Mabeth woke drenched in sweat, the lingering scent of warm copper already fading. Grey light surrounded her, the hour still early. Gethik must have doused the lamps. She started as she saw him looming over her, his dull bionic eye glowing like dirty amber.
‘What are you doing?’ she croaked, annoyed at her own skittishness. ‘What are you doing, slave?’
Gethik didn’t respond. Her throat felt hoarse like she’d been screaming in her sleep. The servitor’s protection protocols must have kicked in.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, deciding to get up. That’s when she noticed the metal tube in Gethik’s hands. He hadn’t activated because of a protection protocol, he had taken receipt of a package. It came with an attached note. A snap of her fingers and Gethik lit the nearest lamp.
Mab, the note began, I think I may have found the last decent paying commission in this entire shit heap of a city. She knew the handwriting.
Yrenna was Mabeth’s abettor, a seeker of work. It was she who had secured the contract with the peacekeepers. Hardly what Mabeth was used to but it kept the debtors at bay and her decanters full. There was a time when they’d enjoyed more than just a business relationship, but Mabeth’s tastes had changed and so had her suitors. Still, old memories stirred at seeing her delicate script and provoked a frisson of lust. She turned over the parchment onto the opposite side.
Private contract. Three pieces, simple restoration needed. Yes, I know it’s still low end, but it pays better than the peacekeepers and there are fewer dead bodies. She signed off ‘Y’, adding a postscript. And that ugly golem needs a thorough cleanse, by the way.
The note came with the address of the commissioner, and the fee amount her abettor had brokered.
Mabeth smiled and took the metal tube. ‘Well done, Yrenna.’
The tube had been marked with an unfamiliar merchant’s sigil that looked like a ‘V’. Inside, she found three pieces of rolled up canvas. Unfurling each in turn, Mabeth laid them out on the floor, weighing them down with ornaments to keep them from curling back up. They were venerations, holy scenes from Imperial history, albeit faded and in need of repair. She didn’t recognise the saints depicted or the other religious figures, the cardinals and the abbesses. She only saw the work ahead and began immediately.
Mabeth fashioned simple frames for each piece from which she could begin the restoration, and then placed them upon her artist’s lectern, which was wide enough to accommodate all three. Curious, she thought, regarding them as a set, and wondering what interest a mercantile house would have in Ecclesiarchal relics.
A thorough assessment of the condition of the pieces preceded any actual work. The canvas was old, that much was quick to determine, although precisely how old she genuinely couldn’t say. It had been preserved with oils or perhaps some synthetic equivalent, which made the canvas slightly stiff and flaky at the edges. After she handled each piece to clean them, she noticed a farinaceous substance layering her gloves. Again, she couldn’t identify it and it only happened on that first occasion so she assumed the paintings hadn’t been disturbed for some time.
She worked steadily, reinvigorating the tired pastels, giving them vibrancy and depth. Mabeth felt reinvigorated, not unlike the ecclesiarchs in the paintings. The brighter the image became, the lighter her mood, as if faith and protection radiated from it.
Hours passed without her realising, and by the time the fonogram started to drone, she had restored a cardinal’s vestments and trappings. He was depicted standing upon some nondescript promontory, giving a fiery sermon to his flock.
The fonogram droned again.
She tried to ignore it but it began to irritate, and when she turned and saw the peacekeepers’ ident she swore loudly.
Levio’s gravel voice crackled through the receiver cup when she picked it up. ‘Need your talents again.’
‘I have other work, proctor.’
‘That can wait. Your contract gives the city unrestricted access.’
Fucking Yrenna, she thought, feeling less amorous towards the woman as Levio reminded her of that particular clause.
‘Can it possibly wait? I am in the middle of something.’
‘So am I… It’s another one.’
And with those three words, Mabeth knew she would be leaving the hab as soon as the call was over.
‘Same as last time?’
‘Different…’ Levio sounded like he was about to say more, but then swallowed audibly to clear his throat and gave her the address.
‘Different how?’
‘I’m not describing it over the fonogram,’ he snapped, then quickly regained his composure. ‘Just get down here.’
He cut the feed and the fonogram line went dead.
‘Arsehole…’ Mabeth looked back at the paintings. They would have to wait. The dead, it seemed, would not.
Another dilapidated church, another depravity. The sacristans had returned, more out of hope than expectation, and they had just finished rigging a string of lumens to flood the scene with pearlescent light as Mabeth made her entrance.
She had to crane her neck to see. The victim had been suspended on wire – no, not wire, the veins had been pulled from its arms, woven together and used to hang it like a piece of art.
He’s embracing it now, she thought, trying to remain analytical.
The victim hung in front of an immense window, its glassaic smeared in blood and other matter. Wan light streamed through, casting a ragged shadow. Entirely naked, the victim’s arms were outstretched, its legs pinned together. But this was not what marked it out as different to the previous murder. The skin had been flayed from its back and chest, and then spread out like a pair of leathery wings behind it. Angelic. Horrific. The ribs were exposed, rimed with blood and glistening in the light. Intertwined organs
