Death Blows

by D. D. Barant

  “No battle plan survives engagement with the enemy,” Cassius says. “It could have worked.”

  “But it didn’t,” I say. “Mainly because those wrappers wanted revenge too badly to give up. Revenge on Dr. Pete—and on me.”

  Cassius leans back in his chair. “I’ve been checking on the thrope that’s after the doctor—and coming up with nothing. This ‘Tair’ has no background, no history. He showed up out of nowhere, insinuated himself with local crime elements, and has demonstrated a certain ruthless efficiency in his dealings ever since. I’ve been unable to discover anything else.”

  I shake my head. If the head of the National Security Agency can’t dig up any facts on someone, I don’t know who can. “Look, I know you won’t discuss Dr. Pete’s past with me, but can you at least tell me if this vendetta Tair has against him is personal or business?”

  “I wish I could.” Cassius sees the look on my face and adds, “I don’t mean that I won’t tell you, I mean I don’t know. While Dr. Pete definitely made some enemies when he disappeared, this Tair seems unusually focused on his target. My sources tell me that he essentially brokered a deal, offering to deliver Dr. Pete in return for employment. His actions indicate both ambition and hatred.”

  Gretchen nods. “Not the type to give up, then. The loss of his men won’t stop him.”

  “No, he’ll just get more,” I say. “And go after Dr. Pete again. Is the hospital secure?”

  Cassius nods. “I’m having him moved as soon as he stabilizes anyway.”

  “Good.” I stifle a yawn, then look at my watch. “Good Lord, it’s late. Or early. Whichever.” It’s more than that, of course—a post-stress-and-adrenaline crash that I’m all too familiar with. “I really need to lie down and get some sleep before I fall over.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Cassius says, rising from his chair. He gives Gretchen a look I can’t interpret: guarded, reluctant. “We’ll talk later, all right?”

  “Very well.” The look she gives him back is almost the same.

  We walk back down the hall and to an elevator. “I’ve made a decision, Jace,” he tells me as he presses the button. “I no longer feel that I—or any of the surviving Bravos—are secure, so I’m reassigning my duties as head of the NSA.”

  It takes a second for me to get my head around what he’s just said. “You’re stepping down?”

  “I’ve always surrounded myself by capable people. Washington will pick a successor if I’m eliminated, but in the interim I’ve left instructions for the various department heads to follow. The organization will continue to function while—”

  “While what? While you just give up and wait to be assassinated?”

  The doors open and he steps forward, me a step behind. “Not what I had in mind at all, actually.”

  All the anger I had been directing at myself seems to have found a new target. “You can’t just quit! There are people who rely on you—”

  “I’m not quitting, Jace. I’m refocusing. Our target has proven able to get to almost anyone, and he’s become exponentially more dangerous with every artifact he’s acquired. If he tries a frontal attack—say, on the NSA offices—the casualties will be brutal. I can’t allow that. I’m going underground until the threat is neutralized… and I fully expect you to be the one to do it.”

  The sinking sensation in my gut is more than the elevator going down. “That doesn’t exactly make sense. The killer has no way of knowing you’ve left—”

  “He’s had no trouble pinpointing any of the other Bravos.” I realize what he’s really saying. “And you don’t think he’ll have any trouble locating you, even if you do go to ground. You’re setting yourself up as a target.”

  He shrugs. “Not a very good one, though. He already has the armor—I doubt he’ll make a run at me.”

  “But you’re going to give him the chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “You’re the expert.” The elevator lets us out in the underground parking. There are thrope agents—big, hairy half-weres with elaborate compound bows and body armor—standing on either side of the door. They weren’t there when I arrived, but I’ll bet they’re now at every entrance and exit in the building. “Okay, I’ll play along,” I say. “Where are you planning on painting the bull’s-eye you’ll be sitting in?”

  “I thought I’d share yours.” I realize we’re walking toward my car, not his, and stop. “Wait. You don’t want to endanger a building full of highly trained intelligence ops and killers, but have no problem with doing the same to me.”

  He stops by the car. “More or less.” I grin. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me all day…” I drive Cassius to my place. If he’s going to hang with me, he’s going to have to follow my agenda—and since it’s just after dark, I have a were dog and a teenager to think about. Both of whom are gone when I get there. There’s a note explaining that Xandra had something terribly important but vague to do, and took Galahad along. They’ll both be back by sunrise, unless they aren’t, but I shouldn’t worry.

  “I hope he’s cute,” I mutter, tossing the note on the kitchen table.

  “Excuse me?” Cassius asks. He’s seated himself in the living room on the couch, and his body language is very formal; I can almost see the desk in front of him. “Nothing. Well, my reason for coming home just vanished, so I guess I’ll head back to the office. Which means you can’t come, right?”

  “Is there a pressing reason you need to go? I can have any information you need sent here.” I study him for a second before answering. “No, I guess not. If Eisfanger had anything new for me he’d call. And Charlie—” I hesitate. “Yes, where is Charlie?”

  “Having his annual… whatever you call it. Evaluation.”

  “Ah. You don’t have to worry, Jace—it’s routine. Charlie shows no signs of going rogue.” I get out some coffee beans and the grinder. “Easy for you to say. Just when I think I’m getting used to this world, I find out my partner can be put down like a rabid dog. I am not okay with that.”

  “I know it’s hard to accept, but there are good reasons for the policy, Jace. Lems are driven by powerful predatory instincts—”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Hemovores are subject to bloodlust, it’s true. And no one can deny that thropes have their savage side. But both races are more than just the sum of their urges—”

  I hit the button on the grinder, drowning out his reply. He looks annoyed, but he stops and waits for me to finish. “But golems aren’t, right? They’re just animal-powered bags of sand.”

  “Pires and thropes have their humanity to balance the equation. Lems don’t.” I pour a carafe of water into the coffeemaker. “Then where does Charlie’s humanity come from? According to you, he should have the personality of a rock—which, granted, an argument could be made for—but a rock doesn’t makes jokes, or enjoy swing dancing, or get annoyed when it loses a cuff link.”

  “Those are all learned behaviors.”

  “Yeah. So is being human.” I add the ground beans to the hopper and turn on the coffeemaker, then join Cassius on the couch. “I’m just saying, I don’t see much of a difference between lems, pires, and thropes—you all seem half human and half something else to me. About the only significant factor—” I stop myself. I get up, open a cupboard and pretend to be looking for mugs.

  “Is what?”

  “Never mind. You drink coffee, right? How do you like it?”

  “Made with decoagulated mare’s blood. Answer the question.”

  I sigh, pull out a single mug and close the cupboard. “All three races have history with human beings. But pires and thropes are the only ones that preyed on us—golems were originally created to help people. On my world, anyway.”

  “You don’t have lems on your world.”

  “Not like here. But we have stories, just like we have stories of vampires and werewolves—and in all the stories I ever heard, the golems we
re the good guys.”

  “Our golems don’t come from stories, Jace. They come from factories. And the ones that are built for enforcement are animated by the souls of carnivores—of animals made killers by millions of years of evolution. Magic can shape those tendencies, but magic—like any system of control—decays over time. If it goes undetected, a lem can become just as dangerous to the ones he’s supposed to protect as the ones he’s supposed to hunt.”

  So can any slave, I think, but I don’t say it out loud. Lems aren’t slaves, not exactly; they have rights, they’re not owned. But every lem is created with a debt hanging over his head, the cost of his own manufacturing. He’s expected to pay that debt off, and the ones who don’t—or won’t—can be arrested. Even deactivated, in some countries. And the rules concerning which profession the lem chooses to work his debt off in are always slanted toward whatever animal was used to create him in the first place.

  “Whatever,” I say. “I just want him to come back.”

  We sit in silence for a moment, and listen to the coffee brew. I don’t know if I’ve ever been alone in a room with Cassius that wasn’t his office or traveling between floors.

  “You still think Barbarossa’s the key?” he says abruptly. On the drive over we’d discussed what Eisfanger had told me in the bar, and agreed there must have been an important reason for the killer to hide her time of death.

  “Yes. She was killed first—before Aquitaine. You said you thought she was having an affair while the Bravos were together, but you didn’t know with who. She wasn’t attracted to pires or women, and lems are sexless. Which leaves who?”

  “Everyone else in the world. She didn’t have to necessarily be involved with someone on the team.”

  “No, but the dream I had after visiting Neil implied a secret affair. And there was something about chains—chains stronger than iron…”

  I put my head in my hands and try to force the memory out, but remembering a dream is like trying to grab smoke. “Someone on the other side, maybe? One of the cult members? Maybe even Wertham himself?”

  “No. Not Wertham—Dark.” Something in his voice tells me this isn’t a guess. “What? You know that for sure?”

  “I don’t know it at all. But it makes sense.”

  “How?”

  “The… internal politics of the Hexagon. An alliance with Dark could have proven too tempting to resist, at least initially.”

  “If so, she had second thoughts. Which would make any double cross she had planned a triple cross—definitely enough to inspire decades-long thoughts of revenge.”

  “But she’d never trust him enough to let him get close,” he points out. “True,” I admit. The coffeemaker lets me know it’s done its job, and I get up to fill my mug. I’m just about to take the first sip when there’s a knock at the door.

  My building has a security buzzer at the front door, which means only people who actually live here should be able to just walk up and knock. Except that so far, none of them ever has. I draw my gun. Cassius is already on his feet. I motion for him to stay where he is, level my gun at the door and call out, “Who is it?”

  “Charlie,” answers a familiar gravelly voice. I’m not stupid—one lem sounds a lot like another. “Just a second, I’m stark naked,” I say, and yank the door open.

  Charlie meets my eyes. Looks me up and down. “If that’s true,” he says, “you really need a new moisturizer.” Charlie doesn’t tell me about the tests, and I don’t ask. He knows about the mall attack, though not about Gretchen giving birth. “I take one day off,” he says, “and you almost get yourself killed.”

  “Almost being the operative word.”

  “Killed being the operative word. Almost is the word killed used to beat up in high school.” Damn, I missed him. “How would you know? When I was in school you were being chiseled out of a cliff.”

  “And yet my vocabulary is still better than yours.”

  Cassius holds up one hand, his cell phone pressed to his ear. “Excuse me for interrupting,” Cassius says, “but the African Queen’s been sighted in the city.”

  “Where?”

  “The rail yards just north of Fifteenth Avenue.”

  I finish my coffee in one last gulp. “That’s close to Queen Anne—Sheldon Vincent’s neighbourhood.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Cassius says calmly. “She’s already disappeared. Agents are on their way in case she moves against Vincent.”

  “Why would she do that?” I ask. “Maybe she thinks he has her shield.”

  “Maybe,” Charlie says, “he does.” Cassius has closed his phone, but now it rings in his hand. He answers, listens intently, then says, “Yes. I’m sending my team now.”

  He snaps the phone shut again and says, “I don’t think Vincent is her target. Another body’s been found.”

  “Who is it?” I ask, thinking I already know the answer. I’m wrong. “John Dark.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The crime scene is at the rail yards, in the last boxcar of a string of five sitting on a siding. They’ve obviously been here a long time; weeds have grown over the tracks that connect the siding to the rest of the yard. The front three cars are being used for storage, with semi-permanent wooden ramps built up to the doors, but the last two seem to have been abandoned. The final car butts up against a chest-high concrete barrier, with a chainlink fence pressed up against that. The fence has a square flap cut into it, a makeshift door bent back and held in place by metal clips. Two wooden planks form a bridge from the top of the concrete barrier to a hole in the rear of the boxcar.

  Cassius talks to the security guards who found the scene while Charlie and I examine the site itself. Considering Cassius’s newly declared career as a target, I’m a little uneasy letting him out of my sight—but if Cassius is anything, he’s a survivor.

  “Looks like a giant rathole,” Charlie observes.

  “One helluva big rat.” The opening into the rear of the boxcar is semi-spherical—about three and a half feet tall—and the edges look crumbly, as if they’ve been eaten away. I duck through the hole in the fence, step onto the planks, and touch the edge for myself. It comes away in flakes.

  “Rust. I think this was carved by the Midnight Sword.”

  “Handy tool for opening locked boxcars. Just age an opening in solid metal.” I pull out my penlight and click it on. Crouching down, I step cautiously inside. It takes me a second to grasp what I’m seeing, and another to believe it. It’s funny in a horrifying, deeply inappropriate way, grotesque in every sense of the word. I’m looking at a giant blender. It stands almost to the roof of the boxcar, the base made from painted white plywood. The jar is just a transparent tube, sealed at the top with what looks like a thick metal hatch. Within, John Dark’s chest and head rest on top of a thick red sludge that fills half the jar. I hear Charlie come in behind me. “Ouch,” he says. “Looks like the punch line to a really tasteless joke.”

  “This one’s different from the others.”

  “In what way? Other than the obvious splatter factor.”

  “The look on Dark’s face, for starters. Terrified, in pain and shock. Aquitaine and Barbarossa were both killed quickly, their bodies posed postmortem. I think Dark was actually killed by this… contraption.” I shine the light on the base. It’s fairly detailed, right down to the buttons marked PUREE, CHOP, and LIQUEFY. “The blades must be made of silver. He got Dark in there—probably unconscious—then waited for him to wake up before turning it on.”

  “Guess Dark wasn’t one of his favorite people.”

  “No, but you’ll notice the killer shut it off before the body was completely destroyed. He wanted us to find it this way and know who it is. It’s a message.” I move around the boxcar carefully, shining my light on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. No tracks; it’s been swept recently. “A message? What’s he trying to tell us?”

  “I’m not sure. Killing one of the Bravos’ surviving enemies seems as if he’s saying he’s on
the Bravos’ side.”

  “Maybe even one of them?”

  “Maybe. Seems a little too easy, though—”

  And then I see it. Scratched into the metal of the boxcar’s wall, behind the oversize kitchen appliance. Though the scratches are deep, the handwriting itself is as delicate as a quill pen on parchment: This nightly creature reached for the sun, A crime both arrogant and Promethean. He could not escape from his whirling fate; He is no longer Dark—he is merely Late. “A poem,” Charlie says. “A poem and a giant blender. Ring any bells with you?”

  “As a matter of fact it does,” I murmur. “I may not know comics, but I do watch TV. And this reminds me very, very much of an old superhero TV show from the 1960s…”

  “They made Batman into a television show?” Neil says. “How odd.” I’m asleep and dreaming again. Neil and I are standing on the deck of a massive cruise ship, at the railing. Behind us, it sounds as if they’re celebrating the New Year in the ballroom. It’s night, the sea illuminated by a blood-red moon. I’m in a cocktail dress, all silver sequins and cleavage; Neil’s dressed in the same leather jacket over a tuxedo shirt and pants. There’s confetti in his hair.

  “It was, actually,” I say. “Very campy. It became trendy for famous actors to play the villain of the week, and they were always strange and stylized: the Riddler, Mister Freeze, Catwoman. More like a collection of obsessions and neuroses than criminals.”

  “Hmm.” He stares out to sea, the moon reflecting crimson in his sunglasses. “And this connects to the latest crime scene how?”

  “At the end of every episode, the villain captures Batman and his trusty sidekick Robin and puts them in some kind of elaborate death trap. The vic was found in a giant, homemade blender, but he wasn’t killed immediately.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We found hand-and footprints on the inside of the glass, opposite to each other.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Ah. So he was holding himself above the blades by pressing against the glass.”