Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

“Bad idea,” Alessandro said. “The cost would be prohibitive. Money could be found, but there are at least three environmental groups lobbying to designate the Pit as a wildlife preserve. You’ve told them to relocate any native endangered species. If they found out that you burned them alive instead, the public outcry could force the city to cancel the project.”

Marat laughed. “Yes. People who never ran from Razorscales want to preserve the vicious bastards. They’re welcome to take a stab at conserving them. Maybe they can take one home as a pet.”

“How did you deal with it?” I asked.

“Well, the serpents didn’t eat them, and Tatyana’s plan was nuts, so Cheryl animated some mechanical monstrosity and we dumped that in there. It worked at first. It killed three nests, and then they must have gotten it somehow, because the Razorscales came back and Cheryl couldn’t feel her construct anymore. My guess is, it must have gone deeper into the Pit and found whatever it is we’re fighting now. The Razorscales killed a girl, one of our workers.”

Marat grimaced. “See, I have a pond. You’re supposed to aerate it and if you do it too fast, the toxic sludge that accumulates in the bottom rises to the top, and all the fish die. I asked Jiang to do it in the Pit and the bastard flat out refused. Said it would kill all life in a mile radius and it would be a crime against nature. The most he would do is set up a strong current away from the main island to drive the fish deeper into the Pit. The Razorscales followed the food supply and we started to get a foothold in the swamp. We thought we were home free, started building again, and then one morning the arcane circle powering the current was gone and the ring crap started.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean that the Razorscales started swarming and every swarm came with one of those rings in its center.” Marat nodded at the gyroscopes on the table. “They spin in place and there are glowing flowers in them.”

“Is it always Razorscales?” Alessandro asked.

“No. Sometimes we get a big monster, with some smaller monsters.”

“A hunter with his hounds.”

“Exactly. I think it’s making them out of people it kills. Felix and I took down a hunter once. There was a human corpse in it.”

The Abyss stole humans, killed them, and used their bodies and minds to create hybrid constructs. This was a nightmare.

“This is a disaster,” Alessandro said.

Marat skewed his face. “You think? Welcome to my life. We are eighty million into this project, fifteen of them mine. Maybe that’s not shit to you, Count Moneybags, but for my family, it’s everything. This project employs four hundred people. They’re counting on it to put food on the table. I have to make this work. I’m here every day. While Cheryl is going to her charity lunches, Tatyana is burning shit for fun, and Jiang jerks off to his House’s corporate logo, I’m here in the mud, trying to keep people from dying. It was me and Felix. One of us has to be here to fight it off or more of our people will die. Now it’s just me.”

“How did Felix feel about the thing in the swamp?” I asked.

“It bothered him. An environmentalist snuck on-site, a kid, barely sixteen years old. It dragged her into the water, and Felix raised a damn island to keep her alive. Saved her, sent her home, but it kept him from sleeping at night. He worried. When the surveyor disappeared, he wanted to shut everything down.”

“Did you agree?” I asked. I already knew the answer.

Marat laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “He called an emergency meeting on Thursday, the day before he died. We put it to a vote. Four against one. I knew exactly what was going on and I voted against him. If I had opened my stupid mouth and convinced them to listen to him, he might be alive today. They might have still outvoted us, but at least I would have tried.”

Now the anger made sense. Marat was eaten up by guilt. He felt trapped. They had abandoned him to the Pit, where he’d sunk all of his money, and he couldn’t get out. And now the only person who understood and worked with him was dead and he had done nothing to prevent it.

“We had a fight the day before he died.” Marat grimaced. “After we voted against him, he’d said that if we wouldn’t see reason, he’d find someone who would. When we came back here, I had argued with him over it. I told him that if the city shut us down because he did something stupid, my House would go bankrupt and he’d be taking food out of my family’s mouths.”

“I know you didn’t kill Felix.” I leaned forward. “Who do you think did?”

Marat spread his arms. “Hell if I know. Could be any of them. Jiang doesn’t say anything, and if you ask him a direct question, he’ll talk for five minutes about how House Jiang is a respected and responsible House. With responsibilities. And respect. Because our Houses are apparently garbage. By the time he’s done talking, you’ve forgotten what you’ve asked him in the first place. All Cheryl ever cares about is her charity crap. I don’t know if she’s applying for sainthood or what, but she wants the accolades. I can tell you, it costs a lot of money to be that cherished. Not that she needs the goodwill as much as Tatyana does. That snot-nosed punk brother of hers gave her family a black eye and she’s desperate to heal it. At least my solution was environmentally responsible. Her solution is to burn it all down. Maybe she can make a bonfire out of the mountain of lawsuits we’ll be hit with to keep herself warm at night.”

Okay then.

Marat slumped in his chair. “There. That’s what I think of everyone. Are we done now?”

“You’re not going to win this fight,” I told him. He would like this part even less than Alessandro’s knife, but I had to explain it to him, because his people’s safety depended on it. “While you were wrestling with tentacles, I was attacked by a telekinetic.”

“Not me.”

“I know. I jumped into the water and struck his mind. The thing in the Pit felt my magic and came in for a closer look. I felt it. The reason you haven’t made progress is because it’s not in the Pit. It is the Pit. It’s a vast enormous consciousness. A single entity that stretches to the farthest reaches of the mire. It’s malicious and telepathic. You need to get shielders.”

“There is no money. Who’s going to pay for that?”

“I will.” Alessandro pushed away from the door. “I’ll talk to Lander. Find some telepaths, and don’t be cheap or you’ll have no workers left.”

“It won’t make a difference,” Marat said, defeated.

Despair rolled off of him. At the core of it, Marat wasn’t a bad man. He was unpleasant, but he cared about his family and about his workers. Felix’s death crushed him. He was already wading through a lake of guilt and that had pulled him all the way under.

“Felix did reach out for help,” I told him. “I am that help.”

He gave me a weary look. “What are you going to do about it?”

I raised my arm and pushed. The trickle of magic slid into the star within a circle under my skin, projecting it into the air. Marat’s eyes went wide.

“The National Assembly appreciates your assistance in this matter, Prime Kazarian. Your cooperation has been noted. You will not speak of this conversation to anyone. You will not reveal my true affiliation. If called upon, you will assist me in any way possible.”

He nodded, mute.

I faded the star and rose. “It will be okay,” I told him. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Ten minutes after we left the main island, Alessandro stopped the car and leaned over to me. “Hospital.”

“You don’t have to menace me.”