Have we really arrived here already? The penultimate installment! My goodness, it's hard to believe. Truthfully tomorrow's chapter should go up today, as this one sort of fails to be romantic on a lot of levels, but ah well. I'm single, and therefore obligated to hate Valentine's Day (so I'm told – in reality I have very few feelings toward a day of mass-produced sappiness, other than happiness when someone gives me chocolates). So this is a good . . . anti-Valentine? Whatever just enjoy it, that is my gift to you.
-()-
10) Murray Gold – I Am The Doctor
People all around the city were on edge, and not just due to the strange news reports trickling in from the plains. Reports of bandits calling themselves 'Project Pandemonium', who plundered cities for all they were worth, aided and abetted by explosives and unknown means – alien and mechanical and unsettling. No, the city was altogether uneasy because its leadership – Commander Vimes, mainly – seemed to be, if not totally at a loss, then unsure of what to do as well.
"It's like they don't even know where to start," Neriss confided to Grace, over a cup of coffee in the front room of her pet shop. "Even Lord Vetinari's been tight-lipped on the subject. Not a word from anyone, really, except that 'precautions are being taken'." She ran her free hand through her hair. "I've got a shop and family to worry about, and what am I supposed to do about this? Some unknown threat coming in from all sides? They managed to grind Pseudopolis to a halt with five explosions and fifteen minutes, and everything worth stealing from the President's Mansion and the National Bank was gone."
"I wouldn't think you're a target really," Grace murmured, although to be honest she was worried too. Neriss didn't need to know that the reason behind her nerves was that Lord Vetinari had been scrabbling for a week and a half to find anything on the band of thieves, and hadn't even been able to turn up a confirmed number of people involved. Membership seemed to be fluid, numbers growing and shrinking, some members there for one raid, never to be heard from again. It made the whole project difficult to trace and impossible to predict, even with Vetinari's men in black and Vimes' Sammies spread out halfway across the continent.
"Who knows? Anyone's a target. They burned out a tailor in Quirm, and looted a couple shops on their way to Pseudopolis too, no rhyme or reason." She shivered and set her mug down. "I feel like I should get back to my shop, but what's the risk in that, eh? Nowhere's safe."
"Well it's not doing any good worrying about it." Grace crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. "We can sit here and talk about it all day, or we can wait for someone to blow something up or we can keep alert for suspicious things, right? And what better place to do that than your shop?"
"I don't think these . . . miscreants are much interested in miscellaneous goods."
"Could be. Who knows what they're interested in?" The bell over the door tinkled and Neriss jumped down from her stool with a wave.
"Ta dear, keep safe." She looked over her shoulder, expression grim, before brushing past the customer, who had his back to her.
"You used the front door," Grace noted, tone mildly accusing, as soon as the door had closed behind her friend. "You never use the front door." In half a second he was across the shop and had a hand around her wrist.
"You need to come with me." She'd never seen him like this, not in all those years of knowing him, and she fought the urge to pull back. There was a feverish intensity there, some kind of mad flame roaring inside him. She let him pull her through the back of the shop.
"The front door's not even locked."
"It's not going to matter." In the alley behind the shop he scrambled up onto a shed and pulled her up after him.
Icy realization settled in. "What about the animals?" she whispered. "How long?"
He held a finger to his lips and she followed him to the roofs. Her foot had just caught the gutter when the first explosion went off. She looked sharply over her shoulder, getting her feet under her, watching as black smoke and angry red flames bubbled up towards the sky, belched from the remains of a building three streets over. "No," she said, not quite believing it as he caught her under the arm and pulled her off after him.
"Run!" In the streets, people were screaming, flooding out of buildings through doors, windows, anything that presented itself.
"They're going to blow up my shop!" She wasn't sure why that was important right now, sprinting after the Patrician across the rooftops of the city, away from the next explosion, toward the Shades.
"Not if Vimes got there first!" She followed him in a leap across a narrow alley, rolling on the landing before he pulled her after him again.
"So why are we running?"
"In case he didn't." She wasn't sure where exactly they were going – her city geography was a bit off at this level, but eventually he slowed and bent double, hands on his knees, catching his breath. She slumped to the rooftop beside him and could only watch as the hubwards wing of the Palace went up in a spectacular fireball.
"No." Her hand flew to her mouth and she froze there, staring almost unseeing, yellow remnants of the explosion still burned into her eyeballs. "No, no, no nononono." She looked up to him, helpless. "All of those people."
He tapped his temple and grinned madly, still panting. "Ah, but, you see, I'm much cleverer than they give me credit for, sometimes."
"What?"
"Hours ago, hours, we had that whole wing evacuated. Had half the building evacuated!" He straightened and tugged his black jacket back into place before brushing the remnants of some roofing dust off his trousers. The mad fire was still there, and while her heart had stopped pounding somewhat since his revelation, she was a still bit frightened. This was, she realized, the Havelock Vetinari everyone was afraid of. That no one ever saw, standing in front of her, lunatic smile plastered across his face, disheveled and breathless and looking over his city.
"But the street!"
"Mostly evacuated – on the quiet, mind you – a few days ago for 'civic remodeling'. Ha!" He gestured wildly, spinning on her. "They thought they had me, and they were this close but I'm not stupid."
"It's Project Pandemonium, isn't it?"
"Oh, oh yes." He rubbed his hands together. "Vimes should have fully half of them now, corralled in by the explosions and his officers. The other half we have already. Except for one. Their disorganization was their biggest advantage but it was such a good weakness."
"Just one?" Grace blinked. "But they're impossible to track, you couldn't find any trace of them. You said so, you said you looked and looked and you couldn't –"
"I had to be baffled." He held out his hands and pulled her to her feet. "Vimes had to be baffled, the city had to be running scared. It was the only way to be sure. And now I have him." He strode off and Grace paused just for a moment before storming after him.
"What do you mean 'I have him'?"
"Go to Scoone Avenue," he ordered, spinning around to face her. "Lady Sybil's waiting for you there. Hide in the dragon houses."
"Havelock."
"There's a ring of watchmen around the place, no one's getting through. They have instructions, they won't give you any trouble."
She glared then, grabbing him by the lapels. "I am not going to sit with Sybil while you run off and do something foolish."
"Who said it was foolish? I'm not foolish. When have I ever once been foolish?" He caught her expression and even through whatever else was going on in his head right now, Grace could see her words registering. "You are not coming with me. That would be foolish."
She pushed him back. "I am. You think you're so clever, this should be no problem."
"It's not safe."
"All the more reason for someone to come along to watch your skinny arse." He raised an eyebrow and she stood her ground, hands on her hips, shoulders heaving. "That street – my shop – that they were going to attack means as much to me as this whole damn city means to you. And if you think I'm going to sit around and wait while you and Vimes take care of everything, you have another thing coming."
He watched her for a minute before the grin returned, and he grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her into a kiss. "I love Morporkians," he said, while she gaped at him.
"Oy!" She shook her head, clearing away the shock, and jogged off after him, already ahead of her across the rooftops. "Just general Morporkians?"
"You in particular!"
"That's better." Her eyes widened as, ahead of her, he jumped from the rooftop and disappeared from sight. "Oh, bugger." They were three stories up, and if there was a landing, she'd be fine. If there wasn't, he'd be in a terrible amount of trouble for not catching her. "Geronimo!"
"What's that mean, then?" he asked, hoisting her out of the pile of down she'd landed in.
"I don't know, it felt right." She looked around. "Where are we?"
"Paper Street." Ahead of them, a rickety old building, boarded-up and smoked out, proclaimed itself the 'Paper Street Soap Manufacturer'. She followed as he strode up the front steps and into the dark hall. She wondered briefly how he knew the layout of the building, as they wove through dark room after dark room, dodging bedrolls and bunk beds and washbasins and bags of clothing. Then again, he was Patrician, and he had apparently known about this hideout for some time. When the door to the basement creaked open, she paused.
"Is that wise?"
"It's necessary. I thought you wanted to come." She could picture the bloody raised eyebrow, even if she couldn't see it.
"I still do."
"Well, tally ho then." The stairs groaned and creaked under them, and Grace could feel one or two bow with her weight. Behind them, the door slammed shut with a hiss of hydraulics, and an oil lamp flared to light at the bottom of the staircase, on the other side of, Grace realized with a solid dose of dread, a very solid-looking set of bars. Applause echoed across the basement.
"Oh, well done." A man stepped into the ring of light offered by the lamp, hands in the pockets of his dirty denim trousers, red leather jacket creaking as he walked. "Thought it ended there, didn't ya?" He spun, arms wide. "Thought you'd just waltz on down here, easy as you please, and take me by surprise, huh?" He turned, smiling broadly, eyes behind the semi-smoked glasses narrowed. "Maybe thought I'd be cowering in the corner, crying at the thought of my failure? I have to say, your Lordship, you were quicker on the uptake than most, but apparently even genius has its limits." He pulled a cigarette out and lit it. "Who's that pretty little thing there?"
"She followed me; I've never seen her before in my life."
"That so?" The match was shaken out, flicked aside.
"You'd follow the Patrician too, if you saw him running full tilt across the rooftops," Grace said, sticking her chin out.
"Might not, on account of he's got himself caught in my damn fool trap." He blew a smoke ring. "You think you've won; saved your precious city." He shrugged. "All my associates are caught, and here I am. But you haven't won. You can't win. You can't beat Project Pandemonium, you can't beat an idea. You can spin it and hide it and bury it and burn it but it'll live on." He cocked a crossbow and pointed it straight at Grace. "Never met her before in your life, huh?"
"You can't just shoot me!" she jumped back against the brickwork side of the basement, hands in the air. "I'm not armed!"
"Doesn't matter worth a damn to me, miss, with all due respect, because he is." The man looked the Vetinari. "What's she worth to you?"
"She's a shopkeeper." He shrugged. "She's worth more to the city."
"Wrong answer!" The man threw his head back and laughed. "She ain't worth anything to anyone, pal; no one is. Not a person in this world has any money value, and neither does money itself or clothes or anything but the knowledge in our heads and the lifeblood in our souls." He spat out the cigarette and showed his teeth. "Ain't a man out there worth the shit he creates." He wagged a finger at the Patrician. "I'm asking you, what's she worth to you?"
Vetinari looked to her, and she looked back, hands still raised, hair fallen loose from its bun. He shrugged. "She's worth me coming here to inspect your trap."
The man looked them both over for a minute, seeming to weigh this. His head nodded back and forth once or twice. "So she's pretty valuable. Good answer. You two been screwing long?" He watched her face before he laughed. "Listen, sweetheart, I don't care worth a damn. How do you find my trap, then, Vetinari?"
The Patrician, raised and eyebrow and made a show of looking around the barred-in stairwell, the hydraulic door system. "Pretty thorough. Brickwork's not built to last but there you go."
"I thought so. It'll last long enough."
"But there is one, and really it's probably just tiny, but one mistake, I'm afraid." He leaned up against the bars and the mad smile was back. Grace inched closer to him.
"Hold still there, missy!" the man roared. He turned back to the Patrician. "A mistake, huh? And what would that little slip-up be, hm?"
"Actually, it's quite big. Rather glaringly huge, really." In the dim light of the lamp, his blue eyes practically shone. "Didn't anybody ever tell you how to make a proper trap?"
"Let's say I'm a student of many masters."
"And excellent ones they were, I'm sure. But here's the thing. There is one thing – one thing – that you never put in a trap. Not a trap that you want to work, not a trap that you want to trust. There is one painfully obvious thing that you never ever put in a trap, not if you value your gods-given ability to watch the sun come up every morning. No, Chuck, if you want a trap to succeed, and you want to live to see the success of it, there is one thing that you don't ever even consider putting in a trap."
The man – Chuck – smirked and worked his jaw once, as though he were chewing gum. "And what would that be?"
Vetinari smirked right back at him. "Me." His arm swung to his belt and Grace ducked, avoiding the bolt fired at her head. There was a flash and a crack and a whiff of black powder and smoke and the heavy sound of a body falling to the floor, followed by a scraping noise and the clattering of metal on stone. One of the bars had come loose, rusted away around the threading it relied on to screw in securely to the crumbled brick bracing. Vetinari lightly landed on the floor below and strode over to Chuck.
"You're right." The bleeding man gasped and tried to chuckle, blood bubbling from his lips, streaming down the sides of his face. "I did – I did overlook . . . look that." Another shot echoed through the basement, emanating from a small black thing in the Patrician's hand, dull-colored and deadly. Chuck was still as more blood bubbled from his forehead. The Patrician nudged the man with his shoe once, finding him satisfactorily dead, and looked to Grace.
"You killed him," she managed, dull, still crouched on the steps.
"It had to be done." He paused to kneel and pin a slip of paper to man's leather coat. "He was going to shoot you."
"But . . . but just like that." She blinked. "You were going to kill him all along, weren't you?"
"I am still available for hire at the Guild," he said, by way of explanation. "He might not have had a name, not officially, but he did have a price." He gestured for her to jump down. "Get out of the stairwell." Shaking, she slid to the floor. Her knees felt boneless as she stood there in the shadow of the stairs, arms wrapped around herself, refusing to meet his eyes. Another shot echoed and the hydraulics exploded, flinging the door at the top of the stairs open and tearing a hole in the brick wall.
When Grace dared open her eyes again, he was kneeling on the stairs, hand outstretched, watching her. The evil little device was gone, invisible. She took his hand, reluctant, and he pulled her up. "What did you expect to happen?" he asked softly.
"I don't know." She looked to him. "Do you even feel remorse anymore?"
He watched her for a minute, possibly an eternity. "His plans as we discovered them would have destroyed the city. Thousands of people would have been lost. You would have been killed," he added. "I would have been killed. Vimes and half the Watch would probably have died and the city would have burned." She didn't say anything. "No, I didn't feel remorse. I did what history needed someone to do."
She sighed then and fell into him, wrapping her arms around him. "How can I feel all the ways I feel about you all the time and right now be so terrified of you?"
"I didn't want you to see me like that," he said, stroking her hair. "Never like that."
She twisted a hand into his jacket. "I know." A sob threatened to tear through her chest. "I shouldn't have come." She trembled. "And I'm still glad I did. Why am I glad I did?" She looked up at him, and whatever insane fire had been there was gone.
"You need to rest," he said, stroking her cheek gently before he picked her up and set her on her feet.
"You're a monster." It was out. She'd realized that before she'd even known him, years ago, but lay bare, free from ten years of other memories, it was suddenly more real. She shuddered.
"Sometimes, yes. When I need to be."
She looked over her shoulder to the bleeding body of the man who had killed thousands, and would have killed thousands more, just because he wanted to tear down the world. "And he was too. All the time."
"Grace. Listen to me – you need to rest." He cupped her chin until she couldn't help but look him in the eye. "We'll take you back to Sybil's and you can rest and think all you like." He handed her an envelope, crinkled and folded. Hands still shaking, she pulled out two coach tickets, official documents for her and for Erica, complete with new false names, two thousand dollars cash and a business license for a pet shop in Genua. She looked back to him and he shrugged. "Take your time."
"You knew I'd come."
"Grace." He took a breath and took both her wrists in his hands and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. "What you saw today is a part of what I have to be in order to be Patrician of this city. You had to see it eventually if we were going to continue on. And if you don't like it, and you want to leave, you have everything you need to never hear from me again." He breathed out. "I've had that envelope ready for a year. It's always been a matter of time."
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the tears running down her cheeks. "I need to think about it," she whispered.
-()-
He never checked. He knew Drumknott would know, possibly knew at this point. It had been two weeks since the attack, and no one had dared say anything. Or perhaps had time to say anything – in the aftermath of Project Pandemonium there was such a lot of cleanup, and trials and executions and investigations and funerals and reimbursements and plans for rebuilding. The Oblong Office had been salvaged, but for the most part the Palace had been gutted. Repairs would be extensive.
Vetinari, apparently unfazed by the event as far as the populace could tell, was sitting at his semi-charred desk in his now considerably more ventilated office, working. There was talk that he was some sort of bizarre hero, outsmarting the mastermind by staying half a step ahead, but on that day there hadn't just been one hero to name, and various people had been called to the forefront of public attention. There was Vimes and the Watch and the citizens who stood up for their city, and the unnamed Assassin who had so creatively killed Chuck Rendud, the mastermind of the whole scheme. There was the army of Dark Clerks and the Sammies across the plains and there was anyone who had taken a minute to take notice of the Paper Street Soap Manufacturer and their endless, nameless, uniform supply of laborers.
And two weeks later, when things seemed to be settling down at last, Drumknott slipped into the office and deposited a slim stack of letters in the tray before he left again. One letter, crumpled and folded and bent, hung out of the pile defiantly. Realizing he'd stopped breathing the minute he'd noticed it, he plucked it from its fellows and, hesitantly, split the familiar seal on the back.
He couldn't help but grin when he overturned the envelope, and a shower of torn-up paper confetti rained onto his desk.
-()-
Yes, it's a gun, kids. I figured he doesn't have bodyguards, he's gotta have something.