Ms. Fate stared into the open wound again. “Our killer really does like his work, doesn’t he?”
“He’s got an appetite for it,” I said solemnly.
“Oh please,” said Ms. Fate.
I moved in beside her, staring down into the cavity. “Took the heart out first, then the liver. Our killer must believe they hold the secret of the werewolf’s abilities. If he is a shape-changer now, he’d be that much harder to take down.”
Ms. Fate looked at me thoughtfully, then turned to Dr. West. “Do you still have all the victims’ clothes and belongings?”
“Of course, my dear, of course! Individually bagged and tagged. Help yourself.”
She opened every bag, and checked every piece of torn and blood-soaked clothing. It’s always good to see a real professional at work. Eventually, she ran out of things to check and test, and turned back to me.
“Six victims. Different ages, sexes, occupations. Nothing at all to connect them. Unless you know something, Detective.”
“There’s nothing in the files,” I said.
“So how were the victims chosen? Why these six people?”
“Maybe the people don’t matter,” I said. “Just their abilities.”
“Run me through them again,” she said. “Names and abilities, in order, from the beginning.”
“First victim was the godling, Demetrius Heracles,” I said patiently. “Then the farseer, Barbara Moore. The teleporter, Cainy du Brec. The immortal, Count Magnus, though I doubt very much that was his real name. The chat show host, Adrian Woss, and finally the werewolf, Christopher Russell.”
“This whole business reminds me unpleasantly of Shock-Headed Peter,” Ms. Fate said slowly. “Not the MO, but the sheer ruthlessness of the murders. Are you sure he hasn’t escaped?”
“Positive,” I said. “No-one escapes from Shadow Deep.”
She shook her masked head, her heavy cloak rustling loudly. “I’d still feel happier if we checked. Can you get us in?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m the Detective.”
So we went down into Shadow Deep, all the way down to the darkest place in the Nightside, sunk far below in the cold bedrock. Constructed… no-one knows how long ago, to hold the most vicious, evil, and dangerous criminals ever stupid enough to prey on the Nightside. The ones we can’t, for one reason or another, just execute and be done with. The only way down is by the official transport circle, maintained and operated by three witches from a small room over a really rough bar called the Jolly Cripple. If the people who drank in the bar knew what went on in the room above their heads… they’d probably drink a hell of a lot more.
“Why here?” said Ms. Fate, as we ascended the gloomy back stairs. “Secrecy?”
“Partly, I suppose,” I said. “More likely because it’s cheap.”
The three witches were the traditional bent-over hags in tattered cloaks, all clawed hands and hooked noses. The great circle on the floor had been marked in chalk mixed with sulphur and semen. You don’t want to know how I found out. Ms. Fate glowered at the three witches.
“You can stop that cackling right now. You don’t have to put on an act; we’re not tourists.”
“Well, pardon us for taking pride in our work,” said one of the witches, straightening up immediately. “We are professionals, after all. And image is everything, these days. You don’t think these warts just happened, do you?”
I gave her my best hard look, and she got the transport operation under way. The three witches did the business with a minimum of chanting and incense, and down Ms. Fate and I went, to Shadow Deep.
It was dark when we arrived. Completely dark, with not a ghost of a light anywhere. I only knew Ms. Fate was there with me because I could hear her breathing at my side. Foot-steps approached, slow and heavy, until finally a pair of night-vision goggles were thrust into my hand. I nearly jumped out of my skin, and from the muffled squeak beside me, so did Ms. Fate. I slipped the goggles on, and Shadow Deep appeared around me, all dull green images and fuzzy shadows.
It’s always dark in Shadow Deep.
We were standing in an ancient circular stone chamber, with a low roof, curving walls, and just the one exit, leading on to a stone tunnel. Standing before us was one of the prison staff, a rough clay golem with simple preprogrammed routines. It had no eyes on its smooth face, because it didn’t need to see. It turned abruptly and started off down the tunnel, and Ms. Fate and I hurried after it. The tunnel branched almost immediately, and branched again, and as we moved from tunnel to identical tunnel, I soon lost all track of where I was.
We came at last to the Governor’s office, and the golem raised an oversized hand and knocked once on the door. A cheery voice called out for us to enter, and the door swung open before us. A blinding light spilled out, and Ms. Fate and I clawed off our goggles as we stumbled into the office. The door shut itself behind us.
I looked around the Governor’s office with watering eyes. It wasn’t particularly big, but it had all the comforts. The Governor came out from behind his desk to greet us, a big blocky man with a big friendly smile that didn’t touch his eyes at all. He seemed happy to see us, but then, he was probably happy to see anyone. Shadow Deep doesn’t get many visitors.
“Welcome, welcome!” he said, taking our goggles and shaking my hand and Ms. Fate’s with great gusto. “The great Detective and the famous vigilante; such an honour! Do sit down, make yourselves at home. That’s right! Make yourselves comfortable! Can I offer you a drink, cigars… ?”
“No,” I said.
“Ah, Detective,” said the Governor, sitting down again behind his desk. “It’s always business with you, isn’t it?”
“Ms. Fate is concerned that one of your inmates might have escaped,” I said.
“What? Oh no; no, quite impossible!” The Governor turned his full attention and what he likes to think of as his charming smile on Ms. Fate. “No-one ever escapes from here. Never, never. It’s always dark in Shadow Deep, you see. Light doesn’t work here, outside my office. Not any kind of light, scientific or magical. Not even a match… Even if a prisoner could get out of his cell, which he can’t, there’s no way he could find his way through the maze of tunnels to the transfer site. Even a teleporter can’t get out of here because there’s no way of knowing how far down we are!”
“Tell her how it works,” I said. “Tell her what happens to the scum I bring here.”
The Governor blinked rapidly and tried another ingratiating smile. “Yes, well, the prisoner is put into his cell by one of the golems, and the door is then nailed shut. And sealed forever with preprepared, very powerful magics. Once in, a prisoner never leaves his cell. The golems pass food and water through a slot in the door. And that’s it.”
“What about… ?” said Ms. Fate.
“There’s a grille in the floor.”
“Oh, ick.”
“Quite,” said the Governor. “You must understand, our prisoners are not here to reform or repent. Only the very worst individuals ever end up here, and they stay here till they die. However long that takes. No reprieves, and no time off for good behaviour.”
“How did you get this job?” said Ms. Fate.
“I think I must have done something really bad in a previous existence,” the Governor said grandly. “Cosmic payback can be such a bitch.”
“You got this job because you got caught,” I said.
The Governor scowled. “Yes, well… It’s not that I did anything really bad…”
“Ms. Fate,” I said, “allow me to introduce to you Charles Peace, villain from a long line of villains. Burglar, thief, and snapper up of anything valuable not actually nailed down. Safes opened while you wait.”
“That was my downfall,” the Governor admitted. “I opened Walker’s safe, you see; just for the challenge of it. And I saw something I really shouldn’t have seen. Something no-one was ever supposed to see. I ran, of course, but the Detective tracked me down and brought me back, a
nd Walker gave me a choice. On-the-spot execution, or serve here as Governor until what I know becomes obsolete and doesn’t matter any more. That was seventeen years ago, and there isn’t a day goes by where I don’t wonder whether I made the right decision.”
“Seventeen years?” said Ms. Fate. She always did have a soft spot for a hard-luck story.
“Seventeen years, four months, and three days,” said the Governor. “Not that I obsess about it, you understand.”
“Is Shock-Headed Peter still here?” I said bluntly. “There’s no chance he could have got out?”
“Of course not! I did the rounds only an hour ago, and his cell is still sealed. Come on, Detective; if Shock-Headed Peter was on the loose in the Nightside again, we’d all know about it.”
“Who else have you got down here?” said Ms. Fate. “Anyone… famous?”
“Oh, quite a few; certainly some names you’d recognise. Let’s see; we have the Murder Masques, Sweet Annie Abattoir, Max Maxwell the Voodoo Apostate, Maggie Malign… But they’re all quite secure, too, I can assure you.”
“I just needed to be sure this place is as secure as it’s supposed to be,” said Ms. Fate. “You’d better prepare a new cell, Governor; because I’ve brought you a new prisoner.”
And she looked at me.
I rose to my feet, and so did she. We stood looking at each other for a long moment.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said. “But it’s you. You’re the murderer.”
“Have you gone mad?” I said.
“You gave yourself away, Sam,” she said, meeting my gaze squarely with her own. “That’s why I had you bring me here to Shadow Deep, where you belong. Where even you can’t get away.”
“What makes you think it was me?” I said.
“You knew things you shouldn’t have known. Things only the killer could have known. First, at the Library. That anthropology text was a dry, stuffy, and very academic text. Very difficult for a layman to read and understand. But you just skimmed through it, then neatly summed up the whole concept. The only way you could have done that was if you’d known it in advance. That raised my suspicions, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to be wrong about you.
“But you did it again, at the autopsy. First, you knew that the heart had been removed before the liver. Dr. West hadn’t worked that out yet, because the body’s insides were such a mess. Second, when I asked you to name the victims in order, you named them all, including the werewolf. Who hasn’t been identified yet. Dr. West still had him down as a John Doe.
“So, it had to be you. Why, Sam? Why?”
“Because they were going to make me retire,” I said. It was actually a relief, to be able to tell it to someone. “Take away my job, my reason for living, just because I’m not as young as I used to be. All my experience, all my years of service, all the things I’ve done for them, and the Authorities were going to give me a gold watch and throw me on the scrap heap. Now, when things are worse than they’ve ever been. When I’m needed more than ever. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
“So I decided I would just take what I needed, to make myself the greatest Detective that ever was. With my new abilities, I would be unstoppable. I would go private, like John Taylor and Larry Oblivion, and show those wet-behind-the-ears newcomers how it’s done… I would become rich and famous, and if I looked a little younger, well… this is the Nightside, after all.
“Shed no tears for my victims. They were all criminals, though I could never prove it. That’s why there was no paperwork on them. But I knew. Trust me; they all deserved to die. They were all scum.
“I’d actually finished, you know. The werewolf would have been my last victim. I had all I needed. I teleported in and out of the Library, which is why no-one saw me come and go. But then… you had to turn up, the second-best Detective in the Nightside, and spoil everything. I never should have agreed to train you… but I saw in you a passion for justice that matched my own. You could have been my partner, my successor. The things we could have done… But now I’m going to have to kill you, and the Governor. I can’t let you tell. Can’t let you stop me, not after everything I’ve done. The Nightside needs me.
“You’ll just be two more victims of the unknown serial killer.”
I surged forward with a werewolf’s supernatural speed and grabbed the front of Ms. Fate’s black-leather costume with a godling’s strength. I closed my hand on her chest and ripped her left breast away. And then I stopped, dumbstruck. The breast was in my hand, but under the torn-open leather there was no wound, no spouting blood. Only a very flat, very masculine chest. Ms. Fate smiled coldly.
“And that’s why you’d never have guessed my secret identity, Sam. Who would ever have suspected that a man would dress up as a superheroine to fight crime? But then, this is the Nightside, and like you said; we all have our secrets.” And while I stood there, listening with an open mouth, she palmed a nausea-gas capsule from her belt and threw it in my face. I hit the stone floor on my hands and knees, vomiting so hard I couldn’t concentrate enough to use any of my abilities. The Governor called for two of his golems, and they came and dragged me away. They threw me into a cell, then nailed the door shut and sealed it forever.
No need for a trial. Ms. Fate would have a word with Walker, and that would be that. That’s how I always did it.
So here I am, in Shadow Deep, in the dark that never ends. Guess whose cell they put me next to. Just guess.
One of these days they’ll open this cell and find nothing here but my clothes.
A Woman’s Work
Dana Stabenow
As small and mean and dirty as Pylos was, Crowfoot was profoundly glad to see it on the horizon. The voyage from Dorian had been speedy but less than smooth, the Ocean of Aptikos in its usual bad temper. When at last they made fast to the dock, Crowfoot had Blanca and Pedro first up out of the hold and down the gangway to a terra that was blessedly firma beneath her feet. The Sword was strapped to her back and the saddle on Blanca’s before Sharryn had finished taking leave of the Barka’s captain. Avel was his name, he of the laughing hazel eyes and the tight brown curls and the quick, charming tongue. He had been the only bright spot in Sharryn’s voyage from Epaphus. Sailors.
He knew his business, though. The Barka’s crew made short work of off-loading what little cargo in its holds was destined for Kalliopean vendors. There was nothing to load, evidently, the primary export of Kalliope being tragic poetry, it was said sold by the yard. It was a joke over the other eight provinces that it was most welcome in the necessary out back.
“Crowfoot?”
A voice made her turn. “Aeron. I wondered if you had waited to greet us.”
“Not for long.” His grip was firm and quickly released. “We’re leaving on the ship you came in on, if the captain will give us passage.”
He was a spare man with gray hair and a stern face, as tall as the Staff he held in his left hand. A shorter man stepped out from behind him, and Crow felt her face break into a smile. “Thanos.”
That man was younger and built along more generous lines, with the bronze skin and dark hair of the native born Pthalean. His Sword was belted around his waist in such style as the hilt was never very far from his right hand. “Crow!” He gave her a hearty embrace, but his eyes slid past her to the ship. “Is that our outbound transportation?”
“You’re in a hurry,” she said.
“So will you be, in a year,” Aeron said.
“In a week,” Thanos said.
She looked from one to the other. “We could probably use a little introduction.”
“You’ll find out all you need to know between here and Ydra,” Aeron said.
“I see.” She busied herself with Pedro’s saddle to hide her annoyance, and said in a carefully casual tone, “Kalliope not quite the garden spot it’s reputed to be?”
Thanos gave Aeros a sidelong glance. “Not quite.”
“No,” Aeros said, his face grim, “and I don�
�t know why they sent the two of you here. It’s going to make the job twice as hard, and the nine gods know it’s hard enough already. Especially now.”
“Aeron! Thanos!” Sharryn trod down the gangway in a flurry of mulberry skirts and embraced both men with her usual enthusiasm. Even Aeron’s stony visage cracked a smile, but further greetings were forestalled by Avel’s call. “All aboard!”
“He’s calling my name,” Thanos said, and kissed first Crow’s cheek, then Sharryn’s. He shouldered his bag, grasped the hilt of his Sword, and quick-footed it up the gangway. Aeron nodded at both women and followed, the Staff striking the wooden surface every second step like the rhythmic tolling of a death bell.
The Barka cast off and stood out in short order. There was a shout from the rail. “There’s a good inn about a league out of town! The Soldier’s Rest!”
“Thanks, Thanos!” Crow said. “Safe voyage!”
“Good luck!”
“Ominous,” Sharryn said. “He sounds like he thinks we might need it.” She looked at Crow. “They could have stayed to fill us in a little on what we could expect. We would have.”
“Maybe,” Crow said, and looked around at the gathering crowd. They were all men, some curious, some lascivious, some distinctly unfriendly.
“Witches,” someone said in a voice meant to be heard.
“And maybe not,” Crow said. The remark had come from a group of young men better dressed than the rest of the crowd, with gold and gemstones at their wrists and throats. One arrogant dandy with a supercilious arch to his very long nose waited until he caught Crow’s eye and spat deliberately before Blanca’s hooves.
Sharryn gave a sunny smile. “Ready?”
Without answering, Crowfoot touched a heel to Blanca’s side. The dandy waited to give way until Blanca and Pedro were almost on top of them, his red cloak actually brushing Crow’s stirrup. His eyes were dark with contempt and, yes, hatred, Crow thought, but there was something else there as well. The Sword against her back seemed to hum in agreement.
Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy Page 23
