“Any of ’em! They’re all rats! Ya can’t give ’em the satisfaction!”
The man with the full-face tattoo silently offered Yumiko a tattered handkerchief.
Yumiko thanked him and daubed her eyes, and decided she liked the sons and daughters of the Daylit World far better than the beautiful and long-lived folk of the Night World.
Chapter Two: The Lair of the Vigilante
1. Abandoned Factory
On a high rooftop near the train station, she donned her dark suit and fox-mask and swung with simian grace along the skyline, a black shape flitting in the gloom above the street lamps. For the signal was now strong and clear.
About a mile later, she reached a run-down section of the city. Few were the lights in the windows, and few were the windows on the ground floors that were unbroken. It was quiet here. There were no cars moving on the streets, no people on the sidewalks.
The signal came from a windowless factory building of red brick. It had a slanting roof of black so that it was three stories tall on one side, four on the other. From the higher corner fronting the street a round chimney of red brick loomed, huge and tall, pointing at the black sky. Once letters had been painted on the chimney; they were now faded and inscrutable. The chimney seemed tilted, for the slant of the roof fooled the eye.
The front of the factory was a windowless, lopsided slab pierced by a large overhead door for trucks and a smaller door for people. Both were painted over with jagged, angry graffiti. The look of the weeds cracking the pavement before the two doors, and the tarnish gathered on the padlocks, showed that neither had been opened in years.
She landed and circled the factory on foot.
An abandoned lot was to one side, a place of cracked pavement, weeds, and more graffiti. In the lot, pushed up under the eaves of the slanted factory roof, were three dumpster bins filled, not with trash, but with nightsoil and mulch. Two of them had been undisturbed for so long weeds and little pale flowers were growing from an unhealthy greenish crust. The third sat under the mouth of a chute protruding like a rainspout from the factory.
The rear of the factory boasted a few sickly trees and a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, as torn and bedraggled as the trees.
The remaining side of the factory was flush against a flat-topped two-story structure of pale concrete. Its doorways had been boarded over, and the boards had been scrawled with graffiti and then kicked in, leaving rectangular gaps like missing teeth. A single broken window stared out of a pale concrete wall.
The factory on this side was twice as tall as its neighbor. For some reason, a metal door coated with peeling orange paint was planted in the midst of this otherwise blank brick wall that loomed over the flat roof of the pale building. This orange door had no landing, and no stairs led to it.
Yumiko was standing in the middle of the road, peering upward, when a traffic light dangling over the intersection nearby changed from red. The green glass was broken, so a sudden white light shone on her, startling her. She looked around the street warily.
It was eerie to see the streets so empty and to see so many buildings without lights. In the near distance she heard the muted roar of a single motorcyclist speeding down the barren streets, but when she swung herself high and landed on the broken traffic light and looked, the engine noise died away, and she saw no one.
From her perch, she looked again at the broken boards covering the doorway to the flat-topped building, and looked more closely at the single broken window. From this angle, she could see a ledge and a drainpipe which would have allowed any moderately athletic man to mount the flat roof with only modest effort.
Frowning beneath her grinning mask, she looked back and stared at the orange door. Why was it there? If there had once been stairs leading to the top of the flat building, no sign of them remained. If Winged Vengeance meant to have an airy opening only he could reach, this door was not high enough.
Then she saw an extending ladder, rusted and worn, lying on the gravel of the pale roof. If it had been sporting a pretty pink bow, the lure would not have been more obvious.
2. The Other Way In
Yumiko lowered her weight, unlimbered her telescoping bowstaff, and used it to vault herself up from the broken traffic pole. She sailed over the slanted black roof of the factory, shot her wirepoon to snag the lip of the huge, high chimney, and swung to the rim.
She looked into the dark depth. Why would a winged man use any door? The orange door was an obvious trap. On the other hand, using an obvious trap to lure the unwary into a subtler trap was not obvious. Perhaps this chimney was the real trap. Perhaps Winged Vengeance came and went by another way she had not yet seen.
She did not like the idea of lowering herself into a factory chimney, even one years dead. Ash or residual fumes might be lurking down the dark shaft. Or bad smells. She sealed her mask and turned on the oxynitrogen before fixing her grapnel securely into place and descending into the gloom.
Down she went. She lit no lights because the reflections escaping the chimney mouth above might be visible. There was no heat here, insufficient visible wavelengths to amplify, and no ultraviolet, so she was blind with all her lenses.
Her nerves jumped when a red light flickered in the corner of her vision. Toxic environment. A second message reported that her suit integrity was good.
Some residue from chemicals burned here long ago? She might have believed that, except that when she landed in an ash heap at the bottom of the shaft, something cracked under her foot. She left the wire in place to allow for a quick escape. Now she risked a light. In the ashes underfoot, she saw the smooth curve, the eyeholes, and the upper jaw of a human skull.
The burning chamber was punctured by a fuel vent leading in and a set of clogged slats underfoot originally meant to allow ash to fall out. To one side was a large metal hatch for introducing the material to be burned.
In the flashlight beam, she saw that the fuel vent had particles of ash dancing before it. She holstered the flashlight and clicked her lenses to infrared. The gas entering through the fuel vent was slightly warmer than the bricks behind it, so she could see colored plumes like ghostly smoke pouring silently in.
There was no lock to pick on this side of the hatch, nor any hinges. And she had not seen a hacksaw anywhere among the many useful tools in her belt, or a crowbar. However, her kunai-blade could serve. The ring in the knife butt could be rotated, and the bowstaff tip fitted to it like a bayonet. (Yumiko was once again impressed with the modular cleverness of her weapons.) The point of the stubby throwing blade she wedged into the hatch jamb. Then, she braced her bowstaff against the far wall of the chimney. The powerful force of the telescoping bowstaff expanding drove the knifepoint hard enough into the crack between jamb and frame to create a gap. The blade of her kodachi was narrow enough to slide through. Eventually, she found and dislodged the bolt holding the hatch shut.
She put her shoulder to the hatch. The rusted hinges groaned and refused to move. She dismounted the knife, braced the tip of the staff against the stubborn hatch, and expanded it. Under this battering ram, the hinges screamed, and the hatch banged open with a strident clang.
Yumiko sighed, wondering if there were any passersby on the street or in nearby rooms who had not noticed. Next time, she would just ring the doorbell and present a calling card to the butler: The Foxmaiden will do you the honor of furtively and surreptitiously breaking into your secret base after sunset. Please take no notice.
There was no help for it. She retracted her grapnel, cutting herself off from a quick exit, and slid out nimbly through the hatch.
Outside, her flashlight beam showed the crawling clouds of poison slithering out of the hatch with her. The clouds did not rise, but poured like water, clinging to the ground. She oiled the hinges with oil from her sword cleaning kit, put her back to the hatch, braced both of her feet against the brick floor, straightened her legs, and silently forced the hatch shut. Then, she threw the bolt. The seal was ti
ght, and no more poison escaped.
3. Aside from the Poison
An open grillwork of supports upheld the slanted roof. She shot her grapnel into one of them, rose up, and twined her legs around a brace. Her flashlight beam could not reach the floor. She shut it off. It was dark as a tomb. Saying farewell to all hope of stealth, Yumiko ignited her second and last flare.
Below was a wide, empty factory floor, ankle-deep in poison gas. Protruding pipes, metal braces, and empty holes showed that whatever equipment had once been here was long since gone.
She drew one of her folding boomerangs and affixed the flare to a clear clamp that apparently had been designed just for this purpose. She threw.
The spinning boomerang cast brilliant light across the scene, and the shadows looped and spun in answer. One lopsided wall was pierced with the larger overhead door. This was the street side, the front wall. Nearby loomed a set of wooden platforms like giant shelves, evidently a warehouse storage area. It was adjacent to a roofless walled-off area one-story tall. From her high perch, she could see office spaces bare of furnishings, a short hallway, and the smaller door from the street.
The factory space was wide enough for the boomerang to fly in a circle and return. She swung out on her wire to catch it and to hurl it in the opposite direction.
The rear wall of the factory was broken into little bays and inlets. Whatever utility rooms, motors, plumbing, lockers, or other fixtures which had been there were also gone.
A second time the boomerang returned to her hand. Now she threw it to one side. In the spinning glare of light, she saw a catwalk clinging to the taller of the two long side walls. This catwalk was twenty feet off the floor and ran the whole length of the factory. It reached from the brick chimney at one end to an enclosed loft at the other. The loft clung to the slanted ceiling like some bulky, square version of a swallow’s nest.
The boomerang passed over the catwalk and became embedded with a clang. The light was now motionless over the wide empty place.
Yumiko looked up and down. Aside from the spreading cloud of poison, nothing in the surroundings seemed unusual for an abandoned building.
Or almost nothing. The boomerang was sticking into the side of what looked like an elevator car. This block-shaped feature stood at the midpoint of the catwalk. She estimated this was the spot where the orange metal door pierced the wall. In the brilliant light from the flare, this elevator car seemed rust free, the paint fresh. It was more recent than its surroundings. The catwalk passed before it. But there was no elevator shaft above or below. From the floor of the elevator car, a large, long, square, sloping metal shaft ran parallel to the slanted ceiling. This shaft ran to the point in the shorter wall where, from outside, she had seen a rainspout pouting over the dumpster bin of liquid filth. Perhaps it was part of the ventilation system. It looked like a laundry chute.
With the flare motionless, she saw details previously missed. Where the catwalk met the brick chimney, twenty feet off the ground, a second hatch penetrated it. This second hatch was directly above the one she had broken open. It had new hinges and showed marks of recent use. There was a wheel to turn instead of a latch.
Yumiko groaned with understanding. Anyone able to fly down the shaft who knew where the upper hatch was, instead of dropping into a well of heavier-than-air poisonous gas, could simply turn the wheel, exit the chimney shaft, and walk on the catwalk.
There were no stairs from the catwalk to the factory floor. Not that a winged man needed them. The catwalk ran to only one spot. Yumiko swung through the roof supports toward the loft. Once, large windows had been here, overlooking the factory floor, but now all were boarded up with plywood. That was not the strangest sight.
Where the catwalk touched the loft, the metal walkway ended in an old-fashioned door with a large doorknob of blue glass. It gleamed like a vast sapphire. The wood was held by large metal hasps, and the door and doorframe came to a peaked arch at the top.
Before the door was a brown mat, sitting on the iron grillwork of the catwalk.
Yumiko was unwilling to step onto the catwalk because she could not see why a winged man would use one to reach a door four stories in the air. Instead, she swung gracefully in and used her glider wings to break her speed just enough that she could drive two knives, one in each hand, into the plywood boards covering the windows. Weighing less than a pound, she could hang from one hand or flip herself up and balance on her boot toes on the knife hilts. The dizzying drop to the empty factory floor was below her. The railing was next to her, as was the odd, archaic door.
She had seen such a door in the magic shop where Winged Vengeance left his tuxedo. It was similar in shape, but it was not the same wood, the same size, or clasped with the same ornate hinges. The knob was sapphire, not ruby. But it was clearly a brother to that other door.
She looked down. The brown mat had letters on it. They spelled out GO AWAY.
4. The Inner Sanctum
Yumiko put on boot on the catwalk handrail and reached out with her hand.
The glass doorknob turned. The door was unlocked.
A thrill of suspicion trickled up her spine to her neck. What sort of vigilante left the secret door to his hidden sanctum unlocked?
Warily, Yumiko drove another knife into the plywood further away and perched on it. With her back to the plywood, she expanded her bowstaff, extended to twice its normal length, and used the far tip to prod the door open.
She waited warily for an explosion or an attack by poisonous asps. Neither came.
Closer she crept again, clinging weightlessly to the plywood, and peered around the doorjamb.
At that moment, the flare was exhausted. The light fluttered and failed.
Darkness closed in. Yumiko drew her flashlight. In its beam she saw the eight-sided chamber beyond the strange door, paneled in dark wood, dark beneath a high, octagonal dome.
Weightlessly, she swooped into the chamber, landing in a crouch with no more noise than a falling cherry blossom petal. Here on a table in the middle of the carpet was the same phone on the same table she had seen before.
She waited, wondering whether it would ring.
The phone remained silent. She sent the flashlight beam left and right to inspect the eight walls.
Last time, the arched door had opened, not onto a catwalk inside a deserted factory uptown, but onto a brick wall. Last time, the arched door had been opposite three windows in three walls looking out on the churchyard of a deserted church downtown. The three walls were there, but now two of them were pierced by narrow doors. The wall between them was a niche holding a photographic portrait draped in black. To either side of the photograph were flowers in vases and twigs of incense in holders.
Yumiko shined her beam on the picture. Her sob caught in the throat, heavy with emotion, before her brain consciously recognized the clear features, green eyes, raven-black hair. It was her mother.
Stepping nearer, she saw that these smaller doors both sported brass handles, but neither knob nor lock. Behind each was a blank brick wall.
Next, she looked at one of the cabinets. It was also unlocked, but, as before, it also opened up on a blank wall. She pushed back the top of the rolltop desk. Empty.
She walked a circle, slowly inspecting the eight walls. Then, she turned her flashlight up. A wooden dome made of eight curving panels was above. As when last she stood here, the chamber was like a stage setting, not a real room. What was she overlooking?
She directed her beam downward, seeing how obvious were the trail of triangular prints her boot toes made in the thick dust and the tiny, sharp imprints of her heel. Her brow creased. Did Winged Vengeance never sweep the carpet? Perhaps that had been her job. But where were his boot prints?
Kneeling, Yumiko ran a finger along the fibers. She inspected the dust on her fingertip. It was a white powder. The alert light in the corner of her vision flashed. Toxic environment.
Yumiko shivered, remembered that her supersuit had clamp
ed shut, airtight, the last time she had entered this chamber. At that time, she had not known how to turn on the warning messages from the suit’s hidden instruments. Despite this, the suit, or whatever thoughtful paranoiac had designed it, had saved her life.
But she also remembered taking off her mask during her last visit. Why had the toxin coating the carpet not acted on her then? She tried to remember the exact order of events. Yumiko stood, stepped over to the pole lamp, and switched it on.
In the bright light, the dust stain on her fingertip looked dull gray. The warning light in her lenses winked out. The air registered as safe to breathe. She turned the pole lamp off again. The dust turned from gray to white. The warning flashed. Toxic environment.
What kind of material could change its properties when struck by light and turn from lethal to harmless instantly? Whether it was elfin alchemy or human super-science, it was astounding.
And astoundingly stupid to use. How did Winged Vengeance make sure, when he left the room and stepped into a dark place, a closet, unlit corridor, or out into a moonless night, he had no small gray stain overlooked on his elbow, or boot sole, or clinging to the hem of his cape which would instantly suddenly turn white and lethal again? In fact, how had she left this room of death safely?
She could not remember. But surely she had twisted the ring to render herself weightless before exiting since there was no other exit but the window. Could the mist of the elfs disperse the dusty poison?
Yumiko twisted the ring twice widdershins.
5. Hanged Men
The mist thickened about her, rendering her unseen to human eyes. Immediately, her hands began to tremble. Her fingers were cold. She bit on the switch inside her mask to increase the oxygen flow, but she still seemed unable to breathe. Yumiko turned the flashlight left and right, wildly, looked for the source of the threat. No one was here.
Then, she switched the flashlight off. There was a man hanging by his neck from a rope descending from the shadows of the eight-sided dome. An arrow pinned a note, written in blood, to his chest, and protruded from his back. His eyes were terrible pits of emptiness opening into a universe larger and darker than the universe of stars the Earth’s tiny globe spun through. A second man, eyeless, bound, and hanged, was next to the first, also impaled by an arrow. A third man, hanging by the neck, arrow-stabbed, had his wrists tied behind him by his bootlaces. A fourth hung head downward.
Tithe to Tartarus: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book Three (Moth & Cobweb 6) Page 3
