Forty-Six

Forty-Six

Dimitri announced the execution to be at nightfall, so I gather we do not have much time left.”

Juliette looked up at the gray clouds, clutching her fists tight. “Yes, but for your plan to work, we must know exactly how the monsters transform. We cannot just pin our chances of success on sheer hope. Now!”

Juliette darted fast across the road, moving from the mouth of one alley to another before the soldiers at the tram light could sight her. Benedikt was fast behind her, though he winced when he slowed to a walk, the two of them picking their way through the narrow passageway.

“Are you injured?”

“Twisted my ankle, but it’s fine. I thought we already knew the monsters transformed with water.”

Juliette crouched when they came to the end of the alley, listening for sound. Soldiers patrolling along the left, but the right turned into a narrower walkway. It would take them farther from the safe house, but it was a better option than getting caught. She waved for Benedikt to hurry.

“Do we?” she questioned. “I saw one man splash something into his face on the train. We know that these monsters are different from the first, and even at the end, Paul managed to make alterations with how much water was necessary for Qi Ren’s transformation. The new ones are transforming at will. We can’t bet on it.”

Which was why they were going to the safe house to free Rosalind and demand the information she held. They hadn’t asked the right questions the first time, and then they had been interrupted by General Shu’s appearance. Now Juliette knew better; now Juliette was setting aside her own feelings of betrayal, single-minded in getting one answer.

“If it is not water,” Benedikt said, “then what?”

Juliette sighed. “I haven’t a clue. But there’s more to it—I can feel it.”

Benedikt’s plan was so strange that it seemed like it might just work. If Roma, Alisa, and Marshall were being hauled to public execution, it had to be outdoors to allow a crowd to gather. But now, after full-scale revolution, there were so few parts of the city where any gathering could be made that the only likely place was Zhabei, with armed workers standing guard.

The Communist effort—and their workers—were following Dimitri because he was supplying monetary funds and ammunition.

But they did not know how he had acquired them. They did not know he had used monsters to blackmail the gangs in Shanghai, and they did not know that he controlled such monsters. The people of Shanghai, though they had bravely fought a revolution, were still afraid of his monsters.

“So we incite chaos,” Benedikt had explained. “The monsters must be standing guard as men. Dimitri wouldn’t miss an opportunity to bring them. He needs the extra protection if Nationalists catch wind of what is happening, but they must blend in too. Force them all to transform, and the civilians on scene will panic. They run, they collide with the armed workers, and they distract everyone long enough that no one can stop us as we swoop in, grab the prisoners, and leave.”

But what if it doesn’t work?

“We’re here.”

Juliette paused. When there didn’t seem to be activity on the street, she stepped out and approached the safe house building. It was strange—it looked so different since the last time she had seen it, but nothing had changed. It was only the city that kept changing.

“Go on,” Benedikt said.

Juliette shook herself out of her daze. There was no use standing here, staring at the door. She reached for the knob and pushed through.

Inside, as light flooded into the apartment, Rosalind straightened up immediately, blinking hard. She looked weary, having been deprived of food and water for two days. Juliette couldn’t stand the sight of this, and yet she thought she had it in her to force something out of her cousin?

She approached Rosalind’s chair. Without a word, she started to untie the bindings.

“What has happened?” Rosalind croaked. “I heard gunfire. So much gunfire.”

Juliette couldn’t get her fingers around one of the knots. Her hands were shaking, and when Benedikt touched her shoulder, she stepped away, letting him take on the task instead.

The safe house was too dark. Juliette tugged hard on one of the panels nailed over the window, and when it chipped off, a triangular stream of fading gray light poured into the space. The sun would be setting soon. Nightfall was coming.

“The purge started,” Juliette said, her voice hoarse. “The workers managed to gather their forces and march in protest. Nationalists fired on them. The bodies still haven’t been cleared.”

Rosalind didn’t speak. When Juliette turned around, her cousin’s expression was gaunt.

“And Celia?”

Juliette started, not expecting the switch in names. She supposed it was apt. Kathleen would never have joined the workers’ efforts. That was all Celia, through and through.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”

The first knot came undone. Rosalind could move her left shoulder.

“Juliette,” Benedikt prompted. Get to the task at hand, he seemed to be saying.

Juliette paced the length of the room, digging her hands into her hair. She pulled at the strands, so unused to the straight cut that brushed her neck as she moved.

“We’re letting you go,” she said. “But we want to know everything you know about the monsters.”

Rosalind pulled her right arm out as the bindings there came loose too. She had lost all her energy—finding no need to rush or agitate while the rope fell from her body.

“If I had information to give, do you not think I would have offered it by now?” Rosalind asked. “I have nothing more to gain by holding on to anything. Dimitri was only using me as a source into the Scarlets. He was using me long before he decided to blackmail us.”

“You must have picked some things up, no matter how little attention you paid his business,” Benedikt said, refusing to take her answer. He pulled hard on her ankle rope. Rosalind winced. “How did this begin? Were the monsters already active before he obtained control?”

“No,” Rosalind replied. “He found the host insects in that apartment. Five of them, gargantuan and floating in liquid. I recruited the Frenchmen for him to infect.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He said it was a war effort. No mass killings, no chaos. Only a tactic to garner power.”

“In all fairness,” Juliette said quietly, “that part was not a lie.”

She blamed Rosalind for falling prey. She pitied Rosalind for falling prey. The Scarlet Gang dealt in violence day by day too. When you were raised in such a climate—loved ones telling you that blood could spill so long as it was in loyalty—how were you to know when to draw the line once you loved someone outside family?

“And the insects,” Benedikt continued. “They burrowed into the hosts?”

Juliette leaned forward, her hands braced hard on the table. It had been the same with Qi Ren. One host insect, occupying his body. Giving him the ability to transform into a monster.

“Latched onto their necks and dug right in,” Rosalind whispered.

“How did they turn afterward?” The question they needed answered the most. “How did they trigger the transformation?”

All of Rosalind’s bindings fell to the floor. Her arms and legs were now free to move, yet she remained on the chair, her elbows resting on her knees, her head dropped in her hands. For several seconds, she remained like that, as still as a statue.

Then Rosalind looked up suddenly. “Ethanol.”

Juliette blinked. “Ethanol? Is that . . . alcohol?”

Rosalind nodded gingerly. “It’s what the insects were first found floating in, so it’s what brings them out. Alcohol was what the Frenchmen used the most. A few drops was enough—it didn’t have to be concentrated.”

Benedikt spun around, seeking Juliette’s gaze. “How are we supposed to find enough alcohol? How are we supposed to find alcohol at all?”

Restaurants were closed. Cabarets were closed. The places that weren’t locked by iron and chain were already ransacked and robbed.

“We don’t need to,” Juliette said. She looked out the window, to that one section she had freed, letting in the street outside. “A car’s gasoline has the same effect.”

A sudden shriek came from afar, and Juliette jumped, her hand coming to her heart. Rosalind, too, leaped to her feet, but then the sound faded just as quickly as it came, and Rosalind looked unsure what to do, hovering by the chair. She was too proud to give voice to the pain in her eyes. She was not quite cold enough to avoid Juliette’s eyes completely and let her believe otherwise.

“Go, Rosalind,” Juliette said quietly. “There will be more chaos on the streets in a few hours.”

Rosalind thinned her lips. Slowly, she reached around her neck and unclasped the necklace she had been wearing, setting it upon the table. It looked dull in the weak light. Nothing more than a slab of metal.

“Did you tell the Scarlets?” Rosalind asked. Her voice was feather-soft. “Did you tell them that I am responsible for the new monsters?”

Juliette should have. She had had the time and the opportunity. If she had offered Dimitri’s name as Rosalind’s lover, then revealed Dimitri as the blackmailer, Rosalind’s crimes against the Scarlet Gang would be far more severe than mere blood-feud spying.

“No.”

Rosalind’s face was unreadable. “Why not?”

Because she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t want to accept it. Because she had made such a habit out of lying and withholding, what was one more?

Out of the corner of her eye, Juliette knew that Benedikt was watching her. “Go, Rosalind,” she said again.

At last, Rosalind took the cue and walked to the door. Her hand was already upon it when she faltered, when she looked over her shoulder and swallowed hard.

“Is this the last time I’ll see you?”

There was too much in that one, quiet question. Would Rosalind go home? After everything she had done, after everything they had done to her, could she return?

And if she did, would Juliette ever return home?

“I don’t know,” Juliette replied honestly.

Rosalind watched her for a moment longer. Her eyes might have filled up. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking on Juliette’s part. Perhaps it was just Juliette’s own eyes that had grown slick with moisture.

Rosalind walked out without another word.

The rain slowed, then stopped, its last few droplets coming down on the bodies with a dull finality. Hands with the pallor of death were collapsed atop one another, the rot and stink of their shriveling skin shrouding the air.

Celia wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive. She was buried beneath so much suffering, cloistered under unmoving corpses. Pain throbbed down her torso, but her thoughts were so fragmented that she almost wasn’t sure if it was from a bullet wound or merely a physical manifestation of her internal agony; deep down, she had foolishly thought she was safe from slaughter, that violence only came for the masses. At last, it seemed she had succeeded in becoming one of them. A Scarlet would never be suffering like this. A Scarlet would have made it quick, like Mr. Ping taking one of the first bullets, or stayed far away from such tumult.

What is there now? Celia wondered.

Then someone was grabbing at her. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Celia turned her head, opening her eyes from the darkness of her burial to a sudden flash of light: a streetlamp, burning above her. Before her vision cleared, she guessed the silhouette pulling at her to be an angel, some hazy being come to ease the horrors of war. Then a fresh wave of pain erupted down her side, and her mind snapped back in place, her chin jerking up. It was no angel come to save her.

It was her sister.

“How are you here?” Celia gasped.

Rosalind already had wet streaks down her cheeks, glinting under the light, but when she paused, having freed Celia from the bodies, she burst into fresh tears, hands tapping around Celia’s shoulders, checking for immediate wounds. There was only one: the growing stain at her side.

“How can you ask that?” she said, sniffling. “I ran for the street that everyone said had suffered a massacre. I came looking for you.”

Celia bit down on her gasp of pain, complying when Rosalind tried to pull her to her feet. She swayed, unable to set any weight down, but Rosalind’s arms were accommodating, taking the brunt of her balance. Though Celia’s head spun, she still sighted red marks along Rosalind’s wrists, vivid and angry.

“Can you walk?” Rosalind asked. “Come on. Any longer and you’ll bleed out.”

Celia put one foot in front of the other. It was a staggering, exhausting effort, but it was an effort, nonetheless.

“Thank you, jiějiě.” When the breeze blew into her face, Celia wasn’t sure if she felt coldness because there was blood smeared on her cheeks or if she had started crying too. “Thank you for coming back for me.”

Rosalind tightened her grip. She kept pushing them forward even while Celia swayed, phasing in and out of consciousness.

“I want you to think of Paris,” Rosalind ordered. It was an attempt to keep Celia awake, to keep her focused even as her senses grew weak. “Think of the speakeasies, the lights in the distance. Think about seeing them once more, when the world is no longer so dark.”

“Will there ever come a day?” Celia whispered. Her vision blurred. Her surroundings tunneled, colors bleeding into monochrome.

A stifled noise came from Rosalind. Up ahead, the silver of a building flashed, and Rosalind stumbled them forward, step by step by step. This was Rosalind’s silent promise into the world. She would have her sister see another day. She would have her sister see all the days and more, each and every one of them rising from the horizon.

“I ruined us all for a love not true,” Rosalind whispered. “At the very least, I can still save you.”