Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts 21: “They won't care who started it.”

One thirty in the afternoon and we were finally on the move.

It had been a tense day. Marji had spent most of it on the phone, talking with everyone she knew who was even vaguely connected with law enforcement and calling in favors. By sheer force of personality she managed to get promises of increased watchfulness along our route from the docks to Government House without being able to tell anyone what, exactly, they were supposed to be watching for.

The mayor wanted to catch Castor Tak in the act, and while I wasn't sure that was the best plan, it was the plan we were going with. That meant we couldn't have too obvious a police escort. Marji had even sent her friend's private guards on their way.

We were going to be bait in a trap, and it was going to be all of us, despite my arguing against it. Karin refused to surrender Grandmother Wolf's teeth, which meant she had to be there. Marji insisted that she go with Karin, and Jake wouldn't let Marji go without him.

I was going to see if I could keep them all alive. I had my doubts.

Jake went down to his workroom to fiddle with whatever magical tools he had down there, which left Karin with me. She alternated between theatrical excitement and equally theatrical terror until told her that I needed to patrol the perimeter wards in spirit form, just to get away from her for a while.

When I got back I made some lunch—a rather nice fish stew that no one ate much of—and we loaded Jake's car. Marji drove and I road shotgun, with Jake behind Marji, a clanking duffel bag beside him, and Karin behind me.

A debutante, a musician, an engineer, and an artist. Off to face a diabolical street gang and a member of parliament. If we made it through the next few hours somebody was going to owe me big time.

Marji pulled out past the gatehouse. I felt the wards, but only because I was concentrating on them.

“That's it,” I said, “we're a target now.”

“I doubt it,” Marji replied. “They need to wait until we have Grandmother Wolf. If she doesn't see us on the docks, she'll just stay on the ship, maybe go back to Ferose and hide out there.”

“That still gets Tak off the hook,” I pointed out.

“At this point I don't think that'll be good enough for him,” Karin said. “The only two people who connect him with the Magus are me and that bitch. He won't be able to resist taking us both out at once.”

“All the same,” Jake said, “It's best to keep a look out. Rashlings are unpredictable bastards.”

“The cops are going to be following us, right?” Karin asked nervously.

“Not exactly,” Marji said. “They'll be keeping an eye out. Unofficially. But if the shit hits the fan we should have some law close by.”

“Not if,” I said bleakly. “When.”

The car got quiet after that. Marji drove on. Just after we left the Landsend Expressway for the Riverside Parkway a police car pulled smoothly behind us. It looked like it just happened to be there, but I felt sure that it was the result of one of Marji's calls.

“Who is that?” I asked Jake.

He turned to look out the back window. “Quayside Parrish,” he said. “It's their turf all the way to the docks.”

“Nice,”I said.

I turned on the radio and fiddled with it until I found a dance band. No one objected.

The exit for the docks came up and Marji took it, the cops smoothly following. Then we were in the crazy quilt of the commercial docks and Jake started giving directions. The streets down there don't have names, just numbers, and Marji had her hands full avoiding the big rigs which seemed to have no respect for the laws of traffic and only the bare minimum for the laws of physics.

We found the slip where Karin said Grandmother Wolf would arrive at last. There was a Ferose ship there, an immense hulk of riveted steel with sails of beaten copper bright as mirrors. Marji wedged the car between a pair of flatbeds being loaded with angular crates of some smooth material white as salt.

I opened my door. “You stay with the car,” I said, “I'll fetch her.”

“I should go with you,” Jake objected.

“Stay with the car,” I repeated. “I don't need a bodyguard. They do.”

Jake looked at his wife and her lover, nodded grimly. “Be careful.”

“Careful is my middle name,” I assured him.

I ducked around the forged who were loading the flatbeds and headed for the gangplank. Another forged—this one shaped like a man, purring clockwork driving its arms and legs and the cartoon lines that served it for a face—stopped me with an upraised tin hand.

“I'm Sam Jackknife for Grandmother Wolf,” I said.

The forged whistled like a calliope, and turned back to me, its hand still bidding me to wait. I saw Grandmother Wolf then, scurrying down the gangplank, a wicker suitcase in each hand.

“Come on,” I told her. “The clock is ticking.”

I hadn't thought about were she would sit until we got to the car, but she opened the back door and squeezed in next to Karin. I got into the front seat and looked to Marji.

“Punch it,” I said. “Next stop Government House.”

She nodded and backed up. She was in the middle of a three point turn to get us clear of the trucks and headed back towards the parkway when the Quayside Parrish police car came around the corner and rammed us, still accelerating when it hit.

I had been half turned in my seat, looking around to see how Karin was dealing with the morauxe snuggling beside her, and the impact bounced me into the dashboard. By the time I managed to look up the other car had backed up and rammed us again. Marji was clutching the steering wheel to keep from hitting the windshield, and I couldn't see what was going on in the back seat but there was a lot of things clanking around and I heard Karin give off a high, keening wail of pain.

The window next to me was mostly in my lap, the safety glass covering me like hail, so I pushed through to roll onto the pavement.

The cop car—and it still looked like a real one—had come to a stop. The doors were coming open and figures poured out into the street. I focused and saw past their veils.

Rashlings. They had given us what we had expected to see and gotten right up next to us. Like the gang I'd met earlier, these were bringing out chains with hooked knives. The engine of Jake's car revved, and then there was a squeal of complaining metal. Glass tinkled into the street. Then the car shuddered and died.

I faced the rashlings and spread my arms. “This doesn't have to be this way,” I began, and then dropped to the pavement as a a blade whistled past me.

Okay, maybe it did have to be this way. I hoped that Jake had brought his revolver, because otherwise this could get really ugly.

I heard the starter of the car whining, without result. Give it up, Marji, I thought. They killed it.

I caught the next chained blade that came whizzing towards me by sticking up my arm and letting the chain wrap around it. The blade bit deep into my forearm, but ignored that and yanked hard on the chain. The rashling who held the other end wasn't expecting that and staggered forward. By sheer chance it ran into the swinging arm of one of its fellows, sending the cast off course and tangling it with the chain of a third.

I yanked again and ended up with the whole thing, six feet of chain with a blade on each end. I didn't know a damned thing about Bascose fighting arts, so I just swung the thing in a big fast circle, like a ceiling fan, and hoped I could use it to tangle incoming blades.

The paused to consider my strategy, trading significant glances. To my eyes, all rashlings are identical, but they seemed to be looking to the one in the middle—the one whose weapon I had taken—for instructions.

Behind me I heard the creak of tortured metal and I guessed the others were struggling out of the car.

The leader jerked its head to either side in what I guessed was a signal for a flanking maneuver. A moment later the group began to split up.

“Sam, get down!” it was Karin's voice, shouting from somewhere behind me. Confused, I tried to turn around, crouch down, and slow the spinning chain all at once, and managed only to hit myself in the face with the chain, which staggered me.

Then a ball of fire came from behind me and exploded in the group of rashlings.

Stunned, I let the chain fall, hitting myself with it a few times more.

The leader and the three closest to it looked like piles of oil-soaked rags set alight. The two on either end were down, burned and stunned at least, maybe dead.

“Holy shit,” Karin said softly as I turned around, my knees shaking.

She laughed, but it was a ragged sound with hysteria in it. She was standing with some kind of steel tube in her hand. She pointed it carefully at the ground, then turned to Jake. “Guess what, hammerhead, it works.”

Jake had his duffel slung over his shoulder. He looked sternly at Karin. “You're going to have to throttle that way back,” he said. “A pulse that big is asking for an aneurysm.”

Marji had a gun out, a slim chromed automatic that I didn't know she owned. She pointed it off to one side. “I think I saw that one move.”

Grandmother Wolf stood beside Marji, still holding her suitcases. It was hard to read the expression on her vulpine face, but I got the impression that she approved of Karin's fireball.

I turned back to see where Marji was pointing. The rashling was indeed moving, and groaning softly. Then I heard a chorus of calliope whistles in the distance. Forged. They would be coming to ask some hard questions about the explosion, and we didn't have any answers that would satisfy them. Most likely they owned the warehouses around here and they were very serious about protecting their property.

“We've got to get moving,” I said over my shoulder as I did just that.

“We should wait for the police,” Jake said. “They attacked us, after all.”

Marji came up beside me. “Sam's right. We haven't got time to deal with Harbor Security.”

“Especially not those metal bastards,” Grandmother Wolf added. “They won't care who started it.”

“Your car—” Karin began.

“It's insured,” Jake said.

“We can't just walk to Government House,” Karin protested.

“We'll flag down a cop,” Marji suggested. “Once we're out of the Harbor District.” She gave me a hard look. “And we'll make sure it's a real cop first.”

I nodded, feeling contrite. I should have been looking for veils. I wasn't used to being hunted.

“I didn't notice them either, Envoy,” Grandmother Wolf said kindly.

Marji led us down a narrow alley and then out onto a main street—Division Boulevard, the signs read. Most of the traffic was commercial, big trucks hauling goods to or from the ships. Foot traffic was sparse, but this close to the docks there were enough oneiroi that Grandmother Wolf didn't stand out.

I didn't know this part of town, and all I could tell was that we were headed away from the ocean. I'd left the map in the car, I realized.

“The expressway's that way,” Karin said, pointing.

“I've always wanted to see the Midworld,” Grandmother Wolf said, “I don't suppose I'll get a chance to do any shopping while I'm here.”

“Less talk, more moving your skinny ass,” Karin snarled at her.

“You don't need to be crude,” Grandmother Wolf sniffed back.

Division met Lower Water up ahead in a roundabout that was a maelstrom of growling engines and screeching brakes. I could see the elevated bulk of the expressway, but I couldn't tell how to get there on foot.

While I was looking for a crosswalk a bog black car pulled to the curb and parked, triggering a symphony of truck horns. A man in a suit and sunglasses hopped out onto the sidewalk, lifting a badge.

“Committee for Public Safety,” he announced. “Mr. and Mrs. Karnes?”

“That's right,” Jake said. “You going to give us a lift to Government House?”

The back door opened and a man got out. I recognized him right away, although I'd never seen him in person.

“Not exactly,” Castor Tak said.

A second long black car pulled up behind the first. More agents came out, these with guns in their hands.

“It's been a while, Karin,” Tak said. “I really wish it didn't have to be this way.”

“Me, too,” Karin said, and fired a fireball at him.