Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (22 page)

“Not 20 and 14. They got yellow. And had to pick up what was left of 5.”

We stood in silence for a few minutes. All I could think of was 5, eaten alive in the woods. I didn’t know his real name, but I hoped someone had said the threnody. What a horrific way to go.

I cast my gaze further afield. In the distance I could make out a spot of light, little more than a candle flame from here.

“What is that?”

“Bonfire.”

“What for?”

“Buzzer corpses. Or human corpses, depending who won.” He tossed away his roll. “I’m thinking they use the bones for some kind of augury.”

Ash drifted past my eyes as he said it. I caught a flake on my finger. Augurs touched the æther through signs of the natural world: the body, wildlife, the elements. One of the lower orders, in Jaxon’s eyes. “Maybe the fire attracts them,” I said. “They did say this city was a beacon.”

“It’s an
ethereal
beacon, 40. Lots of voyants and spirits and Rephs together. Think about how the æther works.”

“How the hell do you know so much about it?” I turned to face him. “You’re not from the syndicate. So who are you?”

“A cipher. Just like you.”

I fell silent, grinding my lower jaw.

“You’ve got more questions,” he said, after a brief silence. “Sure you want to ask them?”

“Don’t you start.”

“Start what?”

“Telling me what I want to know. I want answers.” The words came fast and hot. “I want to know everything about the place I’m supposed to be living in for the rest of my life. Can’t you understand that?”

Looking over the balustrade, we gazed down at the Room. For fear that it might crumble under my touch, I tried not to put too much weight on the stone.

So I said, “Can I ask these questions?”

“This isn’t a parlor game, 40. I’m not here to play Twenty Questions. I brought you here to see if you really were a dreamwalker.”

“In the flesh,” I said.

“Not always, from the sound of it. Sometimes you jump out of that flesh.” He looked me up and down. “They got you from the central cohort. From the inner sanctum of the syndicate. You must have been careless.”

“Not careless. Unlucky.” I stared him out. “What’s their concern with the syndicate?”

“It’s keeping all the good voyants for itself. It’s hiding all the binders and dreamwalkers and oracles—all the higher orders, the ones Nashira wants in her colony. That’s their concern with the syndicate, 40. That’s why they’re going to sign this new Act.”

“What does it say?”

“Nashira’s been struggling to get hold of decent voyants. They’re all protected by gangs. Until they figure out how to disband the mime-lords in London, they have no choice but to expand to get better ones. The Act promises that a Sheol II will be established within two years, with Scion Paris as its harvest citadel.” He traced the wounds on his chest. “And who’s going to stop them, with the Emim there to kill us if we try?”

A strange, cold feeling came over me.

Nashira considered the syndicate a threat. That was news to me. I knew the mime-lords as a band of backbiting, self-seeking egoists—at least, that was what the central ones were like. The Unnatural Assembly hadn’t met for years; the mime-lords had been allowed to do as they liked in their own areas, seeing as Hector was too busy whoring and gambling to manage them. Yet far away in Sheol I, the blood-sovereign of the Rephaim feared the lawless rabble.

“You’re one of her loyal followers now.” I glanced at his red tunic. “Are you going to help them?”

“I’m not loyal, 40. That’s just what I tell them.” He looked at me. “Have you ever seen a Reph bleed?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Their blood is called ectoplasm. Duckett’s ultimate obsession. Rephs are something like the æther in flesh. Their blood is the æther liquefied. You see ectoplasm; you see the æther. You drink it; you become the æther. Like them.”

“Wouldn’t that mean amaurotics could use the æther? All they’d have to do is touch a bit of ectoplasm.”

“Right. For rotties, in theory, ecto would act as a kind of substitute aura. Short-term, of course. The side effects only last about fifteen minutes. Still, if we did some science and smoothed out the rough edges, I’m willing to bet we could sell an ‘instant clairvoyance’ pill within a few years.” He gazed out down at the city. “It’ll happen one day, 40. We’ll be the ones experimenting on these bastards, not the other way around.”

The Rephs had been foolish to make this man a red-jacket. It was clear that he despised them.

“One more question,” David said.

“Fine.” I paused, then thought of Liss. “What do you know about Bone Season XVIII?”

“I wondered if you’d ask about that.” He moved another slat aside, exposing a broken window. “Come on. I’ll show you.” I followed him through it.

There were spirits in this room. I wished I could see how many there were; I guessed about eight or nine. The air was mildewed, tinged with the sickly smell of dying flowers. A shrine had been assembled in the corner. A roughly cut oval of metal, surrounded by humble offerings: candle stubs, broken sticks of incense, a wilted sprig of thyme, labels with names. In the center of it all was a small bouquet of buttercups and lilies. It was the lilies that were giving off the smell. They were fresh. David pulled a torch out of his pocket.

“Take a look at the ruins of hope.”

I looked closer. Words were scored onto the metal.

FOR THE FALLEN

28
NOVEMBER
2039

“2039,” I said. “Bone Season XVIII.”

One year before I was born.

“There was a rebellion that day, on Novembertide.” David kept the torch on the shrine. “A group of Rephs rose up against the Sargas. They got most of the humans on their side. They tried to kill Nashira and evacuate the humans to London.”

“Which Rephs?”

“No one knows.”

“What happened?”

“A human betrayed them. XVIII-39-7. One weak link in the foundation and the whole thing came crashing down. Nashira tortured the Reph perpetrators. Scarred them. The humans were all slaughtered by the Emim. Rumor has it there were only two survivors, apart from Duckett: the traitor and the kid.”

“Kid?”

“Duckett told me everything. He was spared because he was too much of a yellow-jacket to rebel. He begged on his knees for them to spare him. He told me there was a kid brought here that year—four, maybe five years old. XVIII-39-0.”

“Why the hell would they bring a child here?” Ice settled in my stomach. “Children can’t fight Buzzers.”

“No idea. He thinks they were trying to see if she’d survive.”

“Of course she wouldn’t survive. A four-year-old couldn’t live in that slum.”

“Exactly.”

My insides started to twist. “She died.”

“Duckett swears her body wasn’t found. He had to clear up the corpses,” David said. “Part of the exchange for his survival. He says he never found the little girl, but this says otherwise.”

He shone his torch at one of the offerings. A filthy teddy bear with button eyes. Around its neck was a note. I held it up to David’s light.

XVIII-39-0

No life lived is lost

Silence fell, broken by a distant chime. I laid the bear back among the flowers.

“Who did all this?” My voice hurt. “Who made this shrine?”

“The harlies. And the scarred ones. The mysterious Rephs that rose up against Nashira.”

“Are they still alive?”

“No one knows. But I’m willing to bet they’re not. Why would Nashira let them walk around the city, knowing they’re traitors?”

My fingers shook. I hid them under my sleeves.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said.

David walked me back to Magdalen. It was still a few hours until dawn, but I didn’t want to see anyone else. Not tonight.

When the tower was in sight, I turned to face David. “I don’t know why you spoke to me,” I said, “but thank you.”

“For what?”

“Showing me the shrine.”

“You’re welcome.” His face was cast in shadow. “I’ll give you one more question. Provided I can answer it in less than a minute.”

I thought about it. I still had so many questions, but one had bothered me for a few days.

“Why are they called Bone Seasons?”

He smiled.

“Don’t know if you know, but
bone
used to mean ‘good,’ or ‘prosperous.’ From the French,
bonne
. You might still hear it on the streets. That’s why they named it: the Good Season, the Season of Prospect. They see it as collecting their reward, the great condition of their bargain with Scion. Of course, the humans see it differently. To them,
bone
just means that: bones. Starvation. Death. That’s why they call us
bone-grubbers
. Because we help lead people to their deaths.”

By now my whole body was cold. Part of me had wanted to stay out here. Now I wanted to leave.

“How
do
you know all this?” I said. “The Rephs can’t have told you.”

“No more questions, I’m afraid. I’ve already said too much.”

“You could be lying.”

“I’m not.”

“I could tell the Rephs about you.” I stood my ground. “I could tell them what you know.”

“Then you’d have to tell them that you know, too.” He smiled at me, and I knew I’d lost. “You can owe me a favor for the information. Unless you want to pay me back now.”

“How?”

My answer came when he touched my face. His hand pressed against my hip. I tensed.

“Not that,” I said.

“Come on.” His hand stroked up and down my waist, and his face came closer to mine. “You hock up your pill?”

“What, you want some sort of payment?” I pushed him away, hard. “Go to hell, red-jacket.”

David never took his eyes off me.

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Found this in Merton. See if you can make anything of it. You’re smarter than I thought.” He pressed something into my hand. An envelope. “Sweet dreaming, 40.”

He walked away. I stood there for a moment, stiff and cold, before I leaned against the wall. I shouldn’t have gone to that place with him. I knew better than to walk with strangers on dark streets. Where were my instincts?

I’d learned too much in one night. Liss had never mentioned that Rephs—
Rephs
—had been partially responsible for the uprising of Bone Season XVIII. Perhaps she didn’t know.

The scarred ones
. I should look for them, for the ones that had helped us. Or perhaps I should keep my head down and get on with my new life. That was safe. That was easy.

I wanted Nick. I wanted Jax. I wanted my old life back. Yes, I’d been a criminal, but I had also been among friends. I’d chosen to be with them. My position as a mollisher had protected me from people like David. Nobody had dared touch me in my own territory.

But this wasn’t my territory. Here I had no power. For the first time I wanted the protection that lay inside the stone walls of Magdalen. I wanted the protection Warden’s presence guaranteed, even if I hated it. I pocketed the paper and headed for the door.

When I got back to the Founder’s Tower, I expected to find an empty room. What I found was blood.

Reph blood.

12

A Fever

The room was in disarray. Glass shattered, instruments broken, a curtain half-torn from its rail, and spots of glowing chartreuse on the flagstones, soaked into the fibers of the rug. I stepped over the glass. The candle on the desk had been snuffed out; so had the paraffin lamps. It was deathly cold. I could feel the æther everywhere. I kept my guard up, ready to sling my spirit at a potential attacker.

The drapes were drawn around the bed. Another dreamscape was behind it.
Reph
, I thought.

I stepped toward the bed. Once I was within reach of the drapes, I tried to think rationally about what I was about to do. I knew Warden was behind them, but I had no idea of what sort of state he would be in. He might be injured, sleeping, dead. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know which one it was.

I steeled my nerves.
My fingers flexed before they grasped the heavy fabric. I pulled the drape aside.

He was slumped on the bed, still as a corpse. I climbed onto the covers and shook him. “Warden?”

Nothing.

I sat back on the bed. He’d told me explicitly that I wasn’t allowed to touch him, that I wasn’t supposed to help him if this happened, but this time the damage looked much, much worse. His shirt was drenched. I tried to turn him over, but he was a dead weight. I was checking his breathing when his hand snatched out and caught my wrist.

“You.” His voice was thick and raw. “What are you doing in here?”