He dashed forward in a crouch and leaped onto a large serving platter. He pressed one foot against the lip of the platter, and Pushed on the bullets behind him. The maneuver threw him forward in a skid across the polished wooden floor. He broke out of the tables into open space just before the steps out of the room, then kicked the platter out from under him and increased his weight, hitting the ground and stopping.
The platter flipped out in front of him, and the startled bandits began firing. Metal pinged against metal as some of the bullets hit the platter; Waxillium responded, dropping the men on either side of Tarson with two quick shots. Then he flared his steel and Pushed toward Tarson’s gun to try knocking it away from Marasi.
Only then did Waxillium realize there was no blue line pointing to the man’s gun. Tarson grinned, his ashy face topped by Wayne’s hat. Then he whipped around, placing himself behind Marasi, whom he gripped by the neck with one hand, holding the gun steady against her head with the other.
No blue lines. Rust and Ruin … an entire gun made of aluminum?
Waxillium and Tarson both fell still. The bandits behind hadn’t noticed Waxillium’s floor-level escape on the platter; they were closing on the area where he’d been hiding. The boss still stood in the doorway, looking toward Waxillium. Wax had to be wrong about who he was. People could look alike, sound alike. That didn’t mean …
Marasi whimpered. And Waxillium found himself unable to move, unable to raise his hand to fire. The shot he’d made to save Lessie played again and again in his mind.
I can make a shot like that, he thought to himself, angry. I’ve done it a dozen times.
He’d only missed once.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He kept seeing her die again and again. Blood in the air, a smiling face.
Tarson apparently realized that Waxillium wouldn’t fire. So he swung his gun away from Marasi’s head and toward Waxillium.
Marasi went rigid. She locked her legs and slammed her head upward into the Vanisher’s chin. Tarson’s shot went wild and he stumbled backward, holding his mouth.
With Marasi mostly out of the way, Waxillium’s mind cleared, and he found himself able to move again. He shot Tarson, though he couldn’t bring himself to aim for the chest, not with Marasi stumbling nearby. He settled on dropping Tarson with a shot to the arm. Marasi raised her hand to her mouth in horror, watching him fall.
“He’s over there!” Voices from behind, the three bandits he’d been fighting among the tables. An aluminum bullet split the air just beside him.
“Hold on,” Waxillium said to Marasi, leaping forward and grabbing her around the waist. He raised his gun and shot the last bullet in his gun toward the doorway, hitting the masked leader of the Vanishers in the head.
The man collapsed in a heap.
Well, there goes that theory, Waxillium thought. Miles wouldn’t have fallen to a mere bullet. He was a Twinborn of a particularly dangerous variety.
Tarson was rolling over, holding his arm and groaning. No time. Guns empty. Waxillium dropped the gun and Pushed on it while holding tightly to Marasi. The Push hurled the two of them into the air; a hail of bullets sprayed through the space where they’d been. Unfortunately, they missed Tarson, who was rolling on the floor.
Marasi cried out, clinging to him as they flew up toward the brilliant chandeliers. Waxillium pushed off one of them, causing it to rock back and forth. That Push threw him and Marasi toward the nearby balcony, which was occupied by a group of cowering musicians.
Waxillium landed hard on the balcony; he was off-balance from carrying Marasi, and hadn’t had time to judge the Push precisely. They rolled in a bundle of red and white fabric. When they came to a rest, Marasi clung to him, shaking and gasping for breath.
He sat up, and held her for a moment. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “That was very brave, stopping the bandit as you did.”
“Seven out of ten kidnappings can be foiled by appropriate resistance on the part of the target,” she said, words tumbling out of her mouth. She squeezed her eyes closed again. “Sorry. That was just very, very unsettling.”
“I—” He froze.
“What?” she asked, opening her eyes.
Waxillium didn’t respond. He rolled to the side, pulling loose from her grip as he noticed the blue lines moving to the left. Someone was coming up the steps to the balcony.
Waxillium came up beside a large harp as the balcony door burst open to reveal two Vanishers—one with a rifle, the other with a pair of pistols. Waxillium increased his weight by tapping his metalmind, then heaved with a desperate flare of steel, Pushing against the harp’s metal mountings, nails, and strings. The instrument crashed into the wooden doorway and smashed the men against the wall. They slumped down, dropping to the stairs under the broken harp.
Waxillium ran to check their vitals. Convinced they wouldn’t be dangerous any time soon, he grabbed the handguns and dashed back to the edge of the balcony, scanning the room below. The furniture he’d Pushed out of the way made a strange perfectly circular open space on the ballroom floor. Partygoers were making for the kitchens in increasingly large numbers. He looked for Wayne, but saw only the broken bodies of fallen bandits where he’d been.
“Steris?” Marasi asked, crawling up beside him.
“I’ll go after her right now,” Waxillium said. “Some men towed her outside, but they won’t have had time to…” He trailed off as he noticed a blur beside the far door. It stopped, and suddenly Wayne was lying on the ground, blood pooling around him. A bandit stood above him looking quite pleased with himself, holding a smoking pistol.
Damn! Waxillium thought, feeling a spike of fear. If Wayne had been hit in the head …
Steris or Wayne?
She’ll be safe, he thought. They took her for a reason; they need her.
“Oh no!” Marasi said, pointing at Wayne. “Lord Ladrian, is that—”
“He’ll be all right if I can get to him,” Waxillium said, hastily shoving a pistol into Marasi’s hands. “Can you use one of these?”
“I—”
“Just start firing it if someone threatens you. I’ll come.” He leaped up onto the balcony railing. His way was mostly blocked by the chandeliers; he couldn’t make a direct jump to Wayne. He’d have to jump down, then up again, and bound to—
No time. Wayne was dying.
Go!
Waxillium threw himself off the balcony. As soon as his feet were free, he tapped his metalmind and drew forth as much weight as he could. That didn’t tow him to the ground; an object fell at the same speed, no matter its weight. Only air resistance mattered.
However, weight did matter a great deal when Pushing—which Waxillium did, throwing everything he had against the chandeliers. They ripped apart in a line, the metal inside them twisting upon itself, crystal exploding outward in a shower. That gave him plenty of room along the upper portion of the room to jump in an arc toward Wayne.
In a heartbeat, Waxillium stopped tapping his metalmind and started filling it instead, decreasing his weight to almost nothing. He Pushed on the broken harp behind, and a simultaneous quick Push against the nails in the floor kept him high.
The result was that he soared across the room in a graceful arc, passing through the space the large chandeliers had occupied. The glittering smaller chandeliers continued to shine on either side of him while crystal showered beneath, each tiny piece splintering the light into a spray of colors. His suit coat flapped, and he lowered the single revolver in his hand as he fell, pointing it at the bandit standing over Wayne.
Waxillium emptied six chambers at the thief. He couldn’t afford to take chances.
The pistol was slick in Waxillium’s hand as he hit the ground, Pushing on the floor nails to keep from breaking his legs. The thief slumped back against the wall, dead.
Just as Waxillium reached Wayne, a speed bubble sprang up around them. Waxillium exhaled in relief as Wayne stirred; he knelt to turn his friend face upward. Wayne’s shirt was soaked with blood, a bullet hole visible in his belly. As Waxillium watched, it slowly closed up, healing itself.
“Damn,” Wayne said, groaning. “Gut wounds hurt.”
Wayne couldn’t have kept the bubble up while the bandit was alive—that would have told him Wayne wasn’t dead. Outlaws and lawmen alike were accustomed to Metalborn; if the bubble had stayed up, the bandit would have quickly shot Wayne in the head.
So Wayne had been forced to drop the bubble and play dead. Luckily, the bandit hadn’t turned him over to check his vitals and noticed that the wound was healing. Wayne was a Bloodmaker, a type of Feruchemist who could store health in the way that Waxillium stored weight. If Wayne spent some time being sickly and weak—his body healing itself much more slowly than normal—he could store up the health and healing ability in a metalmind. Then, when he tapped it, he healed at a greatly increased rate.
“How much do you have left in your metalmind?” Waxillium asked.
“That was the second bullet wound of the night,” Wayne said. “I can maybe heal one more.” Wayne stood as Waxillium pulled him to his feet. “Took me a good two weeks in bed to store up that much. Hope that girl of yours is worth it.”
“Girl of mine?”
“Oh, c’mon, mate. Don’t think I didn’t see how you were looking at her during dinner. You always did like ’em smart.” He grinned.
“Wayne,” Waxillium said. “Lessie hasn’t even been gone a year.”
“You have to move on eventually.”
“I’m done with this conversation,” Waxillium said, looking over the nearby tables. Vanisher bodies lay strewn about, bones broken by Wayne’s dueling canes. Waxillium spotted a few living ones hiding behind tables for cover, as if they hadn’t realized yet that Wayne didn’t carry guns.
“Five left?” Waxillium asked.
“Six,” Wayne said, picking up and spinning his dueling canes. “There’s another in the shadows over there. I brought down seven. You?”
“Sixteen, I think,” Wax said distractedly. “Haven’t been counting carefully.”
“Sixteen? Damn, Wax. I was hoping you’d have rusted a bit, was thinkin’ maybe I’d be able to catch you this time.”
Waxillium smiled. “It’s not a competition.” He hesitated. “Even if I am winning. Some men got out the door with Steris. I shot the guy who took your hat, though he lived. He’s probably gone by now.”
“You didn’t grab the hat for me?” Wayne asked, sounding offended.
“I was a little busy being shot at.”
“Busy? Aw, mate. It doesn’t take any effort at all to get shot at. I think you’re just makin’ excuses on account of being jealous of my lucky hat.”
“That’s it entirely,” Waxillium said, fishing in his pocket. “How much time you have left?”
“Not much,” Wayne said. “Bendalloy’s almost gone. Maybe twenty seconds.”
