'Finished? Just like that? You're giving up.'
'I'm just getting out, Wilson. I'm sick of this. Sick of my father.'
'Oh, your father,' he nodded. 'That's what this is about. That's all you care about, isn't it?'
'You're missing the point, buddy. That's all I don't care about. I'd like to keep myself alive, and I'd like him to stop getting in the way of that.' The crowd was getting awfully tight. Wilson was pushed right up against me. I could feel the brace of knives in his vest, poking me in the ribs. 'I tried doing it in the city. Stayed low. Got forgotten. And that worked for a while. Now it seems to have stopped working.'
'Don't give me that shit, Jacob.' He bared his hundred teeth at me, biting off each word with a snap. 'He would have taken you back, but you didn't give him the chance. You took the path that went through every bar in Veridon, and half the whores. I know, Jacob, because I followed you through that path. That's what friends do.'
'We're friends now? I thought you were waiting for me to start making mistakes again. Because it amuses you.'
He shook his long, bald head at me and spat. The line of Badge was getting close. Wilson noticed and pushed me aside, then began prying off the boards on the shop door.
'So what's your plan, genius? Get arrested again?' He snapped a board in half and began working on the lock beneath. 'Because that's what's going to happen if you don't get moving.'
'Doesn't sound like a bad idea. Settle into a nice cell until this blows over.'
'You think they're going to let you do that? Angela's already sprung you once. Who knows what would come for you this time!' The lock snapped open, and Wilson pulled the door wide, tearing the boards from the frame as he pulled. So it wasn't the best barricade job. The shopkeeper hadn't matched his prescience with good carpentry. You can't have everything. Wilson stood in the door, staring down at me.
'Stay out here and get arrested, or come through here with me. But if you follow me, by gods, you have to fight with me.'
'What makes you so all-fire righteous all of a sudden, Wilson?' I demanded. 'You can't tell me that you honestly care about what happens in the Council. Or to my father, for that matter.'
He laughed.
'Don't care? It's all I care about, Jacob. You can go traipsing off into some pastoral fantasy about milkmaids and sleeping in and maybe doing a little fishing,' he snarled, making the word 'milkmaids' sound particularly vicious. 'But some of us are stuck here. Some of us can't drop everything and disappear.'
'That's not my fault. That's not my responsibility. And what the hell is keeping you here, anyway? Not like you've got family obligations.'
There was murder in his eyes. I had always been afraid of his teeth, and his iron hard fingers, and those knives, and the sharp talons of his spider hands. I added his eyes to the list.
'Oi, you there! You lads!' shouted one of the officers. 'We'd like a word with you, if you have the time.' As if we were standing in the street, loitering. Not in the middle of a riot.
Wilson stepped inside the shop, gave me a significant look. I shrugged and brushed past him, further into the darkness within. He turned to the line of officers who were struggling to get closer.
'I will thank you kind gentleman to do something about this rabble,' Wilson shouted back. 'I am a respectable citizen of the city, and the proprietor of this fine shop. Please remove these people from my doorstep and see that nothing is damaged. I have some very fine' — he paused to look around at the shelves nearest him — 'some very fine pottery that must be protected at all costs. And what appears to be a hookah… never mind, thank you for your time.'
And he slammed the door and threw the bolt, and then whirled on me.
'Let's say that it's not me who's stuck here. You clearly care nothing for me, or my feelings, so let's imagine it's someone else. Anyone else. What would have happened if you hadn't stepped up two years ago, huh? What would have happened to the city?'
'Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have let Camilla have her heart back, and let the chips fall where they may.'
'Really?' He stalked closer to me, backing me up against the very fine pottery. 'Really, Jacob? You don't care that she would have burned a hole through this city a mile wide and two deep? All the people who would have died, all the tomorrows that would have been lost; that doesn't matter to you at all?'
'Maybe it doesn't matter to me anymore.' I pushed him back a little, enough to get my footing. 'Maybe I didn't do as much good as you think. Things could have turned out differently. Things could have turned out better.'
'For who, Jacob? For you? For the Council? Who would be better off now, if you hadn't done what you did?'
And there it was, hanging between us in the air, the name neither of us would say. Would either of us dare play that name; did we care about this argument enough to tear open that wound?
Emily. Emily would be better off. But I couldn't say that. Couldn't even think it.
I retreated to the back of the shop, looking for another door. People were pounding on the bolted front of the shop, Badgemen or crushed rioters or maybe even the cogdead. Who could tell anymore? The silence and that name hung in the air like a thunderbolt.
'I don't know what good I did back then, Wilson, but I know what evil. I know how many men I've killed. How many women.' I found a door and started fiddling with the lock. 'I know how many lives I've ruined, how many bones I've crushed. Both for Valentine, and later for myself.'
'But think about how many more would have died, Jacob.' Wilson came over and put a hand on the door. Didn't matter. I couldn't get the damn lock to budge, anyway. 'And how many more will die this time around. You can do something, out there.'
I had to laugh. Put a hand on his arm and smiled.
'You're talking like I'm a fucking hero, Wilson. Let's not tell that lie, okay? My dad got me involved in this because he knows I'm not a hero. He knows I'm a coward, and a violent man, and I do violent things when I'm scared. And I don't want to be that man, not now. Maybe not ever.' I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms over my chest. 'But certainly not today, and certainly not for him.'
Wilson pressed his lips into a thin, furious line. He pushed me aside and, with contemptuous ease, tumbled the lock and threw open the door.
'Fine, Jacob. Go. Hide. Leave us alone.'
I stared at him for a dozen breaths, and then stepped out into the alley. It was quiet and dark, the shouts of the rioters and the Badge confined to the other side of the buildings. I put my hands in my pockets and hurried down the road. The clouds above grumbled menacingly, and the first heavy drops of a serious spring rain splattered to the cobbles around me. I hunched my shoulders, tucked my chin into my coat, and kept my eyes down. With luck I could be inside before it hit.
That was where I got unlucky. The day I decided to finally put this place behind me, to get out, shake the dust from my shoes and make a new life somewhere else, that was the day the Badge locked down the whole city with a strict curfew. Also, the rain started long before I got anywhere near shelter and as a final note, I had been awake for nearly twenty hours, and I had spent most of those hours either running for my life, fighting for my life, or drinking. It was beginning to show.
I didn't get more than two blocks before I had to turn around. I wanted to get to the zep docks, get a ticket and a cabin and a bed. But part of a curfew means locking the city down, and that means controlling the most common means of retreat. The entrances to the pneumatic train were guarded, and the main avenues of approach to the docks, the gates of the city and the massive bridge that led up to the Torchlight and the zep docks were all heavily patrolled. On top of that, there were roaming patrols of very curious and helpful Badgemen. A couple minutes after midnight the sirens stopped howling, the last of the rioters were tucked comfortably into padlocked carriages, and the Badge had the streets to themselves.
This was what I didn't understand. Why was the Badge locking the city down? I mean, I understood that it had been a pretty hectic day, what with the massacre on the docks. Still thought it was weird that the investigator who interviewed me this morning didn't know anything about that. Seemed to think it was some kind of fire that killed all those people. Angela knew, though. Figured.
