The Night Watch

by Sean Stewart

  It wasn’t as dark as it had been. Not full light, definitely not. But lighter. It would be morning soon.

  Wire felt like crying. Instead, she burrowed more deeply into the quilt David Oliver had provided. Like a rabbit in a burrow, snuggling down for the night. Like a dove nestled beneath its mother’s breast…

  Jiggle jiggle jiggle jiggle.

  “Ah!” Wire snapped into stunned alertness. “What? What?” Lark stepped back, startled. Wire blinked and waved one feeble hand. “’S’okay, honey. Must have fallen back asleep. What did you want?”

  Lark tilted her head on one side. “We-ell,” she said seriously. “When is it morning?”

  “Not yet! It’s not morning yet!” Wire crushed her voice down to a furious whisper. “I will tell you when it’s morning. Now please, go back to your bed and don’t keep waking me up. It will be morning in a while. I’ll tell you. It will be morning when they bring our breakfast, okay?”

  “At break-tast?”

  “Yes. Breakfast. Until then, we will all try to sleep. Do you understand?” Lark nodded and pattered back to her own bed.

  Wire collapsed back onto her cot. Today she would talk to David Oliver. She would demand that she and Lark be taken back to her apartment. This was ridiculous. It had been a full day since Raining disappeared into the Forest. Surely it was clear by now that Lark could not be used as leverage.

  Wire dwelt for some minutes on a pleasant fantasy involving finding Emily Thompson and punching her in the face before turning her over to Oliver and putting an end to this whole horrible business. She closed her eyes. Sleep came to her like a lover.

  “Mis-ter Sun, Sun, Mis-ter golden Sun

  Please shine down on, please shine down on,

  Please shine down on me-e-e.

  Mis-ter Sun, Sun, Mis-ter golden Sun

  Please shine down on me-e-e.”

  Oh no. Lark was singing. Very quietly, under her breath, lying on her cot like a good little girl. And singing.

  “Please shine down on, please shine down on,

  Please shine down on me-e-e!”

  Wire’s hands balled into fists inside her quilt.

  By eight o’clock that morning she had decided she was never having kids.

  The first thing she did after getting up was to ask their guard if they could have a clock. He brought back an ugly brass one with a very loud tick, but Wire was grateful to get it. She would have gone crazy if she couldn’t see proof that the day was passing.

  It wasn’t so bad for the first hour. Lark started by removing one of the silk table vestments and wrapped it around an especially jolly-looking bronze Buddha to make a skirt so she could play dolls. The Enlightened One regarded her with great good will. Lark picked the little statuette off the table and tumbled it artistically to the tile floor.

  (High, squeaky voice) “Oh no! Buddy’s failed in the water! Help, help!”

  (Gentle, motherly voice) “Don’t worry, Buddy. I’ll save you.”

  (High, squeaky voice) “Help! Help!”

  This occupied her until breakfast. Wire gathered her resolve while they ate. It was a small room. There was nowhere to run from Lark, and no way to hide. Besides, if she felt miserable, how much worse must poor Lark be feeling? So. The thing to do was to give up on the notion of having private time to worry about herself. The thing to do was to throw all her energies into dealing with Lark.

  The breakfast dishes were removed at seven-fifteen. When the guard had left and they were alone again, Wire told Lark a story, a somewhat garbled version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” She was amazed to find she didn’t really know it. She got the porridge (hot, cold, just right) and the beds (hard, soft, just right), but what was the middle thing? She thought it might be chairs—she definitely remembered Goldilocks breaking Baby Bear’s chair, but what was the problem with the other two chairs? Surely Mamma Bear’s chair couldn’t have been too low? Hard and soft didn’t work either; she had to save that for the beds…She made something up about the chair backs and arms, but even Lark could tell she was fudging.

  After the story, Lark taught her some songs. There was “Mister Golden Sun” and “The Alphabet Song” (this one Wire knew) and “Twinkle Twinkle” (which she also knew, but had never previously realized had the same tune as “The Alphabet Song”). There was one about a little white whale, but Lark couldn’t remember many of the words. Most successful was “The (Somethings) on the Couch.”

  “The mommies on the couch go shh! shh! shh!

  Shh! Shh! Shh!—Shh! Shh! Shh!

  The mommies on the couch go shh! shh! shh!

  A-a-ll da-a-y looooong.

  “The grandpas on the couch go read, read, read,…

  “The grandmas on the couch go sew! sew! sew!…

  The chickens on the couch go cluck, cluck, cluck,…

  “The sluggies on the couch go shlurp, shlurp, shlurp,…”

  And so on. And on. And on.

  Then they tried drawing, respectfully removing a stick of incense from one of the Buddhas and tracing out shapes on the tile floor. Wire drew a cat, a person, a rainbow, a fish, and Lark three times. Then she looked at the clock.

  Seven forty-two. Twenty-seven minutes had passed.

  Twelve and a half hours to bedtime.

  It was four-thirty on Sunday afternoon. Wire had not strangled Lark. She had tried to get someone to fetch David Oliver six times. She had spent the entire day rehearsing increasingly furious versions of what she would say when he finally deigned to show up. But he was so haggard when he came through the door, so worried and drawn, that she threw out her prepared speech. “You look terrible.”

  “It’s been a bad day.” The first streaks of grey were showing in David’s black hair. There seemed to be more lines around his eyes. He looked at Lark, lying listlessly in Wire’s lap. “The man said she was sick.”

  “I thought she was. Now I’m not sure. Maybe she’s just bored. She says she’s thirsty.”

  “I’ll tell the guards to keep an eye out. And I’ll make sure you have plenty of water.”

  “Boil it first.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t leave. There were sweat stains under his arms. It had been several days since he had shaved. His skin had a darker tone than most Southsiders. The stubble on it was so black it was almost blue.

  He caught her looking at his face. She colored and looked away.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  Wire waved around the room. “Oh, please—enjoy the comforts of our little home.”

  He smiled and sat on the edge of a low table. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Design houses.”

  “Break them in, anyway. Yeah. How did you know that? On second thought, I know, it’s part—”

  “Part of my job. Yes.” He rubbed his hands wearily across his face. Wire didn’t think he’d gotten any more sleep than she had last night. “By the way, I meant to ask what on earth you told that guard. He yanked me out of a top-level meeting and hustled me through the building like it was on fire.”

  “I swore him to secrecy and then told him Lark was your love-child. Gotten while Raining was married to Nick.”

  David’s head snapped up. “What!”

  “Not my daddy,” Lark said. She turned her face away from him and burrowed closer into Wire’s tummy.

  Wire snickered. “I had been trying to get a message to you all day. It was the only thing I could think of to get your attention.”

  “Sweet Christ, Wire. Just the kind of gossip I need right now.”

  She looked at him. “Then I guess you shouldn’t have kidnapped her. What if Raining—” Wire glanced down at Lark and bit her lip. “As long as we’re prisoners, you are responsible for her. Right now, you and I are the closest thing she has to parents. You gave your word.”

  “I know.” David closed his eyes. “The whole day has been an Intelligence nightmare. I’ve been putting out fires since three this morning, but I promise you, Lark has never been far from my thoughts
.” He was staring at the floor. “Neither of you has.”

  Feet hurried over tile floors beyond their door. Voices called. “We sent a squad into the Garden at first light,” David said. “Over my protests. I told them to be careful, I told them only to negotiate. I was overruled. Three men went into the Inner Garden. When they didn’t come back, do you know what their captain did? Threw in a grenade. Physically lobbed a grenade into the Lady’s Garden. You can see right in, apparently; the wall between the public and the inner gardens is full of those leaky windows.”

  “By all the little crawling gods! What happened?”

  “The grenade exploded into red flowers. I am not making this up. I have a dozen witnesses. There was a flash, no explosion; and then a rain of red petals. A few of them drifted back onto the men watching. Also, according to six respondents, a pleasant smell, like crushed herbs. A few minutes later, a temple attendant came with a broom to sweep up.”

  Wire laughed.

  “Can you believe that? We walked into Chinatown and attacked a Power. The one right across the street from our base of operations. And do you know what Winter said?”

  “Should you be telling me this?”

  “He said, ‘Patch it up. Find out what the Power wants and make a deal.’” David’s head was back in his hands.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Wire said. “Can you make a deal with water to flow uphill?”

  “I know. I know. He just doesn’t understand. But surely what happened to Ranford should have made it clear. The Infants are rattled. They are really rattled. There’s been a lot of talk about what happened to Ranford’s men. Now our Chinese contacts are getting cold feet. Apparently the Shrouded Ones have abandoned Chinatown because the Mandarins are collaborating with us.”

  “Oh gods. The Shrouded Ones have left?”

  “If there really are such things as ghosts, there should be plenty to see now,” David said grimly.

  “If?” Wire said, surprised. “Haven’t you ever seen a ghost?”

  “Have you?”

  “Dozens.”

  He looked at her. “Oh. Great.”

  “You Southsiders are a strange bunch.”

  Outside the door, the guard shifted.

  “Am I a bad man?” David said.

  The ugly brass clock tick, tick, ticked. “I don’t know,” Wire said. “Are you?”

  “Ah.” David stood up. “Wise woman. I’ll send you that water and see if I can get something for Lark. I’ll tell the guard—well, first that she’s not my daughter—I’ll tell him to come get me immediately if you ask for me, no matter what else I’m doing. For your part, try not to ask unless it’s genuinely urgent. You may not believe it, but I’m one of the people trying to get us out of here as quickly as possible. I’m one of the good guys.”

  “I know,” Wire said.

  He looked away. “You are an exceptional woman.”

  Wire smiled. “Well, no—but flattery is always welcome. Goodbye, Major Oliver.”

  “David?”

  “David. Goodbye.”

  She watched him go. Never saw a ghost. She shook her head. Poor ignorant bastards.

  Chapter

  Twenty-six

  Shortly before midnight on Sunday, Jen, Li Mei, and Floating Ant returned to Chinatown. It was raining. Crossing Hastings Street under the glowing sulphur sign of First Born Photo, they walked a block past Pender and stood for a moment under the back wall of the Garden, looking across the parking lot at the burned-out hulk of what had been the Southsider barracks. Although it was only midnight, the streets were unusually empty. Those still out hurried by with eyes downcast, flowing around the Southside perimeter pickets as water breaks around stone.

  “You still feel you must do this?” Floating Ant said quietly.

  Jen spat. “It is the meaning of the Dragon’s gift. The Snows fear ghosts, you said. This will give the Southside’s ghosts, and the living Snows who see them, something terrible to fear.”

  “Very well.” Floating Ant was wearing a floppy black hat. Rain dripped from the brim onto his thin shoulder. “Go safe under the Heavens. We cannot be found here when the cry is raised.”

  Holding his hands at the height of dan tien, Jen placed his right fist against his left palm and bowed as he had to the Sifu who had taught him the way of fist and sword. Floating Ant bowed solemnly in return. “Goodbye, then. And good fortune.”

  Li Mei and the old man slipped away.

  The straight razor the Lady had sent to Jen lay folded in his right pocket. So his broken luck had been replaced. The razor was bad luck, true—but it was his and his alone.

  He plodded slowly up the road, head downcast. On a balcony across the street, four tipsy fellows stood bunched under a huge pink umbrella, singing an old plum wine song. The Snows had been given a place of honor among the vulgar lyrics. Across the way, Snows were stationed around the perimeter of Government House, tall and still and white as cranes. Jen decided to walk another block down Pender Street before turning up toward the barracks. He did not wish to draw the attention of the guards.

  He had found only china flats to wear since escaping New Moon Manor and his feet were soaking wet. The red rubber soles went plash plash plash across the wet asphalt.

  Here’s a memory for you: bearing down as he raped his beautiful demon, red silk whispering between them, the slap slap slap of his hips against her thighs, his soul dripping from his mouth like spit. Her devouring it. And then, later, the blood trickling down his face as she shaved off his eyebrows. His blood on her lips, red on red.

  Story of his life.

  On the far side of BC Place, the old stadium in whose parking lot the Southsiders had built their barracks, a patrolling helicopter swept along the thin line of forest between the stadium and the seashore. As soon as it passed by, heading east on its patrol route, three figures slipped out of the wood and hurried forward. Clouds covered the moon and the night was very dark. “What if they see us crossing the parking lot?” Lubov whispered.

  “I don’t think they’ll shoot strangers on sight,” Emily murmured. “Besides, the barracks is between us and Chinatown’s perimeter. If I know my soldiers, nobody will be anxious to get close to a ruin full of ghosts. Not when our friend here has left them to wander the night instead of carting them off to the North Side where they belong.”

  John Walker did not speak.

  wait!

  Lubov froze. “Someone’s coming,” he hissed.

  “Where?”

  “Over there, walking up from Pender street. Short guy dressed like a native.”

  Emily squinted, wishing she had her military kit, an IR scope, photomultiplier binoculars, something to make it easier to see in the dark. Lubov flattened himself to the asphalt and dragged her down. John Walker crouched beside them. Together they watched. It was hard to see the man; he moved quickly and quietly and stayed away from any lights.

  “He’s going to the barracks too,” Lubov breathed. Good eyes on that boy, Emily thought. “What the hell is he thinking?”

  Emily shrugged. “Lay low,” she whispered. “Watch.”

  A few of the Southsider ghosts walked around the outside of the burned-out barracks. Most sat wearily within. They were hard to see, like faint stars that winked out when you looked straight at them. Jen found he could distinguish them well only when he was touching the razor the Lady had given him. When his fingers left it, the ghosts fled like minnows from his groping eyes.

  “Visitor!” called one of the lazy sentry ghosts. Four or five of them gathered around Jen. Rain slid through them.

  “Hey—isn’t that the slant old Claire kicked the shit out of?” This ghost’s shoulder insignia had burned off, along with the flesh of his back, chest, and lower jaw. “Hi-ya!” he said, lashing out with one phantom foot. Jen leapt back and slapped the kick away. He felt no charred bone or baked flesh; only the sensation, very slight, of the damp air gelling and splitting around his hand.

  The ghosts steppe
d back, startled. “He can see us.”

  “I must speak to your captain,” Jen said.

  Two of the ghosts scrambled away. In a moment they returned with the CO who had refereed the match between Jen and Claire. Six days ago, was it? Jen looked with pity at the burned and crippled ghosts now thronging around. Six days and all their lifetimes ago.

  “My fellows tell me you can see us,” the captain said. “I figured there must be some kind of slant magic that would help. Can you talk to Winter for us? We want to go home.”

  Jen took a breath. Mind / no mind. “I come with a message.”

  Fist against open palm, he bowed very low, as he had to Floating Ant a few minutes earlier. Then he reached into the pocket of his shabby pants and brought out the razor. He opened it with a street fighter’s flick. With the stroke called No Design, No Conception, he hit with his body, hit with his spirit, and hit from the Void with his hands, cutting the front tendons of the ghost’s neck and severing his throat.

  The Southside captain choked and fell jerking to the pavement. Instantly Jen was on top of him. The man was only a slippery half-there thing between his knees, but the razor slashed and bit as if cutting into real flesh. Jen’s beautiful sword had vanished at a demon’s breath—but the razor cut bloody into the invisible world.

  Swearing and crying, the ghosts attacked him. Small winds tugged at Jen’s hair and clothing as he hacked off the captain’s head and then held it up by its hair. It swayed there, tugging on his hand no more than a balloon. “This is my message to the Southside. Remain here and you will never go home. Every Snow who stays in this city will die. Not only the body death, but the true death, the death of the Void. We will slay your very souls, and the sacrifices your sons burn for you will go unclaimed.”

  The ghosts of Southside’s dead, who thought they had gone beyond all terror, looked at Jen with the head swaying in his hands and found fear again. Those strong enough to move scrambled away. Those too weak to leave the barracks wept and begged.