Shadows of Self (7 page)

Marasi stepped up to them. “We’re looking for a man.”

“If you need a man,” one of the boys said, looking her up and down, “I’m right here.”

“Oh please,” Marasi said. “You’re … what, nine?”

“Hey, she knows how long it is!” the boy said, laughing and grabbing his crotch. “Have you been peeking at me, lady?”

Well, that’s a blush,
Marasi thought.
Not terribly professional.

Fortunately, she’d spent time around Wayne and his occasional colorful metaphors. Blushes would happen. She pressed onward. “He came shooting through here less than an hour ago. Wounded, trailing blood, wearing red. I’m sure you know who I’m speaking of.”

“Yeah, the man of hours!” one of the boys said, laughing and referencing a figure from old nursemaid tales. “I know him!”

Treat them like a belligerent witness,
she thought.
At a trial. Keep them talking.
She needed to learn how to deal with people like these boys in the real world, not just in sterile practice rooms.

“Yes, the man of hours,” Marasi said. “Where did he go?”

“To the edge of dusk,” the boy said. “Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“I’m fond of stories,” Marasi said, slipping a few coins from her pocketbook. She held them up. Bribery felt like cheating, but … well, she
wasn’t
in court.

The three boys eyed the coins, a sudden hunger flashing in their eyes. They covered it quickly, but perhaps showing off money in this place wasn’t terribly wise.

“Let’s hear a story,” Marasi said. “About where this … man of hours might be staying. The location of dusk, if you will. Here in these tenements.”

“We might know that,” one of the boys said. “Though, you know, stories cost a lot. More than that.”

Behind her, something clinked. Waxillium had gotten out a few coins too. The boys glanced at those, eager, until Waxillium flipped one up into the air and Pushed until it was lost.

The boys grew quiet immediately.

“Talk to the lady,” Waxillium said softly, with an edge to his voice. “Stop wasting our time.”

Marasi turned to him, and behind her the boys made their decision. They scattered, obviously not wanting to deal with an Allomancer.

“That was very helpful,” Marasi said, folding her arms. “Thank you so much.”

“They were going to lie to you,” Waxillium said, glancing over his shoulder. “And we were drawing the wrong kind of attention.”

“I realize they were going to lie,” Marasi said. “I was going to catch them in it. Attacking someone’s false story is often one of the best methods of interrogation.”

“Actually,” Waxillium said, “the best method of interrogation involves a drawer and someone’s fingers.”

“Actually,” Marasi said, “it does
not
. Studies show that forced interrogation results in bad information almost all the time. Anyway, what is wrong with you today, Waxillium? I realize you’ve been flaunting your ‘tough Roughs lawman’ persona lately—”

“I have not.”

“You
have
,” she said. “And I can see why. Out in the Roughs, you acted the gentleman lawman. You yourself told me you clung to civilization, to bring it with you. Well, here you’re around lords all the time. You’re practically
drowning
in civilization. So instead, you lean on being the Roughs lawman—to bring a little old-fashioned justice to the city.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” he said, turned away from her, scanning the street.

Rust and Ruin.
He thought she was infatuated with him.
Arrogant, brutish … idiot!
She puffed out and stalked away.

She was
not
infatuated. He had made it clear there would be nothing between them, and he was engaged to her sister. That was that. Couldn’t the two of them have a professional relationship now?

Wayne lounged on the steps leading up to a nearby building, watching them and sloppily taking bites out of an apple.

“And where have you been?” Marasi asked, walking up to him.

“Apple?” Wayne said, handing another one toward her. “’s not too bruised.”

“No thank you. Some of us have been trying to find a killer, not a meal.”

“Oh, that.” Wayne kicked at something beside him on the ground, hidden in the shadow of the steps. “Yeah, took care of that for you.”

“You took … Wayne, that’s a person at your feet! Rusts! He’s bleeding!”

“Sure is,” Wayne said. “Not my fault at all, that. I did knock ’im upside the head though.”

Marasi raised a hand to her mouth. It was
him
. “Wayne, where … How…”

Waxillium gently pushed her aside; she hadn’t seen him approach. He knelt down, checking Marks’s wound. Waxillium then looked up at Wayne and nodded, the two sharing an expression they often exchanged. The closest Marasi had been able to figure, it meant something between “Nice work” and “You’re a total git;
I
wanted to do that.”

“Let’s get him to the constabulary offices,” Waxillium said, lifting the unconscious Marks.

“Yes, fine,” Marasi said. “But aren’t you going to ask
how
he did this? Where he’s been?”

“Wayne has his methods,” Waxillium said. “In a place like this, they’re far better than my own.”

“You knew,” she said, leveling a finger at Waxillium. “You knew we weren’t going to get anywhere asking questions!”

“I suspected,” Waxillium said. “But Wayne needs space to try his methods—”

“—onnacount of my being so incredible,” Wayne added.

“—so I did my best to find Marks on my own—”

“—onnacount of
him
being unable to accept that I’m better at this sorta thing than he is—”

“—in case Wayne failed.”

“Which never happens.” Wayne grinned and took a bite of his apple, hopping off his steps to walk beside Waxillium. “Except that one time. And that other one time. But those don’t matter, onnacount of my getting hit to the head enough times that I can’t remember them.”

Marasi sighed inwardly, falling into step with the two. They had so much history that they moved in concert subconsciously, like two dancers who had performed together countless times. That made life particularly difficult for the newcomer who tried to perform with them.

“Well,” Marasi said to Wayne, “you could at least tell
me
what you did. Perhaps I could learn from your methods.”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “Won’t work for you. You’re too pretty. In an unpretty sort of way to me, mind you. Let’s not go around that tree again.”

“Wayne, sometimes you completely baffle me.”

“Only sometimes?” Waxillium asked.

“I can’t give her all I got, mate,” Wayne said, thumbs behind his suspenders. “Gotta save some for everyone else. I dole it out with no respect for privilege, class, sex, or mental capacity. I’m a rusting saint, I am.”

“But
how
,” Marasi said. “How did you find him? Did you make some of these people talk?”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “I made them not talk. They’re better at that. Comes from practice, I suspect.”

“You should take lessons,” Waxillium added.

Marasi sighed as they approached the entrance to the Breakouts. The human flotsam who earlier had cluttered the stairwells and alleyways in here had melted away, perhaps finding the attention of several lawmen too discomforting. It—

Waxillium stiffened. Wayne did as well.

“What—?” Marasi began, right as Waxillium dropped Marks and reached for his mistcoat pocket. Wayne shoved his shoulder into Marasi, pushing her away as something zipped down out of the air and clacked against the paving stones where they’d been standing. More projectiles followed, though she wasn’t really looking. She instead let Wayne tow her to relative cover beside a building, then both of them began craning to search the skyline for the sniper. Waxillium took to the air with a dropped coin, a dark rush of twisting mistcoat tassels. At times like this he looked more primal, like one of the ancient Mistborn from the legends. Not a creature of law, but a sliver of the night itself come to collect its due.

“Aw, hell,” Wayne said, nodding toward Marks. The body slumped in the middle of the road, and now had a prominent wooden shaft sticking out of it.

“Arrow?” Marasi asked.

“Crossbow bolt,” Wayne said. “Haven’t seen one of those in years. You really only want them for fighting Allomancers.” He looked up. Above, Waxillium gave chase, soaring toward the top of one of the buildings.

“Stay here,” Wayne said, then dashed off down an alleyway.

“Wait—” Marasi said, raising a hand.

But he was gone.

Those two,
she thought in annoyance. Well, obviously someone didn’t want Marks to be captured and spill what he knew. Perhaps she could learn something from the crossbow bolt or the corpse itself.

She knelt down beside the body, checking first to make certain he was dead—hoping perhaps that the crossbow bolt had not finished the job. He
was
dead, unfortunately. The bolt was firmly lodged in the head. Who knew that a crossbow could penetrate a skull like that? Marasi shook her head, reaching into her handbag to get her notepad and do a write-up of the position the body had fallen in.

You know,
she thought.
The assassin is lucky. They were gone so fast, they couldn’t have known that they dealt a killing blow. If I were looking to make sure Marks was finished off, I’d certainly …

She heard something click behind her.

 … double back and check.

Marasi turned slowly to find a ragged-looking man leaving an alleyway, holding a crossbow. He inspected her with dark eyes.

The next part happened quickly. Before Marasi had time to take a step, the man rushed her. He fired the crossbow over his shoulder—causing a Wayne-like yelp to come out of the alleyway—then grabbed Marasi by the shoulder as she tried to run.

He whipped her about, raising something cold to her neck. A glass dagger. Waxillium dropped to the ground in front of them, mistcoat unfurling around him.

The two stared at one another, a coin in Waxillium’s right hand. He rubbed it with his thumb.

Remember your hostage training, woman!
Marasi thought.
Most men take a hostage out of desperation.
Could she use her Allomancy? She could slow time around her, speeding it up for everyone outside her speed bubble. The opposite of what Wayne could do.

But she hadn’t swallowed any cadmium. Stupid! A mistake the other two would never make. She needed to stop being embarrassed with her powers, weak though they were. She’d used them effectively on more than one occasion.

The man breathed in and out raggedly, his head right next to hers. She could feel the stubble of his chin and cheek against her skin.

Men who take hostages don’t want to kill,
she thought.
This isn’t part of the plan. You can talk him down, speak comforting words, seek common ground and build upon it.

She didn’t do any of that. Instead, she whipped her hand out of her handbag, gripping the small, single-shot pistol she kept inside. Before even considering what she was doing, she pressed the barrel against the man’s chin, pulled the trigger …

And blew the bottom of his head up out of the top.

4

Wax lowered his hand, looking at the new corpse beside Marasi. Her shot had taken off a big chunk of the face. Identifying the man would be near impossible.

It would have been anyway. Suit’s minions were notoriously difficult to trace.

Don’t worry about that right now,
he thought, taking out a handkerchief. He walked over and held it up to Marasi, who stood with wide eyes, blood and bits of flesh sprayed across her face. She stared straight ahead and did not look down. She’d dropped the pistol.

“That was…” she said, eyes ahead. “That was…” She took a deep breath. “That was unexpected of me, wasn’t it?”

“You did well,” Wax said. “People assume a captive to be in their power. Often the best way to escape is by fighting back.”

“What?” Marasi said, finally taking the handkerchief.

“You discharged a pistol right beside your head,” Wax said. “You are going to have trouble hearing. Rusts … you’ve probably done some permanent damage to your ear. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.”

“What?”

Wax gestured toward her face, and she looked at the handkerchief, as if seeing it for the first time. She blinked, then glanced down. She looked away from the corpse immediately and began wiping at her face.

Wayne, grumbling, staggered out of the alleyway, a new hole in his clothing at the shoulder and a crossbow bolt in his hand.

“So much for interrogating him,” Marasi said with a grimace.

“It’s all right,” Wax said. “Living was more important.”

“… What?”

He smiled at her reassuringly as Wayne waved to some other constables, who had finally arrived on the scene and were making their way into the slums.

“Why does this keep happening to me?” Marasi asked. “Yes, I know I won’t be able to hear your reply. But this is … what, the third time someone has tried to use me as a hostage? Do I
exude
indefensibility or something?”