Sirus could see Greens in the streets up ahead, either feasting on their kills or pursuing prey through alley and courtyard. Several fires were raging whilst the boom of artillery to the north indicated the lead elements of Morradin’s army were now engaging the Protectorate garrison.
Sirus found a pack of eight Greens feasting on a body at the wide door to a structure that was part workshop, part house. He could see a large bulbous shape of some kind above the edge of the roof-top, bobbing slightly in the wind. The Greens snarled at him as he drew nearer, then shrank back, revealing their prey as a thin woman of middling years in an ankle-length nightgown. A key lay next to her part-eaten hand, Sirus’s gaze tracking from it to the heavy padlock on the workshop door. The words “Lethridge and Tollermine Manufacturing Company” were emblazoned across the door in fresh white paint.
Sirus turned to the largest of the Greens, assuming it to be pack leader due to its size, and sent it a mental image of melting metal. The Green snarled again, lowering itself in preparation to lunge, as if pained by the intrusion into its mind. Sirus added an image of the White to the thought and the Green stopped snarling, huffing as it turned to the door, an action mimicked by its pack. They opened their jaws at the same instant, eight streams of fire lancing out to engulf the lock, continuing to breathe out flame until it had been transformed into a blob of dripping slag iron, the door smoking but not yet fully aflame.
At Sirus’s command the Greens quelled their flames and launched themselves at the door, shattering it and streaming through into the workshop with a chorus of hungry screams. He followed close behind, pausing at the sight of a large wooden scaffold in the centre of the workshop, his eye drawn upwards to a raised platform, whereupon he froze.
It wasn’t the sight of the moons through the missing roof or the huge elongated balloon that froze him, but rather the young woman in overalls standing on the edge of the platform and staring down at him in shocked recognition.
Tekela’s eyes were wide, her expression one of sheer amazement rather than dismay or, he saw with a pathetic flare of gratitude, disgust. He wanted to say something but found his mind suddenly void of all words. Instead it was there again, reborn and undeniable, that same all-encompassing devotion to this girl.
The Green pack leader leapt and latched onto the platform. Splinters flew as it started to claw its way up, followed by the rest of its pack. Sirus’s gaze went to Tekela, who, he noticed for the first time, was holding something. It was a squat object with a blocky base from which six narrow cylinders protruded, arranged in a circular cluster. A drum-shaped box was fixed to the side of the object’s base, which, Sirus saw, was throbbing rhythmically in the manner of an engine.
Sirus threw himself aside as Tekela lowered the object and the cylinders began to whir, belching out a flame a yard long and birthing a sound that seemed to rip the air apart. He had time to witness four of his Spoiled being torn apart as he fell, rolling away with all the strength and speed his monstrous form would allow. The sound died for a moment and he looked up to see Tekela adjusting her aim, lowering the device and firing again, moving the whirring barrels back and forth to sweep the Greens from the scaffold. They seemed to fall apart as the stream of bullets met them, scattering the remains across the workshop in bloody chunks.
Sirus watched in grim fascination as the bullet stream snaked towards him across the floor, raising a curtain of shattered stone. He tensed for a leap, knowing he wasn’t fast enough and, despite the compulsion to abide by the White’s will and survive, finding himself content to die at her hands.
The last bullet impacted an inch from his face and the miniature repeating gun fell silent. Sirus looked up to see Tekela lowering the weapon, smoke rising from the barrels. “Out of bullets,” she told him with a shrug.
“You always were a nasty little bitch!”
Katrya stepped from the doorway, her pistol raised, elongated teeth gleaming in a hungry smile. Sirus could feel it shining within her: a deep, joyous sense of triumph. He’s mine and you’re finally dead! I win! I . . .
The pistol jerked in his grip, the bullet shattering Katrya’s skull, silencing any dying thoughts she might have shared. He watched her fall, feeling the last fluttering of her mind fade like the ripples of a pond after the rain. She sighed, giving a final shudder as life left her. Two lives, he reminded himself, knowing that if his will were his own he would certainly have put the pistol to his own head and pulled the trigger.
“Tekela!”
He returned his gaze to the platform where Tekela still stood, staring down at him. She turned at the sound of her name, looking up at a stocky man hanging from a rope ladder above her head. The ladder was suspended from what appeared to be a row-boat, itself attached to the elongated balloon by a complex net of ropes. Sirus saw another man in the boat, a tall fellow in a long coat busily fiddling with some form of engine fixed to the boat’s stern.
“Tekela!” the stocky man repeated, extending his hand.
She nodded, hefting the repeating gun and placing it in his outstretched hand before taking hold of the ladder. She started to climb up then stopped, turning back to Sirus. “Come with us,” she called to him.
“That thing is not . . .” the stocky man began then fell silent as Tekela turned a fierce glare on him.
“Please,” she said, beckoning to Sirus.
Sirus could feel the White’s will like a fire burning away his resolve. Whether it witnessed or even knew of this encounter didn’t matter. These people were valuable. He needed to capture them, or kill them if he couldn’t. Sirus summoned all the fear within him, unravelling every nightmare he could remember, reliving all those brushes with death, suffering again the attentions of the Cadre’s torturers. It was enough to keep him from raising his pistol. But only just.
“I . . . can’t!” he grated, spittle flying from between tight-clenched teeth. “You . . . go! Now!”
He saw a spasm of deep sorrow pass across her face before she resumed her climb.
“Where is Pendilla?” the tall man in the boat asked as Tekela clambered aboard.
“Dead,” she replied shortly.
The tall man stared at her for several seconds, face and body frozen until a pat to the arm from the stocky man set him in motion once more. He pushed the lever on the engine, which immediately coughed into life, a set of blades fixed to its side whirling into invisibility. Tekela and the stocky man cast a number of sandbags from the boat and the balloon rose.
Sirus found the White’s will diminished as the balloon ascended higher, removing all chance of preventing their escape. “Head north!” he called out, the strange contraption now reduced to toy-like proportions. “There will be fewer Reds there!”
Whether they heard him or not he couldn’t tell as the craft sailed from view.
Sirus cast a final glance at Katrya’s body before walking from the workshop, making for the docks where the babble of voices in his head told him there was more work to do.
CHAPTER 51
Clay