Shanghai Sparrow (41 page)

Could she get him to fire it? He had Holmforth’s gun, too, of course – but he had stuck it in his jacket, and she didn’t know how quick he could get at it.

Not worth the risk, not with the way bullets flew about, not caring who they hit.

Use what’s to hand.
The old man had a long silver finger-stall, with a pointed end, on the little finger of his left hand... not much, but better than nothing. She palmed it, and began to tie up Holmforth. She yanked on the sash, wanting to punish him.

“There’s no need for this,” he said.

Forbes-Cresswell ignored him, inspected Eveline’s knots, and nodded. “Now move over there by your friend. Mrs Duchen?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you are not planning on displaying any foolish sentimentality this time?”

Madeleine Duchen looked at him steadily. “This man brought my daughter into danger. Do you really think I care for one moment if he suffers? I
hope
he suffers.”

Oh, Mama.

“Very well,” Forbes-Cresswell said. “Oh, and I believe this
Etherics
can be used on humans. I should warn you that if I feel, for even a moment, any change in my mental state, your daughter dies. You understand?”

“Yes.”

Eveline watched as her mama began to move the levers inside the machine; her long hands, with their worn, reddened fingers. Did she remember?
Could
she remember? All those years locked away, working only with bits and scraps...

“This will be a great moment!” Holmforth said. “The future is beginning here, can’t you feel it?” He looked at Eveline. “Even you, you
must.
The Empire will shine its light upon the savage and pagan remnant of the Folk and...”

“Oh, really, Holmforth,” Forbes-Cresswell said. “You’re becoming tedious. That sort of jaw is all very well for schoolmasters and clergy and vote-getting, but is that
really
what you think Empire is? Some sort of cleansing fire of virtue and enlightenment? The business of Empire is
business
, Holmforth. Coin, moving from one pocket to another. And I’m a businessman, no more, no less.”

Holmforth’s eyes searched Forbes-Cresswell’s face, but whatever he sought, he did not find it. His face became very still. Eveline, watching, almost expected tiny cracks to race across his features; behind that mask, something was crumbling, falling away.

Forbes-Cresswell’s eyes moved from him, to Mama in the dragon’s head, to the two girls. Beth looked at Eveline, biting her lip.
What now?

Be ready,
Eveline mouthed. Ready for what, she didn’t know. A flicker in Forbes-Cresswell’s attention. Anything.

The dragon began to sing. A low vibration in its throat, rising slowly, building potential, holding the promise of thunder.

After a moment, Holmforth drew a hissing breath. He began to shift in his chair, straining against his bounds and moving his head restlessly, as though bothered by flies.

Then he moaned.

Beth gasped as blood began to seep from Holmforth’s ears. It trickled down his neck, and a small red flower bloomed where it ran onto his starched collar.

Forbes-Cresswell nodded. Eveline glanced at her mother, who was still working, her hands relentlessly moving, her eyes glimmering with tears. She looked at Forbes-Cresswell, who motioned her to go on. Another note joined the vibration, a singing hum.

Holmforth’s moans rose; he began to fling his head from side to side, as though trying to shake something out of it. His golden skin drained of colour, leaving him a pallid yellow, like a tallow candle.

Someone screamed, outside. Forbes-Cresswell’s head snapped towards the sound, the gun coming up, and Eveline’s foot shot out and caught him in the side of the knee. He yelped and buckled, turning towards her.
Gun! Gun! Gun!
her head screamed at her.

The controller Beth was holding caught him in the side of the head and bounced off, clattering to the floor. His hands came up, the gun went off, there was another scream. Eveline dived at his knees and Beth caught his arm, clinging like a monkey, and between them they brought him to the floor. He writhed furiously, trying to throw them off. The gun spun out of his hand, away across the floor.

Eveline held the finger-stall to his neck, dimpling the skin with the point. “Oy, mister.
Mister
.”

“Get off me, you...”

“Shut up. Feel that?” She pressed, feeling the point push against the bones of his spine. “Now, I seen a chap thrown off his horse, once. Landed with his neck across a mounting stone and you could hear it snap right across the street. Never walked again, that fella. Not a step. So why don’t you stop struggling ’fore I decide to see what happens if I push this right in?” Forbes-Cresswell stilled. “Beth, get the other gun.”

Beth reached into his jacket, grimacing, and extracted Holmforth’s gun.

“My buyer will be here any moment,” Forbes-Cresswell said. “And so will Holmforth’s driver; he’ll have heard the shot. He will believe what I tell him. You have nowhere to go.”

Eveline hesitated. He could be right – if they were found here, with the bodies, it was Forbes-Cresswell who would be believed. And could she bring herself to kill him? How? Drive this spike into his temple, his throat? She didn’t think she could do it, vile little bastard that he was. Thief she might be, murderer she wasn’t.

“Who was it screamed?” Beth said.

“Dunno.”

“Let me up!” Forbes-Cresswell squirmed. He was strong, and she didn’t know how long they could hold him.

“Eveline.”

“Mama.” Eveline didn’t look up, not daring to take her eyes off Forbes-Cresswell. “You all right?”

“Yes, but what are we to do?”

“I...”

Something moved in the doorway and Beth’s hand came up with the gun in it, shaking, and Eveline saw Liu, Liu staggering and bleeding. She knocked Beth’s arm up and Forbes-Cresswell heaved, throwing them off, and rolled, his weight on Eveline, so
heavy
, his hands were on her throat, crushing, she couldn’t breathe, and then something hit his head,
crunch
, and his hands slackened, his body suddenly heavier.

“Evvie. Evvie!” There was a crash and a splintering sound, and Mama was hauling him off her.

“I’m all right,” Eveline croaked.

Mama helped her to her feet. Her eyes were wide and horrified, a spray of blood across her cheek, one drop hanging in her grey hair like a dreadful jewel. “I...” She looked down at the remains of a heavy carved box, spattered with hair and blood. Ink and small stones and fine lacquered brushes were scattered around it. “I think I’ve killed him.”

Forbes-Cresswell lay limp, blood and fluid leaking from his head across the tiles.

“Good,” Eveline said.

She heard a whimper. Liu was crawling blindly towards them, blood trickling from his eyes and ears and nose. “Lady... Sparrow...”

“
Liu.
Oh, shit, Liu, I didn’t know... you weren’t supposed to
be
there...” Eveline ran towards him.

Madeleine followed her daughter. “Oh, my poor boy. Oh, dear god.”

Liu collapsed at their feet. Madeleine took his head in her lap, and tried to wipe blood from his face with her sleeve.

Beth, seeing the black ink crawl and mingle with the fluid spreading from Forbes-Cresswell’s shattered skull, backed away, dropped to her knees and threw up.

“What happened? What’s this boy doing here?” Madeleine said.

“He wasn’t supposed to be. He was just meant to free whoever Holmforth’d got for the demonstration and put the mannequin there instead, he wasn’t supposed to chase after us, and get his stupid self hurt. Mama, we have to get the dragon working.”

“What?”

“That’s what made him sick. It can make him better. Can’t it?”

“Eveline... I can try.” Madeleine stroked Liu’s brow. “This... this is...”

“I know. You can make it better.”

“What about the driver?” Beth said, wiping her mouth.

Liu muttered something in Chinese.

“I don’t know,” Eveline said. “Oh, I
told
him he shouldn’t come... Beth, can you check outside? Take the gun. Can you fire it?”

“I can
fire
it. Aiming’s another thing.” Holding the gun as though it were a dead rat, her mouth pulled down in a grimace, Beth went out.

“Stay with him,” Madeleine said. “Watch him. If he seems to get worse, call out.”

Beth sat down and gently transferred Liu’s head to her own lap. “You bloody idiot,” she muttered. “What’d you have to go and do that for? Messing everything up.”

His eyelids flickered but he said nothing.

“Liu?”

He was terribly pale. His face shimmered, making her jump; for a moment he was all muzzle and sharp, blood-stained teeth.

“Liu!”

And the dragon began to sing.

The first note was high and sweet, a soft, wavering,
aahiiihaaahiiii
, the voice of a tiny metal angel trapped in the dragon’s throat.

Then came a fuller, rounder sound,
raum
,
raum
,
raummmm
, surrounding the lost angel, lifting it on warm friendly wings.

Liu was very still, now. His breathing was so slow, so faint. Eveline rested a hand on his cheek. He was cool as the tiled floor beneath her.

“Mama, please,” she whispered.

Another note, rich and strange. She felt a strange shifting inside her, a kind of blooming warmth. She willed it to go to Liu, to help him.

Was that a flush of colour in his skin?

The dragon sang in a ringing, lovely multiplicity of voices, and Liu opened his eyes.

“W
HAT HAPPENED
?” B
ETH
said.

“Mama made it work.” Liu was sitting up, suffering Madeleine to clean blood from his face with a wetted handkerchief. He still looked pale, and kept glancing anxiously at the dragon. “What happened outside?”

“I don’t know. It’s an awful mess. The driver’s dead, and there’s another man and someone I think was
his
driver, they’re all dead. Shot.”

“Did you do that?” Eveline asked Liu.

“I did not shoot anyone. I may have encouraged them to shoot each other. They were all most suspicious and quite ready to do so at the slightest provocation.”

“So what now?” said Beth.

“We can make it right,” Holmforth said. Eveline jumped. She’d almost forgotten about wretched Holmforth, still tied to his chair. Mama’s music had worked on him, too, though he still looked sick, and no-one had wiped
his
face.

“Untie me,” he said. “We will send word to the Consulate, to have the Dragon collected. I will explain everything. The other one, the buyer, he may have papers, something... leave it to me. We can still make this work for the good of the Empire. You have behaved very foolishly, but at least...” He glanced at Forbes-Cresswell, then away. “Treachery failed, as it must.” The look he gave Eveline was almost pleading. “You understand, we can still retrieve something from this!”

“Yeah, right. I think you’re going to be staying right where you are for now, Mr Holmforth. Liu. What you told me about the Queen. About the Gifts. I think... Mama. Mama, are you well?

“Yes, my dear. Only...” She looked down at her bloodied hands, and swallowed. “I should like to wash.”

Eveline wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist, and hugged her fiercely. “You saved me, Mama.”

“Yes. I had to. But... I killed someone.”

“I know. But if you hadn’t, it wouldn’t just be me dead.” She drew Madeleine out of the room, beckoning Liu and Beth to follow, hoping that would take them out of range of Holmforth’s blasted sharp ears.

Once they were beyond the doors, Eveline rubbed her eyes. She could feel a great weight of exhaustion poised at her back, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it yet. “Mama, can you do something to the dragon, if Beth helps? Make it so it will only make pretty noises, ones the Folk will like? Safe ones, like it was just a musical instrument.”

Madeleine frowned. “Well, yes. That only requires ripping out some things, silencing others.”

“What is your plan, Lady Sparrow?” Liu said. He was still pale, but he looked a little more like himself.

“To give your Queen a Gift, Liu. Not the spirit of the thing... I still don’t understand that, quite, and it wouldn’t solve our problem anyway, but the thing itself. The dragon.”

“You want to
give
her the dragon? I think perhaps the strain of the day has troubled your mind.”

“Listen to me. You already knew about it; how long before someone else gets wind of it? What about the Folk here, that girl he caught? What do you bet they already know something? We gotta make it look like it was
meant
for a Gift. Meant to please. Then, if they find out that there was something that made terrible, harmful noises, they’ll think it was a mistake – something that happened while we were trying to make them this special Gift. Can you persuade her that it’s the best Gift she could have, better than anyone else could have got? Then, if someone makes another – well. There’s a chance they’ll think we’re just doing it to try and improve on the Gift, produce something better. For them. You see?”