Confluence (Godbreaker Book 3) Page 18

  Someone being robbed, or raped, or simply beaten for looking at someone wrong, or maybe because they had a scrap of food that someone else wanted.

  Gods, but people never changed, did they? Even when their backs were against the wall, facing extinction, they still managed to be assholes to each other.

  Perry wrestled with whether or not to keep his longstaff on him. He’d intended to leave it hidden on the roof, but based on what he heard, he reconsidered whether it would be wise to leave his only weapon behind.

  But it would cause more problems than it solved. People would notice him, and he did not want to be noticed. They would ask questions that he didn’t want to answer. They might even become downright hostile.

  He decided to leave it on the roof top, nestled carefully beside a defunct power inverter so that a casual glance might not notice it amongst the other technology in that dark and powerless hub.

  After all, he still had his shield. He could still defend himself.

  He crept along the perimeter of the roof until he found a spot that was slightly less inhabited than everywhere else. A little section that wafted up at him with an aggressive smell of shit. It was obvious that this was one of the places where people were dumping their refuse. Not exactly where Perry wanted to plant his feet, but he wanted even less for people to see him drop out of the sky.

  Nose curled against the stench, he dropped over the side. A pulse of the shield, which sent a spray of piss and shit in an arc, and then he landed, squarely on a turd.

  “Godsdammit,” Perry swore under his breath, looking down at nearly two inches of human waste that threatened to swallow his boots. He refused to breathe, and even without breathing, he sensed the stench pressing at his nostrils.

  Gingerly, he picked his way out of the pond of filth. His throat tightened, threatening to gag him. Once he had solid stone under his boots again, he stamped them off and found a large chunk of rubble to scrape the worst of it from the sides of his boots.

  The air locked in his lungs was running out of oxygen, and he hurried along the dark alleyway as far as he could before being forced to suck in a fresh breath, which was not so fresh at all. The stink permeated everything.

  At least in Karapalida, Mordicus hadn’t forced everyone into one area. Having so many people on top of each other was a recipe for disease, especially without any apparent way to keep clean. Maybe Mordicus didn’t exhibit much control over Karapalida, but at least he wasn’t dooming people to infectious diarrhea.

  Why the hell was everyone even clustered in these cities? Had they not pieced together that the Guardians were trying to exterminate them? Did they not realize what a target they made themselves by huddling in urban areas?

  Both Karapalida and Junction City were equal in that regard: It was only a matter of time before the Guardians came back, seeking more target-rich environments after their first rounds of killing.

  How long did Perry have until that happened?

  The terrible answer was, it could happen at any time.

  And here, he still had to sneak around, wasting precious time because others—like that asshole Gaius—wouldn’t play nicely. No one wanted to work together. It was so obvious to Perry that they had to in order to survive, but he was, apparently, alone in that realization.

  The first man he came to was a desultory individual, sitting cross-legged at the end of the alley, his head hanging, staring at his crotch as though expecting something fascinating to happen there.

  Perry stopped in front of him, not quite sure how to begin.

  The man twitched, raised his head an inch, and looked at Perry’s boots. His nose curled, as though Perry was adding some additional stink to the air, which Perry didn’t think was actually possible.

  “You got shit on your boots,” the man observed.

  “Yeah.” Perry didn’t really have anything else to say on that account. “Hey, I’m looking for someone?”

  The man dragged his eyes up with what looked like monumental effort, a nasty smirk on his face, as though he’d heard this all before. “Of course you are.”

  “Well, can you help me find him?”

  “Probably not, but go ahead. Shoot.”

  “His name’s Hauten. He has a crew of reloaders…” Perry trailed off as the humor fled from the man’s face.

  “Oh. That asshole.”

  Great. So Hauten’s reputation preceded him. Or perhaps he’d simply managed to make more enemies in the short time he’d been in Junction City.

  “Yeah, he’s an asshole,” Perry concurred. “Do you know where he is?”

  The man stared off into the crowd and Perry followed his gaze, hoping it would land on Hauten, miraculously just a few paces away. But that wasn’t the case. It was just more strangers, their faces beleaguered, barely lit by the dim fires and the glow of a few rechargeable lanterns that hung here and there.

  Perry returned his attention to the man, who shook his head angrily, as though he really were looking at Hauten. “That ratfuck.”

  “Right. Yes, we’ve already established that he’s an asshole and a ratfuck, and probably many other things as well. But I need to find him.”

  That nasty smile again. “What? Did he cheat you?” A brief flash of morbid excitement. “Are you gonna find him? Rough him up? Break his fucking legs?” A glance up and down. “Well. Nah. You’re too short. Hauten’s a large man.”

  “Do you know where he is or not?”

  The man leaned back. Then finally shook his head. “Nope.”

  Perry’s fists clenched. He wished he had his longstaff. He’d very much like to hold the green glow of an energy ball right up to the man’s face, singe the stubble from it, and get some answers. “Nope, like you’re not going to tell me?”

  “No. Nope, like I don’t know where he is.” An airy, dismissive wave out into the nether regions of the Red Quarter. “Somewhere over there.”

  “Right. Yeah. Thanks for nothing.”

  Perry turned away and marched off, pressing further into the stagnant pond of humanity. But it hadn’t been an entirely fruitless conversation. Hauten was, apparently, known. So Perry didn’t walk far before stopping again, this time at a slightly more stable-looking character, a woman with keen eyes who was already cued into Perry as he approached.

  She raised an eyebrow as Perry stopped in front of her. “Help you?”

  “I hope so.”

  She had a hand near her chest, on the hem of her dirt-and-smoke-smudged blouse. She pulled it tighter across her chest, as though she feared Perry might want something from her more carnal than simple information.

  He raised a placating hand at the gesture. “Relax. I’m just looking for someone.”

  “Well, it ain’t me,” she shot back.

  “You’re right. It’s not you. So, again, relax. You know Hauten? Or any of his crew?”

  “Tichez,” she muttered. “Kaykeme en halle.”

  Perry frowned. “Pallesprek?”

  She frowned back. “You speak it?”

  “Not really. That didn’t sound nice, though.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Are you an Outsider?”

  Caution: “What’s it to you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing to me. Do you know where to find him?”

  She looked at Perry slyly. “What’s in it for me?”

  Perry raised his hands to show their abject poverty. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

  “Hm.” She seemed dismissive.

  “Except that I might be able to get him out of here.”

  “The Most Honorable Legatus Gaius—fichrato—says no one leaves.”

  “How about you let me figure that part out?”

  The woman let out a laborious sigh. “Fine, hotshot. I’ll show you where he is. I suppose I don’t have anything better to do, and I can’t imagine my time better spent than securing even a remote possibility of you getting Hauten out of here.”

  With nothing further to say on the
matter, the woman launched herself from the box where she’d been sitting and started walking. Perry assumed that was his cue to follow, so he did.

  They wound their way through the Red Quarter, staying mostly on the main drag—old whorehouses with no whores in them, bars with not a drop of whiskey to give, their roofs tumbledown, their faces cracked and scorched and bullet-pocked.

  She stopped at an old building with half a wooden sign hanging over the door: THE THIR

  Perry stared up at it, feeling a terrible sensation of being hurled back across the years, being slammed back into another time when he was not who he was now—powerless, scared, on the run, looking for someone to throw his lot in with that wouldn’t ask too many questions about where he came from.

  He knew this place. He’d been in it many times. Like The Clementine in Karapalida, it was a regular stop for Hauten and his crew. It was the place that Perry had first met Hauten. And it was the place that the crew would commit their debaucheries when they came through Junction City.

  The Thirsty Ox.

  “You alright?”

  Perry snapped his attention down from the sign, his vision seeming to swim back through the years, back to the present. And yet he was still left, feeling like his old, discarded self. The Perry who still had a busted rib and a nasty gash over his right eyebrow from the last sound beating he’d taken at Hell’s Hollow before deserting. A lost boy.

  Certainly, he didn’t feel like the halfbreed man who had used his powers to destroy the paladin that had murdered his father and mother. The man who had journeyed across the end of the world, who had fought Nekrofages and lived to tell about it, who had been to The Clouds where no human had ever set foot, and who had tried to save the world, only to doom it, and was now trying to save it again.

  Nope. He didn’t feel like any of that.

  He felt like all of that had suddenly been whisked away like a fanciful dream, and he had the uncomfortable certainty that if he even reached out with his mind and tried to access his clasp through Confluence, he would find that place in his mind dead and gone, the clasp just a worthless piece of metal in his pocket.

  The woman snapped a finger in front of his face. “Wake up, stranger. You look like you’re about to pass out. Here you were, all confident about dragging Hauten out of here, and now, standing at the door, you look like you’re about to piss yourself.”

  Perry swallowed. “No. I’m fine. Is he inside?”

  The woman’s face scrunched in consternation. “Oh yeah. This is where King Shit himself holds court. Hell, I don’t think he even stepped outside when the robots hit.”

  So. He’d been here when it happened.

  Perry girded himself up, tried to remind himself of who he was—not that scared runt anymore!—and nodded to the woman, while his eyes rested on the door, and the dim, flickering light of candles or torches seeping through the dappled glass—with a bullet hole in it.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, sure. Just…” She patted him on the shoulder as she slipped by him. “Watch yourself in there.”

  Perry stepped up to the door and didn’t allow himself to hesitate. If he couldn’t be confident, he could at least act confident, and the best way to do that was charge in like he owned the place.

  He thrust the door open and strode through, clomping his shit-smeared boots across the weathered plank floors, and stopping just inside to let the door swing closed. The smell of the place hit him full in the face, blasting him back in time again, but he resisted the heady sensation.

  It was loud inside, lit by candles and a few torches, and one big, rusty brazier that poured unhealthy amounts of smoke into the air. There were more people here than just Hauten’s crew—unless his crew had expanded during his brief reign as King Shit—and they were scattered about, speaking loudly, clearly drunk—had King Shit horded all the whiskey from the Red Quarter? Perry wouldn’t put it past him—and one of them was huddled over some sort of string-based percussion instrument which he tactlessly hammered on, creating a sound like less like music and more like someone rummaging through a scrapyard.

  A definite lull in the noise greeted Perry—his presence had been noticed—and then it was driven home by a sudden and loud exclamation that Perry knew was directed at him.

  “Holy fucking gods in the skies.”

  And after that it was completely silent.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KING SHIT

  Perry knew the voice, even before he found the face to go with it. And even that didn’t take long, as Jax was front and center, his wild white hair standing out in the crowd, his rheumy blue eyes fixed on Perry, and his mouth still hanging open from the exclamation.

  For the very briefest of moments, Perry had an elusive hope that Jax was about to break into a wide, familiar smile. Perry should have guessed that wouldn’t be the case.

  The shock on Jax’s craggy old face faded into an aggressive snarl. “Boy, you better be here to gimme back a brand new buggy for the one you toasted outside of Lasima.”

  Perry winced, not liking that he was immediately on the defensive. His hand came up. “Alright, now, I didn’t toast the buggy, and you know it. That was the praetors that did that.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” A new—but equally familiar—voice boomed.

  It almost made Perry jump, remembering the commanding calls of “Spiders and dogs and ants! Buckets! Work quick!”

  The large form of Boss Hauten suddenly towered up from the middle of a gaggle of less-than-savory looking individuals. Though Perry supposed he didn’t look terribly savory himself. Blood and dust and sweat, and now shit as well.

  Hauten stared at him with a thunderous expression. “Do my eyes deceive me? Has the wayward, thieving, backstabbing little runt come back?”

  Perry thrust a finger at him, defensiveness and anger combining. “You backstabbed me, you sonofabitch! You left me to die in a jail cell!” Even as he said it, he had the thought, This is probably not the best way to win him over. But, to hell with it. Perry wasn’t going to roll over and let them blame all of their misfortunes on him.

  Hauten thrust himself out from amidst the huddle of ne’er-do-wells, his chest out…and limping. When had he gotten himself a limp?

  Perry was about to find out, as Hauten parked himself right in front of the keeper-less bar and made his wounded leg obvious. He stared bullets at Perry and thrust his hand down at the leg—though Perry couldn’t see anything except the fact that it had a limp.

  “Your little bitch did this to me!” Hauten declared. “Right before she made off with my buggy. And then got it blown up. Leaving me and the entire crew stranded in Lasima, which is, perhaps, the most godsdamned insulting thing of all. After all I did for her! Taking her in out of the cold so that she didn’t have to be a street whore! Ungrateful little bitch! And you!” A blunt finger now pointing at Perry. “On the run! A fugitive! And did I ever ask you any questions? No! I simply opened my arms—” arms spreading wide to display his magnanimity “—and welcomed you onto my crew! You took advantage of me because I have a soft heart for youngsters, and then you robbed me blind! You took the best muscle I’ve ever had…” a sidelong glance at a large, pot-bellied beast of a man with scars all over his face. “…No offense, Curly, but Stuber would have ripped your heart out.”

  Curly seemed to take offense nonetheless.

  Hauten took a limping step forward—probably a tad exaggerated, Perry thought—and it didn’t escape Perry’s notice that Jax and a few others were inching closer now as well, closing in on him. He didn’t recognize most of them, but a few familiar faces stood out.

  He nodded to them, trying on a smile. “Oh, hey Monty. Bigs. Chester.” Perry frowned, searching for others, even as he shifted his feet into a more ready posture for what felt like an inevitable fight. “Where’s Ernie and Pebbles?”

  “I couldn’t afford to keep them on!” Hauten roared. “After you stole my buggy and an entire hold of brass! You nearly put me under wit
h that shit. And I had to leave those poor bastards behind in Lasima, where I assume they’ve probably been killed by robots, thanks to you.”

  Alright. It was time to start making headway in the peace department.

  “Okay, Hauten,” Perry met his gaze again, the back of his mind toying around with his clasp, the red flow of Confluence rising in him. “I hear a lot of accusations being thrown around. And I could make accusations of my own. But I’m not going to. I’m going to let bygones be bygones.”

  “How gracious of you,” Hauten spat.

  “You want me to kick his ass, Boss?” Monty asked, glaring.

  Perry was surprised to find himself a little hurt by that. Sure, he and Monty had never been best buds, but they’d been friendly enough.

  “Alright, look,” Perry tried again. “There’s obviously some misunderstanding here. I’m sorry that Teran stole your buggy and it accidentally got blown up. But the praetors that landed in Lasima? They were looking for Teran. They would have killed her if they found her, and so she was forced to steal the buggy to get out alive.”

  “Frankly,” Hauten rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have traded that buggy for a dozen Terans.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing that she was able to use your buggy. We were…doing something important.”

  Hauten placed his fingers theatrically on his forehead, as though suppressing a headache. “Oh, I can only imagine the important things you were doing. Little thieving runt that you are.”

  Bigs piped up. “You know, you always were full of yourself.”

  “What?” Perry was genuinely shocked.

  “Yeah, you were,” Bigs nodded, his eyes vicious. Fists clenched. “Like you were so much more important than the rest of us. Self-righteous cocksucker. That’s why you killed Tiller.”

  “What?” Perry repeated, even more aghast. “You hated Tiller! Everybody hated Tiller!”