Deadly Games (25 page)

“Nah, I’ve got it now.” Maldynado pushed the
vehicle to full speed. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. This is
fun. Far better than riding that ridiculous bicycle.”

Wind drove rain droplets through the open
side, and moisture spattered Amaranthe’s cheeks. She was already
regretting her choice. That theft would be reported, and the
enforcers would match it to her once the workers described her. She
should have handled the situation better.

“Quit it,” Maldynado said.

“What?”

“Self-flagellating. I heard what that man
said; you got the location of the rail carriage. We wouldn’t have
gotten that if you hadn’t gone up to talk to them. And it’s
important to get over there quickly in case Books and Akstyr have
already found it and are on the brink of getting themselves in
trouble.”

Amaranthe wiped water from her cheeks.
“You’re wiser than you let on most of the time. In fact, you
usually hide it well.”

“It’s late. I’m not at my best.” He nodded
toward an upcoming intersection bisected by rail tracks. “There’s
our street.”

He turned the corner and rolled over a
streetlamp in the process. It snapped from its cement post without
hindering the sturdy truck. Amaranthe dropped her face into her
palm.

“Oops,” Maldynado said.

Smoke teased Amaranthe’s nostrils,
distracting her from a mordant response. She sniffed at the air
outside the window. It did not smell like the coal burning in their
furnace.

“Uh oh.” Maldynado pointed down the
street.

Flames licked around the edges of a window in
a building a block ahead. A building with an oversized statue in
the shape of a hydrant out front—the old fire brigade.

A sleek black steam carriage trundled up the
hill, coming their direction. It was a street model, not one for
the railways, but it had a similar style to the other one. A
chauffeur perched on the bench of the carriage, hood drawn to
shield him from the rain. Face forward, he avoided looking their
direction. Lamps burned inside the carriage, but dark curtains hid
the contents.

“Crash into them,” Amaranthe said.

“What?” Maldynado blurted.

“Nobody who lives around here can afford a
personal vehicle, and somebody started that fire.” The carriage was
drawing even with them, and it would be too late to stop them soon.
“Crash into them!” Amaranthe reached toward the controls.

“All right, all right.” Maldynado jerked the
vehicle to the left.

The garbage truck rammed into the side of the
carriage. Metal crunched, and the impact threw Amaranthe against
the back of the cab. That did not keep her from scrambling out,
pistol in hand.

She had expected the crash to force the
carriage to stop, but the chauffeur only turned his vehicle away,
trying to extricate himself from the garbage truck. The curtains
stirred, and Amaranthe caught a glimpse of red hair. Her heart
leaped. Their foreign woman.

Maldynado kept mashing the garbage truck into
the carriage, trying to pin it against the brick wall of the
closest building.

“What are you doing, idiot?” the chauffeur
shouted.

Amaranthe sprinted around the garbage truck
and jumped onto the driving bench. The carriage lurched and
wobbled, rattling the perch like a steam hammer. The chauffeur spun
toward Amaranthe, his hand darting for a weapon.

She pressed the pistol against his temple. “I
don’t recommend that tactic. Why don’t you stop the carriage?”

He snarled at her and did not obey. She
shoved his hood back with her free hand. He had the olive skin and
brown hair of a Turgonian. A scar ran from his ear to his jaw, a
mark that would have been memorable if she had seen it before, but
she had not. He did have the short hairstyle soldiers favored.

“Stop the vehicle,” Amaranthe repeated,
putting more pressure on the muzzle pressed against his temple.

“Very well.” The man grabbed a lever.

Steam brakes squealed, and the abrupt halt
nearly threw Amaranthe from the bench. She gripped the frame and
would have been fine, but the chauffeur took advantage. He launched
a kick at her ribs. She dodged, avoiding the majority of the blow,
but it upset her balance. Before she toppled off, she grabbed his
leg and took him over the edge with her.

They tumbled toward the street. Amaranthe
twisted in the air and landed on top of him. She caught his wrist,
yanked it behind him, and slammed his face into the wet cement. He
groaned and ceased struggling. With her knee in the chauffeur’s
back, she patted him down and found the weapon he had been reaching
for, also a pistol. She stuffed it inside her belt.

Steel squealed behind them.

Amaranthe rolled to the side and jumped to
her feet, afraid someone had started the carriage again. Getting
run over was never a good plan.

Neither it nor Maldynado’s vehicle was moving
though. The noise came from one of the garbage truck’s articulating
arms. It had latched onto a flue on the carriage and was lifting
the back end of the vehicle into the air.

“They’re not going anywhere now,” Maldynado
called, leaning out of the cab and grinning.

A carriage door opened. Something
glinted.

“Look out,” Amaranthe called.

A shot rang out.

Maldynado yelped and ducked out of sight.

Not sure if he had been hit or not, Amaranthe
left her man and sprinted for the opposite side of the carriage.
She grabbed the door handle, thinking to surprise those inside if
they were watching Maldynado, but it was locked. The dark curtains
were still drawn, and someone had extinguished the light
inside.

Amaranthe was debating about using her pistol
to smash through the window when footsteps sounded to the rear. She
peered around the end of the carriage. Books and Akstyr were
running toward her, swords drawn.

She waved for them to cover the back of the
carriage, in case the people inside jumped out and ran in that
direction, then she left the locked door and eased around the
front. The chauffeur was sprinting toward an alley. She ignored
him, figuring the important people were inside.

Using the front of the carriage for cover,
Amaranthe leaned around the corner, her pistol ready. The carriage
door dangled open.

Books hunkered by the front of the garbage
truck, using it for cover while he pointed a pistol at the open
door. Akstyr had gone to the far side of the carriage in case the
riders tried to escape that way.

“Come out,” Amaranthe said. “We have you
surrounded.”

Something tiny flew out from within, and
Amaranthe jumped back. Glass hit the cement and shattered. Smoke
poured from a broken vial.

She fired into the few inches of open
doorway. She did not expect to hit anyone, but maybe it would make
them think twice about throwing anything else outside.

“Is that—” Books started.

“Back up,” Amaranthe called over his
question. If this was the stuff that knocked people
unconscious...

Though she backpedalled several meters, the
smoke billowed outward at an alarming rate. It soon smothered the
street and hid both vehicles. An acrid scent stung her nostrils and
eyes. She fumbled to reload the pistol, but had to stop to dash
away tears that blurred her vision. At least she did not feel woozy
or sluggish. This was some new concoction with a
different—horrible—smell from the yellow powder.

She wiped her eyes again.

Movement stirred the smoke. She lifted her
pistol, but did not fire, not when it might be one of her men.

Amaranthe listened, expecting telltale
footfalls. Surely, the occupants intended to use the smoke to
camouflage their escape.

Though the vehicles had stopped moving, their
engines still rumbled and clanked. But then she heard something
different. A clatter. Something hitting the ground.

She dropped to a knee, left arm supporting
her right hand to steady it for a shot. She waited, searching the
smoke through bleary eyes.

A boom shattered the night. Its force hurled
Amaranthe backward, and her head cracked against the cement street.
Pain exploded in her skull, and black dots danced before her eyes.
Rain pelted the street around her. No, not rain. Pieces of metal
tinkling and clanking to the ground.

A shard gashed her cheek, eliciting new pain,
and she rolled over, wrapping her arms over her head. Something
slammed onto the street inches from her face. She found herself
gaping at a detached portion of the articulating arm.

“Up, girl,” she told herself, forcing her
mind into gear.

Pain lanced through her at the change in
position, but she shoved her feet under her anyway, and turned
toward the crash site. Smoke still hazed the street, and the air
stank. Her first thought was that one of the boilers had ruptured,
but perhaps the people in the carriage had thrown some sort of
explosive.

Two tall figures strode toward her, their
features masked by the smoke and night shadows.

Amaranthe had lost her pistol in the fall.
She yanked out the one she had taken from the chauffeur.

“It’s us,” Maldynado said.

“Are you all right?” Books asked.

Amaranthe lowered the weapon. “Yes. Did you
see anyone? Did you
capture
anyone?”

Given that they dragged no prisoners between
them, the latter seemed unlikely, but Akstyr wasn’t accounted for
yet. Maybe he had had better luck.

“Sorry, I was busy getting shot,” Maldynado
said.

In the poor lighting, she could not see if he
was bleeding, but the way he reached for his temple and then
lowered his hand to check it made her suspect so.

“Can you walk?” Books asked. “I think they
set the fire in that building down there. If so, they must have
been trying to hide something, to destroy evidence perhaps.”

Before he finished the words, Amaranthe
forced her legs into a jog. “Let’s check it. Where’s Akstyr?”

The back of her head sent a pulse of pain
through her skull with each step. She probed her scalp gingerly,
and her fingers met dampness. What a night.

“I’m not sure,” Books said. “I saw him racing
into an alley. I think it was him. He must have seen someone.”

Amaranthe thumped her fist against her thigh,
torn between wanting to race after him to make sure he did not get
in trouble and wanting to investigate the building before the
flames burned away any evidence that might be inside. “Which
alley?” she asked.

Books hesitated, then pointed at one a half a
block down the hill. Amaranthe veered toward it, but when she
reached the mouth, she could not see anyone. Several alleys opened
to the left and right before the main one emptied onto a street a
block away.

“Could be anywhere,” she muttered.

“Let’s check the building,” Books said. “I’m
sure he’ll be fine.”

Amaranthe was not, and she did not want to
lose any more men, but she let Books lead her away. Maldynado had
stopped to gawk at the wreckage revealed by the clearing smoke.
Warped and charred, the vehicles slumped like candles melted down
to stubs. Though warehouses and commercial buildings filled these
blocks, Amaranthe doubted that explosion would go unreported for
long.

Shaking her head, she followed Books to a
tall, double-door entrance—one large enough to accommodate a
railway carriage. Smoke poured out, and he had pulled his shirt up
over his nose. Flames continued to burn at the ground-level window,
and fire danced behind the upper floor windows now, too.

Even before Amaranthe stepped inside, dry
heat blew over her face. The rail carriage sat in the middle of an
open bay. Flames crackled and danced along the wooden ceiling high
overhead, but the fire had not damaged the carriage yet.

She rifled through a pocket and found the
kerchief she had used earlier in the night.

“The flames have likely compromised the
structural integrity of the building,” Books said.

“That’s his way of saying we’re stupid to go
inside, right?” Maldynado asked.

“I believe so.” Amaranthe went in anyway,
heading straight for the rail carriage. Hot air and light assaulted
her already beleaguered eyes, and tears streaked down her cheeks,
cool against skin flushed from the heat. “Spread out and search
this floor.”

A board fell away from the ceiling and
thudded to the cement ahead of her. Flames licked the charred wood.
She ran around it and circled the carriage, hoping one door would
be open. None were. She tugged her jacket off, wadded it up to
insulate her hand, and reached for the handle.

The heat seared her flesh even through the
cloth barrier, and she yanked the door open as quickly as
possible.

A ceiling beam snapped, and half of it
dropped, smashing onto the engine of the rail carriage.

Amaranthe gulped. Wisps of charred paper and
wood floated in the air, and even with the kerchief over her mouth
and nose, hot fumes seared her lungs.

Using her boot, she nudged the door open
wide. Nothing rested on the carpeted floor or black-velvet benches
on either end. A shirt or jacket hung over the back of one though.
Amaranthe doubted it would reveal anything useful, but she lunged
in and grabbed it.

“Amaranthe!” Books yelled.

She jumped out of the carriage. “What?”

“Over here,” he called from the far corner of
the bay, somewhere behind the carriage. “You’re going to want to
see this.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Maldynado
said.

Amaranthe eased around the carriage and
spotted the two men behind a low wall that partially hid a bank of
standing lockers. Books was staring at something on the ground, his
face twisted in a horrified rictus.

Maldynado backed away, his expression grim.
“I can’t look at that.”

Amaranthe took a deep breath and joined
Books.

The woman’s body on the ground did not
surprise her, but its nudity and the scars gouging the torso did.
Though the smell of burning wood—burning
everything
—dominated the building, she caught a whiff of
blood, and her stomach twisted into a knot, threatening to eject
its contents. Amaranthe took a deep breath and sought to find
detachment, at least enough to study the body and figure out what
it meant.