The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

“They broke the wall. If they did it on purpose, they don’t give a damn about who gets sick, or how sick they get. They’re poisoning the woods, everything in ’em, and anybody who passes through ’em. And they don’t give a damn. ”

“And they let the rotters out,” Zeke noted.

“Did that on purpose, too, I expect. ” Angeline rose out of her crouch and urged them to do the same, then led a careful march toward the jagged hole. As the boys followed, she added under her breath, “Probably thought it’d be easier if they only had to fight Yaozu—and not every dead thing in the city, while they’re at it. ”

Rector cleared his throat. “Yaozu said we need the rotters. ”

As if this was precisely the prompt he’d been waiting for, Houjin immediately blurted out, “He needs them so bad, he’s making them!”

Everyone stopped and turned to stare at him. Angeline asked, “What did you just say?”

“He’s making them,” he repeated, and it sounded like a plea for something. Understanding? Reassurance? “When we first went to the Station,” he said, thrusting a thumb at Rector, “Yaozu’s men locked some other men outside without masks. They were brand-new rotters. You saw it, didn’t you?”

“We didn’t see anybody lock anybody outside,” Rector said carefully.

“You weren’t paying attention, or you weren’t thinking about it. Those men were unarmed, unmasked, and just barely dead. They hadn’t been exposed for more than a few minutes before we got there. They’d been put out—as some kind of punishment, or Yaozu didn’t like them, or whatever reason. It was obvious. ”

If Angeline was surprised, she could’ve fooled Rector. “I wouldn’t put it past him. H

e wants the rotters to keep him company for exactly this reason. ” She flapped a hand toward the hole in the wall, and whoever had made it. “They’re guard dogs, is what they are. And when they disappear, that leaves nobody but his hired hands watching the place. A man who’s been bought and paid for can change his mind. Yaozu trusts the rotters more than his own people. ”

Zeke had been silent, soaking it all in. But then he said, “I know you don’t like him, Miss Angeline, but the devil you know wouldn’t put a hole in the wall. ”

Grudgingly, she replied, “You’re not wrong, but let’s not call him the cavalry yet. Let’s go get ourselves a gander at the breach. It might tell us something. ”

After another ten minutes of hushed hiking and breathless silence, their masks were not clogged yet, but clogging. They wouldn’t be comfortable outside for very much longer without taking a break to adjust their filters, and everyone knew it, but this was too big to ignore. And it was urgent enough to investigate despite the creeping peril of equipment that could not keep them safe forever.

For the wall was not merely cracked, and not merely burrowed through.

It was shattered—split in an untidy slash from top to bottom, its rubble scattered in every direction. Blocks had been smashed into houses, lodged in the tops of brittle trees, and tumbled across what was left of the streets.

Zeke whistled quietly, a short note of awe. “What could do something like that?” he asked. “Did … did a ship crash into it, or something?”

Houjin shook his head. “Dynamite. I bet you anything. ”

Zeke asked, “But wouldn’t we have heard it?”

They all stood in silence gaping up at the fissure when two thoughts clicked together in Rector’s head. “That storm, a couple of weeks ago. There was thunder, remember? Everybody talked about it, since we don’t ever get none, hardly. ”

Angeline pondered this. “We might’ve heard dynamite, and mistook it for weather. Not bad, Red. That’s as good a guess as any. ”

“If he’s right, it’s been like this for weeks,” Houjin mused. “That’s plenty of time for animals to get inside and get sick. ”

“Plenty of time for man-shaped animals to get inside, too,” the princess said.

“Look over there…” Zeke said, peering off to the north.

Rector followed his lead and saw a swath of hazy yellow burning weakly through the fog. “Is that … light? I thought we were practically at the end of the wall. ”

“There ain’t much wall at this northeastern side, that’s for sure,” Angeline confirmed. “But it goes around farther to the north, then back to the east. As for over there…”

Then Houjin said slowly, “It’s the old park, isn’t it? Up near the big houses, where the rich people used to live. ”

“This whole hill is where the rich people used to live,” Zeke told them. “My momma’s place was back down the hill a few blocks, over to the south. ”

“Yeah, but I mean the really rich people. The men who owned the mills, and the logging company. They lived along Fourteenth Street, and the road stopped at the top of the hill, where they were going to put a park. ”

The princess nodded. “They started building it not too long before the Boneshaker came. They put down a cemetery, too, on the other side”—she waved her hand to suggest a distant location—“and they filled it up with people who’d been dead for years and years and buried downtown once already. ”