“Why couldn’t you have given me a little longer?” she demanded. “So close. Now I have to kill you, claim you were the kandra, and blame you for shooting my guards. That way I can still talk to the crowd, free them.…”
Yet she didn’t come for him. She still seemed upset. Best to take advantage of that.
“MeLaan, go!” Wax shouted, then Pushed on the nails in the floor, flinging himself up into the air.
One of the corpses at Bleeder’s feet grabbed her around the legs.
Wax Pushed off the wall, leaping toward Bleeder. She growled, then slapped his hand as he landed, knocking the needle free. Rusts, she was strong. She kicked MeLaan off as Wax dove for the fallen needle.
She became a blur. As he tried to grab the needle, Bleeder snatched it and spun around, slamming it down into MeLaan’s shoulder. It was done in an eyeblink.
Then she lurched to a stop. She seemed jarred by the motion. Her metalmind storage, at long last, had run dry.
Wax pulled out his gun and fired, lying with his back on the floor. The bullets ripped her skin, but did nothing else. Nearby, MeLaan’s shape distorted—face drooping and the skin going transparent.
Wax lay on the ground, his emptied gun pointed at Bleeder, whose skin re-formed from the wounds. They stared at one another for an extended moment before boots in the hallway outside made Bleeder curse, then dash for the window. Wax grabbed his other gun, following, then threw himself down as shots sounded outside.
He waited a moment, then glanced up, but didn’t spot her in the swirling mists. Wax cursed, rolling his arm in its socket. Rusts. That bullet hole he’d taken earlier in the night was bleeding again, and the pain was returning. He thought he’d chewed enough painkiller to keep it away.
“You all right?” he asked MeLaan, who had managed to sit up.
“Yeah,” she said, though the word was mangled by her melted face. “I made them do this to me once to test it out. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
“Thanks for the save,” Wax said, anxiously scanning the room for hidden compartments with his steelsight. Quivering lines in the closet. Could he be so lucky? He rushed over and yanked it open.
Wayne—tied securely and gagged—tumbled out and hit the floor with a thump. He was alive, thank Harmony. Wax knelt down, sighed in relief, and loosened the gag. Wayne looked like he’d been stabbed in the leg, and his metalminds had been stripped away so he couldn’t heal, but he was alive.
“Wax!” Wayne said. “It’s the governor. Bugger’s got the same ‘a’ as MeLaan!”
“I know,” Wax said. “You’re lucky. She probably wanted to harvest your Metalborn abilities with spikes, otherwise she’d have killed you right off. Why didn’t you warn anyone?”
“Was going to, but I needed to check first. Got too close to the window, and she rusting came right out for me. Had knocked me upside the head, stripped off my metalminds, and had me over her shoulder all in an eyeblink. Drug me up here after, real quiet-like. You get her?”
“No,” Wax said, working on Wayne’s bonds. “She ran off.”
Gunshots sounded outside.
“And you ain’t chasin’ her down?”
“Had to check on you first.”
“I’m fine,” Wayne said. “Stop untying me and look in my pocket.”
Wax felt at Wayne’s pocket, pulling out a small pouch.
“From Ranette,” Wayne said.
Wax removed a single bullet cartridge. He held it up as a tense set of constables, led by Marasi, piled into the room.
The newcomers called for an explanation. Wax left them to interrogate Wayne, instead seeking the mists once more.
23
Wax was a bullet in the night, rushing through the mists and disturbing them with his passing. He had become the hunter rather than the game, though the transition might have taken too long. He soared upward first to get a view of the area. An ever-growing crowd surrounded the governor’s mansion. Roaring. Calling for change, or perhaps just blood.
Would he bring down Bleeder only to find her victorious in a city destroyed?
He couldn’t worry about that at the moment. Instead he sought signs, clues, a story. Nobody passed, even at night, without leaving a trail. Perhaps it would be too faint for him to locate, but it would exist.
There. A group of people pulling away from the mansion, instead of crowding toward it. Wax landed in a storm, mistcoat flaring. This was the mansion’s garden, near a large workers’ shed. Wax studied the pattern