Last to Rise(83)

“Why should we help you?” a voice growled out. “Who cares if Top of the World goes? I might even give them a hand.”



“Wait a minute,” someone else said behind me. “How does the Archdeacon know where we are and what we’re doing?”



All heads turned to me. They didn’t look very happy, so I tried a grin that probably came out sickly and weak.



“That’s how you had that permission for the guns,” one of the gang leaders said. “You didn’t steal that order like you said. You’re Ministry. You conned us.”



That stung me into speaking. “I never said a damned thing that wasn’t true.” For once in my life.



“Maybe. But you didn’t tell us a lot that was.”



I was in fear for my life again, only this time from the men and women who were supposed to be on my side. I have such a way with people.



“No, I didn’t. But then you wouldn’t have helped, and these Storad here” – I kicked at a body within reach – “would right now be murdering their way through Under. Murdering and raping you and your families, and you’d have no guns. You want to hate me, fine, join the queue. I loathe what the Ministry stands for as much as you do. I’ll join you shooting a few cardinals when this is over. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let these fuckers into my city.”



It was touch-and-go there for a few moments, but in the end Quillan said under his breath, just to me, “You did me a favour, so fair’s fair.” And then louder, “All right. But don’t think I’ll let you off later.”



Not everyone agreed, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. At least there’d be men left in the square should the Storad try that way again. The rest of us followed the Special out on to the Spine.



The waft of cooking bacon wove its way up through the walkways, and I could almost see it in the air. It made me sick, and, a split second later, made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. They were burning pigs again. In the tunnels. Trying to crack one, trying to find another way in. I wondered if the Storad in the city realised that no one on the Outside gave a crap whether the city fell with them in it. Because I wondered if the city could stand any more cracks, or whether one burning pig in the right place could make the whole city into one big Slump. They say the superstructure is built to withstand anything. They say… I’m pretty sure I only imagined the lurch under my feet, the faint rumble of masonry. Must have done, because no one else seemed to notice.



I kept my mouth shut and followed the Special to the Spine, aware that at my back were many men with guns, and now they had a reason to hate me. To them, I was Ministry. To anyone from Under – hell, to me – anyone Ministry wasn’t worth shit.



The Spine was empty here, unnaturally quiet. Before I’d buggered everything up, way back a whole few months ago, the Spine had been a bustle of carriages and people, hustling, jostling, Glow-powered adverts blaring out over everything. It had been nothing but noise and light. Since we’d got the Glow back on, it’d got back some of its life, but now, nothing. Unless you counted the corpses, but, except in very special and probably mythical circumstances, corpses do not count as life.



“Goddess’s tits,” Quillan whispered, and I didn’t blame him. Just on this one small section of the Spine, on this one little twist of the huge spiral, there must have been two, three hundred dead men gradually getting their fresh new shrouds of snow. Mostly bodies in Specials’ or guards’ uniforms. The Special who’d brought us here looked sick to his eyebrows.



A murmur ran through the men and women who’d followed, though it was hard to tell if it was shock, sympathy or a small and savage glee that finally the guards and Specials had got back what they’d dished out for so long. Probably a mix of all three.



I tried to think, but my brain seemed to be misfiring like my old carriage had a tendency to do. I wasn’t running on all cylinders, because everything kept swirling in my head, a black mass of Oh fuck.



I thought of Perak, of where all these Storad were heading, and who’d be top of their list to kill, and that jolted me back into thinking. For a bit, anyway. But not rationally, otherwise I wouldn’t have dropped myself right in it.



“Where’s Perak?” I asked the Special.



“Wait, you’re on first-name terms with the Archdeacon?” Quillan said, and they all took a step away from me.



“Yes,” I snapped back, throwing caution to the long drop underneath the walkway. “I am, because he’s my brother, my family – just like your family we all just fought for back there. And he’s from Under too, like me, and you, and if he gets the chance he’s going to change things – but he needs to live first. You,” I said again to the Special. “Where is he?”