'Well,' Wilson grumbled as he loosened his shoulders and prepared to go back in. 'That was a nice break.'
To our surprise, the iron girl held up a hand, then put her fingers under her chin and, with a shriek of pain, ripped the mask from her face. It clattered to the ground like a discarded plate. To my surprise there were clusters of writhing wires on the inside of the mask, over the eyes and mouth, slick with blood. The girl's face was pale and slick with her own blood, streaks of it running from her mouth, even from her eyes. But I recognized her.
'Lady Bright,' I said, still gasping for breath. 'I should have marked you for a traitor from the start.'
'I'm not your traitor,' Veronica said. 'But I am very tired. If you'll just give me a chance to explain.'
'Explain to the Wright you stabbed back in the hallway,' I spat. 'I know murder when I see it. Tell me, was it you who butchered your family at their meal?'
'Watch your words, Jacob Burn,' she answered, assuming a fighting stance. 'And if you will bring me the Wright, I will gladly explain to him.'
'He'll be lucky to live,' Matthew said. 'My men are caring for him, where you struck him down.'
'Then you should see to your men, Investigator.'
Matthew looked warily between us. I edged away, trying to get to my shotgun, which was leaning on a bench about ten feet away.
'Leave the weapon, Burn. And Investigator, I mean that quite literally. You may even consider that an order, from a Councilor.'
'You have to be kidding me,' I said. 'Matthew, she tried to kill a Wright of the Church. You can't possibly be considering taking orders from her.'
'I've seen your stat sheet, Burn,' he said. 'You can't claim any sort of moral high-ground here.'
'I've had enough of talking,' Wilson said. 'I'm ready to go if you are, lady.'
'Yeah, put her down, Wilson,' I sneered at Veronica. 'I'll bet you're not so tough without your magical iron face, are you?'
Without a word she shuffled forward, if lightning can shuffle. Two strikes, once to my chest, the second an open-handed slap across my face. When I picked myself up off the ground she was back where she had been, as if she had never moved.
'The mask helps. But I'm better than you, Jacob, because I have trained for this my entire life. I don't need magic tricks to put you down.'
'I've really had enough of this,' I wheezed, holding my chest. 'Wilson, knock this bitch down a notch. Matthew, go get your men and get them in here. We need to keep moving.'
'What about the Wright?' he asked.
'We have taken care of our brother,' a voice said from the shadows of the hallway behind us. We turned to see a collection of Wrights, led by an Elder of the Church, filing into the room.
'I've been wondering where you jokers had gotten to,' I said. 'You probably already know this, but there's this crazy Artificer trying to break your little god. This one was helping him.'
'Yes. We have seen to Mr. Crane, although the girl was proving elusive. We do have our own defenses, you know, Mr. Burn.'
'I remember,' I said. I walked over and snatched my shotgun from the ground. Other Wrights began to appear in the room, entering from hidden doors. They all looked very calm, very quiet. 'Look, if you don't mind, we'd like to get this Crane thing taken care of. He's caused a lot of trouble for the Council, enough trouble that they've let me join their club.' I smiled. The Elder didn't bat an eye. 'Because that's how desperate they are. See? Nevermind. We need to see Crane, put him in custody.'
'Ezekiel Crane won't be leaving this building. We have dealt with him.'
'Killed him, you mean? Because, just to be clear, I'm perfectly fine with that. I've gone that route myself a couple of times in the last two days. But he's a tricky guy, and I'd really like to confirm that he's truly 'taken care of,' you know. So,' I motioned to Veronica, 'if you'll just take custody of her, show us the body, and we'll get out of your hair.'
'You haven't taken custody of me yet,' Veronica spat.
'Matter of time. Lots of Wrights in this room, Lady Bright. How many of them do you think you can take down?'
'How many do you think you can take down?' she asked. 'Because I think we're going to make a little game of it.'
'Jacob!' Wilson snapped. I turned around to see the Elder reaching for my shotgun. His skin was pale, and black tar lined his teeth. I put the butt of the shotgun into his face without thinking about it, then fell back until I was standing next to Bright. Matthew was staring at me.
'He's got them!' I yelled. 'Crane has them all!'
'On the contrary,' the Elder said. 'We've got him. Or the parts of him that count.'
I leveled the shotgun at his face and pulled the trigger. He fell in a black, bloody mess. A pair of crows, their feathers smeared with gore, dug themselves up out of his chest. Each one was nesting in a brass cage in the dead man's lungs, the pipes of the hollow bars trilling like soggy wind chimes as the black birds burrowed their way free. I cycled the shell and fired again, ending the birds. Another Wright stepped into the Elder's place.
'Very good. Two shots, and you've put one of us down. Count your shells, gentlemen, and count us.' He smiled wickedly. 'If you're holy enough, you might see the pattern.'
'I was doing really well here,' Veronica whispered, 'until you geniuses came along.'
'You can't blame us. And you could have explained yourself.'
'Can't talk in the mask. And a second ago you were going to turn me over to these guys. Now you're standing beside me, trying to figure how many of them we can take down before they kill us.' She snorted. 'Is that what criminals mean when they talk about loyalty?'
'Situations change, lady. We do what we can to survive.'
'You're going to do great in the Council. Your father would have been so proud.'
'Can we tear my family apart a little later on? Maybe after we get out of this?'
'Everyone shut up,' Wilson snapped. 'Gods! Humans, they won't shut up. The worse things are, the more they natter on.'
'I think we would all appreciate a little silence,' the Wright said. 'So here's what we're going to do. We promise that if you surrender your weapons and come quietly, you will not be harmed. We must detain you for the next day, maybe two, but then we'll release you back into the city.'
'I'm going with option two, whatever the hell that is,' I said.
'Because you're an idiot, and stubborn as a child,' the Wright said, nodding. 'As we expected. Perhaps if we swear on something very important?'
'There is no oath you can take that will secure my surrender, Wright. You will fight us here, and we will die, but there will be a fight.'
'Perhaps if they swear to you on my name?' a girl's voice asked.
The crowds of Wrights parted, and a child walked through them and into our presence. She looked to be eight, maybe nine. Most of her wasn't there. Her shoulders and arms were stripped to the bone, tiles of porcelain smooth skin jigsawing down her neck like a mosaic that had begun to fall apart. Ribs crumbled in place like fine china that was being ground invisibly to dust. Her face was perfect, though, delicate and bright. And behind her, new wings of black wire, swirling with electric grace. Her legs and hips looked new, too, freshly fashioned from the miles of gearwork and engine parts that were scattered throughout the Church of the Algorithm.
Camilla, the Angel of Veridon.
The last time I had seen her, she was pinned in place, deep beneath the Church of the Algorithm, kept alive by a tenuous thread that connected her to her mechanical heart. Now the whirling cog of pattern and power spun in her chest. And between the framework of her skeleton, behind the ribs and down her arms, swirled an angry horde of crows. She looked like a restless shadow, blackness edged in feather and beak and glassy eye. When she talked, I could even see a ghost of feather between her teeth, and her hair fluttered restlessly on her head.
'Did you think I would go away, Jacob? After I failed to secure the destroyer's heart from you, did you think I would just stop trying? You went out of here, you buried your dead, and you forgot about me.'
'Cam, that's just not true. I told everyone. They didn't believe me.'
