As Winter expected, Phoebe and River got along great, and River was grateful to have something to keep him occupied. Now she had to hope he wouldn’t let it stop him from resting. His cough was still too strong for Winter’s liking, though it was blood-free.
After leaving the two to their work, Winter spent as much time as she could spare on Saturday searching for the notebook that had vanished from the secret lab. By noon on Sunday, she had to face the fact that despite her desperate hopes, she hadn’t misplaced it. Someone had come into the lab and stolen it. Not only was there another way in, but there was someone else out there who knew about it.
The question was whether they were a friend of the Plague Saint, or an enemy.
Winter’s search for another hidden passage yielded nothing. Wherever it was, it was far better hidden than the entrance from the first lab.
Finally, she was forced to quit for the night. She had the general assembly meeting at the church and still had no idea what that was going to entail. And before she left, she had one last thing to do.
Instead of combining every plague in her new serum, she left out yellow and green. She didn’t plan to use it, but knowing she had the option made her feel more secure.
She made the trek to St. Andrew’s alone, for the first time in her life. She’d never expected she’d visit the church without her parents dragging her along. But she’d also never expected to become a killer.
The lights were on in the chapel, casting a warm glow across the snow. You are the Plague Saint, Winter reminded herself as she reached the double doors at the entrance. She had nothing to fear. These people needed her. They thought she was on their side.
The chapel was full of people dressed in the nicest suits one could find in Devil’s Pass, with the occasional dress here or there. Winter stood out, but she’d expected that.
“Plague Saint!” Mayor Atherton noticed her as soon as she entered—most people did—and hurried to meet her. “Follow me. There’s a spot for you at my table.”
Winter scanned the clusters of people as they walked and was surprised to glimpse a familiar face near a drink table: the man who’d been standing outside River’s hospital room. Did she dare ask?
“Mayor,” she said, hating the way the word slid off her tongue. She nodded to the man in the green suit. “Who’s that? I noticed him at the hospital the other day.”
Atherton followed her gaze. “Oh, George Gordon. Smart man. He runs the city’s largest food packaging factory.”
River’s boss. That explained it.
“He’ll be joining us soon, actually.” Atherton stopped in front of a table and gestured to an empty chair. “Once he’s finished discussing trade with those diplomats from south of the pass.”
The mention of visitors from other communities surprised Winter, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. There was another familiar face at the table. As Winter settled into her chair, she studied the woman in the lavender pantsuit across from her, trying to place her.
Atherton introduced her. “This is the city’s financial advisor, Ellen Bates.”
Winter had seen her speaking to the mayor at church, she realized. She nodded. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Sitting to the right of Bates right was a man Atherton introduced as Jonathan Forrest. Winter knew the name. He was responsible for designing the trolley system that had been installed in the pass a decade earlier, a welcome upgrade from the old vehicles that had been used to bus people around. Rumor had it the money the city had paid him in exchange was exorbitant.
Forrest also had a reputation for being a charming and funny guy, and he had plenty of admirers among the people of Devil’s Pass. If they hadn’t met him, they’d read interviews with him in the paper, where his strong persona came across even in print.
He was younger than most of the others in the room—late thirties, probably—and had a messier look than the city officials. His clothes were just as expensive, though, even if he’d abandoned his suit jacket and failed to button his bright yellow shirt up all the way. His auburn hair wasn’t slicked with gel or neatly combed, either, but his confident air made it look playfully ruffled rather than unkempt.
Though his obvious wealth undoubtedly helped, Winter thought bitterly.
For the next few minutes, Atherton and Forrest did most of the chatting. Then, they were joined by George Gordon. Winter seethed quietly under her mask as he took the last empty seat at the table.
“The supplies?” Atherton asked.
Gordon nodded. “They have the resources to double our orders, if we can afford it.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” Atherton chuckled. “Especially with the new laws going into effect.”
A commotion at the edge of the chapel made Winter turn. A wave of church maidens entered the room one by one, carrying platters of food and drink. One approached their table quickly.
The others at the table eagerly took small plates of meat and salad. As Atherton took a glass of wine, he glanced at Winter. “You’re not going to eat, Plague Saint? I’m sure everyone here would be delighted.”
“I think the city knows me well enough by now to know the mask stays on,” Winter replied coolly. After a moment’s hesitation, the church maiden hurried off to the next group.
Across the table, Bates raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?” she asked. “What reason do you have to hide your identity?”
Winter’s fists clenched in her lap. “The last thing I need is people banging on my door all hours of the day, begging for a cure I can’t give them.”
It was convincing enough, apparently. “Fair enough, Saint,” Atherton said with a smile. “Though I hope you’ll come to trust us.”
“I’m sure, with time.” Winter needed to change the subject. “Mayor Atherton, what’s this new law you mentioned? I’m afraid the hospital’s been keeping me too busy to follow politics as closely as I’d like.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have heard about this in any of the papers,” Atherton told her. “My council hasn’t announced it yet.” He leaned toward her and spoke in a low voice. “I’m going to do what no one before me was able to do: I’m going to end the plagues.”
Sure. Because that worked out so well for all the previous politicians who thought they could do it.
“And I’m going to need your help, Plague Saint.” Atherton gave her a cold smile as he continued. “You’ve done so much for us already, under Adams’s direction. And it’s all been building toward this.”
It should have been a good thing to hear that the mayor had a plan for the plagues, but Winter couldn’t believe it. What the hell was Atherton going to do that no one else had thought of? The plagues were too damn persistent, and even the real Plague Saint hadn’t found a permanent cure. Only treatments that kept the patient alive long enough for them to hopefully recover on their own.
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Winter asked.
Atherton straightened up in his seat. “Well, we’re in a bit of a lull right now, but before long we’ll have another serious wave of cases. You know how it goes.”
Winter nodded. It might be strange to think of the city as being in a lull with the number of patients she saw every day, but she could recall times in years past when things had been much worse. Times when it had been better, too. Another spike would come along sooner or later.
Atherton went on. “People get less careful, the hospital loosens restrictions on quarantined patients, medicine production goes down, and then there’s another big outbreak.”
“We’ve tried to prevent that in the past,” Winter said. “No matter what precautions the hospital takes, people relax. Become less careful. Especially younger ones who haven’t seen a lot of outbreaks.”
“Exactly!” Atherton exclaimed, his abrupt increase in volume nearly making Winter flinch. “They get sick and spread it around. How many stories have you heard of sick people still going to work?”
“Well, most of my patients tell me they have to get back to work as soon as possible, or they won’t be able to afford to pay rent or feed their families—”
It was as if Atherton hadn’t heard her. “They have no regard for others. They put themselves above the rest of the population.”
The irony of Atherton’s words would have been funny, if they didn’t make Winter want to kill him then and there. River wasn’t selfish. He’d been ready to die to earn enough for another meal for his family. And the man who owned the factory, the man who was really at fault for letting River stay at work while sick, was sitting mere feet away from Winter.
Atherton’s rant wasn’t over. Completely oblivious to the fact that Winter was fuming, he added, “And then, when they finally do go into the hospital, they waste valuable supplies that could have gone to someone actually contributing something to this city.”
“Like the people in this room?” Winter deadpanned.
“Exactly.” Atherton took another sip of his drink. “So, I was saying this at the last meeting, and I said—Jonathan, what was it I said exactly?”
Forrest laughed. “You said, ‘it ought to be illegal.’”
The words turned Winter’s blood to ice. “Illegal, to—?”
“To put us decent people in danger like that,” Atherton said. “And Gordon told me…”
“‘You are the mayor, after all,’” Gordon chimed in. “I see kids get carried out of my factory every damn day. If I could do something to stop them from showing up sick in the first place, I would.”
How about not punishing them when they call out, moron. Winter swallowed her rage, but she couldn’t stop it from simmering in her chest. Give them sick pay so they can keep themselves fed until they can come back in. That had to be cheaper than burning through employees and constantly training new ones, right? It had taken River months to learn the full scope of his job and work at the same speed as the employees who’d trained him.
Even if not, Winter was sure that punishing them with threat of termination was stupid. Especially if Gordon was going to turn around and act like they wanted to come in sick.
“I thought we could throw them in prison, but I don’t think there’d be enough room,” Atherton continued. “And why lock ‘em up, anyway? If they want to work so badly, let them work. We’ll just put them all somewhere where they won’t infect anyone else. The new law will get them assigned somewhere, and our first new location will be run by Mr. Gordon here.”
Gordon nodded. “I have a few workers in the hospital right now,” he said.
River. Panic joined Winter’s fury. Her pulse quickened. What are they going to do to River?
“Once they’re released, they’re not going back to their old jobs.” Atherton took a sip of his wine. “They’ll get a community service sentence to work in the new factory we’re building at the edge of the city. The supplies I’ve got coming in are to finish up the construction.”
A prison. Atherton might say otherwise, but that’s what it was. Hell, it was death row. And…it didn’t make any sense. Despite what the mayor said, this wasn’t going to stop the plagues. This was just going to get people killed. A bunch of workers whose immune systems were already compromised from being sick, thrown together with people recovering from different plagues? People who might still be contagious, if they weren’t properly tested before being discharged from the hospital?
“They’ll all die,” Winter realized. She didn’t mean to say the words aloud, but they came out all the same. Quiet. Cold.
The sentiment didn’t bother Atherton. “And they’ll do us some good before they do.”
Not just the people working in the new factory, but the families they went home to…
“What are you making in the new factory?” Winter asked. Her mind was screaming at her, her body throwing out alarm signals like a racing heart and nervous sweat. She needed something to focus on. And gathering information was her best move right now.
“It’s a bottled drink factory,” Gordon told her. “Nothing terribly interesting. Obviously, we’ll take precautions on the production lines, but it’s not the kind of stuff anyone in here would be drinking, anyway.”
He meant people in this room, Winter realized.
As long as they were safe, they didn’t care that they’d be putting more lives at risk. What a terrible way to stop the plagues. Making it illegal to be sick. And they’d even found a way to profit from it.
“And when will this new law be put into place?” Winter asked. She couldn’t bring herself to sound thrilled about it, but she could manage the usual deadpan tone of the Saint’s persona.
“I’m announcing it at the city council meeting at the end of this month.” The wine glass went back to Atherton’s mouth. “Of course, a majority of the council will have to approve it, but that won’t be an issue.”
“There’s more to stopping the plagues than just punishing the people who are spreading them,” Bates said. “Plague Saint, would it be possible for you to treat people in advance? Give us something that will make us immune?”
There wasn’t a way to guarantee complete immunity, as far as Winter knew. Maybe giving them the treatment while they were healthy would help prevent infection, but she wasn’t the scientist the real Saint was. Not that it mattered to her. “I have been working on something along those lines,” she said. “It will be expensive to make, though.”
“Not a problem.” Bates gave her a thin smile. “I assure you, there’s room in the budget.”
But not room to pay Phoebe?
“We’ll get you the money and the supplies you need to make your treatments,” Atherton said. “We can discuss numbers later this week.”
“Hopefully, we can avoid another tragedy like Adams’s death,” Bates added.
Everyone else at the table nodded solemnly. Winter tapped her fingers against her lap. Her next question had to be navigated carefully. For all she knew, she could be a suspect, after all. Voice low, she asked, “Has the city guard revealed anything new about the investigation into his death?”
Atherton sighed. “I spoke to the captain on the case this morning. He can’t find any evidence that it was anything other than serious illness, but I’m not entirely convinced. Adams was a powerful man. He had enemies like the rest of us.”
“Of course,” Winter said. “Have you decided who you’re going to assign to replace him, yet?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to a few candidates.”
The conversation moved away from the Saint and the hospital, leaving Winter to silently battle the anger threatening to boil over within. The others at the table discussed people’s lives like they were nothing more than gears in a machine. As if all that mattered was whether they were making the city money or losing it. The night dragged on.
Maybe rage was overwhelming any other emotion Winter might have felt—guilt, fear, hesitation—but the decision to poison George Gordon was an easy one to make.
Slipping the new serum into his drink was trickier.
Winter kept an eye on him as she endured over an hour of conversation, hand on the vial in her pocket, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Her chance finally came when Bates and Atherton left to discuss budgetary matters with an education director. Gordon and Forrest remained at the table, deep in conversation about something related to trolley maintenance. And another round of church maidens arrived to circle the chapel with trays of drinks.
Winter pushed her chair away from the table and rose to her feet. “Would you two care for another drink while I’m up?” she asked. “I’m afraid it’s about time I left.”
“Yes, thank you Plague Saint,” Forrest said. Gordon nodded, and Winter took that as yes.
She walked toward a maiden lingering at the edge of the table arrangement, drawing the vial from her pocket and unscrewing the cap with one hand as she moved. With the other hand, she reached for the maiden’s tray. “I’ll take two, please.”
The maiden nodded silently. Winter took the first glass and passed it to her other hand, the one with the vial. As her hand wrapped around the glass, she tipped the vial and let a few drops spill into the drink. She grabbed the second drink quickly and hurried back to the table.
She set Forrest’s glass in front of him first, then used her now freed hand to grab Gordon’s while leaving the vial hidden—hopefully—in the other. Her hand closed around the vial the moment the glass was free, and she could only hope the movement of the drink was enough to distract anyone looking from glimpsing the poison.
Winter’s eyes darted to Forrest as he picked up his own, untainted drink. She didn’t have much of a read on him yet, and although she doubted he was any better than the other people here, she wasn’t ready to kill him about it.
Yet.
That thought made her freeze. Gordon was taking his own drink now, and oh god she was really doing this again, wasn’t she?
She left the table quickly after that but paused on her way out to say goodbye to Atherton. “I’m afraid I have other matters to attend to tonight, but I hope I’ll be able to help you fix the problems plaguing Devil’s Pass,” she told him. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Outside the church, Winter stumbled down the snow-covered hill and into an alleyway, where she leaned against the cold brick wall of a building and pulled off the hat and hood and suffocating mask. Cold air flooded her lungs. For the first time in her life, it felt good. With a shaking hand, she pulled out the locket. Opened it. Stared at the old photo.
She’d killed the Plague Saint for her mother, and Adams for her brother. And now Gordon would die for her family too.
Not just for River, she reminded herself. For all the people they’re going to kill.
This was the most anger she’d felt in a long time. The most anything she’d felt in a long time. For once, she wasn’t just going to work day after day, wondering if things would ever change.
Now, she had a mission.