Tim Akers - Heart of Veridon

Fourth guy. He put a hand on my chest, the palm wide, his other arm hidden behind him. He looked me right in the eye and smiled.

“Burn. Where you headed?” He said. It was Cacher. Friend of Emily. Good friend.

“I don’t know, Cacher.” I looked back to see the Orrey boys and the metal guy amble up. “Where am I headed?”

It wasn’t one of the quayside warehouses, so that was okay. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t that bad. The third guy kept really close, his eyes dead. Other than Valentine, this guy was the most metal I’d ever seen. His face was a steel plate, the eyes pitted ball bearings that looked like river stones. However he saw, it wasn’t the way I did. Just his jaw and teeth were original issue. When his coat flipped aside there was more, a plain of tiny gears spinning through their cycles. Most of it was probably just for show, but I made a note to never gut-punch this guy. Probably lose my knuckles in the grind. He kept those dead eyes on me.

The others were real casual, like we were buddies out for a walk. Hell, we were buddies, of a sort. I didn’t always like to be around Cacher when Emily was in the room, but we all got along well enough.

“Boss could have just arranged a meeting,” I said. “My appointment book is open.”

“I figure he just did, Burn,” Cacher said. He grinned. His teeth were lined in black gunk, drippings from the cassiopia he had tucked into his cheek. “An urgent meeting, I figure.”

“Fair enough. Still.” I shrugged. They had taken my gun, chuckled as they read the inscription on the service piece. “Coulda been more direct about it. You make me feel like I did something.”

“Well,” Cacher sighed. “Well, we’ll see. We’ll let the boss talk that out for you.”

“Sure.”

I was still on edge from last night, tired and wired and itchy to find Emily and that damned Cog. That could be it, though. Em could have gotten the Cog to Valentine, and maybe Valentine wanted to talk about it. Maybe. Not sure why that warranted an armed escort, though.

They led me to a quiet street on the River Road, the wooden sidewalk under our feet echoing hollowly. We stopped at a house, literally just stopped. Cacher and the other boys leaned against the yard post and lost interest in me. The street crowd was lean, just businessmen who didn’t have to keep a clock, going off to work on their own time. The house was nice, a neat little breadbox place with clean paint and windows that looked into a tidy sitting room. It could have been situated on the country road to Toth, rather than crowded up against a dozen rowhouses, blocks from the river Reine. I saw someone move, just a flicker behind the curtains and then the room was empty again. I looked around at Cacher.

“I’m supposed to go in?”

He ignored me. I went in. The inside of the house was just as neat and clean as the outside. The wooden floors hardly creaked, the heirloom furniture was polished, and the upholstery was so sharp and uniform that it looked uncomfortable. I poked my head into the sitting room. It was empty, but I could see out the window, see Cacher and his crew still standing around.

Back in the hallway there was still no sign of Valentine. There were two more rooms off the hallway, and a staircase. A final door at the far end of the hall, not twenty feet away, probably led to an alley entrance. I could see from here that the bolt was off, and the door unlocked. I was walking down the hall before I realized it, deciding to run before even thinking about it. The first room I passed, to my right, was a kitchen. No lights, and no Valentine. I thought I heard something upstairs, the barest whisper of movement as I passed the stairs. There was a door at the top of the stairs, a bright light shining around the cracks where the door didn’t sit properly in the jamb.

The final room was an office. Hardwood on all sides, and bookcases, heavy golden spines peering out from behind glass doors. The room smelled of hot metal and must. There was a desk and a chair. Valentine was sitting at the desk, his hands folded, the unnatural bulk of his shoulders slumped forward. He was looking down at the desk, facing the door. He didn’t move as I went past.

I had my hand on the doorknob leading out, waiting, listening to see if Valentine would try to stop me. There was no noise, only the slight metallic creak of Valentine’s machines and my groaning heart. Whoever was upstairs shuffled, something dragging across wood, like a boarding hook on a ship’s hull. I backed up and went into the office.

“Hello, Jacob,” Valentine said. He didn’t move, his eyes still calmly on the desk in front of him. I came into the room and found a chair, leaning against the near bookcase.

“Valentine.” The room was hot, all the windows shut up and covered, the morning light only getting through in thin streamers of dust. I settled into the chair and looked the puzzlebox man over.

People approach cog-modification two ways. The guy outside, with the eyes like dead stones, they go for the machine look. He’s a pure, straight killing factory, an algorithm of danger and intimidation. Guys like that don’t hide it, they leave the metal plates showing. But Valentine? No, Valentine isn’t like that guy. That guy’s machine. Valentine is art.

It’s mostly his face. Valentine’s head is carefully carved darkwood, polished bright, no metal showing at all. His face is a minimalist sculpture; darkwood lips, cheekbones, the impression of a chin and nose and eyebrows suspended over an emptiness of shadow and the bare twitchings of gears. The individual pieces are animated, moving silently on hidden tracks, clacking softly against one another when he smiles or talks or scowls. He was scowling, looking at me, waiting.

“Busy day you’re having,” he said. His voice was a trick of metal, the kind of voice a harp might have.

“Yeah. I mean…” I wondered how much he knew. “Yeah.”

“Me too. Having a busy day.” He sat up a little and spread his hands across the desk, like a blind man feeling up his environment. I always felt like his hands were a little too big, almost awkwardly proportioned compared to the rest of his body. They seemed clumsy. “I wonder if our days are similar at all. If maybe we’re having the same… complications.”

“Could be.”

He nodded absently. “Could be. Where’s Emily, Jacob?”

“Emily. I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be asking Cacher that kind of thing?”

“I think Cacher would like to ask you that himself.” Valentine gazed over my shoulder, staring at the wall. The machines of his face went a little slack. “I think him asking you would be a lot less pleasant.” He refocused on me, leaned forward. “For you. So. Where’s Emily?”

“I said I don’t know. Haven’t seen her since that job.”

“I have a lot of wheels spinning, Jacob. Which job?”

“The Tomb thing, and the deal with Prescott. You sent me up the Heights to take care of it.”

“I sent you up the Heights. And the deal with Prescott.” He nodded. “I tasked Emily with making the deal with Prescott, and I take it she contracted you.”

“Correct.”

“And you arranged to make the deal,” he paused, his eyes on his hand. “Up at the Heights?”

“Emily said that was part of it, that Prescott would only make the deal there.” Of course, I knew that wasn’t entirely true, at least according to Prescott. But I told the story I knew. “And while I was there she had me do the Tomb thing, too.”

“The Tomb thing.” He folded his hands. “She had you on another contract, for another outfit?”

“No, I…” and then realized that I didn’t know. She had said the Prescott deal was from Valentine, but she hadn’t been specific with the Tomb part of the deal. “She implied the deal was from you. That the Tombs had been making overtures and that you wanted to lean on them a little. She gave me something to give Angela Tomb, figured I could make the meeting because of my history.”