open. It was around a corner from the main stairs, away from the rest of the servants. Not unusual… people got nervous around Artificers. All those bugs and their history of heresy. I came around the corner and smelled it, that heat-stink of fear and shit, like a slaughterhouse. I took out the pistol and thumbed the hammer up.

They were dead. It happened quietly, no mess, no fuss. They had been sleeping, the Guildsmen all in one room on tiny bunks. The master was in a different room off to one side. Each had a stab wound, straight into the heart. I didn’t check them all. I got the idea, after the first couple. There was another room, opposite the master’s bed, where the Summer Girl had slept, probably. She was gone. Signs of a struggle in here, piss on the floor, some blood on a broken bottle. She had swung at her attacker. Probably woke up while her keepers had been breathing their last. Tried to defend herself. Where was she now? And why kill all these folks? Not like it was self-defense.

I went back into the main room. It smelled in here, more than it should. I went back to the tidy bodies, checking each one. It was the fourth one. He’d been dead for a while, maybe two weeks. And he wasn’t an Artificer.

His bloated chest strained against the buttons of his military jacket. Square cut, the cuffs braided in the traditional knots of the Air Corps. But he wasn’t a Pilot. Patches were torn off his sleeve and chest, the threads dangling. His buttons were iron and stamped in the double fists of the Marines. Assault trooper. Heavily modded, his bones and organs sheathed in metal cuffs, iron plates welded just beneath the skin. A little engine so he could walk longer, march harder, fight until the bullets ran out. What was he doing here? And why had the Guildsmen been lugging around a two-week old dead body?

I stuck my hand into his jacket pocket, fished around. Bits and bobs, dirt, some pictures of a girlfriend or something. Finally, an ID card. Not the slickest murderer, whoever had done him. Took the time to strip his jacket of unit patches, but left his ID card in his pocket. Sergeant Wellons. The card was worn and dirty, the edges ragged like a favorite book. I didn’t recognize the unit, and he listed no ship. Maybe a garrison assignment, somewhere? Still. I pocketed it and left.

I was getting a little worried about Harold. People were going to find these bodies; people were going to ask questions. Eventually Harold was going to say something about how I was asking where the Artificers were staying, and then maybe people would be coming to ask me questions. I would have to have a word with Harold. Clear things up, before they could get messy. But first, I had to find out where my friend was. Why he’d killed these nice people, and what he wanted with me.

Wasn’t Prescott a Register? Yeah, he was in charge of unit assignments and personnel. He might know this Wellons guy. Might at least be able to find out where he was stationed. Seemed like a golden opportunity. I’d drop by Prescott’s room, give him the ID card and a way to contact me, and I’d go and find Harold. Then I’d find my friend, and we’d straighten out our differences. Prescott was somewhere near the main hall, probably near my own room.

I found it, sure enough. Again, his was the open door. This time there was more blood. Plenty more. The window to his room was open, too, and the storm was gusting in. I went in and shut the door, then secured the window. His tablelamp was humming quietly, next to an upturned book of erotic poetry.

Prescott was sprawled across his bed, his fingers curled around a gun belt that still held the pistol, peace-locked in place. I pushed him over carefully. His ribs grinned up at me. I let him settle back onto the bed. There was blood all over the floor, thinned out by the rain that had blown in the window. Blotchy footprints circled the bed, but the wind and rain had disfigured them significantly. The mess was all over my feet.

I was seriously freaked. I didn’t want to talk to Harold, didn’t want to find my creepy friend. I wanted to get the fuck out of this house and down the mountain back to Veridon. Nobody heard anything? It happened fast. A lot of drunks in the rooms around us, but still. Whoever killed Prescott had done it quick, and quiet. I wiped my feet carefully on Prescott’s bed sheets, turned off his light, and then snuck out into the hall. Back to my room, so I could collect my coat and the stuff Prescott had given to me to deliver to Valentine. I was going back to town, even if it meant walking.

I almost got to my room before I ran into the guards. I ducked into a draped windowsill, just deep enough to hide me if I held my breath and thought skinny thoughts. They were sneaking up to my room. Ten of them, maybe more, with rifles and truncheons. They were Tomb House Guards.

They settled around the door to my room, checked the loads on their guns, then nodded among themselves. One of them, a sergeant, stepped forward and pounded on my door.

“Master Burn! By the authority of the Council of Veridon, spoken for by the Lady Tomb, we have a warrant for your arrest and detention. Please open the door!”

He waited half a breath, then put his shoulder into the door. I hadn’t locked it when I left, and it burst open. I got a good view of my empty room. They milled about in the entrance, poking their rifles at the bed and under the covers, talking loudly. I started to go. Something caught my eye.

There was a sudden hard scrabble against my window, like hail or teeth on a water glass. I watched the window burst. The storm disappeared, to be replaced by a complexity of darkness and metal. There was a man standing, or nearly a man. His clothes were sodden and torn, the skin beneath like a dead man’s skin, ivory and shot through with black veins. He had one hand on the sill, jagged glass snagging the flesh, and one of his feet was already in the room. Behind him flat planes of oiled metal shifted and ruffled, shiny leaves flexing against the buffeting winds. Wings. He had wings of coiling metal.