Lieutenant Arkham: Elves and Bullets

by Alessio Lanterna

  “What the fuck do you want?” I face him.

  “Um. Nothing…” he gulps.

  “Ah, nothing? So you’re pissing me off just to pass the time? Eh?”

  He doesn’t say a word, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s floundering and looking for something to hang onto, something which inevitably, he won’t find.

  “Well? Aren’t you going waaa anymore?! Do you like it if I do it? Eh? Waaaa!” I roar at him, purple in the face.

  “Listen, sir, I apologise, I didn’t mean to—”

  But I keep on yelling ‘waaa’ at the top of my lungs, I don’t give him the chance to beg and alternate every now and then with ‘do you like it?’.

  “Get back in, go on, get back in.”

  I open his car door for him, like a chauffeur. He gets in uncertainly, he is right not to trust me. Halfway through, when his left leg is still standing on the tarmac, I throw all my weight onto the car door so it crushes his ankle. One, two, three, four times. The pain in the arse whimpers.

  “Now I’m going to call the police, you bastard!” I press my ID onto his face. Before I go back to my car, I smash his wing mirror with my gun handle. Off I go, whistling and wiping the tip of my nose.

  The rest of the way to the Fourteenth goes smoothly without any glitches, not counting though my disappointment at the absence of my name during the brief news report on the radio about the nest of Odas I unearthed. I don’t have to wait long for the avionshuttle, I’m forced in the meantime to suffer the moaning of a fag with an almost equally annoying poodle in his arms. He’s shocked by the fact that the animal needs a full-price ticket for the portals. His batty friend nods vigorously, confirming the staff’s intolerance in a camp voice. Naturally, there’s a reason for this, but I’m careful not to get involved in the conversation; the simple reason as to why the dog also requires a full-price ticket is because the reactants required for the leap are the same, regardless of the size of the animal. This, in turn, makes it perfectly clear why the ticket prices really keep going up.

  I get on the public vehicle, careful to give the shirt-lifters a wide berth. It’s nice to look at the view as the aviomobile starts its journey towards the floating port, a few kilometres away from the City, even though it’s still under the cloud of darkness. Nexus is a colossal business because it’s based on a linear, winning concept: teleport the client and all his hand luggage to any point on the planet in around five seconds. Despite the fact that the first person to use runes in conjunction with the magic of willpower to create stable and adjustable portals was a human, the owners of the ports are, no surprise here, the richest and most powerful in the respective countries, for the Federation this means elves and dwarves. In Nectropis, the share possessed by each dynasty or corporation directly reflects social prestige and wealth, in fact, what unofficially distinguishes the more prominent dynasties from the other smaller ones is the possession of a percentage large enough to secure a seat on the board.

  When the sky is clear, and you fly towards Nexus during the day, you can admire the fake sunset produced by combination of the shining sun and the legacy of the vampires, the sight poets have drooled over for thousands of years. In any case, it’s raining so hard today that even a less ambitious look around is impossible, apart from the odd moments when lightning strikes.

  The journey to the platform takes less than half an hour. Enormous electronic FedNex screens welcome travellers, and provide directions to various areas within the complex. I plough through the cosmopolitan crowds towards the police office, and even manage to catch a glimpse of whom I presume is a diplomat from Ecatomb, a dry-skinned Lich, dripping with gold and jewellery. All around his entourage of bodyguards, a handful of armoured skeletons with empty eye-sockets lit by the blue flame of the un-dead, the crowds of sentients quickly part in terror. Then they hang back in the background to contemplate the scene. The dignitary moves slowly forward, as though he wants the curious onlookers to watch him, but without deeming them worthy of his interest.

  The port cops point me towards management, where I’m shown into an office belonging to someone by the name of Nardet, he’s black and is wearing lightweight glasses and a suit costing half a month’s salary. His smile is both neat and dazzling. His speech is slightly aspirated, typical of universities in the southern hemisphere, he comes across rather like a lawyer and vigorously shakes my hand while assuring me of Nexus’s full collaboration.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Lieutenant,” he apologises after a quick computerised check of the issue number on the tickets, emphasising the truth more than is strictly necessary, “unfortunately, the leaps were paid in cash by a Mr Gilder Feltu’Atheron, therefore I can’t assist you in your search for the identity of his travelling companions.”

  “Can you at least tell me when they were purchased?”

  He checks the screen.

  “Two months ago. Oh, wait. It looks as though the third ticket was bought a few minutes after the others.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “To tell you the truth,” he admits candidly, “it might not mean anything at all. Maybe a misunderstanding with the person in the ticket office.”

  “And the destination?”

  “I’m really sorry. The destination is only disclosed at the moment of departure. The company is very proud of its protection of privacy and flexible service. All I can tell you is that the surcharge for expatriation was paid.“

  Great. So, anywhere. Great fucking lead. I stop and think for a moment, in frustration.

  “Can I talk to the person who sold the tickets?”

  He deftly types something at a speed that I will never match in my lifetime, then waits briefly while the machine adjusts to his efficiency.

  “That’s lucky, he’s on duty now. It would be my pleasure to accompany you.”

  The work space is governed by strict discipline. Following sharp orders from the dwarves, the humans jump from one operation to another without stopping. At the ticket desks FedNex favours humans who are much more accustomed to the infinite eccentricities of the multi-racial clientele typically found in the City. My man, short brown hair, freshly-shaven face and a blue uniform, concludes his sale and greets us in exactly the same way he greets thousands of passengers each day.

  “Hello. I’m Yago, how can I help you?”

  They’re all so eager to help me around here. You go, you ask, they answer. Why isn’t it always like that?

  “Lieutenant Arkham from the Federal Guard needs to ask you a few questions. Please try and remember.”

  “Three months ago you sold three tickets to Gilder Feltu’Atheron. An elf, blond, he paid in cash…”

  “Of course, I remember it clearly. We don’t often see elves in the ticket office, they normally book beforehand.”

  “Elves? How many exactly?”

  “Two, the gentleman and a lady, his wife-to-be. They said they were going to get married as soon as they arrived at their destination. They were young, around three or four hundred years old. A nice couple.”

  His smile is loaded with positivity. The dwarves really train their employees well. I’m pretty sure that after several hours at a ticket desk I’d want a wave of fire to burn the entire queue to a crisp, and I bet he’d give free reign to his misanthropy if he weren’t afraid of a dressing-down from his supervisor, who, with his beefy arms folded over his beard, has stopped to scrutinise the behaviour of his subordinates. His black moustache, secured by two metal rings, bounces frenetically because of a nervous tic which makes the dwarf grind his teeth menacingly. I’m not sure which one I would prefer if I had to choose between a weekend with the Lich from earlier or with this schizoid mass of living pistons.

  “You said young. So she didn’t have wrinkles, white hair or anything…”

  “No, no. She was the picture of health, despite her pregnancy—“

  “What? How do you know she was pregnant? Did she have a big belly?”

  “It was the tickets. At first
the gentleman only wanted two, but then they read…” He hesitates, eyeing the teeth-grinding dwarf with a shadow of paranoia. “When I thoroughly illustrated the travel instructions, they realised that another leap is required at the fourth month of pregnancy. I assured the lady that, naturally, the foetus is in absolutely no danger during the journey, so they bought a third ticket, and they left…”—more paranoia—“… absolutely satisfied.”

  Well, well. Inla was expecting a baby.

  “Thank you, Yago, you have been extremely helpful.”

  “At your service.”

  “If only they were all that efficient, eh?” I say to Titch the Terrible, indicating the employee. “You must be a very good supervisor.”

  Titch the Terrible raises his chin with pride, and smiles, gritting his teeth longer than usual. He relaxes his arms down the sides of his body and goes off to scold someone else, after gratifying Yago with a solemn thumbs up. The employee mouths a thank you, while Nardet insists on offering me a private FedNex vehicle to go back to my car, which I readily accept.

  “Should you ever come back to visit us,” the lawyer offers me his business card, “call me and I’ll get someone to come and pick you up. Good luck with your investigation.”

  “Let’s take stock…”

  Cohl rubs his bloodshot eyes and grumbles. His shirt collar is unbuttoned and his tie is loosened, the kid is starting to look like a real policeman. Tired, frustrated and scruffy. He reaches out towards the table to grab the last piece of pizza, our dinner which, in a mad burst of generosity, I bought for us on the way back from Nexus. I imitate him and fold the last piece of my dinner over, trying to confine the drops of spicy oil to the cardboard box balanced on my lap. We don’t give a flying fuck about the police manual’s protocol regarding the integrity of a crime scene, so we stay there, stretched out on the hare’s sofa, eating, smoking and contemplating the piles of stuff all over the living room. This chaos is the only result of the Inspector’s meticulous search, in the space of only one day he has gone back to being a bonafide, card-carrying chain smoker.

  “So, Inla finds out she’s pregnant, and along with Gilder buys tickets for who knows where,” I start, while I chew, “and that is a fact. My guess, and I think it’s the most likely at this point, is that they planned to leave on the day marked with a cross. Question…”

  “Why do they want to run away?” finishes Nohl, swallowing a mouthful and ripping off another, leaving just the partially charred dry edge.

  “A baby ass is no ordinary event. The last time an elf was born, I remember that the Nazhr’Atherons gave all their employees the week off—and who knows what happened at the top of the tower, a gang bang with the whole family probably.”

  “So why kill it along with the mother?”

  I think for a minute, and I don’t completely savour the end of the meal. I throw the pizza box with a little too much vigour so that it slides and falls off the other side, scattering the chewed up bits of crusts between two higgledy columns of books. Fuck it. Cohl puts it down more carefully and lights a cigarette.

  “It could be because the mother was an exile, or…”—an illumination—“… or because of the father!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen,” I shift position on the sofa to face Cohl, he’s cupping his chin in his hands and resting his elbow on his knees, “what if Gilder wasn’t the father?”

  “The man at the ticket desk said it was.”

  “No, he didn’t say that. He said he knew that Inla was pregnant, and that’s all.”

  The Inspector sits up straight, forcing himself to summon up the energy to hang off my every word.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why you have never seen a half-elf?”

  “I’ve always thought that they weren’t, erm, ‘compatible’ with other races. I’ve always thought it was rather obvious, seeing as they are the only immortal beings in Saros; at least the only living beings.”

  “Right,” I answer, tapping my index finger against my temple, “but maybe that’s only what they wanted people to think. What if, on the other hand, no one’s ever seen a half-blood before because they kill them before they are born?”

  “Bloody hell…”

  “Maybe they have a rule that prohibits it. You know how cocky rabbits are.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “So the dynasty finds out and bam, one mummy elf less!”

  “But following this line of reasoning, we still can’t discount Gilder as a suspect. I mean, if it’s a sort of social convention amongst elves, we can’t exclude the possibility that it was actually he who killed her. Also because it takes at least one non-elf to make a half-elf, don’t you agree? Maybe we shouldn’t abandon the crime of passion idea just yet.”

  “Acute observation. But he didn’t run away. He could have, but he didn’t.”

  “Maybe he had some business to see to. Cover his tracks, or something.”

  “And risk everything by leaving the tickets at home? Would you have done that?”

  “No, you’re right.”

  I grin triumphantly, and allow myself a swig of water from the bottle. Thank the Gods, the two of them bought bottled mineral water. I don’t feel like finding out which diseases you can catch from the tap water on the Seventh.

  “It’s plausible, but we’ve got to talk to a doctor. We need to know if it’s theoretically possible. And then there’s the issue of the biological father…”

  “Who may not even exist.”

  “Well, I reckon elves make babies just like everyone else, Lieutenant.”

  “Precisely, kid. And just like everyone else, they can solve problems such as sterility with artificial insemination.”

  “Dammit. How many clinics are there in Nectropis?”

  “No idea. But they will be able to solve our intra-racial dilemma. Get this. It’s the males who’ve got lazy sperm, while the women function normally. That explains why they have to get rid of the half-bloods and the mothers who have sex with non-elves: because if word got out, their bloodline and wealth would dry up pretty quickly. Bastards! They should be danger of extinction, there’s the truth!”

  “It’s an interesting theory.” The Inspector puts on the brakes. “Really, it is. It’s novel material. But it’s all based on conjecture. Is it possible that in thousands of years co-existing with other races, nobody’s ever noticed anything? There’s never been an accident, a story, a fugitive…?”

  “We’re talking about elves here, Cohl. All the documents dating back to before the apocalypse were either lost or destroyed, while from the defeat by the Sulphurous Throne onwards they have always dominated society in practically every way. I can assure you that they are more than able to bury anything. Trust me.”

  I should know.

  “Just fabulous,” pouts Nohl, downhearted, “that means another day in the car tomorrow. A great Saturday, really. Let’s hope we end up in some dump where it’s raining slime, it’d be a shame to stop now that I’m starting to enjoy it.”

  “Right. Join up, they said. You’ll see the world, they said.”

  Not that anyone really said that to me, also because I think they were referring to the army, but it’s one of those lines you hear. You know.

  We take our coats off the coat hook, and I stop to look at the only one left hanging there.

  “Did you check the pockets?”

  “Of course I did, but I didn’t find much of anything. There’s a note with half an email address. Who knows how long it’s been there. I put it back where I found it.”

  “Let’s have a look…”

  I rummage inside and pull out the note, a scrap of paper torn off a larger sheet, it has ‘kart.nofym’ written on it in red ink. There’s nothing unusual about it; in fact, there isn’t even a dominion.

  “It’s better than nothing. It could be the name of a person or a company.”

  “Just don’t ask me to look in the records, Lieutenant, otherwise I might ne
ver come out again. It could be a nickname you know?”

  “In any case, it’s the only reference we’ve got, seeing as you didn’t find any diaries or things like that. Maybe Gilder overlooked something.”

  “If you say so, Lieutenant…”

  I completely understand Cohl’s skepticism, I also feel like I’m clutching at straws. But we could always get a lucky break, maybe this name will jump out of the Guard’s records, or from research on the internet. I feel like a dog chasing its tail. Things are worsened by that unhealthy idea that’s been going ‘round my head ever since I saw the non-dead at Nexus. A demented thought, something that I would never even consider if I weren’t forced to try everything.

  “What time tomorrow?” yawns the Inspector.

  “I’ll call you. You start making a nice list of all the clinics, a few calls might even be enough.”

  I say goodbye to the kid at the door, leaving him to negotiate the yellow police tape. That’s funny, in theory the seal should also stop me from entering, seeing as it’s not my investigation, though in actual fact it doesn’t keep anybody out. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope the house doesn’t get cleaned out during the night. The idea of spending the night here in Gilder’s house is tempting, but Cohl would probably tell me to go to hell. It’s a real pain to fix the tape back on to the greasy door frame outside. And then, I’ve got my medicine. What do I need to sleep for?

  “So I don’t piss my brain through my nostrils,” I answer myself, in the car. I light a cigarette, not sure about my next move, while I wait for the kid to leave so I can do a line. The windscreen, which has been under attack from the precipitation from the edge for the last few hours, looks like an oily kebab wrapper, the outside world is smudgy brown. The windscreen wipers do their best, but their efforts are in vain, not even the hammering rain can get rid of this filthy film on the glass.

  I’m going to have to get the car cleaned, once I’ve pocketed the money.