Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [45]
But no matter the dangers, he couldn’t give it up. To return to the gray unknowing, the humdrum day-to-day, was unimaginable. He’d tasted grief and despair and the highest terror, he’d made the most terrible mistakes, and he bore a shame that no man should have to bear; but he’d stared into the fires of forbidden knowledge and, though he might look away for a moment, his gaze would always be drawn back.
You can start small. Start with the easy procedures. See how you go.
Besides, with only enough money to buy the most basic supplies—let alone pay for transport—he wasn’t in a good position to leave. At least on the Ketty Jay he was surrounded by people who asked no questions, people untrained in the aristocratic arts of vicious wit and backstabbing. He rather liked that about them, actually.
A disturbing notion occurred to him. Spit and blood, was it possible he was getting comfortable in their company? He took a swig from his mug to wash away the bad taste that left in his mouth, then choked as he realized the grog tasted even worse.
“Went down the wrong pipe, eh?” said a voice behind him, and he was pummeled on the back hard enough to break a rib.
Crake smiled weakly and wiped his tearing eyes as the man sat down next to him. Grubby and balding, with a lumpy nose and cheeks red with gin blossoms, Rogin wasn’t easy on the eye. Nor on the nose, for that matter. He had the sour and faintly cabbagey smell of a man accustomed to stewing in his own farts.
Crake made a heroic attempt to summon some manly gusto and slapped Rogin on the shoulder in greeting. “Good to see you, my friend,” he said, with his best picture-pose grin. The low shafts of sunlight glinted on his gold tooth. “I got you a drink.”
Rogin picked up the mug provided for him—a mug Crake had laced with Malvery’s special concoction—and lifted it up so they could clink them together.
“To your health!” said Rogin, and downed his grog in one swallow.
“Oh, no,” murmured Crake, with a self-satisfied smirk. “To yours.”
THE WARMTH DRAINED FROM the air as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Frost gathered on the churned mud of the thoroughfares, and the people of Marklin’s Reach retreated into their homes. A thin blue mist of fumes hung near the ground, seeping from portable generators that hummed and clattered in the alleys behind the wooden shanties. Chains of electric bulbs brightened and dimmed as the power fluctuated.
Frey huddled in the mouth of an alleyway, concealed by a patch of shadow conveniently created when Pinn had smashed the bulbs overhead. Silo and Jez stood with them. Crake and Harkins had been left back at the Ketty Jay, since both of them were a liability in a firefight. Harkins would be reduced to a dribbling wreck in seconds, and Crake was more likely to hit a friend than an enemy.
Xandian Quail’s house stood across the street, secure behind its high walls and its wrought-iron gate. Frey had been watching the two guards behind the gate for an hour now as they stamped back and forth, bundled up in jackets and hoods. He was cold and impatient and was wondering whether Crake had put enough of Malvery’s concoction into Rogin’s drink.
Malvery himself loitered a little way off, near the wall but out of sight of the guards. A black doctor’s bag lay at his feet. His hands were thrust into his coat pockets and he looked as miserable as Frey felt. As Frey watched, he leaned down, opened the bag, and took a warming hit of medicinal alcohol from the bottle within.
Then, finally, a groan from behind the wall. Malvery stiffened, listening. After a moment Rogin swore and groaned again, louder still. His companion’s voice was too muffled to hear the words, but Frey detected alarm in his tone.
Malvery looked at him expectantly. Frey stepped out of the shadows