Forests of the Night

by S. Andrew Swann

  The Zips weren't subtle about it. They announced their presence by having a burning station wagon rocket into the building. She told him car wrecks were a territorial symbol for the Zips. The wagon was loaded with explosives and went off in the lobby. Not enough to do any major damage, but enough to spook the whole building and knock Angel out before she could get warning upstairs.

  She was only out a few minutes, just long enough for her and the ratboys to miss each other. The rats had made their way upstairs and she could hear gunfire and fighting above her. The Zips had left three as rearguard to catch stragglers. Two brown males and a white female hung around the open stairwell. Angel said she wanted to be sure of taking down one particular rodent. They didn't know she was there, the fighting covered her noise and the garbage covered her smell. She aimed her Nicaraguan ten-millimeter at the white one's head. Their leader, Angel said.

  She was about to lay a slug right between the white rat's eyes when the canine showed. "This guy was a chiller, Kit. Should've seen that righteous weapon." From Angel's description, that "righteous weapon" had to be a Levitt. It was two meters long, with a scope the length and twice the diameter of Angel's forearm. The canine was carrying the weapon in one hand, a tripod in the other.

  The newcomer was out of place at the scene of a gang war. The way Angel described him, the gene-techs that designed him were at least as advanced as the ones who produced Nohar's stock. That made the canine Pakistani or Afghan.

  Nohar had a bad feeling that he had met this canine before.

  Angel described a dog with the domestic veneer removed. The canine was lean and had a shaggy gray coat, prominent snout, green eyes. He stood about two meters and massed about 100 kilos. Angel said he looked mean enough to take a bite out of a manhole cover.

  "He had a raghead accent. Walked right to Terin— the white one—and asked, 'Is the roof cleared?' Ain't going to forget him. You could smell my people getting whacked up topside, and I smell him when he passes me. He was getting off. The blood was turning him on something fierce.”

  "She calls him Hassan, Hazed, Hazy—something like that."

  Damn it, it was Hassan. The same morey who offed Nugoya. Nohar shook his head. What the hell did a small time pimp and a gang war have to do with Daryl Johnson and the franks running MLI?

  "There's this mother of arguments between Terin and the pooch. The raghead is blowing my shot, standing right in front of me—"

  "What were they arguing about?"

  "Fuck if I know, Kit. Terin's pissed for some reason, like the dog is treading on her territory. She also rants about her best people being dragged otf to the four corners of the country—hell and gone, she said. Dog's frosty, though—think he's got the handle on the Zip's supplier, guns and drugs. Terin can mouth off, but not do much. Pissed her good.

  "After blowing off steam, she leads him up. There goes my shot. I might've written myself off to get Terin, but I wasn't about to give it up for two goons. I laid it low. Not that I wasn't tempted when they tossed Hernandez out a window, but not much I could do. I waited them out, hoping for another shot at Terin. Didn't happen."

  Nohar was sitting on the floor across from Angel. Cat, half wrapped in the shirt, had tired of his game and had come to rest by Nohar. Angel was chugging her third liter of water.

  "They caught up with you."

  "Inevitable. They knew all of us. Snatched me by surprise—five to one, they like that kind of odds—up the Midtown Corridor. Wasn't in Moreytown so my guard was off. Was last Thursday—end of the month— the day after Vixen bought it."

  Nohar remembered the burning Subaru and the dead foxes, both Wednesday.

  Angel was still talking. "Surprised they didn't vanish me then and there. Upset I'd survived, more upset I had been at the tower when the raghead dog showed—

  Someone saw me book outta there an' told the Zips. Terin wanted to know if I had told people, told her to fuck off. Pissed her good. Took me back to the tower an' pumped me with flush. Someone calling the shots said look like an O.D. That really pissed Terin. I could tell she wanted to off me painful. Must’ve been Friday when they left me. What day is it?"

  "Sunday."

  Angel yawned and stretched out on the couch. She barely filled a third of it. "Well, I'm getting some real sleep."

  She fell asleep instantly.

  They should have pumped another into her—but that would have looked like murder—and they were trying to make it look like an O.D.

  Why? Because she'd seen the canine? Again, what the hell did Zipperhead have to do with Daryl Johnson? Nohar had a nasty thought—another morey uprising? He shuddered at the idea. He'd been through that once already, when he was in the Hellcats. His own father had been shot, deservedly, by the National Guard.

  "Don't let it be a political killing," Nohar whispered to Cat.

  The express mail people had left a message for him. He'd have to come pick up his package of ID replacements, they didn't deliver to his neighborhood.

  Nohar let Angel sleep when he went out. Once he got most of his wallet replaced, Nohar realized there was nothing for his guest to eat. Nohar did some hasty shopping down by the city end of Mayfield Road, around University Circle. Then, now that he had a card-key replacement, he stopped at his office. The Triangle office building was a crumbling brick structure that was still trying to fight off the advancing decay from Moreytown. The brick looked like a patchwork from the many attempts to remove graffiti. It was getting dark, and the timers had yet to turn on the lights inside. There was just enough light to give Nohar a slight purple tint to his vision. He climbed the stairs in the empty darkness. Nobody else was around this late on a Sunday.

  His office lived in the darkness at the end of a second floor hallway. It didn't even have a number to distinguish it. The door was simply a fogged-glass rectangle with a basic card-key lock. Nohar ran his key through the lock and the door slid aside with a slight puff of air.

  The room was barely big enough to hold Nohar, even though it only contained two items of furniture— a comm that was a few generations out of date, and a file cabinet that was older than the building it lived in. Nohar knelt down and punched the combination on the padlock that held the bottom drawer shut.

  "Comm on."

  There was a slight change in the quality of light in the room as the screen activated. This comm was mute, the synth chip had burned out a decade ago. He made sure the forwarding list was up to date, and got a bit of a surprise in the mail—a note from Stephie Weir. She'd found his listed number. It had been forwarded to his home comm while he was out. He played her message.

  "Nohar, I need to talk to you. Can we meet for lunch tomorrow at noon? I'll be at the Arabica down at University Circle."

  That was it. At least the joint she picked for the meet wasn't adverse to moreys. Although Nohar wasn't a great fan of coffee or coffeehouses, the college crowd seemed a little more tolerant.

  He wondered what she wanted.

  Nothing more interesting on the comm, so he opened the file drawer. It was nearly filled by a dented aluminum case, about a meter long by a half wide.

  The electronic lock on the case had long been broken, and there were scorch marks on that side. There was a painstaking cursive inscription on the lid that contrasted with the ugly functionalism of the box itself. The inscription read, "Datia Rajasthan: Off the Pink." He pulled his father's case out of the drawer. The lock had been broken for nearly a decade, ever since Datia Rajasthan had been gunned down by a squad of National Guardsmen. Nohar'd gotten it a few weeks later when he split the Hellcats.

  Nohar opened it. The seal was still good. The lid opened with a tearing sound as the case sucked in air and released the smell of oil. Nohar looked at the gun. The Indian military had manufactured the Vindhya 12-millimeter especially for their morey infantry. A pink's wrist couldn't handle the recoil. It was made of gray metal and ceramics, surprisingly light for its size—the barrel alone was 70 centimeters long. The magazine held twe
lve rounds. There were three magazines in the case, all full. A dozen notches marred the composite handgrip.

  He held up the gun and cleared it, checked the safety, and slid a full magazine in. The magazine slid home with a satisfying solidity. The Vindhya was in perfect condition, even after ten years of neglect. The weight was seductive in his hand.

  Nohar had practice with guns before it was a felony for a morey to own a firearm, but he had never even taken this one out of its case.

  There were two holsters in the drawer. He left the combat webbing and removed the worn-leather shoulder holster. Nohar had never worn it, but he tried it on now. It fit well, comfortably, and that disturbed him.

  One final item—a file folder containing a sheet of paper and a card for his wallet. Both items were pristine, the card still in its cellophane wrapper. It was the gun's registration and his license to use it. They were still valid, despite the ban on morey firearms. He'd gotten them a year prior to the ban.

  He put the card in his wallet, bolstered the loaded gun, and, hot as it was, put on his trench. Nohar had brought the trench coat despite the fact there had been little threat of rain. He had brought it to hide the gun. He pocketed the two extra magazines and put the case back in the drawer. As he locked the drawer up again, he told himself he was never going to fire the thing, but he knew, if he'd really believed that, he would have never opened that drawer.

  Nohar left the office, the gun an oppressive weight under his shoulder.

  Angel was awake again when Nohar returned with the groceries. She began cursing in Spanish the second be opened the door. Nohar had thought he'd get back before she woke up. After an experience like she'd been through, she should have slept like the dead.

  "We had a fucking deal, Kit—" More Spanish. "You don't leave me alone like that."

  He ducked through the living room and into the kitchen, shucking the trench as he went. Cat followed Nohar, and the food, into the kitchen.

  "You listening to me, Kit?"

  The dry cat food was still covering the counter where he had spilled it last night. Nohar had forgotten the mess. He set down his bag and picked up Cat's dish. After rinsing it off, he swept about half the spilled food off the counter and into the dish. When he put it down, Cat pounced on the bowl, oblivious to the fact that it was filled with the same stuff that was on the counter.

  Nohar decided he could afford the waste and brushed the rest of the spill into the sink and turned on the disposal.

  Angel was leaning against the door frame. She looked a lot better. She had taken a shower, returning her dirty brown coat to its original light tan. Her ears had perked up, though even with them she was still over a meter shorter than Nohar.

  She was jabbering in Spanish, and Nohar knew she wasn't saying anything nice.

  He asked her what she wanted to eat.

  She walked into the kitchen and looked into the bag. She was still angry, Nohar could smell it, but her tone was softening. "And I thought you weren't a cop."

  "I'm not."

  She squatted next to Cat. She was calming down, and Nohar began to realize exactly how scared she must have been when she woke up here alone. Angel was someone who wouldn't like being scared. It would screw with her self image.

  Angel was looking at Nohar's left armpit. "What about the sudden artillery?"

  Nohar had forgotten the Vindhya. "Just because I have a gun—"

  "That righteous? That fine? Something that worthy goes for 5K at least. Tell me you bought it."

  She tried to pet Cat, but Cat was eating and couldn't be bothered. When Cat hissed at her, she stopped.

  Nohar began putting away the stuff he'd bought, tossing a half-kilo of burger into the micro for himself. "I didn't buy it. My father brought it over from the war. Got it when he died."

  She stood up. She wasn't argumentive anymore. She seemed to have gotten it out of her system. "Knew your sire?"

  "It's not unheard of."

  "Only morey I heard of with a set." She intercepted a bag of tomatoes he was putting in the fridge. "Even the rats make kids with a needle, and they're as common as fleas on a Ziphead. How'd two modified panth-era tigris ever get together to make you?"

  The micro dinged at him and he pulled out the burger. Angel's nose wrinkled. She was vegetarian.

  "Mother and Father were in the same platoon. He led a mass defection. The entire company of tigers, even the medic. Of all the cubs he must've made, I was the only one to track him down afterward."

  From her expression he could tell he'd talked too much. "Hot shit, that is a Vind twelve. You're talking about the Rajasthan Airlift. You knew Datia—"

  "Yes, I knew him. I don't want to talk about it."

  Nohar took his food and ducked into the living room.

  Angel followed, with her tomato, "Datia's a legend, the first real morey leader—"

  Oh, that was great. A true leader. Nohar whipped around to face Angel. Cat was there to pounce on a spilled hunk of burger. "Datia Rajasthan was a psychopath. He needed to be gunned down, and if you so much as mention him one more time I am going to hand-feed you to the Zips one piece at a time."

  Angel just stared at him.

  Nohar sat on the couch, ate a handful of hamburger, and turned on his comm to the news.

  Chapter 11

  Monday morning was breaking into a steel-gray dawn when the Jerboa pulled up in front of Young's shadow house.

  "Wake up, Angel. We're here."

  The rabbit, who'd looked like an inanimate pile of clothes until Nohar spoke, stirred. "Kit? Time is it?"

  "Five after." Nohar stood up and stepped over the nonworking driver's side door. Young's house was the worse for wear. The garage had gone up like a bomb. The only remains of it was a black pile of charred debris at the end of the driveway. The house itself had caught. Nohar supposed some burning debris had landed on the roof.

  There was a yawn from behind him that seemed much too large for the rabbit. "Five after what?"

  "Six." The fire had gutted the house to the basement. The windows looked in on one large, black, empty, roofless space. The two neighboring buildings—Nohar hoped they had been unoccupied—had caught, too, but had escaped with relatively light damage.

  "Six, Kit, this is no sane time to be awake—"

  "You said that when I woke you up."

  "Could have let me sleep—"

  Nohar shook his head. "Not after that tirade yesterday."

  Angel hopped over the door. She was dressed in an avalanche of black webbing and terry cloth that used to belong to Maria. The only clothing Nohar had for her. Somehow Angel had gotten the castoffs to fit her with a shoelace and a few strategic knots. The problem was, she smetled like Maria. "Couldn't wait till a decent hour?"

  "Quit complaining. If I had a safe place to file you, I'd do it. For now, you're along for the ride."

  Angel yawned again. Her mouth opened so wide it seemed to add twenty centimeters to her height. She shook her head and her ears flopped back and forth.

  "So, what we doing here?"

  Nohar started walking down the driveway. He could smell the gasoline. Even now, after at least one night of rain, there was still no question of arson. "I want to see if anything made it through the fire."

  They passed the rear of the house, and the damage was much worse. The entire rear wall of Young's house had collapsed. The siding was sagging and puckered and bowed in the middle. Angel was only a few steps behind him. "Hope you're not talking architecture. This place is worse than the tower."

  Nohar wasn't talking about architecture.

  There's a difference between a supervised, methodical destruction of a body of records—Nohar was pretty sure Young was trying to torch, judging by the volume, close to everything in the Binder campaign finance records—and the accidental combustion Young had initiated. Something would have survived.

  Apparently he hadn't been the only one to think so. He walked up to the spot where the garage used to be. The charred r
emains were in piles that were much too neat, and it looked like someone had gone through the ashes with a rake. "Damn it."

  "What's the prob?"

  Nohar waved at the garage, and expanded the gesture to take in the entire backyard. The rear lawn had been turfed by truck tires to the point that no grass was left. "Someone beat me here. Whoever it was, shoveled up everything Young didn't torch."

  Nohar wasn't expecting to find the piece of evidence, but it would have been nice to find something. Angel was walking around the backyard, wide feet slapping in the mud. When he had looked for clothing for her, Nohar couldn't find a damn thing that even resembled a shoe for a rabbit.

  "What am I looking for?"

  Nohar was surprised Angel wanted to help. He supposed she was bored. "It was mostly paper. Some might have blown to the edges of the property where our trash-pickers missed it."

  That was a bit of wishful thinking. The plot was bare of even normal garbage. Nohar supposed the people with the truck had grabbed everything that had even a slight chance of having been part of the records. They had a full weekend to work in. They were very thorough. Nohar wondered if they'd been the cops, or Binder's people, or MLI, or—

  Nohar looked up from the edge of the driveway he was examining. "Angel? Do the Zips have any workings with a congressman named Binder?"

  Angel's laugh was somewhat condescending. "Must be kidding. Zips and politics? Me becoming president'd happen sooner. All Zips want is a free hand to deal their flush."

  Nohar shrugged. A connection seemed unlikely, but he couldn't deny the fact that there was a connection— somewhere. Hassan was involved with the Zips, and it looked like Hassan killed Johnson. But Hassan wasn't working for the Zips. If anything, it looked like the other way around.

  "Were the run-ins with the other gangs because of the drugs?''