“With the rumours circulating,” Rolarn continued, “I’ve seen a few old faces floating around Ordshaw. Unexpected ones. I’ve got a truce with the Tupsom Trawlers right now.”
“Arnold’s lot?” Letty frowned at the name. The Trawlers were a low-rank street gang from the south of the city, the sort of thugs who slashed human tyres in the name of Fae supremacy. Gutter trash lacking Rolarn’s more idealistic politics.
“A mutual benefactor brought us together,” Rolarn said. “Someone come back from abroad. As it happens, it’s someone who didn’t believe all this talk out of the FTC, either. Someone interested in meeting you.”
“Fucking say the name already.”
“No,” Rolarn said. “Not without a meeting.”
Letty held back, sensing the gravity of his caginess. When you didn’t want to throw a Fae’s name around, it had to mean a very high price on their head. Valoria’s team of exile hunters, the Stabilisers, were expert at picking up on such names. So Rolarn had the ear of someone dangerous, who had both the funding and the charm to bring together the likes of Rolarn and the Trawlers. Maybe exactly what they needed, maybe the exact opposite. Letty said, “And what’s this someone gonna want from me?”
“That depends on your connection,” Rolarn said, “to the human.”
Letty hesitated, instinctively keen to keep Pax away from such a Fae. “This mythical human I’m friendly with? Responsible for losing our tech?”
His face didn’t shift, stoic as a statue.
“This feels like bullshit,” Letty said, shouldering her backpack over her artificial wing. Now she had two constricting straps on her chest. Great.
Rolarn stepped out of her way, wordlessly inviting her to leave if she didn’t like it.
“That’s it, you’re letting me walk?”
“You’re the one that came here,” Rolarn said. Way too fucking sure of himself.
“Say there was a human,” Letty said. “Say she helped me out. She’d be just about the only person who has. I wouldn’t be inclined to get her in trouble, would I?”
It wasn’t something a Fae should admit to, in front of a Fae patriot, if she wanted to stay alive. Yet he said, “No.”
“She’s good people,” Letty reaffirmed. “The sort we need.”
“Then we’re on the same page,” Rolarn replied dryly. “You captured the FTC’s attention. Everyone’s remembering how dangerous the humans are, imagining how monstrous it was what happened to you. Presents an opportunity.”
Letty could see where it would take them well enough. Use Pax as some kind of totem, get the Fae’s blood up. A great excuse to attack Val and her council. She said, “I’m not here to bring down the FTC. The Dispenser is the opportunity. We use it to take back the Sunken City, Val and her refugees can spin on it.”
“Sure,” Rolarn said. “But one thing doesn’t exclude another. And you need protection.” He paused, reaching a particularly complex conclusion. “Bring the human here, and I’ll bring my chief. We’ll figure something out.”
“Tell me who your chief is and I’ll think about it.”
“That’s not my offer,” he said.
Letty had an urge to smash in his unemotive eyes, make her own offer. Only he was right, even if her instincts warned her off. She’d come for help, and this place was big enough to hide the humans. “I don’t want to incite chaos. If that’s your idea, or your chief’s, you can fuck off right now. Understood?”
Rolarn was frozen, like someone forgot to pay his meter.
“Say something, you walking roulade.”
“Bring the girl, talk with my chief.”
“Give me your number,” Letty conceded, but repeated, “I’ll think about it.”
9
Sam found Casaria’s building porter housed near the bottom of a stairwell, in an office barely big enough to fit his chair and a mop and bucket. It was a stark contrast to the hallways she’d navigated to find Casaria’s apartment, with their waxed floors and leather-bound entrance doors, but it suited the building. The obnoxiously tall half-glass tower lorded its wealth in contrast to its surroundings, all looks over practicality. The soulless interior made Sam happy she’d never visited when Casaria invited her. She could still see his face, the smile when he tried to hide his disappointment at her rejections, and she disliked being there now.
One of the few comments Landon had made on the way was to double-check that she was sure she wanted to see Casaria. Of course, she didn’t bear the man any ill will. It wasn’t personal when she reported him. Realistically, it could have helped his career if it set him straight. Though she couldn’t deny the slight relief that he hadn’t answered his door while she was alone. She hoped Landon would find a parking space and catch up to her before she caught up to Casaria.
After a quick knock on the porter’s door, she said, “Apartment 1302. I need to get in there.”
“Excuse me?” The porter looked up from a moisture-warped book. A smutty romance, by the cover. He had a face like a sick horse and an overlong neck, sticking out of a doorman’s suit two sizes too large.
“I need to get into Cano Casaria’s apartment. Do you know him?” The man stared, so Sam prompted, “Handsome, wears a suit, looks Latino but he’s not.”
“That’s about half the people that live here.”
“Only comes out at night.”
“Ah.” The man gave a one-sided smile. “Hunts undesirables for the government?”
“He told you that?” Though they were strictly forbidden to mention the Sunken City to civilians, and trust was the foremost reason that the MEE didn’t hire more people, there weren’t specific rules about what agents should tell people. Mostly because it was bloody obvious they shouldn’t allude to the truth. This was hardly a surprise, though: for his faults, Casaria trumped most of the MEE with his enthusiasm. Sam had never had to wait for him to find a parking space, and it was pride in his work, after all, that had led to him engaging her after only a single drink. Which had led to a welcome career shift from Lyndale Finance, even if it had come with a misguided mentor.
If only he could iron out the niggles, such as looking for trouble, Casaria could be a very effective agent. That was what her report had meant to highlight. But there’d been no anger management classes or more conscientious partner pairing, only Casaria going back on patrol after a short reprimand. In the rare moments between night and day when their paths crossed in the office, his previously awkward small talk was replaced with silently malicious glares. She had, for some time, hoped to better explain how he might channel his potential. But that would’ve meant talking to him.
“Fun guy,” the porter said. “We got to talking when I made a comment about his clothes, dressed like he’s going for a business meeting in the dead of night. He said I didn’t know what he did for this country.”
“Okay. Did you see him come in this morning?”
“Nah, but he often slips in while I’m doing the dawn rounds.”
“Can you open up his apartment for me?”
The porter rolled his mouth around uncomfortably, like he knew he should kick up a fuss. But he also knew Casaria and understood some things weren’t worth questioning. “I assume you’ve got some kind of credentials?”
“You can assume that, yes.”
“Always the ones that look tightest, isn’t it?” the porter commented, as he stood behind Sam in Casaria’s doorway. How the man would think Casaria, never seen without a hair out of place, was secretly filthy, was beyond her. This was clearly a crime scene.
There were clothes all over the studio apartment, pots and pans out in the kitchen, paperwork scattered across the floor. The place had been searched, thoroughly and methodically, from the neatness of the papers. It was too tidy for a robbery; someone had been looking for something. Sam checked the documents. Utility bills, bank statements. Not much in his account, which was unsurprising considering the rent here.
Had the Fae come and taken him, wanting thei
r weapon back? If it really was their technology, their Dispenser, even, then it’d be hugely important to them. But if they were aware the Ministry had the Dispenser, they surely would have realised it was impounded in Greek Street. If they wanted to strong-arm Casaria into recovering it, why the search? And shouldn’t Casaria have had a Fae detector in the flat?
“Sorry it took so long.” A huffing voice made Sam turn. “It’s a –” Landon stopped, breathless, in the doorway. The agent’s expression supported her conclusion, but he said it anyway. “They came for him?”
“What?” The porter started. “You mean –”
“Where do we start?” Sam asked Landon. She wasn’t going to pretend she knew how to handle a crime scene. Landon hesitated, not trusting himself with the responsibility either, so she raised her eyebrows for him to get started.
He turned to the porter, saying, “You’ve got security cameras here?”
“You mean –”
“Go down to your office, retrieve whatever footage you have from last night. No one’s to come up until we say so, understood?”
“Should I call the police?”
“We’ll take care of it,” Landon said. “Go.” The porter nodded and scampered away. Landon turned back to Sam. “This is exactly what Casaria said was gonna happen. Should’ve known. The Fae are out of control.”
“We don’t know it’s the Fae,” Sam said.
Landon frowned. “Who else?”
“I guess we find that out?”
They walked in together.
“Everything’s been moved,” Landon said. He pointed a thick finger at the carpet, indentations near the faux leather sofa’s legs. He nodded to a hanging picture, where a sliver of discoloured wall was visible along its edge. Landon voiced the question that was forming in Sam’s mind. “Why would they check there? Only a few places their weapon could’ve been.”
“What else would they be looking for?” Sam asked.
“From the looks of it...whatever they could get.”
“Uh-huh.”
In the elevator down, Sam processed their initial inspection, leaving Landon to continue searching. If this was the work of the Fae, she could definitely involve IS now – but Casaria did have Fae defences, and they were still active. And logically, any information the Fae could get off an agent like Casaria would be trivial. Her gut said it wasn’t them, even if that meant she’d be taken off this case. But who else? It couldn’t be a random burglary: nothing appeared to have been taken. As Landon had pointed out. He had also answered her unspoken concern, which must have shown on her face, that the Ministry themselves would never leave a scene like this. Their incompetence lay in the bureaucratic realm; leaving such a mess after disposing of a liable agent was unthinkable.
Sam found the porter reading again, as though nothing had happened. He looked up curiously. “Find anything?”
“The security footage?” she said.
“Oh, that.” He took his feet down off the mop bucket. “Yeah. It’s a no.”
Sam paused. “It’s a what?”
“No. There’s no footage.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s blank,” the porter said. “Didn’t record.”
Sam almost laughed. “You’re serious?”
“As a beef dinner,” the porter said. “I’ll show you if you like? It’s just a blank file.”
“How?” Sam could scarcely form a sentence, stunned.
“Happens sometimes. It’s all digital, automatically loops to a new recording. Every now and again it glitches and does the wipe but doesn’t restart. You have to hit record manually. We check it at least once a week. Guess Larry missed it yesterday.”
“Once a week?”
The porter’s crooked face suggested he’d seen how hard she was taking this. “It’s not as useful as you think, you know. When there’s like, six, twelve hours of footage to look through, most people say forget about it.”
Sam swallowed her agitation. There were a hundred responses she might say, chief amongst them being are you a complete imbecile and does doing a job ever actually matter? Instead, she said, “Have you got anything else that might help? It’s a new building, do you track who comes in the door? Anything like that?”
The porter’s pitying expression said no.
“Anything at all?”
“Oh. There was something, don’t know if it’d be connected. Few hours ago I had to scrub up something outside the main doors. Might’ve been blood?”
Sam smiled into her disbelief. If Casaria were here, he’d assault this man. But that was the difference between him and her, wasn’t it? She dealt with her emotions calmly. Through the gritted teeth of her uneasy grin, she asked, “How much blood?”
10
“Alright four-eyes,” Letty said into the phone, “put Pax on.”
“Um.”
“Today.”
“It’s – it’s for you,” Dr Rimes stuttered. Letty waited for them to swap the receiver as she buzzed over a neighbourhood of square terraces, various shades of red and grey.
“Hi?” Pax said, cautiously.
“I’m done. What’s the plan?”
Pax paused, probably needing a moment to remember that Fae could use phones. She asked, “What do you mean you’re done?”
“I met with Rolarn. He’s got a place big enough for all of you, better than that Ministry haven you’re in now. But I get the impression things have been moving quickly in Fae circles. He’s in league with someone, and that’s not normal. He wouldn’t tell me who, which is extra bad. So tell me you’ve got a better plan than relying on my people.”
Pax paused to digest that little nugget of essentially bad news. “Well. There’s somewhere Apothel used to go with the others, seems he clawed shit in the walls, the same way he did with the book. You know it?”
That brought back memories. Letty said, “Half his crazy hideouts got locked down by the Ministry. I spent months, years, searching the crap he left behind for clues to where he dumped the Dispenser. What makes you think there’s anything left now?”
“This one was in Ripton,” Pax replied, like that mattered.
Letty slowed down. “His chapel. One of his favourites. I went there once. Got a good enough look to know he didn’t leave anything behind. The place was empty, even the cellar. We watched the MEE board it up; all they took out was junk furniture. You want to get yourself on the Ministry’s radar for what, to feel his aura?”
“The writing on the walls, maybe he left something.”
“What writing? The guy was nuts. He left nothing remotely legible.”
There was movement around Pax, in the background, suggesting they were already underway on this dumb plan. She said, “I’d still like to give it a go. Barton said he contacted the Blue Angel nearby, too.”
Letty tutted. Stubborn as a damn squirrel. “And you reckon you can do the same?”
“I’m going there to find out,” Pax said.
Pax cut the engine to Rimes’ scooter and allowed herself a few moments of deep, relieved breathing, squeezing the handles to keep herself from trembling. Driving was as terrifying as she remembered, especially on this exposed little vehicle. The one saving grace of the bike was how small it was, so she didn’t have to guess how close she was to hitting obstacles. She could feel it. She’d flinched every time she passed a vehicle, even the parked ones, and a blaring car horn had almost knocked her off.
Pax took off her vintage disguise of a leather helmet and rust-framed goggles. They matched the scooter’s cracked leather seat and duct-taped mirrors perfectly.
“Didn’t realise you were coming in fancy dress,” Letty said, as the fairy appeared between Pax’s hands. “The Ministry have a blind spot for 1920s aeronauts?”
Pax smiled, her tension defusing at the sight of her tiny companion.
“Thing like this?” Letty stomped on the bike. “Gun it hard enough, it could make you cum.”
“Is that how you get
off?” Pax gave the fairy a questioning look.
“It’s the doctor’s, right? Would explain a bit, wouldn’t it?”
Pax smirked but left it at that, not wanting to insult Rimes when the doctor had taken them in and given her the scooter and a surprisingly modern smartphone for use as a satnav. Rimes hadn’t even pressed for information about Pax’s friend, who no one was pretending wasn’t a fairy.
Pax took the phone from the frail mount in the middle of the handlebar, making Letty skip out of the way. The building she’d arrived at was a square launderette with a yellow-on-blue sign: Suds Fun! It sat between a convenience store and a closed flower shop, the rest of the street a line of brick townhouses with white-framed windows. The area was small-scale and grimly unimaginative, with no trees or bushes, just the occasional weed poking through a pavement crack. Typical Ripton.
“The blue screen,” Pax said, “should be around the corner.”
She stood, opened the seat of the bike and squeezed the helmet and goggles in, then paused. Now the tension of the bike ride had passed, she realised her fingers were tingling and her heart felt oddly warm. Somehow bigger, notably present in her chest. She had the same feeling she’d got looking at the points on the map or the face in that news article about the burst gas main. The feeling she associated with that bizarre dream. What if the minotaur had permanently damaged her somehow? Messed up her whole central nervous system? As the sensation faded, she looked up and saw a couple of women walking towards them, one pushing a pram.
Pax quietly told Letty, “You might want to lay low.”
“Bollocks,” Letty said. “No one’s gonna notice me unless you draw attention.”
“I see you well enough.”
“Because you’re you. Keep quiet, let them pass.”
The woman approached, chatting loudly: “Don’t advertise it that way, that’s all I’m saying. Wherever I got it, the coupon’s valid, ain’t it? You gotta honour it.” They eyed Pax as they passed, but kept talking. “By rights, it was my bloody burger, wasn’t it?”
“By rights. No doubt.”
The Sunken City Trilogy Page 38
