by Lia Black
“This whole time, all of the humans in Shorebank have been seeing a conspiracy… thinking that the Variants were doing it…” Derek sighed. He’d been the biggest perpetrator in that regard, letting his prejudice take the lead.
“And it seems that has worked to his benefit, he’s perpetuated that myth as much as possible,” Kayle sighed. “But as I said before, he can’t be entirely human.”
Derek let out a slow breath, looking around.
“We’d better call this in and head up to the transport. It won’t hold forev—” Derek noticed some kind of box that a lamp was plugged into, connected to a wall outlet.
“What the hell—?”
He moved closer and realized it was a timer, the kind used to turn on and off lights to mimic someone being home. A lamp was plugged into it, sitting on the floor. He shined his beam around. All of the windows were blackened and boarded up. Why the hell would he need to turn a light on?
“Do you smell something?” Kayle asked.
“I smell lots of things. It’s a chem lab.” Derek shrugged, but the hair on the back of his neck was starting to stand up.
“It smells...like something sweet...burning...” Kayle cocked his head and crouched down, looking at a hole in the floorboards. Derek realized it was just above where they’d seen the radiator downstairs.
There was a barely audible buzz from the vicinity of the lamp. Derek began to turn his head and mention his theory when he felt Kayle rush into him, grabbing him up so quickly in his arms that Derek had no time to react. He didn’t have to hear the click of the lamp turning on; the tiny spark of electricity igniting the concentrated gas was enough to shoot them out of the skylight like a bullet in a spray of glass and twisted metal.
About the time Derek realized they were airborne, they came crashing back down, landing on a rooftop across the street. He grunted as they tumbled several times across the tarred surface before coming to a stop against a chimney. The safe cocoon of Kayle’s huge, leathery wings split open, letting Derek roll out and survey the damage. He sat up, gaping at the building where they’d just been.
It was now completely engulfed in flames, reaching up as high as the warehouses beside it. Bits of burning ash drifted down, landing on the ground like gray snow. Through the wall of heat, he saw twisted flickering shapes, moving like ghosts underwater.
“Kayle,” Derek spun around on his knees, helping Kayle as he struggled to sit up. Kayle was in full incubus form, the force of his wings extending had ripped apart his jacket and shirt. His arms were lines of deep, bloody scratches and areas already starting to bruise. Bits of glass clung to the blood on his wings, glittering like crystal in the light from the fire. Derek carefully checked a cut on Kayle’s forehead, just to the left of one of his horns.
“God, are you okay?” Derek’s heart was pounding, making his voice shake.
Kayle appeared a little dazed, but nodded his head, staring across the street.
“Could be worse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Derek called the fire department before the entire area went up in flames. The fire kept adding new colors as it burned through the chemicals in the lab. It might have been lovely if they were watching it contained in a hearth, but had it not been for Kayle, they would’ve been in the center of it. Derek wasn’t sure if Cal had meant to set that trap for them or if it was a convenient way to eliminate any evidence, giving him a solid alibi of being nowhere near the place when it went up. Without him knowing when Derek and Kayle would have followed up with Dr. Ray and headed to his place, the latter seemed more likely. Still, Derek didn’t think that a killer would really be bothered by the thought of blowing up some cops while covering his tracks.
Kayle had taken most of the damage, using his wings to protect Derek when they’d gone through the skylight and landed on the roof across the street. Until Derek was certain that Kayle was fine, he wanted to wait a while before they moved, but Kayle wouldn’t hear of it.
“We have to get to the transport station before the hold-up becomes too obvious and Cal figures something’s up,“ Kayle said as he struggled to his feet. His wings and horns had receded, though his black sclera and red irises remained, and his skin showed faint traces of markings. He was right. The transports all had their share of minor delays, and with only a few leaving every week, people would usually wait for several hours before giving up and waiting until the next one.
Derek took off his overcoat, wrapping it around Kayle. They made their way off the roof, using the fire escape, as the first tanker trucks pulled up to the scene.
Even parking across the street and down a few doors wasn’t enough for Derek’s car not to be affected by the blast. The passenger side windows were blown in, and the windshield was crazed. A fine series of lines and concentric circles that looked like a spider’s web spread out from a point of impact at the upper corner. The vehicle was covered with bits of charred debris and pieces of brick from the building.. Derek grabbed an old blanket from the floor behind the seat—something he used when he had to get under the car for impromptu field repairs—and spread it over the front passenger side to protect Kayle from more broken glass.
“It’s not far, is it?” Kayle was still a little out of breath, and he’d scooted closer to Derek, leaning on him as he drove.
“No. We’ll get there.” Derek put an arm around Kayle in an awkward, half-hug, and Kayle pressed almost imperceptibly closer. Derek was functioning on auto-pilot, driving the car to a location he knew well enough that he didn’t have to think about his route. They didn’t need to discuss just how close they had come to death. Perhaps that conversation would come later, and hopefully in the dark between kisses and clinging arms.
The transport station was born of the original city’s subway. The road above had crumbled and collapsed favorably sometime after the war, dropping surface train rails within a few yards of the hole over the subway’s tunnel. The Variants had helped them bring the two pieces together. Derek remembered his grandfather telling him tales of the giant trolls, scooping up armfuls of pavement and bending iron rails as if they were taffy. The Clan did not discourage travel between settlements, and it seemed they did their part to ensure the fastest travel between points. It was also the safest, as being on foot anywhere outside of an established settlement was asking for trouble. If the swirling and shifting, burning red of the acid sands did not pose enough of a threat, then the twisted creatures who hid within them would. To Derek it had all sounded like a father’s exaggerated tale of warning to discourage his son from running off. But it had been enough to frighten him then and now. His eyes picked out the red plume of a sandstorm, rising from behind the settlement walls in the distance like an angry specter. His bladder tightened, and his hands gripped harder on the steering wheel.
With so few vehicles traveling the roadways, the concept of parking was little more than stopping and getting out. Derek put his car as close to the underground entrance as possible. He noticed the black and gold of a Sovereign Guard battle flyer, partially obscured by a bus, as they got out and went down the stairs.
There were two guardsmen posted at the landing between the upper and lower levels. Large trolls, not bothering with glamour, they towered at least a foot taller than Derek’s six-foot-two, and their pointed ears protruded from underneath their uniform caps. One had his hair very short but kept his sideburns long and thin along his lower jaw; the other had shoulder-length black hair kept loose. They each offered a sharp nod to Kayle.
“What can you tell me?” Kayle asked Sideburns.
When the troll spoke, Derek could feel the vibration in his chest.
“Inspector Lieutenant, no one has come in or gone out since our arrival. A few humans had expressed displeasure at our presence, but no outward aggression.”
Derek glanced at their firearms, each gun the size of his thigh. Sideburns held his loosely at his side while the long-haired troll rested his against his shoulder. One shot could probably blow
a hole through a human body big enough to put a fist through; definitely a deterrent for outward aggression.
“Thank you,” Kayle said. “Where is your commanding officer?”
“Captain Inek is there, sir,” the long-haired troll gestured towards a ticket booth. “Arguing with a small, bald-headed human.”
“You look as though you’ve seen some trouble, sir,” Sideburns said, looking between Kayle and Derek. It was nice to see Kayle being treated with more respect than his father’s bodyguards had shown him—even when he was covered in dirt and blood and wearing a jacket that was two sizes too large.
“Yes. Let’s hope we don’t see any more.” Kayle tugged Derek’s sleeve and they went down the rest of the way into the subway station. With one transport leaving or arriving here once a week, the place was crowded. But today it seemed more so because of the presence of the Sovereign Guard. There were probably less than ten of them including their CO, but the physical mass they brought with them made the place feel claustrophobic.
As Derek and Kayle approached the ticketing office, they could hear a human male, his voice high and sputtering, demanding to know why the guard was there holding them all hostage. The man he was yelling at was smaller than him, only about five feet tall, and wearing the same uniform as the troll guards but with some extra gold embellishments. Derek guessed this was Captain Inek. Not a troll, but a hob. The hob turned his head and locked beady brown eyes with Kayle, the tension that puckered his lichen-yellow face relaxed. Despite appearing less human, trolls and hobs never bothered with glamour, and judging by what Kayle had told Derek about how it worked, it meant they probably didn’t have the means or skill use it.
“Inspector Lieutenant,” Inek greeted Kayle.
The human who’d been yelling at Inek cast his eyes on Kayle. His pronounced adam’s apple bobbed in his throat a moment before he spoke.
“Inspector Lieutenant? You’re in charge here? I demand that you call off your dogs immediately! We have a schedule to—”
Kayle moved quickly, closing in the on the man before any of them could react. Derek caught only a whiff of the sweet and warm fragrance that Kayle blew through his lips. The human sighed, his face going slack and settling into a dopey smile. He didn’t seem to notice that he’d missed his chair when sitting down and ended up on the floor.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Derek said through his teeth as Kayle stepped back.
“I never needed to do it to you,” Kayle whispered back.
“Thank you, sir,” Inek sighed, turning his body towards Kayle. “Dispatch told us there was an emergency, but that’s all.”
“We have reason to believe a killer we’ve been tracking is among the passengers. Lt. Childress and I will do our best to apprehend him without incident, but I would appreciate it if your men could keep order among the rest of the civilians.”
“Of course. Lieutenant,” Captain Inek greeted Derek with a respectful tip of his head, and followed them out of the ticket building, heading off to brief his men.
“Where do we start?” Derek asked, looking around the station.
The station was a large, half-round tunnel, capped at each end by metal and concrete. There was only enough room for the train to get through the narrow passageway once the gates were opened. . While nobody ever said it, Derek understood that it was an attempt to keep whatever roamed in the wilds outside from getting in.
The segmented train was a large, silent metal worm, its nose only beginning to emerge from the opening to the station. The greenish lights along the platform reflected off the train’s glass headlamps, protected behind metal cages. In front of the train, down on the recessed tracks, were two more troll guards, using only their bodies to block the train from entering. The station itself was a strange mix of textures. The walls were covered with pale turquoise tiles. The pillars that supported the lower pedestrian ceiling were tiled as well. Many of the tiles had broken off, leaving fibrous net-weave embedded in the pasty, filth-marbled mastic. Metal benches were bolted to the cement walkway at regular intervals, dark green paint peeling off to show the oxidized steel beneath. Underneath the overhang of the station ceiling, the shadows were heavy. Derek always found it surprising that there wasn’t a larger incidence of crime here, but then a lot of these people had spent all of the money they had to buy a one-way ticket out of Shorebank.
Groups of people were scattered everywhere, a few even being bold enough to argue with the guards who dwarfed them, looking down upon them as though they were unruly children.
“He won’t be calling attention to himself,” Kayle said. He looked beyond the groups, towards those who were seated in the darkness, resigned to the wait.
Derek’s eyes skimmed over faces until he picked out one with familiar features.
“There.”
Cal was sitting on a bench, one of the few that had a light nearby, with his face buried in a book. Next to him was a young woman, her knees bouncing. She twisted her body to look up at a large clock on the wall behind her. Beside her was an older man looking morosely at his suitcase.
Cal’s portrayed calm was belied by his white-knuckled grip on the sides of the open cover of his book.
They were about ten feet from him when Cal raised his head. His eyes widened and he opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sounds came out.
Seeing him—that youthful face—was a little wounding. Derek had thought they were friends, he’d thought that Cal respected his mentor, Dr. Ray. He’d thought a lot of things, but never that Cal was a murderer. Later he could beat himself up about not recognizing any signs of it, because he’d been too blinded by anger over Marc’s death. Later, he could beat himself up over a lot of different things.
There was a moment of stunned confusion in Cal’s eyes, like he was truly not expecting to see them. Derek couldn’t help but wonder if Cal had set a trap for them, maybe having a trigger on the door to his room or the hatch that had started the lamp-timer running. That... was disconcerting. He filed it away in his mind. There would be time to mull it over later.
Cal’s confusion was short-lived. His gaze grew hard and his lips curled into a sneer. He got quickly to his feet and Derek saw a flash of white as he grabbed the young woman who’d been seated beside him on the bench. He jerked her against his body, pressing a scalpel to her throat.
“One more step and this goes right through her jugular!” Cal growled at them. People around Cal stepped back, even as the rest of the group surged forward with curiosity, stopping behind an invisible boundary, and the ring of guards forming inside.
“Cal, you don’t have to do this…let’s just talk,” Derek said. He fought to keep his voice low and tone calm, despite the adrenaline rushing through his veins, quickening his pulse.
“Talk? What about?” Cal scoffed. “What could you possibly tell me when my age and wisdom exceeds yours?” At Derek’s blank expression, Cal went on.
“My mother was a human whore. My father is Clan. I’ve spent years trying to find the man who abandoned me.”
“I don’t understand why that has led you to murder innocent—”
“Innocent?” Cal’s voice was a harsh whisper as he kept the discussion between them. “They were all whores, Derek. Whores who didn’t care if their money came from Variants, because it was going to end up wasted in their veins anyway. I simply offered them a more direct route.” He focused a goading smile at Kayle.
“I thought you—of all people—would have been sympathetic. You know what your kind have suffered at the hands of the Clan— you are the son of a whore yourself.”
If he’d said those things to Derek, Derek wasn’t certain he would have been able to restrain himself, but Kayle remained cool and unaffected.
“I am not an indiscriminate murderer,” Kayle answered him, his voice betraying nothing.
“Nor am I. I killed for science, and it went so far beyond, I could never have imagined. Social and political unrest, and now here you are,
perpetuating human oppression at the hands of the Variant overlords.”
“Yet you are the one with the knife against that innocent woman’s throat,” Derek pointed out.
“I am not the one who started this. It’s them— the Gentry— those who have taken away our future by controlling all means of learning and creation!” Cal was proclaiming it now, echoing the sentiments put forward by opponents and protesters.
“This is a conspiracy of the cruelest order! What choice have I to be heard? I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’d be shot down like a dog if these Variants had their way!” This crowd hadn’t heard the rest of it, or they had forgotten it like drones, just as they ignored the woman sobbing under the threat of Cal’s blade.
Someone in the crowd let out a “Yeah!” in support of Cal’s statement, and Derek felt acid rise in his chest, dropping and curdling in his stomach like black tar.
“Just what the fuck is wrong with you people?” Derek turned on the crowd. He couldn’t keep looking at Cal. It made him question his own judgment. How had he not seen this person for what he was?
“Your father,” Kayle said softly. “Have you found him?”
“I have,” Cal sneered.
“Who is he?”
“You should know,” Derek thought Cal sounded less than certain all of the sudden. “You’re here at his request.”
“Toussant?” Kayle asked, still staring at Derek.
“Who else?” Cal answered, shifting his stance. It had the effect of pressing the blade deeper against his hostage’s skin, making her whimper as a line of blood dribbled down, disappearing under the collar of her coat.
Derek met the young woman’s eyes, hoping to convey that everything would be all right, even though he wasn’t sure if that was the case.
“Look, Cal,” Derek said. “Let us try to get him here.” He ignored the warning glare from Kayle.
Cal seemed to mull it over for a few moments that felt like hours. A bead of sweat rolled down Derek’s spine. The cool air of the subterranean station made it feel like ice, and he fought back a shudder.
