Sophie rescued them, striking one of her matches on the doorframe, cupping her hand around it to protect the tender flame until she could get through the door and raise it above her head.
The tiny bit of fire could do little but cast dancing shadows about them, indicating only bouncing lumps of darkness or the glint off a metal or glass item. But Talis spotted the swaying shape of a pull-chain a few feet beyond Sophie and made for it, even when the match burned down and Sophie cursed on behalf of her singed fingertips. In the final two steps through darkness to where the pull-chain hung, Talis caught her shin on a step stool or some such she hadn’t noticed, but her hand found the chain and pulled.
The room was bathed in red as fluorescent lights buzzed, strobed a few times, then held steady. They were not the room’s main lights, but a pair over the table that had been darkened with thick red film over the bulb housing.
“Cheery,” commented Sophie. She struck another match and used it to light a cigarette. Its cherry glow was right at home in the red-lit space. She puffed out a cloud and the sharp tobacco and clove flavors hung in the still air.
The lights weren’t the back room’s main lights, but meant for Jasper’s hobby. The man was fond of daguerreotype. On several occasions Talis brought him silver plate, amberlith, and chemical solutions from photographers in inner radii cities as a personal favor. But the red illumination, however innocent, made Talis’s skin prickle. She looked for, but failed to find, another light switch. The aisles of the stockroom were filled with shadows deeper than reason allowed for. Everything the color of blood.
By the feeble light, they saw that the room was in disarray. Items tossed from shelves littered the floor. A chair was pushed up against one set of shelves. The step stool she’d knocked herself on was under the shelves on the other side of the main aisle. Items had been swept off the table and scattered. Even Jasper’s framed daguerreotypes were askew on the walls.
The narrow door to his private office, its frame half as wide as a Breaker might comfortably fit through, was unlocked. Bad sign. Anything that could be locked, in Subrosa, generally was.
“Sophie, bolt the front door.” Talis kept her voice low.
Jasper probably had a rear exit. Probably, but she didn’t have the first clue where and she didn’t want them pinned down if more menace was on its way.
Dug came up behind to cover her in the narrow doorway. She inhaled, held it, and pushed the door inward.
It stopped after a few inches, blocked on the other side.
She exchanged a look with Dug, then pushed harder. Something heavy slid on the floor within, but she gained the room.
This time she found a pushbutton switch next to the doorframe and pressed it. She blinked for a moment against the brightness of standard lighting. She heard the hiss of Dug’s breath taken in through teeth, and squinted her eyes to see what he could.
Jasper was dead, slumped against the door.
His face was battered, his forearms bloodied. Defensive wounds. One of his silver-tipped tusks was broken, and the lip around it had bled. His eyes were still clear, though the sparkle of his humor was gone. The giant’s forehead sported the entry wound of the bullet that had killed him. His skin was still warm under Talis’s hand as she searched for his pulse.
She remembered the missing bullet in the cylinder of one of her new guns.
Her anger at Jasper was forgotten, and she felt shame flood in to replace it. The five men outside hadn’t come for her. A Breaker might be stronger than a horse, but they were passive. Defend themselves, sure, but not attack. Not even in return. Not even to protect what’s theirs. Five thugs with bats and knives were more than enough for that job. Breakers were ancient. Their population were the originals created by Helsim Breaker, gifted with the long life that made them so excruciatingly patient, and so far the only dead ones Talis knew of were ended by violence. That didn’t happen often. Shouldn’t need to happen, ever.
“We could have stopped this.” She had trouble saying the words, and they came out in a croak that had nothing to do with the recent abuse to her throat.
Dug did not argue, but put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She leaned her cheek against his forearm, closed her eyes, and felt the burning behind her lids that threatened tears. She’d been so ready to hang the blame for Hankirk’s appearance around Jasper’s large shoulders, but he was as thick in it as she was. Dug’s grip on her shoulder remained firm, and he gently pulled her backward toward the exit. Nothing left but to sort out those who had done this. The shame went red, forged into vengefulness.
A small gasp sounded from behind them, as Sophie returned from securing the shop’s entrance. Her hands went to her mouth and her eyebrows arched high in surprise. She’d seen her fair share of bodies before, and had been responsible for half of them at least, but they’d all been Cutter folk and unremarkable. A living Breaker was a rare enough sight, let alone a dead one. And this one had always been kind to her.
“I thought he took off,” she said. “A frightened Breaker would have been bad enough. It didn’t cross my mind that anyone would actually kill him.”
Sophie’s emotions tipped the balance of her own, and Talis felt tears finally appear. She blinked them away. Tried to breathe deeply to steady herself, but the office smelled like faint musk, clove, and allspice. Like Jasper.
“Do we search his office?”
Sophie looked around the small room. It may have once been a
