Broken People (8 page)

“Well, where are the maintenance people?”
Spinner asked. “We don’t have time for this! We’ve got more
important work to do.”

Rake raised his eyes at him and shrugged
without saying a word.

The heavily decorated, round hall was
crowded with people rehearsing. Gymnasts and dancers filled the
stage while clowns cavorted in the aisles. The contortionists
wrapped themselves around the gilded support columns along the
walls. Weaving between all of them, roadies hauled trunks of
equipment and costumes.

Focused on fixing the lights, Rake paid no
attention to the commotion surrounding him.

Spinner shook his head. Sometimes he envied
Rake’s ability to detach himself from everything.

He was still fiddling with the lights when
Nicholas made his appearance, coming in through the main doors.
Aurore accompanied him, her royal presence imposing enough for
people to open a wide path in front of her, despite her prosthetics
not showing. Grimacing, Spinner let go of the lights and slid down
a pole to the ground floor.

“So, this is how it looks,” Aurore said as
they approached the stage.

Nicholas stepped carefully around a box left
in the way. “It’s going to look much better once we finish the
décor. Isn’t it, boys?”

Rake snorted, and even Spinner winced a
little at being called “boy” by someone younger than him. Nicholas
was taking his part too seriously.

“It’s going to look great,” Spinner
said.

“If we can get the lights to work,” Rake
added helpfully.

“You have problems with the lights?”
Nicholas asked. “Tell the manager to put you in contact with the
father and son electricians. They helped me once, too.”

“Okay, will do. ‘Bye now!” Spinner said. “We
were just leaving.”

“Did you finish rehearsing already?”
Nicholas checked his watch. “We’re not
that
late.”

Spinner let a knife slip from his sleeve
into his hand and threw it in the direction of the stage. If Rake’s
hand hadn’t shot out to catch it, it would have hit one of the
gymnasts and there would have been no human pyramid for the show.
Not only had Rake caught it outside his field of vision, but he
threw it right back. With his magnetic fields ready, Spinner had no
problem catching it.

“See? Done now,” Spinner said.
“‘Bye-bye!”

“Not so fast,” Nicholas said. “We have some
things to discuss with Miss Aurore—”

The loud screech of a trumpet pierced the
air, making them shudder. The musicians had taken over the
orchestra seats and were tuning their instruments while getting a
feel for the acoustics.

“Let’s go backstage,” Nicholas said.
“There’s no way we can talk here.”

He gallantly offered Aurore his arm when
they climbed on the stage, though she didn’t need any help. Spinner
shuddered behind them. At least she was wearing gloves.

They couldn’t talk in the crowded corridor,
either, so Nicholas took them to his dressing room. Other than the
mirrors, lights, and chairs, the room was empty. A scratched
rectangular area in the corner showed where his trunk of tricks
would be stored when brought to the theater. So far, it hadn’t been
since Nicholas’s act didn’t require any rehearsal, either.

Rake and Spinner slid along the wall as
usual, becoming one with the background.

“It’s good to see you here,” Nicholas said
with a smile. “I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone.”

Aurore tossed the short, velvet cape over
her shoulder. “I have shares invested in the theater. I’m a
dedicated supporter of the arts. Of course, I had to check on you
and make sure you didn’t ruin anything.” Her smile was cold.

“Well, as you see, we’re taking good care of
the theater.” Nicholas gestured around. “We prefer to leave it
standing when we’re done with it. It’s good for business.”

“Ahem …” Rake cleared his throat.

“And, speaking of business—” Nicholas
glanced at Rake, “—what’s the deal with this Armstrong guy? I know
it’s none of our business, and I wouldn’t normally ask because a
client is a client, but he came with a proposal that is … too much
for words. He’s either very brave or insane.”

Aurore’s lips pursed in a smirk. “I wouldn’t
know about that. And I
think
the idea was yours.”

“Let’s not dwell on that.” Nicholas waved an
impatient hand. “Can he be trusted? What do you know about
him?”

“I know he’s some kind of a mercenary,”
Aurore said. “As for being trusted … well, I wouldn’t go that far,
but he’s desperate. He can’t get what he needs anywhere else, and I
don’t see what else he could do here.”

Spinner fully agreed but didn’t do more than
just nod.

“I still think it could be a trap,” Nicholas
said. “The procedure is complicated enough, but getting into the
Hrad? If we were caught in there, we’d be lucky to escape alive.
They keep pushing us farther and farther away each year. It’s
possible some people want to get rid of us for good.”

We should have never put him in charge.
It went to his head
. Nicholas was a coward, had been on the run
for years. Still, Spinner couldn’t blame him for wanting to
preserve the comfortable life he’d made for himself with the
circus.

“I can’t vouch for his sanity, but I
can
tell you he’s up to his neck in debt to me if that’s of
any help.” Aurore made it sound like a promise Armstrong wasn’t
going to screw up.

Except it didn’t look like she knew
Armstrong well enough, and that was no guarantee he cared about her
reputation. If he messed up with them, it would be too late for the
circus people, even if Aurore did make him feel her wrath in the
end.

“What’s Big Dino’s take on this issue?”
Aurore asked.

“Big Dino couldn’t be consulted,” Nicholas
said with a pointed look.

“Already?” Aurore asked after a momentary
pause.

Nicholas nodded. “We’re on our own. So, you
see why it’s such a big concern for us. These two are keen on doing
the procedure because it’s a novelty but, really, what’s the point
of doing it if you don’t live to tell about it?”

Both Rake and Spinner glared at him. There
was a point in doing it, even if it wasn’t a matter of saving
someone’s life in this particular case. But they did spare the
client a lot of pain and help him regain his motor skills faster
than anyone else could have. That had to count for something.

“Well, I have him under strict observation,
and my people reported nothing suspicious so far,” Aurore said. “I
think he’s, umm … hiding.”

“That’s not good. If there are people
looking for him …” Nicholas and Aurore exchanged a knowing
look.

“Why not assume he’s good at what he does
and understands the risks?” Rake asked out of the blue.

“Hey, since when have you become such an
optimist?” The words escaped Spinner’s lips before he could stop
them, and he gave Aurore a sheepish look.

“Just saying.” Rake shrugged.

“Yes, of course!” Spinner changed his tune,
hoping that if no doubt fell over their client’s patron, they would
be allowed to work on the client in peace. The rest held only a
secondary interest for him.

“You’re both mad!” Nicholas said in one of
his rare outbursts aimed at them.

“But we’re in charge.”

Rake’s reminder had Spinner grinning. He
preferred to let Rake reinforce their politics while he continued
to be the good guy. There had to be a balance. They couldn’t all be
bullies or there wouldn’t be anyone left to listen to them, at
least not for long. They were not Big Dino.

“You know what?” Nicholas said. “I wash my
hands of this whole thing. I’ll do the show, but that’s it.
You
deal with the mad man.”

“No, that won’t do,” Spinner said in a
hurry. “He needs to talk to you about the plans.”

“No, he doesn’t.
You
make the plans
with him. Take all the men you need. You have my
‘permission’”—Nicholas mimed the quotation marks with his
fingers—“for everything.”

“I take it Armstrong didn’t see Big Dino?”
Aurore’s face stayed unchanged, but Spinner was convinced she was
chuckling inside.

“There was no need,” Spinner mumbled. “In
the beginning, we thought it was a simple fixing job, then …”
Then it was too late, and Big Dino wouldn’t have been able to
change anything
.

“I’ll keep you informed if there’s any new
developments.” Aurore pulled her cape back in place. “If nothing
comes up, I’ll see you on the big night. Good luck!”

Nicholas held the door open for her, but
Spinner and Rake stayed behind.

“Why do I feel like she wished us to burn
and poison ourselves, all at the same time?” Spinner wondered out
loud, staring at the ceiling.

Rake’s deep chuckle served as distraction,
and Spinner moved out of the way at the last second. The knife
vibrated when it passed by him. “Missed.” He grinned, then took a
look at the knife stuck in Nicholas’s table. “Oops.”

“We should strike early in the evening when
everyone is busy in the big tent,” an unfamiliar voice said.

Dale’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn
to see who was speaking. He’d overheard the conversation by chance
when he stepped up to the bar for a drink—water, since he was
working—and these two men were talking around a small, square table
in the corner.

After two days spent busting heads and
wasting time in the Black & White club during twelve-hour
shifts, he was convinced nothing out of the ordinary was going on
here. Some small-class smuggling and trafficking various items, but
nothing that would have hurt the Golden Lady’s trade … at least he
didn’t think so. She had probably sent him there with one purpose
only—to keep an eye on him. He’d received the job without needing
any references at all. Lucky for him, since he couldn’t produce any
if asked. His superiors still waited for him to report back to
work, anxiously hoping he’d changed his mind about the request he’d
filed before going on sick leave. They were wrong. When the time
came, he was going to pilot that plane.

Dale wasn’t complaining. The amount of
drunks and smoke was bad enough, but it beat spending the day
locked in the attic, watching people passing in the street through
the tiny windows. And every now and then, he exercised his muscles,
throwing troublemakers onto the cobblestones outside. His only
concern was not to use his full strength and give the witnesses a
hint of his capabilities. Keeping that in mind, he hunched over his
drink and listened.

“We go around the tracks, climb on the car,
and enter through the window,” the same voice said. “It’s the third
car from the end. We can’t miss it.”

“What about the security?” the second man
asked.

“They don’t work in the evening when there
are thousands of people outside. Remember what they do is still
illegal here. There’ll be no one in the workshop.”

“Are you sure that’s where they keep the
spare parts?”

“I watched them for two days. It’s where
they take all their clients for fixing. The spare parts can’t be
far. It’s a big car.”

The grunt that followed could have been in
appreciation of the strong beer or the plan the other man had
presented.

“How do we get the stuff out?” the one who
needed convincing asked.

“That’s the trick. We can’t get close with a
car because someone is bound to notice. So we park behind the
abandoned warehouse and take all we can carry.”

“Hmm …”

“A few small items, sold to the right
people, will bring us more than we make in months. I say it’s worth
it. We should do it.”

The sound of fingers tapping on the
lacquered table set Dale on edge. Those weren’t normal fingers.
That was the sound of metal hitting against wood. Fingers capped
with metal? Something one shouldn’t have been surprised to find in
such a place.

“We go tonight to take a look,” the second
man said. “If—and only
if
—we find it safe, we go in.
Otherwise, we wait for another day and plan better.”

Dale clenched his glass. Considering how
deserted the train area looked at night, there was no way the two
thugs would find it unfit for business. He tapped his fingers on
the bar top and debated what to do about it.

The racket made by chairs being moved around
grated his ears, signaling the men were preparing to leave. There
was no time to think. He needed to act before he lost them.

Dale leaned over the bar to speak quietly to
the bartender. “I’m taking off early today.”

Milo shook his head while wiping a glass
with a towel. “Boss won’t like it.”

“Tell her to take it out of my
paycheck.”

“Her?” Milo’s eyebrows shot up his wrinkled
forehead.

Dale didn’t answer. The two conspirators had
reached the door, and all he could see were two large backs covered
with heavy, brown coats patched up with leather. They shouldn’t be
hard to spot in a crowd, assuming he didn’t wait too long. He
grabbed his jacket from behind the bar and started after them.

The hour before the beginning of the show
was the quietest for those who remained on the train. With the
passenger cars being soundproof, none of the agitation from outside
disturbed Cielo as she walked along the corridor. The hand panels
allowed her access from one car to the next until she reached the
third before last. Rake and Spinner called it “the factory” because
that was where they fixed people. But people suffered in here, so
she was partial to the term “infirmary” instead.

Familiarity with the layout of the place
allowed Cielo to find her way around the workshop with ease,
despite the dim light. She placed the thermos she’d brought along
on the corner of a workbench, careful not to disturb anything, and
turned on a bright lamp. Next to her, the unconscious patient lay
on a mechanical bed. With well-practiced moves, Cielo picked a vial
from a drawer and injected its contents into the IV. While waiting
for him to wake up, she pressed the buttons and had the upper part
of the bed elevated.