smile.
“It’s all right, Daniels,” Anderson said. “What is it?”
“They’re here.”
Anderson considered this. “Then we have to get her out of the Interface now. Winslow, you and my guards will escort her to Chapman.”
Winslow did a double take that at any other time would have been comical. “And what of you?”
“I’ll stay here and see if I can distract them. They’ve been awfully good at distracting us. The time for negotiations is done. Winslow, report to Stade. Let him know how things have changed. Let him know that the Interface is finished. We’re closing it down. Time for us all to find new employment.”
“Surely you won’t be too far behind. There are still treaties intact.”
Something passed across Anderson’s face, a shadow of sadness or fear or just that bleak turn of humour that he seemed to possess. “Of course, Winslow, but do as I say, please.”
Winslow looked about to say something and Anderson silenced him with a glance. A bell rang, pitched high. Anderson’s eyes narrowed. Shots were fired in the distance. Margaret could taste the bitter exhalations of endothermic chemicals.
“Get out of here, now!”
“What about my carriage?” Margaret demanded feeling at once petty and childish for asking.
“You’ll have to leave it, I’m afraid.” He shook his head. “We’ve all had to leave things.” Anderson pulled her aside. “Once you are free of the Interface, do not linger and whatever you do, do not go to the Council. I cannot speak for your city, but the Council of Chapman and Mirrlees are corrupt. Believe me when I say they would have given you back to the Roil. Get out of here, get away from Winslow, he’s a good man but a Council man. Try and get in touch with a man named Medicine Paul, but do not do it openly. He has agents in the city, not as many as he once did, but so does the Council, it can be difficult to tell them apart.” Anderson whispered. “132 Chadwick, Street, there you might find help. Do you understand?”
Margaret nodded, then strapped on her ice pistols. “Good luck,” she said.
Anderson laughed. “Don’t speak to me of luck. I used that up long ago.” Then he gave her a wry look. “I’m sorry, maybe I haven’t used it all. Why, I met a Penn today.” He slipped a handful of dark lozenges into his mouth, and shuddered, dropping to one knee. He blinked, looking about him.
“That’s far too many of those, sir,” Winslow said.
Anderson glared at Winslow, though not without affection. “Are you still here. Didn’t I tell you to go?”
“You did, and we are.”
“Good,” Anderson said, snatching pistols from the belt at his waist. “I’ve a crew to command. You make sure she gets to Chapman.”
As they left the sleeping quarters, Anderson heading deeper into the complex without looking back, Winslow passed around a handful of the same lozenges that Margaret had seen Anderson swallow. He gave Margaret several of them.
“Put one beneath your tongue,” he said. “It’s called Chill. It’ll cool your blood. We’ve catalogued a whole range of Witmoth apotropaics, but this works best. Saliva activates it.”
Margaret slid one of the lozenges into her mouth. They tasted foul, but the effect was almost instantaneous.
She grimaced as her body cooled.
Winslow grinned at her. “Pretty impressive isn’t it? One of my projects.”
He opened a door. “And this is the way out.” He gestured at a long, narrow corridor that extended out of sight.
Winslow and the two guards led her down the narrow spine of the complex. They walked for nearly ten minutes until they reached a point where the light globe above them shone red.
“What’s that?” Margaret asked.
“That’s the true interface, a step beyond it and you have passed out of the Roil. Over the last six weeks I have seen that red light shift from the beginning of the corridor to here. May not seem like much until you realise the Roil has moved that far forward all across Shale.”
They walked a little further on. Margaret stared back one last time at the Interface, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, not sure what. Anderson was back there somewhere, Winslow followed her gaze.
“He’ll be all right,” he said unconvincingly.
It was stupid, but guilt welled within her at leaving the Melody here. Without that carriage, she would have never made the journey, and now she had deserted it, just as she had deserted everything else she had ever loved
A flicker of movement caught her eye and her spine clenched with a cold deeper than anything Chill could create.
The red lights were coming on. Each new red globe lighting with a loud click.
Click, click, click.
Like someone running towards them in metal soled shoes.
Click.
Click.
“Look,” she said and pointed.
Winslow shuddered. “That’s impossible.”
The guards paled, but engaged their guns. There was a loud whine as they charged up. Margaret activated her weapons as well.
Click.
“How far until the entrance?”
Click.
“Another hundred yards.”
Click.
“I think we should run.”
Click
There was no argument. They sprinted down the hallway, weaponry clanging, the air electric with their terror. Margaret’s heart pounded in her chest, the Chill burned with a frigid bitter fire in her mouth.
Behind them the red lights picked up pace. Margaret reached the entrance.
As the last of them made it, the red light above the doorway clicked on. The hallway was lit with rubicund shadows. There was movement at the other end of the long hall. A boiling darkness filled with the susurration of wings.
One of the soldiers swore beneath his breath then launched a metal canister back that way. The canister clattered as it struck the ground and rolled forward a few turns. The soldier covered his ears and Margaret followed, barely in time. The explosion rippled along the hallway and the red lights nearest it burst. A backwash of cold rushed up to them. But it was quickly warmed, by a hot dry wind.
“Where’s that coming from?” Winslow hissed. “Why aren’t the doors locking? We’ve had a breach and the only locked door is the emergency exit.”
Something howled down the other end of the corridor.
Winslow cursed as he punched in the clearance code. The door swung open, onto a steep set of stairs. Winslow motioned for one of the soldiers to go first, then Margaret.
They reached the top of the stairs, just as beneath them firing started. The soldier entered in another code. The door below slammed shut.
“Keep your weapons ready,” the soldier said, but Margaret was already ahead of him, her rifle in her hands.
The soldier smiled grimly, and pushed on the door. “Of course, you’ve done all this before.”
Margaret wished that she had not.
The door swung open, the soldier leapt out, and Margaret followed. She stopped and almost dropped her rifle.
No, she had not done this before. She had never experienced this.
She could see stars, and the greater moon Argent giving off its dull light.
