Last to Rise(33)

“What do you want?” The door opener didn’t look a welcoming sort of guy. He was big and beefy, or perhaps had been before starvation had taken hold. He still had wide shoulders that now had no spare flesh on them, and a face that seemed like life had chipped its way into it with chisels and a hammer, his dark hair crudely shorn and patchy. Not a Downsider – must have been one of the few Upsiders still left in this area. Probably too damned poor to get anywhere else, because the Downsiders had been shoved into all the very worst places, naturally. Also possibly one of the “poor but proud so don’t give me any of your charity or I’ll feed it to you, with your teeth”. Careful handling would be required. I wondered whether I was up to it.



He caught sight of my allover in the dim light of a rend-nut-oil lamp that was busy stinking the place up behind him. His face changed from not welcoming to a mix of outright fear and barely suppressed anger.



“It’s… delicate,” I said. “Can I come in?”



That seemed to throw him. He obviously thought I was a Special, and Specials didn’t need to ask, but at least he opened the door wide enough for me to squeeze past.



“We haven’t done nothing,” he said behind me as I took in the one-room hovel he called home. Synth-tainted damp dripped from the walls, though someone had tried their best with some whitewash that was now streaked with black. “And you can’t prove otherwise.”



A teenage boy shot up from what was presumably his bed – a damp and ragged collection of blankets. A large bandage, spotted with blood and more grey now than white, had been clumsily wrapped around his right hand.



“If I was a Special, I wouldn’t need to prove much at all,” I said without turning. “So it’s probably good that I’m not one, isn’t it? Though you might prefer that I was when I’m done. Hurt yourself?”



The boy shot a look at what was presumably his father, seemed to get an OK to answer and said, “Yeah. Climbing in the Slump. There’s some good salvage if you know where to look. Cut my hand on a bit of metal.”



If nothing else, that was enough to show me just how screwed-over these guys were. The Slump was a mangled mess of metal and wood, a nest of squirming, plump rats and the bodies they fed on – the Ministry used it as a dumping ground for anyone who died whose family couldn’t afford a proper crypt, which was pretty much everyone. If you needed to salvage in amongst that, you were as desperate as it gets.



“Bet some really weird shit has been happening since, right?” I said.



The boy shot another glance at his father, terrified this time. His father seemed to feel it too, because all of a sudden the feeble light was blocked out while he loomed over me. Enough to make me wonder why I’d been stupid enough to come on my own.



“Who’ve you been talking to? That bitch down on the stairwell corner? I told her I’d pay her back. Goddess’s tits, it was only a spoon! Not half as bad as what happened to the cat. Old bag said she’d dob us in, and I suppose she has, but you’re on your own and I reckon I could take one Special, especially a piss-ant little one like you. You aren’t arresting either of us.”



I backed up a step – he looked really pissed off and, now I came to look, his knuckles seemed well used. I didn’t want him using them on me, so I tried a placating smile, which made his face twist even further. His fists seemed to be twitching too, like he was contemplating using them.



“I’m not a Special. I promise.” Something by the crappy little stove caught my eye. A mound of bones that still had slivers of cooked meat on them. Small bones, with a long, thin, fur-free tail attached. Namrat’s arse, I’d known there wasn’t much food, but this? Still, it gave me a tiny bit of leverage. “I’m not taking you anywhere, or at least, not anywhere you don’t want to go. And if you go, you should get something other than rats to eat.”



A guilty, shamed look between the two of them, and the father backed off.



They didn’t look like they’d hand me over to a cardinal any time soon, so I took a risk, and to hell with it. “My name’s Rojan.” I gripped my pulse pistol, my lucky charm, with my good hand and shuffled round so the door was within reach – you never knew how someone was going to take this and getting the fuck out is certainly the better part of not getting your head stove in. “I’m a pain-mage.”



It was touch-and-go there for a while, whether the father was going to kick my bollocks off for being a mage or laugh in relief I wasn’t a Special there to arrest them. In the end he settled for a spat: “And?”