Forty-Seven
The sun was setting.
In Zhabei, the streets were starting to fill with people again, so Juliette and Benedikt found no trouble hurrying through, passing soldiers without a second glance. The Nationalists could try as they wanted to keep this city under lock and key, but it was always too full, brimming with activity, and at the slightest whisper of a commotion, the people came out to seek it. Whispers were flying about the public execution. Word traveled fast among the workers, among the civilians who wanted a show, never mind where the political tide in this city turned. The only question was whether the Kuomintang had caught wind too. As nice as it would be if Dimitri Voronin was arrested and hauled in, Juliette had to hope that the Nationalists didn’t show up. Because then the Montagovs would be arrested alongside Dimitri, or simply shot.
“He gave you just one?” Benedikt asked now, his breath coming fast.
In sync, they swerved around a fallen rickshaw, Juliette circling left and Benedikt circling right, before meeting again and continuing onward on the street. There was a glow of light up ahead. The intersection of a street with a crowd gathered in thick.
“Only one,” Juliette replied, her hand patting her pocket to confirm. “I suspect he couldn’t produce more fast enough.”
“Damn Lourens for giving us something but not giving us enough,” Benedikt muttered begrudgingly. He sighted the scene up ahead too. “It does beg the question of us. We make use of the monsters for chaos . . . but what if they release their insects? In such proximity, it will be immediate death.”
That was the question Juliette had been mulling on since leaving the safe house, but slowly, something was beginning to formulate into shape. She looked up at the clouds once more and found them hazed with purple, dark and bruised. The deeper they walked into Zhabei, the more the storefronts around them changed, looking shabbier, less well kept. The foreign influence faded, the glamour receded.
“I have an idea,” Juliette said. “But can we hurry first? The fire station is some few streets away.”
They moved fast. When the station came into sight—its red tiled roof muted under the setting darkness and its smooth entrance lined with four gate-like arches—it was almost a surprise that the building was abandoned, given the supplies that sat awaiting inside. Perhaps the soldiers who had been asked to stand guard around the public facilities had all been redirected elsewhere, tending to the chaos around the city like a dozen little fires. They were in civil war. Communists popping up like moles from their hiding places and Nationalists desperately trying to thwack them back down so they could hold on to governance.
Juliette skidded into the station, immediately searching for what they needed. Her footsteps echoed loudly on the linoleum floor. Benedikt was making slower work, eyeing the labeled shelves while Juliette climbed atop one of the smaller firefighting cars to peruse the second floor. It didn’t seem like there was much up there, gauging by what she could see past the banisters.
“I can’t find a single damn weapon,” Juliette spat. “Not even an axe. In a fire station.”
“If this goes well, pray you don’t need a weapon.” Benedikt came around, showing her what he had found. A hose, looped around his arm, and two jugs of what Juliette had to guess was gasoline. “How are we supposed to carry this back there?”
Juliette jumped off the hood of the car. Then she looked at it again. “Can you drive?”
“No,” Benedikt answered immediately. “I’m not—”
Juliette was already opening the door into the passenger seat, reaching over and pressing the start button on the dashboard. The ignition came to life. As the night grew darker outside, the headlights flared a high beam, cutting a path ahead of them.
“Put the gasoline in the back,” Juliette said. “And drive.”
“Your idea is risky.”
“It’s a good idea. You cannot protest it merely because you have to stay behind.”
Benedikt shot her a glare from the driver’s seat, his foot on the pedal as the car inched down the road. They were almost at the intersection where the crowd had gathered. Now it was proper nightfall, the sky dark and the streets lit by gas lamps and torches, hot orange embers dotted among the people.
“It will guarantee their safety,” Juliette maintained. “You said it yourself—this whole execution business is symbolic. Dimitri is after Roma. He gains no extra points with Alisa. No extra points with Marshall. Second to Roma, there’s—stop here, stop here. We cannot go any closer.”