Scar Night Page 0,75

cursed himself for having left his backpack outside.

Something cold touched his hand. He lashed out.

At empty air.

The voices wheeled around him, laughing.

Mr. Nettle circled slowly. Movement everywhere, but he couldn’t seem to get a clear look at whatever was moving, as though the air shifted and blurred around indistinct shapes. Shadows that weren’t shadows when he looked; figures that evaporated, became whorls of grain in the partition walls.

Overhead, the lantern flickered and dimmed, and in that moment Mr. Nettle glimpsed them: thin men with white faces and red grins. They were standing in a circle around him.

He ran to the nearest partition, grabbed the top of it, and hauled himself up.

Glass bit his fingers: the other side of the wood was evilly sharp. He hoisted one knee up and crouched on the top of the partition. The maze now looked smaller than it had appeared from below, not more than fifty feet square, but the complexity of it stunned him. Narrow corridors crammed together, running in every direction. Square spirals, L-shapes, and S-shapes. Countless dead ends. And all laced with blood-red glass. Twenty paces away, the door where he’d come in; and beside the door, the room’s single window. If he was careful, he could hop across the top of the maze to reach it. Slowly, he stood. The top of the partition was only two inches wide.

Cheat, the voices howled. Cheat, cheat, cheat .

Mr. Nettle stepped across to the adjacent partition, wavered for a second. He sensed the air shift, push him, as though trying to throw him off balance, and he flung his arms out. For several heartbeats he stood there, knees trembling, certain he was going to fall. But he recovered his balance. Then a deep breath, and another step. The partition groaned, wobbled, and his insides lurched. His heart was pounding. The maze of glass glistened below him, like walls of teeth that seemed to grin, salivate.

Cheat, cheat, cheat. The demons’ fury was palpable. Icy breaths caressed Mr. Nettle’s face. Unseen things thrashed around him. He stepped to the next partition. The wood cracked, but held. Mr. Nettle swayed for a sickening moment. Corridors of glass tilted and pitched. He took another step. Another.

He was halfway across when the lantern went out, and plunged the room into darkness.

14

Two Assassins

There was a knock at the laboratory door. Devon slammed the rat cage shut and raised his breathing mask. “What is it now?”

A nervous chemist poked his head in. “Sorry, sir, we need to know if you still want the aether tanks drained tonight. There’s a ship due in from the Plantations in the morning. If we drain the tanks we’ll need to recalibrate, and she’ll be waiting for the best part of the day before we can refuel her.”

“Tradeship or churchship?”

“Churchship.”

“Drain the tanks.”

“What about the ship?”

“The ship can wait. I don’t want any further interruptions tonight.”

“Very good, sir.” The chemist slunk away.

The Poisoner returned to the rat cage and peered down at the scampering creature. From his waistcoat pocket he plucked a small phial and shook it, squinting at the rose-coloured liquid within. He replaced his breathing mask, opened the phial, and carefully drew a drop of the liquid into a pipette. This he mixed with a spoonful of honey in a shallow dish and placed inside the cage. The rat scurried over and began lapping at the solution. Devon watched it anxiously.

When all of it was consumed he studied the rat for a few minutes. There was no visible change in its behaviour.

“Now,” he muttered, picking up a scalpel, “I am afraid this is going to hurt.”

He held the blade over the rat, following it patiently as it bounded about the cage. Then he stabbed it in the back. The rat shrieked and tried to wriggle free, but Devon held the scalpel firmly in place. He pinned the creature down until it stopped struggling, then withdrew the scalpel and plunked it into a beaker of alcohol.

Devon waited, his breathing loud in the mask. Minutes passed. The rat twitched once. Blood leaked from the wound. Then nothing. Devon put a finger under its chest, rolled it over. The creature was dead.

He sighed heavily.

Devon pulled off his mask and dropped it on the workbench. His face was itching, his hair dishevelled about his ears. Carefully, he removed his spectacles and cleaned them before perching them back on the bridge of his nose. He glanced back at the dead rat in the cage. It was still a dead rat