Chapter 881 - 881: The Reaper Chose The First Fare

The lower gauge skipped every seventh beat of Kegaku's heart.

Palla felt the missing stroke through the iron collar. Her damaged palm jumped against the hinge bolt, and the needle dropped on the same count. Above them, the funeral engine made another circuit of Switch Nine yard, dragging both pump returns past the building while Kegaku's heart worked beneath the wheels.

Six beats reached the pipe. The seventh fell through the black seam below.

The speaking tube carried Toman's voice from Gate Three.

"The inner wheel just kicked backward and broke another man's thumb."

Denna took the tube from him. Blood had dried across her lower lip.

"Clear every worker above the blue stair and leave the wheel tied."

"The lower ward loses drainage if I abandon this station."

"Your station is draining into a place buried outside Sadle. Clear them now."

Toman swore away from the mouthpiece, then started calling names. This time he called living workers. Palla listened until the eleventh answered.

Senn stood near the maintenance door with Orin holding his burial shirt closed. The brass fitting that had occupied his heel lay in Palla's hand, warm whenever Kegaku's engine passed.

"I need this fitting for one test, and you can refuse before I touch the hinge."

Senn looked at the fitting, then at Toman's bloody ledger on the bell controls.

"My daughter gets the pay, and I leave with Orin afterward."

Toman pulled the speaking tube from his mouth long enough to answer.

"Your conditions remain recorded even if the whole station floods."

Senn nodded to Palla. Orin kept one hand ready beneath Senn's elbow while Palla lowered the fitting between the four blackened bolts.

It clicked into a groove hidden under the paint.

The seam below opened the width of a fingernail.

Cold climbed the grille and caught in the breaks of Palla's hand. The same hinge had struck her fingers flat before Erebos came for Kegaku. He took the prisoner, the door, and enough wall to leave the execution room open to winter.

Palla pulled the fitting free. The seam narrowed.

"The brass completes the old hinge, but it cannot hold the road open alone."

Denna knelt beside her with the cutter jaws spread around the return pipe.

"Then I remove the pipe while it still remembers how to close."

The Reaper dropped from the upper platform and drove its damaged hook through the center of the collar.

The black seam opened to the width of a hand.

Ty struck the grille on both knees. Jade caught the cable around his waist before his left ribs hit the iron. The strip of coat binding them tore through its knot, and two chipped bones pulled toward the opening.

The Reaper leaned on its shaft from above. White frost ran down the hook and entered the return line.

"The hook already owns part of Ty's wound, so it holds the far side open."

Jade looped the cable around the bell frame and took the strain across her shoulder.

"Then find me the third side before his ribs become luggage."

Palla put her damaged hand back on the collar. Six heartbeats struck her palm. The seventh vanished through the hook.

"Kegaku's living rhythm is reaching it through the pump return."

Denna closed the cutter jaws until the pipe groaned.

"I can stop the heartbeat, hook, and fitting with one cut."

"You also end the second pump and drop Gate Three on your workers."

"Those workers are above the blue stair because I moved them."

"The ward behind them is still full of patients who need the freight lifts."

Denna looked toward the speaking tubes. Toman was ordering handcarts into the upper corridor. No bell answered him. He had to repeat each instruction because frightened workers kept talking over his voice.

Ty's left arm slid between the grille bars. Jade hauled the cable and pulled him back one link at a time. The Reaper turned its hook inside the collar, widening the seam until Palla could see a stone floor beyond it.

Black bars crossed that floor. One carried a fresh scrape at ankle height.

Palla knew the height because the lower bar had crossed Kegaku's ankles when Erebos tore the door free.

"The prison side still has his lower bar."

Ty caught the cable with his right hand while his left ribs dragged against the grille.

"That sounds like proof. I would enjoy less of it now."

Palla shoved Senn's fitting into the upper hinge groove and twisted it sideways. The seam pinched around the Reaper's hook. Frost cracked off the shaft, but the opening stayed wider than her hand.

The fitting controlled width while the paid claim held the opening.

Denna saw it too. She released the cutter and pulled her rail key from the chain inside her coat. The metal teeth carried every freight line she had earned since she was sixteen. A red burn had already started beneath the marshal crest.

"Tell me where the wedge belongs before this key dies uselessly."

Palla pointed between the lowest hinge bolts. "Turn it against the old keeper notch and stop when the gauge stutters."

Denna drove the key into the notch with the flat of her cutter. The first turn stripped the blue freight enamel from its teeth. The second made every route lock in Switch Nine snap shut.

Toman ran down from the upper speaking platform.

"You just closed my east drainage and both clinic lifts."

"Open them by hand after the lower ward finishes evacuating."

"That takes six crews and the city will send none after this."

He reached across Denna for the emergency crank. Palla caught it first with her good hand. Toman hauled against her until the old gears turned half a tooth, and the black seam widened around the Reaper's hook.

"That crank feeds the buried return before it reaches either lift," Palla said.

Toman let go and stared at the city route marks cut into the crank housing. He rubbed one with his bleeding thumb. The mark stayed blue. Someone had painted the ordinary drainage map directly over the older line.

"I signed six repair orders for that crank last winter."

"Then your office paid six crews to maintain Erebos's road," Denna said.

Toman grabbed the handle of Denna's rail key before she could make the third turn.

"When that identity strip burns, every city lock will treat you as a trespasser."

Denna twisted the key against his grip. The hot crest opened the split in his palm, and he released it with a curse.

"Find six living workers and put their wages on the first page."

Denna made the third turn, and her rail key burned white inside the notch. The identity strip in its handle blistered, curled, and dropped her employee number onto the floor as black flakes. Somewhere above, the private lock on her tool cabinet released with a dull clang.

The lower gauge stuttered, and the seam pinched until the Reaper's hook barely fit. Ty rolled away from the grille with Jade's cable still tight around his waist. One rib remained caught against the iron until Jade braced her boot beside his spine and pulled it free.

Palla removed Senn's fitting. The road stayed narrow around Denna's key and the Reaper's hook.

The Reaper released its shaft and closed its empty hand around Denna's key.

Denna struck first. Her cutter cut through two white fingers, but the remaining hand tore the key from the keeper notch and pushed it through the seam.

The route closed on the Reaper's wrist. It braced both feet while something pulled from the prison side. The severed fingers on the floor crawled toward its heel and stopped there.

Toman reached for the fitting. Senn caught his sleeve.

"You already used my body once today, so leave my property alone."

Toman let his hand fall. Orin guided Senn through the maintenance door, keeping himself between the dead porter and every clinic line.

The funeral engine passed outside again. Kegaku's seventh beat struck the collar and found no open road.

The Reaper jerked backward, and Denna's key shot out of the seam and struck the grille. Its teeth had melted together. A black restraint wire passed through the hole in its handle, pulled tight toward the prison side.

Something pink had been caught beneath the wire.

Jade crouched without releasing Ty's cable. She touched the strand with one finger, then followed its length to a knot tied around the ruined key.

Her damaged eye opened far enough for white to show beneath the lid.

"This belongs to Ashaiki. Kegaku took it after Masabi broke her neck."