The Archon's Assassin Read online

  Ludo sounded affable, as always, but Shin wouldn’t miss the implied threat. Even under Ipsissimus Theodore, the pecking order had been considered immutable, divinely ordained. Under Silvanus, the slightest hint of disobedience, the merest whiff of dissent, and you’d find yourself in a far worse position than Shader was in right now.

  Shin clamped his jaw shut and dropped to one knee. “Adeptus.”

  Ludo’s sandals slapped against the stone floor as he approached to loom over the investigator. He was a big man, probably the tallest man Shader had ever seen. He placed a hand on Shin’s head and closed his eyes. “The blessing of Our Lord Nous be upon you, Brother.”

  “And also upon you,” Shin said.

  Ludo lifted his hand, and Shin lurched to his feet, stiff and awkward. With a click of his fingers, he summoned the two orderlies to follow him, and then led them from the room.

  “Oh,” Ludo said, peering down at Shader’s bound ankles. “Do you think it would be too much to call them back? I’m hopeless with knots, save those on the prayer cord, of course.”

  Shader rattled the chains holding his wrists.

  “Ah,” Ludo said. “Now they are most definitely beyond me.”

  Shader grunted, and Ludo’s eyes bulged above the top of his eyeglasses as he noticed the leather strip in Shader’s mouth. He removed it gingerly with thumb and forefinger, looked about for somewhere to put it, and finally decided to just let go.

  “Over there, by the door,” Shader said. He coughed to clear his throat. “Must be something among the torture implements you could use.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Ludo said, ambling over to the shelves. “I’m really not much good at this sort of… Oh, will this do?” He turned around, holding a pair of sharp-edged pincers in his shovel-like hand.

  Shader would have laughed under any other circumstances, but he felt so broken, body and soul, that all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and thank Nous over and over again. Tears streamed down his cheeks; tears of relief, but in among them, the acid tears of shame. Not just shame: anger. The festering buds of revenge.

  With an iron will, he forced his eyes open; shut the door on that train of thought. He wouldn’t go there; not ever again. He had suffered in union with Nous. There was no sense turning a grace into a curse.

  Ludo cut him free and then gathered his clothes from the floor.

  “He was holy once, you know,” he said. “Bartholomew Shin. A fearless evangelist who took Nous to the darkest of places. After the Templum turned back the hordes of the Liche Lord, Shin traveled the length and breadth Verusia. Even devils, he said, could be converted. He came back a changed man.”

  Ludo struggled to dress Shader, getting very little help in return. He fastened the pendant around Shader’s neck, squinting through his spectacles at the image of the woman on one side, the inscription on the other. It had been entrusted to Shader by the Fish, the old man he had been imprisoned with in New Jerusalem. A man who’d endured even more than Shader, and yet still went to his death as trusting as a child sung to sleep.

  “Causa salutis,” Ludo said. “The cause of our salvation. Still have it, then. That’s good. Keep her with you.” He patted his heart. “The Immaculata. The Scourge of the Deceiver. I’m sorry I’ve not been able to come up with more. The Second Book of Unveilings hints at so much that has been lost. If only I had the key. There are very few people I’d like to slap, but if I ever lay eyes on Otto Blightey…” Ludo raised a hand, then shook his head and chuckled. “Even him. Even the Liche Lord of Verusia couldn’t incite this old bird to violence. You know, Brother, sometimes I envy you… I mean, what you once were.”

  He was joking, Shader could see that. Nothing would have horrified Ludo more than Shader returning to his old ways. It had been the adeptus who’d helped him to separate his conflicting natures; the adeptus who’d given him the tools and the example to succeed.

  “It’s important, Brother,” Ludo said, wagging a finger at the necklace. “She’s important. A standard, I expect. A model for what we should strive for, for what Nousia could be.

  “Now, best get you out of here. Silvanus is a stickler for the rules, but he’s a passionate man who sometimes acts rashly. Let’s not put temptation in his way. I have friends at the harbor who can get you out of Aeterna.”

  “Out of Aeterna?” Shader said. “But where? Hagalle and his allies control the seas between here and—”

  “Britannia,” Ludo said. He pulled Shader into a sitting position, then hefted him over his shoulder. For a priest, the man’s strength was prodigious.

  “It’s time you went home.”

  THE DEMIURGOS’S DISCIPLE

  City of New Jerusalem, Aethir

  Six Months Later

  Shadrak let out an appreciative whistle. “Look at the jugs on that.”

  Amid a shower of sparks and a billowing cloud of smoke, the near-naked Dame Consilia floated down from the ceiling above the stage. Well, not floated exactly; she was lowered from the fly floor. You could see two sweating stagehands paying out the ropes, if you knew where to look.

  Shadrak knew, but he wasn’t looking anymore. He couldn’t take his eyes from those swollen breasts, barely covered by a wisp of silk. A ruby sparkled in her navel with reflected light from the lanterns above the proscenium. Beneath that, strips of diaphanous gold did little to hide her womanhood, leaving her long, graceful legs smooth and bare. Atop her head, her platinum hair had been wound up into two devil’s horns.

  “Look, I tell you.” He kept his voice low; stuck well and truly to the shadows at the back of their box.

  Albert was looking, but not at the stage. He hoicked his paunch to the loge’s low, velveteen wall. Obviously, standing was proving too much effort. “You watch the jugs; I’ll keep an eye on the husband.”

  Shadrak followed his gaze.

  Koort Morrow was in the box opposite. If he’d noticed Dame Consilia’s dramatic entrance, he was hiding it well. He was engaged in hushed conversation with the goons either side of him. All business, Morrow. Shadrak guessed that’s what made him the greatest threat to the Night Hawks. Maybe the only threat left.

  Morrow held up a hand to the man whispering in his ear, long enough to take a bite of pie. Cherry pie. His favorite. Albert had it all filed away in his head, what people liked to eat, what they had a weakness for. That’s why he’d had some sent over to Morrow’s box, courtesy of Queenie’s Fine Diner.

  “Enjoy,” Albert said, rubbing his hands together, and making it all too obvious, as far as Shadrak was concerned.

  There was a flurry of movement up in the gods. Shadrak couldn’t see much without showing himself. Didn’t help there was a thick pall of weedstick smoke hanging overhead. Not just weedstick, going by the smell. He was sure there was a hint of sweetness mingled in with it; the pungent odor of somnificus.

  “What’s going on up there?”

  Albert took out his hanky to mop his brow as he glanced up, then straight back down at Morrow.

  “Mal Vatès is here.” He leaned forward over the edge of the box, blocking what little was left of Shadrak’s view with his pinstriped arse. “Probably had a few too many after the inauguration.”

  “Bit late, ain’t he? Seeing as this bollocks is for him.” Shadrak angled another look at the stage. Had to be better than what Albert was presenting him.

  Well, maybe not.

  Dame Consilia was dancing suggestively through a chorus line of muscular slaves, giving each a quick feel as she spouted some crap about the Abyss or something.

  “Not every day you get elected First Senator of New Jerusalem,” Albert said.

  Shadrak shrugged to himself. Guessed it was a big thing to most. Hadn’t been exactly unexpected, what with Vatès’ predecessor, Reegers, getting into bed with the guilds. Not that it was such a bad thing. There’d been an agreement between the Senate and the Night Hawks, who pretty much accounted for ninety percent of all the shit that went down in the city since the Night
of the Guilds. Problem was, Morrow had gone and blown the whistle on Reegers, and that left the Senate with nowhere to go but back to the polls.

  “What is this shite, anyway?” Shadrak said, pressing himself back against the curtain at the rear of the loge. He noticed Albert’s hands clenching into fists and said, “Don’t look so eager. Someone will see.” Morrow had goons everywhere. Half the theater was his tonight; the other half filled with Vatès’ hangers-on.

  Albert sat back in his chair and stole a quick glance at the stage. Dame Consilia was approaching the ogling crowd at the front, bestowing a touch here and there on outstretched hands. Someone got overexcited and tried to get his face between her breasts. One of Morrow’s goons yanked him back and held him still while another broke his face. Stupid scut. But you had to admire his nerve.

  When the dame continued her speech without any indication she’d been ruffled, Albert finally got round to replying. “The Demiurgos’s Disciple.”

  “Never heard of it. What’s that, then? Quintus shogging Quincy?”

  “Bent Horrigan,” Albert said. “They love him in the provinces.”

  “Yeah, well, he can shogging stay there.”

  “This is the infamous soliloquy of the succubus,” Albert said. “It’s supposed to give you an insight into what the ladies want, though why anyone would care about such things, I’ll never know.”

  Shadrak strained his ears to catch what the dame was saying. Not that it mattered much, what women want, because they still wouldn’t want it from him. That was the trouble with being the height of a child. Didn’t help none he was white as a sheet, and most everyone found the pink of his eyes disturbing. Great for intimidation, but shit for all else.

  “Load of bleeding bollocks,” he muttered, looking back at Morrow’s box when he saw Albert stiffen.

  Morrow had turned green. His cheeks puffed up, like he was gonna throw. The two men beside him helped him from his chair and rushed him out the back of the loge.

  Dame Consilia glanced over from the stage. Only for a second. She was a real pro, and instantly snapped back into her role. Except she fluffed a line and stood there like a lemon till someone prompted, “And what big balls you have, sir dwarf,” from the wings.

  Murmurs rumbled about the auditorium, and all eyes shifted to Morrow’s empty box.

  Dame Consilia struggled on, but her cheeks were red, and she kept glancing off stage.

  “I’ll follow them outside, see if it worked,” Shadrak said.

  Albert spun out of his chair to face him. “And why would you do that?”

  “Just in case. You know…”

  “In case I got the dose wrong?” Albert clasped his hands over his belly and tapped his thumbs together, like he always did when he was pissed off.

  “I trust you, Albert. Really. It’s just the way I am. I have to check.”

  Never leave anything to chance. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was today if he’d not been so careful. He’d never have survived so long among the Sicarii in Sahul, never mind made it as boss of the Night Hawks and unifier of all the guilds in New Jerusalem.

  All but Morrow’s.

  And that was about to change.

  “Wait here,” he said, as he slipped through the curtain at the back of the box.

  “If I must.”

  The ruffle of the curtain was instantly followed by a swirl of dust motes in the corridor beyond. The air shimmered, and then there was another ruffle, this time from a brown robe that flickered into view, growing quickly denser, more solid. There was no face beneath the drooping cowl, just a blinding brilliance that made Shadrak throw a hand over his eyes. He couldn’t help it, and dipped his head, but his free hand still went to the grip of a flintlock, for all the good it would do.

  “What the shog do you want?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

  The Archon’s robe rippled, and flames erupted from where his face should have been.

  Shadrak stumbled back into the curtain and dropped to one knee. He hated himself for it, but what else could he do? Save wait, and learn from each time the shogger put in an appearance.

  “Leave your scheming and attend to mine,” the Archon said in his rustling voice.

  “Busy,” Shadrak said. “Can’t you see that?” He stood and made to walk past, but the air in front of him took on the solidity of a wall.

  “Our agreement is binding, Shadrak.”

  “Tell me about it,” Shadrak said. It was a contract that had been sealed with irresistible bait. “So, how’s my mother? How’s Kadee?” He suppressed a scoff, partly because the last thing he needed was to rile the Archon; partly because he knew there was nothing to scoff about. He’d seen Kadee—or her ghost—that first time the Archon had appeared to him in the Anglesh Isles. She was the carrot to the Archon’s stick, but if there was some chance she was really alive, some place he might find her, then he saw no choice but to play along. At least for the time being.

  “It is perilous,” the Archon said. “Always perilous where she endures. But fulfill our agreement, and piece by piece we will restore the rightful order and let the dead go back to being what they are.”

  “Shog’s that supposed to mean?” Shadrak said. Let the dead go back to being what they are! Dead is what they are. What Kadee was. He’d seen her waste away before his eyes. Every instinct told him what the Archon had shown him was some kind of trick, like the illusions in the wizard’s quarter. But he couldn’t help it. What if there really was some hope? Hope he’d see her again. Since she’d passed, he’d been nothing. Nothing save a hitman, and that wasn’t anything Kadee would have been proud of.

  “Give me more. More to go on, or I’m through.” It was tough talk, and Shadrak knew he was messing with fire, but sometimes you had to goad your enemy to find out what he had.

  Rather than the explosion Shadrak had expected, the Archon’s blaze retreated into the shadows of his cowl. He let out a long, sibilant breath and then nodded. “The creature that came for you on the rooftops, before you left for the Perfect Peak—”

  “The thing with the gun?” Even now, he often saw it out of the corner of his eye, started at the slightest movement from the shadows. It had been fast, so fast, and yet he’d beaten it. Just. That was the thing about years and years of killing. You became honed to it, took every glimmer of opportunity, even if it wasn’t exactly playing by the rules. Surprise had been on his side, but in a fair fight, he doubted he’d still be there to tell the tale.

  “A Thanatosian, captured by Sektis Gandaw,” the Archon said. “A harvester from Thanatos, the dark world, the stealer of souls.”

  “That’s where she is, Kadee? On this Thanatos? But how—”

  “The passage of the dead has been dammed since the dawn of time, by the formation of the Abyss. None of you go where you should when you pass from this world. The worst are held fast by the Demiurgos in the deepest strata of his realm, but those who resist his pull lie closer to the surface. There, they are vulnerable to the poachers. More than that, I do not know.”

  So, the Archon had limits. That was good to know.

  “In the way I measure time,” the Archon said, “Thanatos is a newcomer to this cosmos, and it had no existence in mine. It is… a mystery.”

  “But you’ve been there, right? You know how to get me there?”

  A round of applause came from the auditorium, and by the sounds of it, people were starting to leave.

  “Quickly,” the Archon said, “your target will be among the first out.”

  “Tell me about it,” Shadrak said. “He’s probably backstage feeling up that tart of a wife of his by now.” Truth was, Morrow was more than likely choking in his own vomit while his internal organs turned to soup, but he needed to see for himself.

  “Your real target,” the Archon said. “Mine.”

  The ruffle of the curtain behind him alerted Shadrak to Albert peering out with eyes as big as plates.

  “Oh,” Albert said. “Sorry.” With
that, he slunk back inside the box.

  “Yeah?” Shadrak said, turning back to the Archon. “And who’s that, then?”

  “The man this play should have been named for.”

  “The Demiurgos’s Disciple?”

  “Indeed,” the Archon said. “The newly elected First Senator. Mal Vatès.”

  THE NEXT HIT

  “Hurry!” the Archon’s voice urged inside Shadrak’s head. “The timing is perfect.”

  Shadrak glided past the open doors of the dressing rooms, no more than a shifting shadow. The clink of glasses, the shrill giggles of chorus girls followed him. He caught more than one glimpse of bare flesh as they flung down their costumes.

  Perfect, my arse. Too much was down to chance. Nothing had been planned. The only way hits like this went was tits up.

  Dame Consilia rounded the corner in front of him, a thin man on one arm, fat man on the other. Both were dressed in lilac togas, and both kept tripping over their own feet due to their eyes never straying from the dame’s flushed face. She wasn’t looking where she was going, either; eyes all teared up, lips pouting, chin quivering.

  “Any news?” she said, loud enough that everyone in the dressing rooms would hear. “Koort. Take me to him.”

  Shadrak brushed past, and if they noticed, they probably took him for one of the freaks from the warm-up act. Just the thought of it fired his blood. If he’d had the time, he’d have knifed them for the slight, imagined or not. Snobbish shogwits.

  “Fellah,” Kadee’s warm voice spoke in his mind. Her presence was fleeting, no more than smoke in the wind. “It’s not them, it’s you.”

  Like you don’t tell me every two minutes. It was all him. Always was. He knew she meant well, but being told you’re a paranoid scut was as helpful as shite on a mop head.

  Course, there was no telling if it was Kadee or just his own shogged up thoughts. His brain hadn’t been right since she died. Maybe the Archon was playing on that. Thanatos! Yeah, right. Chances of her being there, if it even existed, were the same as for him being taken up into Araboth body and soul.