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A scream pierced her ear. Juliette startled, registered it as coming from the main restaurant.
She barged out of the washroom. In seconds, she had hurried to the source of the scream, panting for breath as she searched for victims. She found only one man collapsed on the ground. Her eyes landed on him in the same second that his hands launched around his neck.
But nobody went forward to help him. Even as he tore into his throat, littering chunks of skin outward along a small radius and eventually stilling into death, the people of the restaurant continued on. Only one elderly lady at the back waved down a waiter to clean the scene. Some others had hardly flinched, acting as if they had not noticed, as if not acknowledging death would offend it enough to have it go away.
Civilians were ripping out their own throats and the people of this city had become so desensitized that they were content to continue their dinner like it was a regular Tuesday. Juliette supposed it was. If this continued, it would be the norm until the whole city collapsed. It was only a matter of time until every small establishment in Shanghai emptied out, either because their customers had succumbed to the madness or because others wished not to attend places where infection was likely. A matter of time until Scarlet-assisted businesses ate through their savings and could no longer make rent even despite Tyler’s threats, until large restaurants of this size crumbled too. There were red roses sprouting forward on every second door along Scarlet territory. Warnings upon warnings, but what good were warnings in the face of madness?
“Hey,” Juliette snapped when the waiter crouched near the dead man. “Don’t touch him.” Her tone scared the waiter enough to send him scrambling back. “Put a tablecloth over the body and call a doctor.”
Nothing was a guarantee. She needed Roma’s help to fix this city. But she also needed to stop sitting around and making excuses.
She needed to weasel her way beside Paul Dexter.
* * *
At this hour it was hard to find the line in the horizon where the waters ended and land began, where the Huangpu River bled into the bank on the other side. When Benedikt was sitting by the water’s edge, looking out into the night, it was easy to forget the swirling concoction of red and gold and smoke and laughter that existed in the city behind him. It was easy to believe that this was all there was: an unshaped land, blotted with the faintest dots of glitter from the other bank.
“I thought I would find you here.”
Benedikt turned at the voice, letting his leg swing over the boardwalk. The light that framed Marshall stung at Benedikt’s unadjusted eyes when he looked upon him.
“It is not like I go anywhere else.”
Marshall shoved his hands into his pockets. He was dressed nicely in a Western suit tonight, which was rare but not unusual, not if Lord Montagov had just sent him somewhere on an errand.
“Do you know how long the Huangpu River is? You’re picky, Ben. I don’t think I’ve ever found you in the same spot twice.”
Beneath them, the river seemed to rock in response. It knew that it was being gossiped about.
“Did something happen?” Benedikt asked.
“Were you expecting something to happen?” Marshall replied, coming to sit beside him.
“Something is always happening.”
Marshall pursed his lips. He thought for a second. “No, nothing happened,” he finally said. “When I left him, Roma was drafting a reply to a message from Juliette. He’s been at it for three hours. I think he’s going to pull a muscle.”
Roma did nothing half-heartedly. Whenever he visited Alisa’s bedside, he would stay for almost half the day, his other tasks be damned. The only reason Lord Montagov allowed such inactivity from him was because he knew Roma would enact his other tasks with his full attention eventually, as soon as he left the hospital.
“Better to pull a muscle than to pull out his own throat,” Benedikt muttered. He stopped. “I don’t trust her.”
“Juliette?”
Benedikt nodded.
“Of course you don’t,” Marshall said. “You shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean she’s not useful. It doesn’t mean you have to dislike her.” He gestured toward the alleyway. “Can we go home now?”
Benedikt sighed, but he was already getting up, dusting off his hands. “You could have gone home on your own, Mars.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Benedikt would never understand how often Marshall needed to be surrounded by people. Marshall was allergic to lonesomeness—he had once genuinely developed a rash because he sat down in his room and forbade himself from leaving until he balanced an account book. Benedikt was the opposite. People made him sticky. People made him think about his words twice as hard and sweat when he didn’t pick them right.
“I don’t suppose you’re in the mood to stop by a casino first?” Marshall asked when they started to walk, grinning. “I heard there’s—”
Midspeech, Marshall suddenly halted in his steps, throwing an arm out to snag Benedikt back. Benedikt needed a few seconds to see why they had stopped. He needed a few more to truly comprehend what he was seeing.
A shadow—stretching on the pavement in front of them. They were still midway inside this alleyway, too deep inside to look past the tall buildings on either side and determine what was making the looming shadow. The streetlamp was not far; the outline shining down was stark and well defined, leaving no mistake for the sight of horns, for limbs that moved with a pained stagger, for a size that was incomprehensible for anything natural.
