City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [156]
*
They progressed with their usual clamour, retreating only froncounters with the routine patrols of soldiers, nor did they venturoo near the docks, where regiments were well established, thinkinrouble from the military men would cause too much distraction froheir simple purpose: to find and kill Beami and her lover. Was it al waste of time? Malum didn’t much care – he possessed all thoney and resources he needed.
Ten of his men were searching a neighbourhood a mile away from the Ancient Quarter when, on the back of a tip-off, they finally found them.
Malum waited and focused, then spotted her silhouette appear in a mid-floor window of one of the more expensive hotels in the city, one set in a complex of vast gothic towers stalled in mid-construction. Her familiar shape was distinct against the soft light of coloured lanterns, as her hands reached for her hair, and presently a man was working his way around her body. It all seemed so oddly intimate, so detached, and all the while he had been haunted by the memory of her face. He wanted to kill them, to prevent them having what he himself couldn’t give her. It was now a primeval competitive instinct, to prevent another man intruding on what he felt was his personal territory.
He sent one of his gang for reinforcements, waited a while, then he motioned for the rest of the boys to go in.
*
After bursting through the front door they ran through the receptioooms filled with trashy decor. Then they kicked ornaments aside aneaded up the stairs to reach the upper floors. Then, Malum glanceown the stairwell to see twenty more of his gang arrive.
Everyone inhabited the shadows. Beami was already waiting out in the long corridor, her lover standing behind, framed by the dim light coming through the open door. He was indeed a soldier in the Night Guard, this new man of hers, standing still with an arrow aimed towards them. He didn’t look much, at first, just younger, more slender, a lean face, and Malum didn’t know what to make of the fact that she had chosen to leave him for this guy.
‘What do you want, Malum?’ Beami demanded.
‘For you to die.’ Malum’s hand moved instinctively to his messer blade and he began to bare his fangs, but suddenly his urge to appear normal took over once again, and he let his rage subside into a blend of feelings that he couldn’t identify. He was a mess.
Beami said, ‘Can’t we talk?’
‘That’s all we ever did.’
‘No,’ she corrected, ‘that’s what we never did.’
He glanced around at the reaction of his men, catching one or two raised eyebrows and uncertain expressions appearing on their faces. Well, now, this was awkward, to be unmade, to have his marital life laid bare in front of the guys. What next must he endure?
Suddenly Duka tried to throw a knife from behind but the soldier released his arrow in the same heartbeat. Duka screamed, the offending hand now a ruined, bloody mess, and the knife fell uselessly to the floor.
This soldier was a damn good bowman, that was for sure.
‘Leave us be,’ the Night Guard growled.
‘Fuck we will,’ Malum snarled back. A few of his men shuffled forward, pirated relics brandished in their grasp.
Tre, a young blond rookie, began to transform a brass cylinder and set it glowing.
Malum could just about make out the anger flaring on her face as Beami made a circular gesture, and lines of luminescence began to form, air tightening in strands to create an undulating wave of purple light.
‘You dare to use your fucking relics on me?’ she sneered, as if the years of disgust and pain had suddenly accumulated, gathering momentum, ready to be unleashed within the next moment.
Tre darted forwards and hurled his relic and, slow and surreal, the device exploded into tiny electric nails. Beami raised her hand to command her light-lines, then raked her arm down, whipping air. The nails collapsed around her, clattering to the floor or against the wall behind her and the soldier, leaving a near-perfect circle of remaining wall that