OUT OF THE CORNER OF his eye, Marcellus saw the flicker of circuitry. The glimmer of a glowing orange eye. And the unsettling sneer of an inspecteur who had waited a long time for this moment to come.
“If it were up to me, I’d pull the trigger right now,” Chacal said in a low snarl, pressing the rayonette harder against the side of Marcellus’s head. “You have made me look like a fool one too many times, Bonnefaçon, and I would like nothing more than to see a smoking black hole in your déchet-loving head.”
Marcellus sucked in a breath, his gaze darting around for Chatine. But his view was obscured by the hedges. He could no longer find her in the crowd.
“But unfortunately,” Chacal went on, “the general requests the pleasure of putting a pulse through your skull himself.”
“Chacal,” Marcellus began desperately, “I don’t think you understand. You don’t know what he has planned. You have to listen to me. My grandfather—”
“Shut up!” Chacal hissed in his ear. “You don’t outrank me anymore. You have no rank anymore. You are nothing but a useless traitor. Just like your father. And I am about to become a hero, delivering the general’s most wanted fugitive right into his hands.”
Marcellus saw it only moments before it happened. Chatine moved in a blur, her hands fumbling to attach some kind of small device to a nearby garden light. What is she doing?
Then, a strange zapping sound exploded in Marcellus’s ears. Like an electrical current shorting out. The entire banquet was suddenly swallowed in darkness as every light in the garden winked out in perfect unison.
The diversion worked. Marcellus felt the barrel fall away from his temple in a moment of surprise. He didn’t hesitate. He jabbed his hand into the air, knocking the rayonette out of Chacal’s hand.
“Sols!” Chacal swore, and Marcellus could hear the inspecteur rooting around on the ground, searching through the darkness for his fallen weapon.
Marcellus charged out of the hedges, moving in the direction of the stone steps, where he’d last seen his grandfather. He withdrew his own rayonette from the waistband of his pants and blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his vision, but still, he saw nothing. Nothing but a pristine, unblemished, and uninterrupted blanket of black that the stars in the TéléSky were too weak to penetrate.
Screams were erupting all around Marcellus. He was shoved violently from every direction as the crowd grew more restless and panicked in the darkness. He fought to keep his balance, but eventually the tide became too strong, and he felt himself getting swept up in its current.
Elbows jabbed at him and feet trampled on his toes. There was a splash behind him as someone fell into one of the fountains and began to flounder and cry out. Marcellus jostled through the commotion, trying to get closer to the steps.
Finally, he stopped and pulled his TéléCom out of his pocket, using the faint glow from the screen to light his way. He directed the light up ahead, toward the curving stone staircase, but he didn’t see the general. All around Marcellus, more lights came on as Skins were illuminated and TéléComs were unfolded.
Urgently, he swept his gaze around the garden, through the panicked turmoil. He could see officers and advisors stumbling and rushing toward the stage in the center of the Imperial Lawn, attempting to form a tight, protective circle around the Patriarche. Marcellus continued scanning the garden in a slow circle, casting the light from his device in front of him, until he was staring back at the stone steps.
But his grandfather was still nowhere to be found.
“Fric!” Marcellus swore aloud. He started to push his way to the stairs. He would search this whole Sol-damn Palais if he had to, but he would find General Bonnefaçon.
Another body slammed into him, knocking his TéléCom to the ground. Marcellus was plunged back into darkness. He dropped to his knees and raked his fingertips across the grass, which was wet and sticky from the spilt champagne. Shards of broken glass bit and snagged at his skin, but finally he grabbed hold of the Télécom, the device slick in his bloodied fingers.
He sprang to his feet and staggered the rest of the way toward the stairs, dodging banquet guests and panicked advisors and assistants trying to restore some semblance of order.
He was halfway up the steps when he heard the silence descend behind him. Eerie and sudden like the flick of a switch. It was as though Chatine had not only zapped the power from the garden lights, but from the crowd as well.
Marcellus’s feet dragged to a halt, and when he turned around, every droplet of blood in his body pooled, in one great showering gush, down to his toes.
In the darkness, it almost looked like fireflies. Innocent sparks of light twinkling amongst the hedges and the flowerbeds. Two hundred Skins flickering at once, flashing a deep, crimson shade of red.