The Iron Thorn

30 The Secret of the Steam

LOVECRAFT APPEARED OUT of the dark and mist-wrapped day like the skeleton of a great beast, resting on the riverside, phantom breath rising from the foundry chimneys.

Though it had been little more than a week since I’d left, seeing the familiar spires and rooftops was like returning after a journey of immeasurable distance and time.

As we bumped through the streets, I saw lamps flicker to life and steam vent from far below into the cold, ghost dragons dancing on the wind. The Engine was power, and its great heart turned day and night, creating the steam that powered the aether generators, the jitney lines and everything else in the city.

From our class visits to the Engine, I knew that it was guarded, by Proctors no less. Unless a worker possessed of identification came to the gates, visitors would be turned away at best or shot at worst. The Engine was buried hundreds of feet below the streets, and the vent tunnels to the surface were welded shut and patrolled regularly.

All of this I’d learned in Civil Engineering. No one tampered with the Engine. It was the heart of the city.

And I was going to rip it out.

The jitney ground into the depot on lower Miskatonic Avenue, stabling itself next to a dozen similar steel-and-steam bodies. The driver didn’t spring the doors, though, and I peered out the window. Dean joined me, hand on my shoulder. “Something’s wrong,” he murmured.

“Sorry, folks.” The driver’s slimy voice oozed out of the phono above my head. “Official security alert. We gotta stay put for an inspection before I can let you off.”

Groans and complaints sounded, but after grumbling, the passengers settled and went back to their magazines and newspapers. A girl a few seats ahead of me took out a compact and started to fix her lipstick. How in the frozen hell could she be so calm?

Because she wasn’t a fugitive, I realized. She was normal. I had never wanted to be normal so badly.

“Inspection?” Cal cracked his knuckles one after the other, a tic he didn’t seem to notice. “That’s bad news, Aoife. These aren’t podunk Proctor recruits like they’ve got in Arkham.”

The bus door hissed open and Dean growled, “Cool it. They’re here.”

From the outside, I caught the wail of Klaxons and the scent of acrid smoke from grinding gears. That wasn’t normal, unless there was a riot. My stomach knotted. A riot was all we needed.

Two Proctors in black tunics and black caps stepped onto the jitney, their gold wings gleaming on their breasts like shields.

“Everyone keep your seat,” the Proctor in the lead shouted. “Keep quiet, and produce your identification when asked.”

“Is it heretics?” the girl with the compact said. “Are they in the city? Are we safe?”

“What did I just tell you?” the Proctor snarled. He stomped down the center aisle, jackboots shaking the entire jitney, and held out a hand. “Identification.”

The Proctor was tall and thin, the sleeves of his tunic flapping, much like the ravens his agency employed. His nose even hooked, beaklike, below small pinched eyes.

Muttering, the girl fished through her purse. “Don’t have to treat a person surly just because some crazies lit a few jitneys on fire.” She had a drawl, and enough brunette curls to give a reel starlet a run for her money. I imagined she’d been going to New Amsterdam to give Broadway a try and somehow ended up in the grim iron claws of Lovecraft.

“This isn’t a joke!” the Proctor barked. “Give me your papers!”

It wasn’t normal, even for a Proctor, to behave so. Something was wrong in Lovecraft.

Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes as she rummaged frantically through her ditty bag for her identification.

“There’s a lot of them out there,” Dean said, nudging me to look out the bubble window. The Proctors were arrayed in a loose ring around the jitney depot, more of them than I’d ever seen in one place except for Banishment Square.

The smoke and the wailing Klaxons came into place for me. From burning buildings, from a riot started by Dean’s people in the Rustworks, or for one of a thousand other reasons that people had to hate the Proctors.

Like someone whose brother had been shot by them.

I knew then that there was no chance we were getting off this jitney. Cal’s and my papers were only good as students of the School, within city limits. And if Dean had ever had papers, he didn’t have them now.

We weren’t going back to the Academy to steal Marcos’s diving suit. We weren’t getting into the Engineworks. The only place any of our trio was going was the castigator if they caught us out when we tried to run.

Heretics didn’t receive mercy. Only those who turned themselves in had a chance to have their case heard before a tribunal of Proctors. It was a joke, but it was better than the alternatives presented.

I stood up. Dean grabbed my wrist. “The hell are you doing?”

“Aoife!” Cal hissed. “Sit down!”

I looked them both in the eye. “You need to trust me,” I told Dean. “And I’m so very sorry.”

The Proctor was staring at me when I looked back into his hooded face. I steadied my shaking legs and stepped forward, holding out my wrists. “My name is Aoife Grayson,” I said to him. “I think you’re looking for me.”

The handcuffs rubbing my wrists were heavy, hand-forged bands with skeleton locks. I tried to slip my thumb under the cuff to scratch my opposite arm, but they were clamped tight.

“Stop that,” said the Proctor sitting across from me. The windowless jitney bounced up Northern Avenue. I’d turned us in to avoid a chase, to avoid being caught. To save Cal and Dean the worst of what the Proctors could offer—at least, I hoped so. The jitney slowed as we approached the end of the street. The Ave terminated at Banishment Square, and above the bricks, Ravenhouse lurked.

The Catacombs lived beneath. I was at the end of the line.

“What happened to my friends?” I said. “The boys I was with?”

“Be quiet,” said the Proctor. “No speaking until interrogation.”

The jitney rattled to a stop and the doors cranked open. The Proctor gripped my arm, not hard, but firm. He knew and I knew who was in charge here. “Out. Watch your head.”

The officers who worked in Ravenhouse wore plain black suits, not the double-buttoned uniform tunic of street agents. One checked a booking sheet while the other, a woman in a sharp jacket and pencil skirt, patted me down. The Proctor who’d arrested me at the depot tossed them the carpetbag.

“She had that with her.”

“Search it,” the officer said to her mate. “File it.”

“Hang on,” said the one reading the sheet. “You need to see this.” He held out the clipboard. “She’s been flagged. Grayson, Aoife.”

I knew I should be truly terrified—if I was flagged, I was on par with the worst Crimson Guard fugitive—but a tiny thrill went through me. The Proctors thought I was dangerous. Maybe I could turn that to my favor.

The trio bowed their heads over the paper, and then one fixed me with bright eyes. “She’s a person of highest interest.” He shoved the clipboard at the female officer. “We need to get her up to Mr. Draven’s office.”

I started. Grey Draven was Head of the City. His picture was in all of the Academy’s classrooms. He oversaw the Proctors. He might as well be the Master Builder himself.

“Walk.” The officer’s grip wasn’t just firm this time. It hurt, and it would leave bruises come tomorrow.