Torchlighters Page 4

  People filtered into the metal chairs that had been set up on the cemetery lawn for the occasion. The setting sun cast their shadows long over the dewy grass, to the point that their reflections touched the far fence and some even bent at an extreme angle to walk across it as well.

  It would have been touching to see how many people had turned out to pay their respects had his family not been so powerful both above ground and under it.

  He couldn’t make out specific facial expressions, but he didn’t have to. His parents came first, his father with an arm around his mother’s shoulders. He didn’t need their facial details to know that she was crying. Not with the way her shoulders were hunched in like that. That was probably the hardest thing about all of this; watching his mother cry over him.

  Joey and Ophelia Trezza were both nearing their fifties but neither one looked a day past thirty. Another gift from their outsider bloodlines. Joey was a little under average height with short red-black hair, broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He had a figure that looked good in a suit, and Callum had been lucky enough to inherit it.

  His mother, however, had long silver hair that had nothing to do with her age. She was tall for a woman, but still a couple of inches shorter than his father, and even in her black mourning gown it was obvious that she was lithe muscle to her core. Wicked pale scars stood out on her olive skin, souvenirs from her history in the Hellwatch, and she’d made no effort to cover them up.

  His older brother, Samael, favored their mother and he walked after them with his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed, silver ponytail falling over his shoulder. His younger sister, Elysia, had that red-black hair that Callum and his father both shared, but their mothers blue eyes. Of course the little viper was a perfect facsimile of grief. He thought it with the most fondness, as much as he meant it.

  Uncle Danny sat on Elysia’s other side and kept his hands folded in his lap as he looked on. He looked like someone had taken Joey and doubled him in size. The pair had the same coloring, but Danny was absolutely the bigger of the two in both height and brawn.

  Each of the other wealthy summoner families had sent their representatives. Even House Cassander hadn’t decided to sit this one out, although the mayor himself wasn’t here. His daughter was, in a long black dress with her black curls pinned back out of her face. It would have been a scandal if she hadn’t been; he’d been talking to Tess the night before.

  Lena never told him not to tell her, but he was smart enough to know better. She was too high profile. As close as they had been once, she might be a liability.

  He recognized the faces of members of every major gang in the city in the crowd, though they didn’t dare wear their colors here. Some of them, he would have even gone as far as to call friends of his.

  The casket hit the bottom of the six foot hole with a controlled ‘thud’ and the rhakshasa stepped aside to make way for the first speaker. Their heads bowed and their clawed hands clasped one over the other in front of them but their expressions were pure rage. They were the only faces he could really see, and that was because of how large and colorful they were.

  There were priests here representing both the Orthodox and Serene branches of the Church of the Veil. Callum had never gone in for much religious nonsense, personally, and both of them were laying it on thick tonight.

  Callum watched the crowd for nerves. He didn’t see anything but tears.

  The Orthodox priest gave a fire and brimstone sermon and cautioned the listening mourners against sin while every so often reassuring them that if Callum had led a good life he would be in a better place right now. If even half of the people in attendance knew Callum at all, they knew the odds of him getting the good afterlife were slim and it wasn’t even half because he was a cambion.

  The Serene Priest wasn’t much better, though at least he couldn’t feel her upsetting anyone. She was warmth to the crowd, talking about how the gods take care of people when they pass and that death was as much a celebration of life as it was a thing to mourn. It was a beautiful sermon, anyway. Not what Callum would have called a eulogy.

  When the Serene Priest finished speaking, she asked if anyone else would like to share.

  This time, Joey got to his feet before anyone else had the chance. Cal didn’t have to look to know he squeezed Ophelia’s hand before he got up to take the podium. Suddenly, there was a cigarette between his fingers and he was lighting it with a plume of fire that came from between his slightly blackened nails. It was impossible to tell if Callum could really see them from here or if his mind was just supplying the detail through memory.

  The entire crowd was silent. If Callum had been looking for nerves before, he got them, from nearly every person in attendance.

  “My son didn’t believe in bullshit,” Joey said, “so I won’t give you any. He was brave and reckless, and too young to have gone out how he did.”

  Joey took a drag from his cigarette and left the ashes to hang on the end. The hellfire cherry, just a little too red to be normal, blazed for a moment. Even Callum felt the discomfort the rest of the crowd displayed; in all the years he’d known him, all nineteen years of his life, Joey had never been a smoker.

  “Callum didn’t believe in partial-measures. He was a man of action, just like we raised him to be. If there’s anything left to find out about what happened to my boy, I’ll find it. Whatever it takes.”

  He stepped around the podium and it felt like the entire crowd leaned back just to put that extra inch of distance between themselves and Joey Trezza. Not Ophelia though. His mother stayed right where she was and her eyes never left his father.

  He reached out and tapped the ash onto the wooden lid of the casket below.

  “Ashes to ashes, like they say,” Joey said. He joined Ophelia in his seat. Things were quiet for a long time before someone else got up to speak, and as much as Callum wanted to linger and hear the rest, it was best if he made himself scarce before people started turning around and noticed him perching on top of the mausoleum.

  There was a part of him that thought the idea of scaring people at his funeral was dreadfully funny, but the more sensible part drowned that out. If people realized he was still alive, that would ruin everything and the presence of a masked man wasn’t much better. Lena was right. No one would expect a dead man to be investigating his own murder.

  He scrambled down the water pipe on the back end of the mausoleum and walked away at a fair distance from the funeral. People were still talking, and Callum didn’t waste much time leaving the cemetery entirely. He kept mostly to the rooftops; people rarely ever looked up and that was fine by him.

  From up here, it was clear to see why people sometimes called Daelan City ‘the labyrinth’. Twisting alleys and streets ran through a nest of buildings and factories. He followed a summoner down the street as the man stopped under every streetlight whispering the incantation to call the wisp to its fixture.

  Each one lit up with a flash of the summoning circle beneath them and a ripple of magic as the wisp itself seemed to come into existence. Callum knew better; they looked like they were being born but really they were just being called into their casements for the night. Imprisoned to give them light.

  Tattered and faded posters proclaiming the dangers of unlicensed summoning and giving thanks to the conjurers of the upper class and their long hours of study were plastered over the walls of the alley.

  He had one more stop before he went home. The green wisp light was where Lena said it would be, and he watched as the conjurer called it. Three minutes, and he was gone, disappeared down the street and Callum darted back down into the alley to his dead drop. With a nudge, the loose brick in the wall shifted and he pried it out.

  A single note was pressed against the bottom of the little gap.

  “You found it.”

  Danny’s hand took up nearly his entire shoulder. It was a patch of warmth, and Joey exhaled softly, glancing up at him.

  “You alright
?” Danny asked. He was still on the docks with Joey, his head cocked, his eyes on him.

  “I haven’t felt this helpless since we were kids,” Joey said. He watched the water, the ebb and flow of the tide.

  “I know what you mean,” Danny said, softly. They kept walking, Danny’s boots heavy on the wood. Joey kept his arms folded but didn’t pull away. His mind was buzzing between the intrusive thought that he was never going to see his son again and his grasping for control over his facial expression.

  He felt a warmth around his shoulders as Danny pulled him into a hug. He rested his forehead against Danny’s shoulder, and against the lapping of the water, he felt the tears come on.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Danny stood like a rock until Joey had expended all of that grief. By the time he pulled away, the only trace on Danny’s face that he’d been crying too was the glistening on his cheeks.

  “Thanks,” Joey said. “Thanks, Danny.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. It made a wild, spiraling shape in the air between them.

  “We’ll have justice,” Danny said. “Take the time to take care of you and don’t hesitate to tell me if you need anything of me. I’m here for you.”

  “You always have been,” Joey said. “Come on. We had a minute to get our shit together. Life keeps moving and we have business.”

  “What’s happening now?” Danny asked. He fished a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and followed as Joey ducked down a side street. The propaganda posters in the dock district had either been torn off or vandalized, and he didn’t do a damn thing about it. It was good for morale.

  “Some factory tycoon is giving Hazel Wulfsdotter trouble,” Joey said. “We’re going to hit up her landlord and get a name from him.”

  It was a long walk. Most of the people that owned property in the dock district didn’t actually live there. Malhana’s home was a brownstone on the northern end of central, not quite big enough to belong to an aristocrat but certainly upper-middle class.

  Joey knocked on the door in two quick raps, and waited.

  “How much trouble?” Danny asked.

  “Hopefully not much,” Joey said. “We’re going to make him an offer that doesn’t involve breaking anything first.”

  The sound of footsteps coming down stairs cut them off, and soon the door opened to reveal a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a waistcoat with no jacket. There was no recognition on his face, but he did a double take at Danny.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Malhana, right?” Joey asked. “You own the building the tailor’s shop is in down by the docks.”

  “Not for long, actually, I was planning to sell the property,” Malhana said.

  “That’s what I’m hear about,” Joey said. He pushed his way into the house without being invited in, and Danny came up behind him. Joey didn’t see Danny have to duck the frame, but he did see the nervous expression on Malhana’s face as he realized just how tall the younger Trezza was. “See, the man you’re planning on selling it to is planning on knocking a bunch of those buildings down and that’s going to leave a lot of my people out of homes and livelihood. We can’t have that.”

  “Who are you, exactly?” Malhana asked. His eyes narrowed. “Names, please. I need to know who I’m reporting to the Hellwatch.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” Joey said. He smiled and reached into his jacket. Malhana reached back for the scrying mirror behind him but his hand stopped when he saw the wad of sigil-notes in Joey’s hand. “That property is worth, what, a little over a thousand? Two if you really push it?”

  “I don’t usually discuss my sales with strange men who come barging into my home,” he said, but the intrigue was plain to see on his face.

  “He’s not even paying you that much, is he?” Joey asked. He held up the wad of sigils. “I’ll give you three thousand for the property right now, on one condition.”

  “I’m listening,” Malhana said. And he was. Greed was a powerful motivator.

  “I want the name of the man who was trying to buy it up in the first place,” Joey said.

  “There is no man,” Malhana said.

  “The woman, then,” Joey said, waving it off like it was no matter to him.

  “Julianne Geist,” Malhana said.

  “I like you,” Joey said. “You sing real pretty. Got any other real estate on the docks you might be interested in selling off? I’ll give you a fair price.”

  “We can talk about it,” Malhana said. “For now, let me fetch the deed and get the paperwork.”

  “No paperwork,” Joey said. “I pay in cash. You give me the deed. We talk again when it comes to buying the rest of that property we were talking about.”

  Malhana’s thick brows knitted together in concern. Joey smiled. There was always a moment like that. The one where they noticed what they were dealing with and started to realize how far in over their heads they’d gotten.

  Hazel was going to be fine. But there were a whole other row of businesses on that street and this wasn’t over yet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Armory

  “Daelan City, hello and goodnight once again, to all of you who are still up with me at this hour. This is the Voice of the Night speaking, wanting to cast some shadows on a little situation around the industrial district in case any of you weren’t aware.

  It seems we have a little gang war brewing. The Gate Street Players may or may not have been involved in our little murder but one thing is for sure; they’re buzzing like a kicked bees nest down there in the alleys.

  Any of you that have to walk home, I’d advise walking in a group or not walking at all. It’s awful cold outside at the moment, anyway. Oh, and whatever you do? Don’t wear red if you have to go past Brimstone Avenue.”

  Sam was hungry, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to eat. Instead, he sat at the table in the family library with a book in front of him, eyes skimming the same line over and over again and hoping the next time it would make more sense. He was overwhelmed by the scent of vellichor and full of both intrusive thoughts and a burning insistence that he not give in to them.

  Go to the window, they seemed to say, and join your brother. Never mind that he knew himself and that his two ashen wings would catch him on reflex before he reached the bottom.

  There was a rhythmic tap on the window. Of course it would rain today. He was just glad it had waited until after the funeral.

  The tapping came again, more insistently this time and Sam looked up. The first thing he recognized was the reflection of oak shelves in the glass, and then his eyes focused on what had to be his brother’s face.

  “Don’t scream,” Cal said. Sam could barely hear him, muffled through the glass. Cal wasn’t wrong, Sam had just been about to scream, but he bit it back and walked over to the window. A ghost would just walk through, right?

  He opened it, reached out to grab his brother by the arm, and pulled him inside. Cal caught his balance. Sam shut the window and grabbed Cal’s shoulders, just to make sure he was really physically here.

  This was his brother. He was never going to see him again and yet here he was and Sam didn’t want to let himself believe it just in case…

  “I need you to help me, I—”

  Whatever Callum was about to say, Sam cut him off with a hard right hook. Cal stumbled back into the library’s yellow wallpaper, his hand covering a split lip. Sam knew it had to have been, his knuckles had some of Cal’s blood clinging to them.

  “What the fuck, are you faking?” Sam half-roared.

  “Would you shut up?” Cal hissed, raising both hands with the palms down. Sam curled up his hand again and this time Cal ducked out of the way as he swung. Before Sam could turn to face him, Cal’s arms were around his own arms and shoulders and braced, pinning them and his chest back. “If you shout, they are going to hear you.”

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Sam said. He jerked his upper
body, trying to get out of Cal’s grasp, but Cal’s hold was solid.

  “If you calm down, and stop fussing, I’ll give you plenty,” Cal said. Sam took a deep breath and stopped fighting long enough for Cal to let go, then he whipped around and clocked him again right up the side of the jaw. Cal stepped back and rubbed his face, glaring for a moment before he spoke. “Got it out of your system?”

  “I think so,” Sam said, straightening. He dusted himself off and met Cal’s eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? Mom is a complete wreck. Dad is talking about burning half the city to the ground over this! Holy fuck, you were in the morgue. I saw your body. How did you—why did you—?”

  Cal’s hands were on his shoulders a moment later, and those burning hazel eyes stared hard into Sam’s.

  “The man that attacked me did it with a glowing dagger,” Cal said. “I’m sure he thought he’d killed me. I was still until his footsteps faded and then there was a woman and she was whispering that I’d be alright. I was out for a long time. Whoever attacked me thinks I’m dead, Sam, and they wouldn’t have believed it if Dad had been any less furious than he was at the funeral.”

  “But the funeral’s over and you don’t need him to sell it now,” Sam said, “so we can go tell them, right?”

  The look on Cal’s face told him everything he needed to know. Hesitance, fear, and a lot of reluctance.

  “Well,” Cal said.

  “Damn it to the hells, Cal,” Sam said, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “You can’t possibly have a good reason to keep this from them now.”

  “They’ll be angry,” Cal said. He shoved Sam’s hands off of him and straightened to his full height. Sam was taller by at least a hand span but Cal carried himself with the same tight fury their father had. Sam still didn’t back down. “If I get to the bottom of this before I come and tell them it will at least look like I did this for something. And anyway Lena knows more about this than I do, and she asked me not to say anything yet. She saved my life. I owe her that much. They buried me, Sam.”