The Sunken City Trilogy

by Phil Williams

  “Show me how.”

  Landon did so without question or pomp, waddling to the drip and disabling it at a tap in the middle. He disconnected the cable, slid a bedpan out from under the bed and left the tube hanging in, liquid oozing out. He paused a moment, studying his work, then walked to a small unit of drawers and searched for something. He came back with another bag of clear liquid, which he hooked up alongside the original, and plugged this into Rufaizu’s arm. “To keep him hydrated. I’d give him a few hours, at least. But that’ll do it.” Landon nodded satisfaction, then said, “Got something for you to look at in the meantime. Upstairs.”

  She gestured for him to lead the way, and gave the sleeping youth one last look before following Landon out into the corridor. She glanced over her shoulder, in case anyone was watching, feeling naughty.

  “There’s been no signal on Barton’s phone,” Landon said, as they continued towards the stairs. “Support’s done limited checks into surveillance footage for the Bartons and my car, but they hardly had the manpower for it. It’s just Roper on it this evening.”

  Roper. Sam pictured him; usually found in the hours when the more competent workers had clocked off. He was pushing retirement age, always wore woollen tank tops and made coffee at a snail’s pace.

  They climbed the stairwell to the sixth floor, the main office. The lights were dim, desk lamps glowing where Roper and a younger analyst were working, two aisles apart. They were staring into their screens like zombies. Sam asked Landon, “Has Mathers left specific orders for the overnight search?”

  “Watch the figures, that’s all.”

  “And you’re going back out on patrol?”

  “Not right away. I’ve got a waterway sighting to follow up on, but that can wait. Here, what I thought you might be interested in. We recovered this from Ms Kuranes’ apartment when we got hold of the Fae weapon.” Landon guided her to one of the side-desks, where a massive leather-bound book lay, an ancient tome like something out of a centuries-old monastery. Its title was viciously scratched into the front.

  Apothel’s Miscellany.

  “We’re in luck,” Landon said, opening it and tapping a piece of paper inside. Crumpled but white, much newer than the book. There were lots of similar leaves sticking out. “Seems Ms Kuranes did a job of translating it.”

  “All of it?”

  “A fair chunk.”

  Sam turned a few pages, glancing from cryptic symbols and sketches of savage monsters to the rounded lettering of Pax. The existence of this book had been rumoured for years, but, like the Fae’s Dispenser, no one thought it had survived Apothel. The state of the chapel suggested he would have destroyed it, in his descent. She’d ignored it in Casaria’s reports herself, and a quick scan reminded her why. Between the things they knew to be true, such as the sickles and the wormbirds, were creatures of pure invention and wildly inventive maps with no resemblance to the world the Ministry had charted.

  “Until the boy wakes up,” Landon said, “I figured this might be useful.”

  “Has it been analysed?”

  “No one’s had time.”

  Sam settled on a drawing that had to represent what Apothel believed about the praelucente. It showed a trainload of commuters, their souls being sucked out of their bodies, with the margin notes labelling it as the minotaur’s grasp. And the title, in large symbols, was paired with Pax’s handwritten translation.

  Grugulochs.

  That same word, written on the chapel, and heard, in some form, by Malcolm Joseph that morning. The Ministry were wrong to discount Apothel and those connected to his legacy. Sam called out across the room, “Roper? Are you busy?”

  The old man was startled, as if he’d not realised there was anyone else there. The night staff were typically engrossed in piecing together the various energy readings that could indirectly measure the more mysterious force of novisan; they didn’t often need to interact with real people.

  “I need you to look into the novisan levels across the city,” Sam instructed. “See if there’s any suggestion that the levels don’t merely decrease with the praelucente’s surge, if they change elsewhere at the same time. Agent Landon, I’d like very much if you’d find –”

  “Excuse me,” Roper responded, turning quizzically in his chair. “Who are you?”

  Sam paused in disbelief.

  “Damn it, Roper,” Landon grumbled, “you don’t know the Head of IS? She’s our ranking officer right now. And she just gave you a damn order.”

  Sam felt her cheeks flushing. This was it, then, her chance to do something useful with the office, if only for one night. Between Landon, this old man, a dusty book and a drugged youth, maybe she could resolve the crisis by the morning. She completed her instructions: “Agent Landon. Please find Casaria.”

  21

  Pax tied the bike helmet’s straps round the handlebars, taking in her target warehouse against a sky painted purple by the setting sun. The workhouse, as Bees called it, was a huge brick cube with high latticed windows and a couple of chimneys out back. It would’ve been an eyesore elsewhere, but it blended in to the widely forgotten warehouse district.

  Letty pushed out of Pax’s coat pocket and flew to head height. “Looks like a fucking abattoir.”

  “It might’ve been,” Pax said. In a way, it still was; she’d heard drills and saws and seen bloodied aprons in there. It was possible they were butchering illegally imported animals. But not likely. When Bees brought morbid hypotheticals to the poker table, the topics tended to hint towards getting away with crimes or getting people to talk. Most people laughed it off as dark humour, and Pax hoped some of it was. Bees and Mr Monroe were not bad people, even if they operated in a bad business. Not like Jack the Tee, a wayward poker player who you wouldn’t dare look in the eye. Surely?

  Pax’s stomach turned at the thought of going in there, and she wondered if picking up a burrito on the way had been a mistake. Would projectile vomiting in fear serve as a good distraction if she needed to escape?

  She asked Letty, “You’ll come with me, right?”

  “Yeah,” Letty said. “I’ll go through the roof.”

  “Pocket’s not good enough for you now?” Pax half-joked, wanting her closer.

  “Pocket’s not good for any Fae,” Lightgate said, descending with the grace of an angel. Holding a refilled hip-flask. She pointed it at Letty. “You ought to be ashamed.”

  “Spin on it,” Letty replied. “Let’s rip your wing off and see how you travel. Besides, didn’t you always say we oughta make slaves of the lummoxes?”

  Lightgate looked away, uninterested, to let out an unashamed belch. “You know we could get Casaria out of there without the human.”

  “What?” Pax exclaimed. There was no way that would end well, considering Lightgate’s turnbold plan. “No. They’re reasonable guys, I can talk them around.”

  “Reasonable people who abducted a government agent?”

  “If he’s here. Just lay low,” Pax said. “Let me handle it.” Lightgate gave an unconvinced your funeral shrug, so she added, “We’re mates.”

  “Unless you say the wrong word by accident,” Letty said. “If these pricks are the sort of people that hang around here, icing them might be the best move.”

  “Shouldn’t one of you be the good conscience?” Pax said, looking from one bloody-minded little angel to the other. “Neither of you think I can resolve this peacefully?”

  “You’re a human,” Lightgate sighed. “I assume the worst.”

  “I can do it without making a scene,” Letty said. “Blow off some steam.”

  “Please don’t,” Pax said. “Besides them being, as I said, mates, I’m pretty sure their roots run deep in this city. There’d be consequences.”

  “For you,” Lightgate said.

  Pax gave Letty a sideways look, asking her to settle this. Letty said, “Fine. But we’ll be ready.”

  Pax took a deep breath and started walking, pushing her hands deep i
n her pockets. The two fairies took off towards the sky as she approached the massive steel door that opened into the warehouse. No sounds of drills or saws, at least. Maybe they weren’t in.

  She knocked, and the metallic ring bounced into the distant valleys of warehouses. Almost immediately, the door squeaked open on rollers.

  “Pax,” Bees said, unsurprised to see her. In his filthy apron again. His grey face had taken on a little colour, the skin almost black under one eye, surrounded by purple and yellow. The white of one eye was tinged red with blood.

  “Jesus, did you nut a girder?” Pax asked.

  “No,” Bees said. “I’ve been trying to call you. Better come in, hadn’t you?”

  Bees stepped aside and Pax entered after the briefest hesitation. Something in his face, and that response, told her their assumption was absolutely right. He’d gone after Casaria and he knew where he was. Bees pulled the squealing door shut and moved towards a corridor. Pax followed cautiously. The place seemed empty and inactive. She glanced back to the door. Probably too heavy to open if she had to run.

  “You been busy, Pax?” Bees asked. “How’s everything going? With the spooks and that.”

  Pax chose not to get into it, and instead asked, “Is he here?”

  Bees gave her an appraising look over his shoulder. “Last I checked, there’s in the regions of 7.6 billion people in the world. Roughly 50.4% of whom are male. An ambiguous question like that offers an approximate 3.83 billion choices for me to answer. If you include animals and other personified objects, a lot more.”

  Pax let him talk, imagining he’d practised this speech. He led her into a room lit with the greenish yellow buzz of an ancient bulb. An ante-chamber with three metal doors and a drain in the centre, fed by gutters between the tiles. If it wasn’t an abattoir, it did an excellent imitation.

  “First off,” Bees said. He put a hand in his pocket, rummaging. He seemed huge in this tight space, with the room making threats for him. Pax cringed at his minty fresh breath, which seemed somehow worse than the halitosis his appearance suggested. He drew out a bunch of keys. Her keys, her casino-chip keyring; the set she’d given him when sending them to her apartment. She slowly took them as he said, “Sorry we didn’t deliver, you’re probably aware we had complications.”

  “Yeah. I’m hoping I can help you with that.”

  “Help me?” Bees’ eyes smiled. “At this moment, knowing me, and my talents, as you do, do you think I’m a man in need of help?”

  “Bees,” Pax said. “If you’re stepping on the toes of the Ministry of Environmental Energy, then yes you need help. If you don’t think so, then you definitely need help. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “Not knowing,” Bees said thoughtfully, “is rather the point. I wasn’t sure you were coming back and we had some questions that wanted answering.” His eyes fixed on a door and Pax followed his gaze. It had great rusted fixings, a cell fit to cage a bull. “It might be best if you walk away, Pax. We talk much more and you’ll become complicit.”

  Christ, had they killed Casaria in this vile dungeon? She answered quietly, “Whatever you’ve done, or are doing, it’s no worse than the secrets I’ve already got.”

  Bees kept staring, giving nothing away. He moved towards the door, and Pax swallowed as he opened it. “This way, then. ”

  A waft of fresh air swept in, the door opening onto a long, cracked path that led to a single-storey brick office, tiny against the surrounding warehouses. The lights were on, windows yellow.

  “The boss is in session,” Bees said, “he’ll want a word.”

  Pax followed him across the open court, scanning the sky hoping to see the fairies, but finding no sign of them. They reached the squat building and Bees led the way inside, voices audible from somewhere beyond. He wiped his hefty boots on a mat and called out, “Mr Monroe. Got someone eager to talk to you.”

  A rough voice shouted from the next room, “Come on through.”

  It was Monroe’s broad Farling accent, Ordshaw’s answer to Cockney.

  Bees and Pax passed the desk and chairs of a waiting room. A notice board with yellowed posters. Fagan’s Falsies - You’ll Never Know They’re Not Real. A middle-aged lady grinning for England. Pax muddled through the tongue-twister. Was this an old dentists’ surgery? She followed Bees to a staff room with built-in cupboards and shallow sofas. A blond hulk lurked by a counter with a can of beer: Howling Jowls Jones, grinning at Pax. The boss put down a cup of tea – china, saucer and all – and stood from his sofa. He straightened out his woollen suit jacket.

  “Pax, right?” he said. He had a round, rugged face with a receding hairline buzzed short. Deep lines of experience lined his brow and cheeks. “We played together at The Grand?”

  “Once or twice,” Pax said. The boss offered his hand and Pax noted he was barely taller than her. His firm, businesslike squeeze reminded her his personality made up for his height. The sort of old-school criminal who considered it gentlemanly to use darling and love as pronouns. His palm was damp.

  “Sorry,” Monroe gave a warm smile, patting a handkerchief to a sweat bead on his forehead. “Afraid we’ve been busy.”

  “Getting some exercise, I swear,” Jones laughed, then rubbed his square jaw like it hurt. His skin had taken on new colours, like Bees’. Casaria’s doing?

  “Yeah,” Monroe seemed to guess her question. “We’ve got you to thank for this particular situation, ain’t that right?”

  “I didn’t mean for…” Pax started, cautiously. They definitely had him. They were men capable of kidnapping a government agent. This was real.

  “It’s alright,” Monroe said. “Been a pleasure, if I’m honest. I could use a man like him, in other circumstances. Got a lot of fight for a civil servant.”

  “He’s a bit more than a civil servant,” Pax warned.

  “Indeed.” Monroe picked up his tea again. “Where’s our manners? Three ugly men and a pretty young lady and we ain’t even offered you a cuppa? What’ll it be? Got a feeling you don’t take sugar.”

  Pax frowned, not sure what that was supposed to mean. “No, thanks, I’m fine. You know what this is about?”

  “Not exactly. These boys had their theories, but they always do, don’t they? Shit, you know them. Your tight-lipped pal, he’s not been particularly helpful either.” Monroe took a sip from his dainty cup, a crack of culture in his otherwise boorish facade. Pax watched his little finger, hoping he’d stick it out like royalty. He didn’t. “You want to enlighten us?”

  She didn’t want to tell them anything, now that he asked. It would hardly help her case with Lightgate and the Fae if she opened the doors of the Sunken City to more violent humans. But his boys had their theories already; her best bet was playing on their paranoia. “I crossed paths with this Ministry of Environmental Energy a few days ago. They’re shady bastards. The resources they’ve got at their fingertips – city-wide surveillance, phone tapping, satellites, heat sensors. All to protect the tunnels I told your guys about yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” Monroe said. “The tunnels. I thought these boys were shooting the moon. Should’ve taken it seriously, shouldn’t I?”

  Like kidnapping a government agent over it wasn’t serious? Pax said, “The tunnels are real, the MEE’s power is real, and they defend this kind of knowledge with a vengeance. I need to get the Ministry to back off, and Cano Casaria is my best option.”

  “Hear that, boys?” Monroe turned a look to his goons, and Pax realised how quiet both of them were. Possibly the longest she’d seen either of them hold their tongues. “She’s looking to back off a government ministry. All by herself?”

  Jones broke his silence, “Pax is a sprite, boss. First time I met her you know what I saw? She folded second nut to that florist fuck from Wong’s Tuesday Hold ’Em game. Lost a pot that’d make your nose bleed, folded second damn nut. She took this guy’s needling for two months of games before making this monster call and busting his arse.�
� Jones whooped. “I swear. It was, what, King, Eight –”

  “Cute,” Monroe murmured, to avoid the full details. “So you’re a girl who plays the long game. Who thinks she can back off the government.”

  “Yeah,” Pax said. No sense in being shy about it. “Minus the girl bit.”

  “Pax?” Jones laughed, loud, eyes wandering to her crotch. “I had no idea. How –”

  “She’s talking about respect, moron,” Monroe said. “I apologise, darling. Anyone can see you’re a lady.” Pax gave a slight smile. The important thing was he thought it was an improvement. “Respect is why we’re here right now. Your tunnels, all that aside – this government agent, he showed up my boys. That’s bad for my business. My men” – he nodded to them each in turn – “look visibly worse for wear, don’t they?”

  “You’re concerned about losing face? To the Ministry? They’re a government –”

  “We’re at war, Pax,” Monroe explained. “Not one you regulars hear about, but a war all the same. It’s bloody. You know what it is we do?”

  Pax shook her head, thinking she’d really rather keep it that way.

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters is there’s others that want to take over from us. Heard of the Seventh Street Regulars? Yardies. Jamaican kids with attitudes and guns. We didn’t ask for any of that shit in Ordshaw.”

  “You’re losing me,” Pax admitted. The last thing she needed was another secret war on her conscience. “What’s a gang war got to do with the Ministry? With Casaria?”

  “We’re not violent people,” Monroe said, perhaps the least believable comment Pax had heard in a week spent learning about fantastic monsters. “They forced this on us, the Yardies. We gotta protect what’s ours, don’t we? You ask me what it’s got to do with your pal Casaria – that’s twofold. First, those tunnels of yours, if they exist, they’d help us avoid violence. Imagine us operating under these Yardies’ feet.”

  “Can’t fight us if they can’t see us, can they?” Jones contributed.

  So it wasn’t just smuggling contraband they wanted the Sunken City for. They had more enemies than the law. But that wasn’t all.