Death Blows

by D. D. Barant

  “And neither have I,” I say. “I’m just going to have a little conversation with him.” My voice is eminently reasonable.

  He sighs and lets me past. Galahad leaps up from the chair he was sitting in, eager to be included in whatever is going on, but I march right past him. Alexandra says, “So, we still on for this weekend?”

  “Absolutely,” I toss over my shoulder. “Thanks for the help, Doc.”

  I’m deeply grateful to Dr. Pete for all the help he’s given me, but I’d be doing this even if I hated his guts. Certain kinds of predators shouldn’t be tolerated.

  I stop at my car and get a little something from the trunk. They slide into the special reinforced pockets I had added to the lining of my jacket, where I can get to them quickly. The Ruger’s a more efficient weapon, but nobody here’s afraid of it. When I’m going for intimidation, something else is required.

  I walk around the corner, past the mercury sodium glare of the streetlight and into the darkness of the alley. I can smell ripe garbage and the acrid stink of thrope urine. No sign of the thrope I’m looking for, but I can see the red telltale of the security cam mounted over the back door. There’s a large metal Dumpster just past it, though; plenty of room for a thrope to crouch down beside it, out of view.

  If he’s there, he can probably smell me already. “Hey, pal,” I call out. “Police. Step out where I can see you. Now.”

  Nothing. I reach inside my jacket with both hands, right hand to the left, left hand to the right. I pull both weapons out smoothly, eighteen-inch-long ironwood shafts, each tipped with a conical silver head. I hit the release studs with my thumbs, snapping both foot-long silver blades out and locking them at a forty-five-degree angle, turning stakes into scythes. Razor-sharp silver over a steel core, with an embedded ironwood strip running down the center of each blade. Good for impaling or decapitation, against thropes or pires.

  I edge around the Dumpster, scythes ready. There’s nobody there. I put my foot against the Dumpster, give it a little shove. It rolls easily, obviously empty. Looks like Dr. Pete’s stalker has slipped away again.

  I snap one of the scythes shut, holster it, and pull out a flashlight. No obvious tracks, but that doesn’t say much in a paved alley. No smoldering cigarette butts or handy discarded match packs with an address scrawled on the back.

  But there is something. Something freshly scratched in the paint of the Dumpster, little red curls of paint dangling from shiny grooves in the metal. It’s a kanji, a Japanese symbol that looks oddly familiar.

  When I first got to this world, I was under a lot of pressure, which led to some bad decisions—one of them was a Japanese thrope named Tanaka. We only spent one night together, and that night is kind of blurry. Tanaka wanted to continue the relationship; I didn’t. Despite things that happened later, I always thought of Tanaka as a basically decent person.

  But he’d done this once before, showing up on my doorstep unexpectedly. Dr. Pete had been there then, too. I’d managed to defuse the situation, but Tanaka was clearly not the kind of person to give up easily.

  That’s only one possibility, though. I’d made more dangerous enemies in Japan than a jilted lover; specifically, a Yakuza oyabun named Isamu. Charlie and I—well, mainly Charlie—had turned his number one assassin into a pile of dust, and Isamu didn’t strike me as exactly the forgiving type.

  But the Yakuza is a pire organization; using outside help for a vendetta this personal seems out of character. I pull out my phone, take a few pictures of the symbol, then head back inside to assure Dr. Pete and Alexandra that the lurker is gone. Galahad isn’t smiling anymore; he keeps staring at the door with a frown on his face. He knows something isn’t right.

  Smart dog.

  When I get home I do some research. The kanji isn’t a Yak symbol. It isn’t a reference to unrequited love or doomed romance or ninja revenge. Its meaning is, literally, “great difference.”

  Great difference. Between what? My world and this one? The human and canine forms of the were dogs? Life and death? It could mean almost anything.

  I call Gretchen at the NSA office. “Gretch? Need a favor.”

  “Go ahead.” She sounds fine, as sharp and focused as she always is. I hope it’s not just an act.

  “I need to know if my old friend Tanaka is still in Japan. Definitive proof. And if he is, I guess I need to know what Isamu’s up to.”

  “Ah. Eat some bad sushi and looking for someone to blame?”

  I smile. Attagirl. “Just letting my paranoia out for a quick run. Call me back, okay?”

  “I’ll ring you within the hour.”

  I fish out the cassette Dr. Pete gave me. It’s a dead medium, but I’ve salvaged devices of varying vintages from yard sales and junk shops in the last few months. I dig out an old tape deck and slide the tape in.

  I’m nodding my head to “Love Missile F1-11” when Gretchen calls back. “Jace? Your former paramour is currently drinking single-malt in a whiskey bar in Tokyo. The report on Isamu is more extensive, but essentially he’s very busy defending his territory from two different rivals at the moment. Do you need the details now, or would you like to view them at the office?”

  “I’ll look at them when I come in, Gretch. Thanks.”

  After I hang up, I try to figure out if Isamu would waste resources on an enemy an ocean away during a turf war. I doubt it; he’s more the trapdoor spider type, willing to wait until just the right moment to strike. One of the advantages of being immortal. But if it isn’t him and it isn’t Tanaka, then who?

  I sit and listen to the musical advice of a couple of guys with three-foot rainbow Mohawks; they want me to “shoot it up,” but they’re not too clear on who I should be aiming at.

  I do some more research before heading in to the office. It’s about 11:00 PM, but these days I don’t get to bed until three or four in the morning; too much going on at night in a world where half the population is allergic to sunlight. Gretchen’s forwarded some files on the case to me, and there’s a fair bit about the Bravo Brigade online. After an hour or so, it becomes clear where the next step in the investigation lies.

  I’m going to prison.

  FOUR

  The place is called the Stanhope Federal Penitentiary. It’s in central Washington, just outside of Spokane, and houses some of the worst offenders in the state: rapists, murderers, gangbangers, and racketeers. It’s the place they held Al Capone after his tax evasion conviction, and I’m told the prison guards hold a raffle to see which con gets the honor of staying in his cell. Nice to know Al is still contributing to society long after someone beat him to death with a sack full of silver nickels.

  That’s on this world. I can’t recall exactly how Capone bought it back home, but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with spare change and a vampire mobster. No silver coins in circulation now, of course. Even in Al’s day they were a rarity—he was actually killed with his own collection. Apparently he used to make thropes he wasn’t happy with swallow them.

  From the outside the prison looks like any other correctional facility: high walls of gray concrete, watchtowers at the four corners flooding the surrounding area with light. The front gate is a massive, iron-barred portcullis that looks like it could withstand a bulldozer. Silver razor wire glints on the tops of the walls like predatory tinsel.

  The guards, like the inmates, are a mix of thrope and pire. The two who escort me from the front gate to the intake area are both pires, a short Hispanic man named Olmerez and a tall, skinny one named Bicks. Bicks’s skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, blue veins clearly visible on his neck and the backs of his hands.

  They take me down a concrete corridor, barred electric gates buzzing us deeper into the complex. They hand me off without a word to an impassive black woman behind a Plexiglas-screened counter, who checks my ID. She directs me to another room, where I have to pass through a metal detector and then be okayed by a staff shaman who makes me stand in a circle of salt and state t
hat I am not in possession of any fetishes, charms, or cursed objects. Finally, I’m put in an interview room to wait for my subject.

  She shows up in the company of a guard about fifteen minutes later. Her name is Cali Edison, she’s a thrope serving a four-hundred-year sentence—and she’s the only incarcerated member of the Kamic cult I’ve been able to find.

  Cali’s a tiny, wiry woman with ferociously orange hair cut short. She looks like she’s in her 40s, but her file says she’s closer to a 120. She’s dressed in a jumpsuit almost exactly the same shade as her hair, and wears a pair of manacles that look strong enough to hold an elephant. The guard, a massive, black-furred thrope in half-were form, motions for her to sit down, then locks her cuffs to an eyebolt jutting out of the table. He catches my eye, signs be careful so that Cali doesn’t see it. I don’t know what they expect her to do, but they’re not taking any chances.

  “Hi,” I say. I’m sitting at the other end of the table, her file in front of me. “I’m Special Agent Jace Valchek. I’d like to ask you some questions about the Kamic cult.”

  “I’m Cali Edison,” she says, just a trace of a drawl in her voice. “I’d like to screw the president of the United States and then eat his tongue.”

  “Good for you. Everybody needs a dream.”

  “I can’t smoke while I’m in these cuffs.”

  “Or without a cigarette.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Got one?”

  “I’ve got a whole tobacco patch growing out of my ass. Talk to me and I’ll bring in the harvest early.”

  She grins with small, sharp teeth. “Ain’t been nobody to see me in years. Ask away.”

  “Tell me about the Seduction of the Innocent murders.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “How’s your memory?”

  “Gets better when I’m smoking.”

  I fish a pack out of my pocket. I don’t smoke and most thropes I know don’t care for the smell, but Charlie tells me it’s still a pretty common vice for inmates—they’re immune to cancer and don’t have anything better to do.

  I light one myself, then lean forward and stick it in her mouth. She takes a long drag and blows the smoke out her nose. “Ah, I think it’s coming back to me,” she says. “Not that there’s much to tell. Wertham was a real smooth talker, you know? Convinced me and a bunch of others we could grab us a whole lot of power without anyone even noticing. ‘Like embezzling from the dead,’ was the way he put it. ’Course, a fair number of folks had to wind up dead in the first place, but that part never bothered me much.”

  Her eyes are flat and hard, the eyes of a predator looking for weakness. Being in prison for half a century has whittled her down to a core of cold stone, more lem than thrope.

  “What happened to the rest of the cult?”

  “Dead. The Brigade, they weren’t interested in arresting us. They did their damn best to wipe us out—not that I blame ’em. We weren’t exactly holding back, neither.”

  “So how’d you survive?”

  She pulls on the cigarette with her lips, sucks in air from the side of her mouth to inhale with the smoke. “Someone had to.”

  “Wertham didn’t.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, and I’m interested in seeing her reaction.

  “No, they stuck him in a coffin and nailed it shut. But as the leader, he was always the one that had to die. It was somebody like me they had to keep alive.”

  I frown. “I’m not following.”

  She snorts smoke out her nose. “But I was. And that’s the kind of survivor they needed, somebody not too high up. Somebody who was there, who knew the story but wouldn’t be a threat.”

  She leans forward in her chair, the cigarette dangling from her lips. “That’s how Kamic books work, honey. The power isn’t just in the object, it’s in the tale. And a tale don’t exist unless someone’s there to tell it.”

  I’m starting to see. Wertham created his own chronicles of murder and mayhem, but they didn’t give him any power until they’d been read. The Bravo Brigade countered that by creating a narrative of their own, one also read by the masses—but they kept a witness around as well, someone for whom the story was more real and immediate than anything in print. A sort of sacrifice in reverse, kept alive to help keep the story a living thing.

  “What about the Brigade themselves? Wouldn’t they be enough?”

  “The Brigade never did like the spotlight. They cut me a deal—I’d talk to reporters, tell everyone what happened, and they’d let me live. Brigade disappears, government denies they ever existed. Makes ’em real and unreal, all at once. Power in that, too.”

  “Tell me about them. The Brigade.”

  “What for? You’ve read the comic, you know all you need to.” She leans back and rattles off a list in a bored voice. “Doctor Transe, the Solar Centurion, the Sword of Midnight, Brother Stone, the African Queen. And the Quicksilver Kid, of course. Can’t forget him.” She sounds contemptuous, bitter, and I see an opportunity.

  “The Quicksilver Kid. He the one that took you down?” Anger flashes in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. But it didn’t happen the way the comic said it did. It was written like some big showdown, with the Kid using those damn silver knives of his to pin me to a wall. You wannna know what really happened? He stabbed me in the back. Literally. Transe hadn’t patched me up afterward, I’d be as dead as the rest of them.”

  “Guess you owe him, then.” She spits the butt of the cigarette onto the table. “Yeah, I got him to thank for the last fifty years in here. I’m real grateful.”

  “Transe is dead.” I watch her reaction carefully. She laughs once, a hard, angry bark of pleasure. “Yeah? One down, then. How’d he get it?”

  “Can’t tell you that. But I will say I’m looking into the other members of the Brigade.” Her eyes narrow. “Yeah? Which ones you talk to?”

  “None of them, yet. Thought I’d come to you first.” She gives me a slow, nasty smile. “Sure. You got no idea how to find any of ’em, do you?”

  “No,” I admit. I let her savor her victory, her moment of power. After fifty years, it’s not much to let her have. “They haven’t been seen or heard of since you were put away. But I can tell you that Doctor Transe’s real name was Saladin Aquitaine.” If the name means anything to her, she doesn’t show it. “He was probably the most powerful one—and you wouldn’t be here if it was anything but murder.”

  I shrug, not giving her anything, letting her figure it out on her own. “Guess I’d be first on your list of suspects, except my alibi is pretty much made of concrete and steel. And now that you know the rest of the cult didn’t survive, you figure the killer must be one of the Bravos.”

  “Unless you’re lying.”

  “Me? Oh, I’m as honest as a silver dollar. Burn you just as quick, too.” She grins. “But I don’t know what you expect to get from me. I got no love for the Brigade, but I made a deal with ’em. I go back on that, they might decide to break their contract, too. And it ain’t like I got anywhere to run.”

  “I’m not asking you to break anything. You agreed to tell their story, remember? All I’m asking is for you to tell me a little more than you told everybody else.”

  She considers this. “Let’s say I did. How’s my situation gonna improve as opposed to staying the same or gettin’ worse?”

  “Don’t know that it is. But I’m giving you a chance at revenge; after fifty years in here, I’m betting that’ll taste a whole lot sweeter than just about anything else I could offer.” I smile at her for the first time. “Besides—this might be the only chance you get. If one of the Bravos has gone bad, he or she might decide to pay you a little visit, clean up some loose ends.”

  Her grin fades to a grimace. “Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say. Still, can’t blame me for trying… so. Transe bit the dust and you think one of the others did him in.” She stares at me flatly for a second, then smiles. “Got to be one of the lems. They always was kind of uppit
y—Transe, he was kind of a snob, didn’t much care for working with them in the first place. Brother Stone put up with it—the whole ‘turn the other cheek’ thing—but it bothered him more than he’d let on. And the Kid? He’s always had a temper. What I heard, he and Transe got into it more than once.”

  “Yeah? And how exactly did you hear all this, when you were working for the other side?”

  Her smile turns cold. “Oh, you hear all kinds of things when they’re sticking you full of tubes in the back of an ambulance and already figure you’re a goner.”

  I know there’s more to it than that, but calling her a liar isn’t going to get me any more information. “Okay. So both Brother Stone and the Quicksilver Kid didn’t get along with Transe. Any idea where either of them is?”

  “I heard a rumor the Quicksilver Kid was working as a bounty hunter, tracking down bail jumpers in the Midwest. Figured it had to be him, ’cause he’s still throwing knives instead of those little silver balls enforcement lems like so much these days.”

  Not much of a lead, but considering how much Edison no doubt hates the Kid, it’s probably genuine. “Anything else?”

  “One thing. Think I can get another smoke before you go?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I take out another cigarette. Lighting the first one left my mouth tasting like an ashtray, so I reach out with the cigarette in one hand and pick up the lighter with the other—

  Never seen a thrope transform that fast.

  Thinking back on it later, I realize it was only her mouth that changed, her skull lengthening into a fanged muzzle so quickly it’s like a switchblade popping open. Her jaws snap shut no more than an inch from my fingers, clipping the cigarette in half as neatly as a pair of scissors.

  She changes back just as fast, managing to hold on to the shortened cigarette with her lips. She grins at me lazily. “Prefer ’em without the filter, anyways…”