“They were retreating up towards the lab, but the Archdeacon went up to Top of the World.”
The lab – shit, Lise was in the lab. Or had been. Maybe Erlat, if she’d actually listened to me, which I doubted. And the machines – the Storad knew all about the machines, thanks to Dench. Not a chance in hell they’d leave them untouched if they could get to them. I’d have rather blown them up myself than let him get his hands on them. So would Lise, which was my only consolation and no consolation at all.
Quillan came to my rescue then. “I say,” he said, slow and thoughtful as though feeling his way through his words. “I say we loot the bodies for any guns and weapons we can, then come up behind and break them from both sides.” He gave me the old side-eye. “And I say we keep on eye on this bugger too, just in case. No offence.”
“None taken.” And I didn’t take any, because I don’t have to be told when the wind changes. I’m no leader, never have been, never wanted to be, because leadership equals responsibility and we all know how I feel about that. Besides, those men and women were gravitating to him like flies round shit and he seemed a solid enough guy. “As long as we go.”
So we rifled through the bodies, which was just as delicious as it sounds, and if nothing else we were better prepared. Had more people too when it came to it, because more and more were creeping along walkways to join us. Never did take long for word to get around in Under, and a loose crowd jostled behind, asking what was happening, or just joining in with getting guns. No doubt some were only nicking them, but by the end we had a decent-sized mob, and Quillan led us on and up.
Chapter Twenty-four
We got to the level under the lab before we encountered any kind of resistance. By the looks of it, the Storad were arrowing straight for Top of the World. Take that and they had the city, or all the parts that mattered to them. Just as Allit had seen – Storad in Top of the World. And here I was, with the rising. That boy had a talent he didn’t appreciate, because it was what he’d seen that had given me the idea to try to gather Under together. Perak too, perhaps, though who knew what thoughts it had conjured in his twisting brain?
There was something about that trip, some sort of fraternity that I’d never been part of before. Shit, I’d always kept myself apart from pretty much everyone, and my excuse had been being a mage. But then the core of us had shared things in that square in the Buzz, shared blood and death and kill-or-be-killed. Maybe it was exhaustion, or the thought of having killed a man face-to-face and wanting to know I wasn’t alone, maybe it was the black creeping up on me unawares, but it was like nothing I’d felt before and I wanted it to stay. For the first time in maybe ever I felt a part of something, part of other people, part of the city rather than apart and alone, despised. OK, I wasn’t exactly Mr Popular and, let’s face it, probably never will be. But without Pasha by my side, his solid presence, I needed something to hold on to and they were it.
At the stairwell that led to the lab, there was a knot of Storad. Quillan had taken to this like a bird to air and he knew before we got there. There were gangs that ran Under that no sane man wanted to be up against, and this was a kind of fighting they knew – quick, quiet, take them by surprise. With the men that had joined us, more and more, the gangs were an unexpected addition. Maybe only there for the looting, or perhaps the chance at Top of the World when we were done, but they came, terrifying men with tattoos ringing their faces and eyes that had seen everything and hated it. Luckily, what they were hating right then were Storad.
Guinto asked one why he’d come, and got a growled “This is my patch, and even if it’s shit, no one takes it from me without a fight.”
With the gangs came their specialists. Men who could dismember another in three easy moves with knives so sharp the point vanished into nothingness; scouts who could blend into a shadow in the wink of an eye, who could communicate with their leaders seemingly without words, just signs and low coded whistles. The gangs didn’t get too close to each other, but they were there and that was the important thing. Mahala was theirs, and they weren’t going to let her go without a fight, whether the Ministry let them or not. They weren’t exactly the sort of people who took orders well, at least not Ministry orders.
Thanks to those scouts – and Halina too, because levitating is a handy way to reconnoitre – we didn’t walk straight into the knot of Storad guarding the way towards the lab. Instead, two of the gang leaders approached each other warily, spoke together for a moment and then, with a pair of vicious grins that made me want to drop my gun and put my hands up, beg for my life if I had to, they and their men went in. Not straight in, but from above and below, using arching walkways and shadowed doorways to launch themselves on an unsuspecting enemy that was used to fighting on the flat.