Sam Marlowe's Arc

Chapter 11 of 14

The fog still hung over the water when Sam turned the wooden model in his hands. The Mayor was gone. Blackwater's boat had slipped away. Dolly stood close, watching the carved boats and the little grounded U-boat, all frozen in the wood. Sam knew what the relic could do now. He didn't know why it worked, or who he could hand it to without dooming the city. Every boss still wanted it. He needed answers before someone took it by force. "Somebody knows what this is," Sam said. "Better than me." A voice answered from the mist. "I do." A thin man stepped out along the bank. Ginger curls stuck out under a cap with a feather. He wore a tweed coat with patched sleeves and a grin like he'd won a bet nobody else knew about. Sam had never met him, but he'd felt eyes on his back for days. The stranger held a small notebook, one finger keeping a page. "You've been following me," Sam said. "For a week." The Watcher didn't blink. "You carry the seam in your hands." Dolly moved between Sam and the stranger. "Say what you mean." "The carving isn't a map," the Watcher said. "It's a lock." He nodded at the harbor, at the still boats and the shapes sunk under the water. "Every boat, every wreck, carved where it sits. Match the model to the real harbor, the wall opens. Break the model, the wall opens for good." Sam's mouth went dry. "The Mayor almost burned it." "Then he almost let the thing out." The Watcher flipped his notebook shut. "The bosses think it buys power. They're wrong. It buys a door. Whoever cracks it drowns the city." Sam looked at the wood. He'd chased it thinking it was worth killing for. It was worth more, and worse. He couldn't hand it to a boss. He couldn't give it to the cops. He couldn't destroy it. He couldn't even keep it, not with Malone hunting him. "Who taught you this?" Sam asked. "Someone who told me to look away at the end." The grin held. "I never do." "Then help me hide it," Sam said. The Watcher shook his head. "I track things. I don't carry them." He tucked the notebook into his coat and stepped back into the fog. "But I'll warn you. The one nobody names already knows you have it. He doesn't want power. He wants the door." He was gone before Sam could ask more. Dolly touched Sam's arm. "You know what it is now." "Yeah." Sam wrapped the model in his coat, hiding the carved boats. His hands weren't steady. "It's a lock. And I've got it, and there's a boss out there who wants to open it. Not to win the city. To sink it." The question of what the relic did was answered. A worse one had taken its place. Sam started walking, the door to the city held against his chest.