Authors: Jaine Fenn

Principles of Angels (6 page)

BOOK: Principles of Angels

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‘It’s all right, medame.’ The man’s voice sounded close to her ear; Elarn found that she had pressed herself into him. ‘Scarrion won’t hurt you.’

For a moment Elarn was confused; then she realised the man was referring to the killer. Should she trust someone who kept company with murderers? But the man said, ‘He’s my bodyguard. I saw what was happening and told him to help you.’

‘He . . . he broke that boy’s neck.’ A stupid thing to say. She must be in shock.

‘And if he hadn’t, that boy and his friend would probably have killed you. Besides, it was only a downsider.’ The man raised his voice slightly, addressing his bodyguard. ‘Fetch the militia and get them to clear up this mess, please, Scarrion.’

The blond man hesitated for a second, looking between Elarn and her saviour, who addressed him with a nod. ‘We’ll be fine for a while. I think the lady needs some air.’ The bodyguard dropped the body as though it were a sack of rubbish and strode off through the crowd without a word. Elarn noticed a small dribble of blood running from the corner of the dead boy’s mouth, and a new, unpleasant smell emanating from the body. So this was what death was like.

‘Let’s get you away from here.’ The man put an arm round her shoulder and turned her from the scene.

Elarn let him lead her through the crowd, most of whom had seen enough to move aside and let them pass. Her legs still felt like they wanted to bend the wrong way and she couldn’t stop her teeth chattering, but with every step she regained some of her composure.

As they left the transit hall, the noise level fell. Elarn found herself at the side of a small tree-lined square where a queue of peculiar little vehicles waited to take the arriving tourists to their hotels: pedicabs, three-wheeled pedal-powered contraptions with a double seat in front of the driver. A fountain played in the centre of the square and pots of red and white flowers decorated the walkways. The trees that surrounded the square had glossy leaves; they looked healthy. After ten days in a space-going box breathing recycled air Elarn found the smell and sight of so much vegetation a pleasant surprise, but the ‘ground’ out here was still the same grey material as the floor of the hall they had just left, a reminder that despite the plants disguising it, she was on a man-made construct, floating three kilometres above the planet’s surface.

Her saviour guided her to one of the varnished wooden benches just outside the door. ‘You’re sure you’re not hurt?’ he asked solicitously.

‘No, I’m fine, really. Just a bit shaken. I can’t believe that everyone ignored what was happening like that.’

‘Ah. I take it this is your first visit to our City? I’m afraid that’s fairly typical, especially when downsiders are involved. It’s safer to just pretend it isn’t happening, to avoid drawing attention to yourself.’

Elarn had assumed from his cultured manner that he must be a visitor, but he’d said ‘our City’. ‘Do you live here, then?’

‘I’m being rude. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Salik Vidoran. And yes, I am one of the minority who think of this City as home.’

‘Elarn Reen. I’m very pleased to meet you.’ Salik Vidoran? Elarn had heard that name recently.

‘Ah, here’s Scarrion.’

The bodyguard stopped outside the doors and scanned his surroundings. Unlike his employer he was dressed ostentatiously, in embarrassingly tight dark green trousers and a loose cream-coloured shirt shot through with golden thread. He was a little barrel-chested. When he spotted them, he nodded, but didn’t come over - watching for threats, presumably. Elarn was quite happy for him to keep his distance.

Salik Vidoran stood. ‘May I get you some transport, Medame Reen?’

‘Er, no, thank you. I’m being met.’ She wondered what he would assume from that, whether she should say more - just in case, for example, he took her comment to mean that she had a partner.

‘Of course. I can wait with you, if you like. My day’s appointments have just been cancelled and I’m at something of a loose end.’ His smile was dazzling. She found herself smiling back.

‘Well, if you—Oh!’ That had to be Shamal Binu, disembarking from a newly arrived pedicab. She was slender, and looked almost like some exotic bird, right down to the feathers in her hair. She spotted Elarn and waved enthusiastically. There were pink and lilac feathers at her wrists too, colour-coordinated with her short-skirted suit.

‘Ah.’ His tone said that he shared Elarn’s first impression of Medame Binu. ‘I do believe your ride is here.’

Elarn turned to him, but he was already standing up. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

He smiled down at her. ‘Might I be impertinent enough to suggest that we meet up again? Perhaps after one of your performances? Assuming I have leapt to the correct conclusion and you are
the
Elarn Reen?’

So there was one person at least in this uncivilised place who appreciated music. She smiled. ‘Yes, I am. And yes, I would like that. Thank you, again.’

He left, and Elarn tried not to peer after him.

Moments later Shamal Binu arrived in a flurry of feathers. She mimed two quick kisses to the air behind Elarn’s left and right ears, and then stared with the intensity of a bird of prey spotting a mouse at Salik Vidoran’s departing back. Without looking at Elarn she said, in a voice surprisingly deep for one so slight, ‘Unbelievable. Here two minutes and you’ve already snared the man of the moment.’ She turned back to Elarn and favoured her with the full force of her make-up. ‘Now that, my dear, is style.’

CHAPTER FIVE

At first Taro welcomed the burning in his legs, because pain stopped thought. But gravity soon got the better of him and by the time he was out of the Square into Confederacy Street he had to stop running.

Ahead, an open gateway marked the hubwards end of the Street and the edge of the State Quarter. Taro attracted nothing more than a hostile stare from the baton-boys on the gate. They couldn’t have heard the news; if they knew he’d caused the death of one of their own they would’ve beaten him to a pulp, valid City ID or not.

He found himself in the Ringway, the circular street that ran around the Gardens. From here you could get to the hubwards ends of all thirty-two Streets. Ahead, the dark pillar of the spine towered over the green chaos of the Gardens. Taro plunged into the wall of foliage.

Branches scratched his face and the change underfoot from flat City material to uneven, root-impacted soil nearly tripped him up, but he carried on, deeper into the Gardens, until the sounds of the Streets tailed off to a distant drone and all he could see in any direction was green. Only then did he allow his legs to buckle and he fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. He made no attempt to stop them. For three days he’d been numb with shock and guilt; now he gave way to grief.

Eventually the tears ran out. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the shifting pattern of leaves against the orange sky. All this growing stuff around him made him feel safe, cut off from the screw-up his life had become.

Something cold dropped onto his face. He flinched. Another drop. As though mirroring his mood, water was falling from the sky. He’d been in the Gardens once before when this happened; the roller he’d been with, a Kheshi homeworlder, had told him the water fell from unseen structures in the trees to feed the Gardens. Maybe that was true. Right now it felt more like City magic. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, swallowing whenever one of the fat drops landed in his mouth. He lay there until the ground below him began to feel damp, then slowly climbed to his feet.

He knew what he had to do.

He had messed with the sacred process of the Concord by disrupting a removal.
His
reason had been personal vengeance, but the Screamer had broken more rules than he had. The Minister needed to know what had happened. And Taro must be the one to tell him.

It was possible the Minister had decided that Taro’s actions - no doubt known to him now through other watchers, or whatever more arcane means he used - deserved punishment. If so, hiding in the Gardens would only postpone it, maybe even make it worse.

Taro pulled his pack up onto his back; the extra weight was a burden, one he could do without, but he had no idea if he would be able to come back for it, or if it would even still be here if he did.

Stepping through the hedge back onto the Street got him a few odd looks from rollers in passing pedicabs. He ignored them and set off sunwise. If the Minister had decided that he was to be punished, it would happen now. He tried not to jump at movements seen out of the corner of his eye; if an Angel came for him, she would strike from above. Chances were the first he would know about it would be when she ripped his throat out. If that was what had to happen, so be it, nothing he could do. Just keep walking.

The Leisure Quarter started less than an eighth-turn sunwise from here; this close to the centre of the City, that was a few hundred metres. Taro took it slowly, keeping close to the Gardens as he passed the silent gated Streets of the State Quarter. He heard Groove Street long before he reached it. Dancers and acrobats spilled out onto the path and the early crowds surged and flowed. Holos played above the buildings, showing the kind of fun to be had within: animated crushes of bodies moving to pounding rhythms; a lone dancer shaking her stuff in a metal frame. He ignored it all and walked to a row of niches set into the wall on the sinwards side of the Street.

Taro had never used a public com booth before. They were there for the few topsiders who didn’t have personal coms, though you still needed City ID to use them.

As he ducked under the clear plastic hood, the sounds of the Street faded out and the screen in front of him jumped into life. A soft voice, the same as the one in the circle-car, asked him to state his request and have his credit bracelet ready. Taro wondered if he was hearing the voice of the City. Plenty of downsiders thought of it as their living protector, but Taro had never quite managed that leap of faith. He pulled up his sleeve, ready to put the bracelet in the reader, and said, ‘Show me the one who has everything.’ His voice came out as a croak and he had to repeat the request before the voice responded, ‘Your request is acknowledged. No ID or payment is required for this service.’

The screen went blank; even the adverts on the walls died away, and for a moment Taro wondered if something was wrong.

Then the Minister’s voice came from the still-dark screen. ‘I think you have some explaining to do,’ he said.

Taro took a deep breath and said, ‘He killed Malia.’

‘Who killed Malia?’ The Minister’s voice, though clear and perfect, sounded strangely toneless.

‘The Screamer, the one with Consul Vidoran.’

‘And that explains your behaviour in Confederacy Square.’ Still no clue as to how much the Minister already knew. But no indication he was angry either. ‘Was there any particular reason why you failed to mention the circumstances of your line-mother’s death when we met this morning?’

‘I should’ve, sirrah. I was surprised, meetin’ you like that. Scared, too. It’s been so hard since . . . since she died.’ The Minister deserved the whole truth. No more hiding, no more self-pity. ‘An’ I was ashamed.’

‘Ashamed? Surprise and fear I understand, but what had you to be ashamed of?’

‘It’s my fault. Malia’s death. I led him to her. Not on purpose, but, it’s still ’cause of me.’

‘Explain. From the beginning.’

Taro swallowed hard. ‘Malia’d been in a mood fer a while, after one of her lovers . . . anyway she wanted me out the homespace, said I should go earn me keep. She got like that sometimes. She lets -
let
- me share homespace with her ’cause me blood-mother was her sister, but whenever she was having a sh—a bad time, she wanted to know I wasn’t just livin’ off her rep. I’m a—’ Taro paused, not sure how to put it delicately.

‘Prostitute,’ said the Minister, still without emotion. ‘Yes, I know.’

Well, that saved him having to be subtle. ‘She said I could take a pitch on Soft Street. She’d had a word with one of the pimps there. That’s where he picked me up. I thought he was just another roller. He looked normal enough; wasn’t even wearin’ colours.’ Taro swallowed the bile rising in his throat. ‘He—’

‘Scarrion.’

‘Sirrah?’

‘His name is Scarrion.’

BOOK: Principles of Angels

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