I threw an arm over my eyes, but it didn’t help. The Line hung like a spiderweb in the room, almost nonexistent. Limned within it were ten cots, six occupied with small bodies in chains. The air flickered with active bale that leaked through a crack in the Line like an open wound.
I looked down as I walked through the door and saw another scrawled mark. Seven.
Five of the children were all but motionless. Their arms and legs were chained to the cots. They rolled their heads to look at us, but their gazes were blank. I’d seen that blankness before, on Ban Jaspin, and it made my stomach churn. Slack mouths gaped in dirty faces. The smell of feces and urine was overwhelming. They’d dirtied the cots, and nobody had come down to clean up after them. I was willing to bet that if I leaned closer to their faces, I’d smell nix.
A girl was on the sixth cot, chained like the rest but staring at us with a clear, angry gaze. Blood ran down her wrists. She’d managed to strain close enough to the wall to scratch a shaking, unsteady number. Eight. But she’d dropped her chalk; it laid under her cot.
“That must be Milka,” Droit observed.
“The others are manifesting.” Aronson sounded like he was about to sick up on his nice coat.
“Is she?” I asked.
“No.”
Nevertheless — someone had stuck five baby sentinels down here, nixed into passivity. If we identified ten manifesting sentinels a year in Cislunar, we called it a “good crop.” Cislunar’s a big city, but the high rate of child mortality steals away a lot of would-be sentinels, especially among the lower class.
Kidnapping five meant the Banishat had been very, very attentive.
Axton stepped around us and walked to one of the cots. I started to move and Droit grabbed my arm.
“Let him take the risk,” he said. “If this thing breaches, I’ll need you.”
“But —” I grated my teeth and looked at Aronson, whose eyes were moving rapidly back and forth as if he were counting something I wasn’t sharp enough to discern.
Axton leaned over the oblivious child, checking pulse, temperature, pupils, tongue. His motions were quick and efficient and the pall didn’t seem to bother him, although it was scaring the hell out of me. Of course, like Droit, he was mundane. I wondered how much of this they were seeing.
“They’ve been nixed back to infancy,” Axton reported. “And they haven’t been cleaned up in several days.
“But they’re biologically old enough to manifest,” Aronson said, his voice a study in quiet horror. “Are they … calling across the Line the way a baby cries for help?”
“Droit, get ’em off the cots. See if you can knock ’em unconscious.” I wiped my mouth, trying to get rid of the bale-taste of old vomit. “Axton, get Milka.” I turned, looking for some sign of the Banishat. This had to be their fault. Nobody but a sentinel could understand the Line well enough to set up a potential disaster like this.
A small, dark room. A handful of brainwiped children. And a city poised on the cusp of apocalypse.
Droit, ignoring my orders, found another doorway and swung it open. Another small room, a scuffed desk, a battered chair, a neat stack of papers.
“She’s well,” Axton reported, pulling away her gag. She howled, struggling against him. He hushed her, placing a finger against her lips. She tried to bite him. “Stop, Milka. We’re here to rescue you.”
“Where’s Ezery?” she gasped.
“He’s dead.”
Axton’s bedside manner could use some work. She started screaming again.
“Hey, if she was only just delivered —” I began.
“The Banishat might still —” Aronson’s words broke off in gasp and choke. I turned.
“— be here,” a voice finished for him.
The Nobilis dropped to his knees. A scarred hardcase stood in the hall behind him, flicking drops of blood off his baleknife. I’d seen him in the Orderhouse, although I didn’t know him by name.
“I never did like that uppity ponce,” he said conversationally, putting his foot into the small of Aronson’s back and shoving. Aronson sprawled to the floor. The back of his cashmere coat was damp with something as dark as the coat itself.
“One down, three to go,” another voice said, cheerfully. It came from a short man behind Hardcase. His arm was bandaged.
Droit growled, stepping forward.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he snarled. “Nobody gets to kill my cousin but me.”
I stepped back to give him room.
I didn’t dare call across the Line here, now. There was no chance of controlling the call, no chance that whatever came through would come through alone. The wound in reality dripped and oozed and sharp, inhuman claws were already flickering through, testing its edges. I jumped as something that looked like a tongue tested the air, seeking the source of the fresh blood-smell.
“Can we talk about this?” I asked, uneasily. “The Gap’s getting wider, and I think Aronson’s pain is attracting crossers.”
“Kill the kids,” Droit ordered, lunging across his cousin’s body to get to the scarred man. His sword flashed and the sentinel jerked to one side, wildly stabbing at Droit’s arm. Bale flickered between them and needle-sharp claws raked through the Line.
“That is not an option!” I snapped. I grabbed Aronson’s collar and dragged him out of Droit’s way. The Red General paid no attention, intent on his fight.
I propped Aronson on my knee. His face was twisted with pain and his eyes were flickering back and forth. He was alive, but he wasn’t happy about it. It’d be better if he was unconscious. Then his pain wouldn’t be tempting the transients across.
Balefire exploded. I risked a glance and saw that it had missed Droit but was climbing up a wall.
“Droit, Aronson’s still alive!” I shouted, hoping it might matter. “Axton! I need you!”
Droit was holding off both men, keeping them in the hall where they had to fight through the doorway. Both carried baleblades. They worked together, one feinting and the other trying to slide past Droit’s defense. Balefire flickered around them; balebarriers rose and fell to deflect blows. They were good. And each call they made was putting more strain on the Line.
“Ax!” I twisted, looking for the anatomist. He had unlooped Milka’s chains from the cot legs. Her hands and legs were still bound together but no longer immobilized. She was already off the cot, fumbling beneath it for her chalk. Tears streaked her face.
“Come here!” I shouted. Axton hurried over and knelt next to Aronson.
“It’s inevitable that something will break through the Line,” the little man said calmly. “I think it would be better if it were something she commands.”
“She — what?” I turned back to the girl in alarm. Aronson groaned and Axton deftly took him from me.
Out in the hallway, Droit laughed as one of his opponents gave a garbled, horrified howl. The Red General had drawn a line of blood across the fat man’s face, laying the man’s fleshy cheek open. Bone glistened beneath the dangling flap of muscle. The man fell back, dropping his knife and trying to press the flap back into place with both hands.
Forget Droit. Droit was having fun. But Milka was on the floor, her hopscotch board a hasty scrawl, uneven and ugly.
“Wait!” I took three long steps and grabbed her hand, trying to wrest the chalk out of her grip. “The Line’s in pall — we can’t afford another call!”
“I can,” she snapped. She shoved me in the chest with both arms, chains jangling. I took an involuntary step backward, stumbling against the cot. She threw herself into the pattern, hopping on one foot, her chains clattering around her.
“Are you crazy?” I pushed myself back up, grabbing her as she reached the end, both feet planted in the Grave. She struggled a moment, then went completely limp. As I staggered to hold her dead weight, she pursed her lips into a long, high whistle. The same kind of whistle you’d use to call a dog, or a carriage.
The Line burst open and bale vomited into the room.