by John Meaney
Viktor began to fire: both guns, swiveling his stance, blasting continuously, an overlapping series of loud bangs in the room, deafening. But the corpses dropping around the conference table would never hear anything again.
Maybe one shot in three hit what he was aiming at, but Viktor had seventeen rounds in each clip, and that was more than enough. Cordite smoke hung in the air as Viktor moved quickly around the room, checking the fallen bodies, firing once as a dying man twitched, hand reaching for a dropped, bloodstained weapon. All down.
A stray round had blown apart Sushana's left shoulder, and her eyes were wide with shock, face whitened by blood loss. But there was no time for Viktor to help her, because the bulky man in the rich suit at the end of the room was Sally the Claw, and this was the moment he lived up to his name.
Sal's right hand was normal, but his left was a huge, shining pincer. His left arm came up fast, and Viktor fired at the movement, rounds ricocheting from the carapace protecting the limb, but the claw swept both weapons from Viktor's grasp.
Viktor tried to duck and spin away, but Sal was faster, and the claw opened, moved, and struck in a tenth of a second. Then it was fastened around Viktor's neck, and he knew that he was too late.
“Who are you?” asked Sally the Claw.
Donal pounded his way up the echoing stairwell. Twice he stopped, breath sawing, thighs pumped and beginning to burn. A layer of slick sweat coated his skin beneath his clothes, and so far he'd run up only three hundred steps—a part of him insisted on keeping count.
There were scrapes up ahead, but no shots came firing down the stairwell at him. The suspects were headed for the roof of the great skull—they had to be.
“Thanatos. Come on.”
Donal pushed himself back into motion, breathing hard. Then, involuntarily, a semigrin pulled his lips back as he ran upward, a primordial reaction to the hard physical work and the sense of mortal danger: he was in the moment where he belonged, all doubts gone.
He pushed harder.
Laura was hunkered down beside a drain when the gunfire banged out and a series of flashes showed between blinds on the seventh floor of the nearest building. She moved into cover, next to a stack of pallets.
She checked her handbag, which hung at her hip, the strap still slung diagonally across her shoulders. Her firearm was inside.
Then something ripped through the air, parting the handbag strap as other hands tugged the bag away from Laura's grasp. She launched herself forward, but two big figures leaped from behind the pallet, grabbing her arms.
Yet another bulky man stepped out in front of her and raised a shotgun to her face.
“What shall we do?” asked one of the men.
“I suggest,” muttered Laura, “that you damned well—”
“Tell me what,” came a sepulchral voice, “is in the bag.”
The man—or kind of man—was seven feet tall and gray-skinned, and a scar ran diagonally across his squarish face. His gaze, when he looked at Laura, was devoid of feeling.
“Automatic,” said one of the men, pulling open the handbag. “Pretty small. And ID. She's police.”
Another team of guards was moving toward the building. If Viktor or Sushana was still alive, then the chances of their remaining so were diminishing fast.
“A commander.” The gray-skinned man checked Laura's badge, then put it in his pocket. “We're honored.”
“You won't—”
“Kill her.” The gray-skinned man turned away. “Now.”
Laura squeezed her eyes shut.
Donal . . .
Then Laura felt a jerk and heard a gasp. Her eyes snapped open to reveal a misty form rising up through the cracked pavement.
The being reached insubstantial hands inside the rifleman's head and chest . . .
“Xalia!”
. . . and then Xalia manifested her extremities into corporeal existence and squeezed.
Squeezed hard.
Even as the man dropped his weapon and gasped with mortal shock, Laura was spinning aside, flicking back her jacket and ripping her second gun from her back holster, firing three times before the team of guards had even processed her movement.
Then they broke formation, scattering to every side, only two of them returning fire as they ran. But Laura was already ducking and continuing her tactical movement, while Xalia was insubstantial: the bullets passed through her wraith form.
Then Xalia was upon the two men who were still firing. Blood bubbled from their mouths as she solidified her grip, crushing their hearts, and they, too, dropped dead onto the asphalt.
The gray-skinned man simply ran, but his gait was controlled rather than fearful, and Laura had to decide her responsibility. His back was toward her, but he was running for help, not escape, she was sure of it—and there were officers' lives at stake. There was no choice for her to make: no choice at all.
She squeezed the trigger, the small .23 jerked back, and the back of the man's neck blossomed dark fluid. He fell and did not move.
There was still a great deal of danger, and Laura rolled sideways across the ground, next to another dead man. She picked up her bigger handgun. But the remaining guards had fled—other than one who'd chosen to face Xalia, soon regretting it as Xalia's fingers became talons like steel, slashing downward.
The man fell, whimpering, tendons severed so that all four limbs were useless. He could only shiver as blood spurted out of torn arteries and death closed in.
Laura scanned the environment as Xalia drew closer. There was no immediate danger, and for a split second Laura grinned at her own continued survival. Then, “Where did you come from?” she asked. “How did you know I'd be here?”
Xalia's wraith form drifted as though on a breeze, yet the cold air was still.
*Same way as you.*
“What's that supposed to mean?” Laura went down on one knee, reloading her automatic. “The same way as me?”
*Why, Laura.*
Xalia rose a few feet up, appeared to sniff the air, then descended.
*You think you're the only one who talks to cats?*
Then another shot fired from inside the building. Laura and Xalia moved fast toward the doorway, alert for more armed men.
Donal was two flights down when he heard the roof door bang open. There was a glimpse of two short figures carrying something gray-wrapped and bulky—Cortindo's body—and then the dwarves were out onto the roof, and Donal was cursing.
Even as he redoubled his pace, sprinting up the last thirty or so steps, he could hear not just the wind from up above but also a deeper grumble, a near-subsonic vibration of total power. It was the pterabat, coming in to hover above the top of the great skull.
Come on.
Donal's breathing was harsh and wheezing now.
Push it.
There was no possibility of silent pursuit as he clattered up the final steps and half-stumbled to the landing, stopping inside the doorway. Outside, the flat expanse of the skull's top reached for two hundred yards before curving down and beginning the sheer descent. The suspects were nowhere in sight.
Donal ran as hard as he could—his legs felt like molten rubber—out onto the wet, slippery surface that was the top of the great skull. Rain was heavy in the gusting wind, and Donal had to squint to see the two powerful figures dropping their burden and scattering to either side as Donal raised his Magnus.
“Desist or I will fire!” The legal words were tugged away by the wind. At least Donal was observing correct form. “Stop!”
Overhead, the pterabat filled half the sky as it dropped lower. An incision in its abdomen puckered and pulled open, and narrow black ropes rippled from it. In seconds, dark-clad hooded figures were rappelling down.
Donal fired a single warning shot, but the descending figures did not hesitate.
Thanatos . . .
Squatting low, he took aim at the figure closest to the roof surface—no, watch out—then spun away as one of the dwarves leaped thro
ugh the air feetfirst, just grazing Donal's forearm. The Magnus banged out once more, another shot wasted, and Donal swung the weapon down butt-first, but the dwarf was already cart-wheeling away.
A heavy impact took Donal in the small of the back, and he pitched forward.
Donal threw himself into a twisting fall, firing at the dwarf who'd kicked him. The fabric of the dwarf's heavy pullover ripped apart. But it was a surface wound, and a small but heavy foot was swinging for Donal's eye—the other dwarf—and he rolled away just in time.
Hardness thumped Donal's brow. Fluorescent yellow spots rippled across his vision as he came up on one knee and cupped his left hand beneath his right, aimed, exhaled—calm—and squeezed the trigger.
No shot sounded.
Misfeed . . .
The dwarves were upon him, teeth sinking into his forearm, and a small hard fist took him in the groin.
He punched the one who was biting, turned his hip against the second, then pumped three more hooking punches into the side of the biter's neck. The dwarf fell. The other dwarf advanced again, head forward as he came in to tackle Donal at the knees—not a coward—but Donal snap-kicked once, catching the dwarf just under the chin.
Then Donal struck with his knee to the same target, followed by an uppercut punch to the same spot again, and the little figure was down.
The first dwarf was already stirring—what do they feed you guys?—but Donal took a running step to kick him in the face, knocking the dwarf back and rolling him over. For the time being Donal was clear.
But the dwarves hadn't needed to beat him, only distract him long enough for the hooded figures to wrap their ropes around the bundled form of Cortindo's corpse.
Donal raised his gun, then remembered the misfeed—clear, rack and hammer: that was the dictum Rangemaster Ryan had drummed into Donal—and he clawed back the slide, banging the Magnus with his left fist to fling the unfired cartridge out.
Ready.
It took less than a second, but that was too long. The pterabat rose slightly, and the corpse of Cortindo came off the roof surface.
“No, damn it.”
A dwarf reached for Donal's ankle, but Donal kicked the fingers aside and moved away, swinging the gun up.
Donal could not reach the hooded figure with his hands, but he could shoot them.
He took aim.
For a moment the sight blurred as Donal's focus shifted to the target. The hooded man's eyes were trained on Donal. The man knew he was about to die.
Steady . . .
Donal exhaled, tightening his abdomen and trigger finger together.
“Fuck.”
Then he pulled his finger out of the trigger guard and lowered the gun. He sucked cold wet air into his lungs.
Do you hear—
No. There was no point in killing the man, that's all.
The pterabat continued to rise.
Perhaps Donal might have fired into Cortindo's already dead body, but what was the point? There wasn't much you could do to a corpse, and it was already tied to the ropes, borne aloft by the pterabat. Killing one of the hooded figures, who were unarmed, was not Donal's idea of legitimate force.
He checked the dwarves again—one of them was on hands and knees, shaking his head, dripping scarlet blood mixed with rain—and looked back up. The ropes were withdrawing into the body of the pterabat as it ascended and began to wheel away.
“Oh, sweet Death.” Alexa's voice carried through the pterabat's subsonics with a disconcerting clarity. “Those steps killed me.”
She bent over, left hand on her thigh to keep steady, her lungs wheezing. But none of that prevented her from taking steady aim with the gun in her right hand on the nearer of the two dwarves.
“Don't you fucking . . .” She sucked in a breath. “Ah . . . don't . . .move.”
Then Ralfinko staggered out of the doorway, clutching his coat around himself against a sudden squall of rain, and took aim at the second dwarf. Donal checked them both, then reholstered his Magnus. He looked back up into the dark sky.
Cortindo's body had been drawn into the hold, and the hooded figures were already out of sight. The opening sealed shut as the pterabat banked, dived into the turn, then pulled up, ascending into the cloud layer. Its outline grew indistinct, and then it was gone.
One of the dwarves began to laugh.
The claw tightened around Viktor's throat.
“I said”—Sal's voice clenched as though he was the one being strangled—“who the Thanatos are you? And what is the woman to you?”
“My. ..”—Viktor forced out the lie—“sister.”
The claw that grew from Sal's left arm could snip shut and part Viktor's head from his body in an instant. If he did that, the headless corpse of Viktor would reveal the subdermal police ID tag, beneath the skin at the base of his throat.
Even drenched in blood, Sally the Claw would see the badge right away for what it was. But every second that Sushana remained alive was a kind of victory, and perhaps that was the best Viktor could—
Sally the Claw screamed.
A wraith's arm was reaching inside his groin, and Sal reacted as a normal man would, bending over, chin coming up, and his grip weakening. That was enough for Viktor. The claw's sharpness had pierced the skin of Viktor's neck, and it was his own slick blood that allowed him to slip out of that grip now.
Then a pale figure in a skirt suit stepped through the doorway, raised her gun, and fired. Sal's right eye exploded.
Xalia grew insubstantial as Sally the Claw's corpse toppled through her and dropped to the floor with the cold thud of dead meat. She drifted to one side and partially manifested, her outline growing steadier.
*Are you all right?*
Viktor's answer was a croak, scarcely audible: “Never . . .better.”
“Damn it.” Laura quickly checked the corpses scattered around the floor—making sure they were corpses, not wounded men about to revive and reach for their weapons. Then she tried to free Sushana from the ropes that bound her to the chair.
Viktor dragged himself over to where his Grausers had fallen.
“Allow me.”
He picked up the guns, walked over to Sally the Claw's body, and opened fire, aiming at the wrist and blowing it apart in a hail of chitin-piercing rounds. Finally Viktor holstered his weapons, took hold of the near-severed claw, and tugged.
“Almost . . .”
Viktor pulled again, and the claw came free with a liquid sucking sound. He dragged the thing over to Sushana and swiped at the ropes, cutting them apart.
“Well done,” said Laura.
Sushana fainted at last, toppling from the chair. Laura and Viktor caught her before she hit the floor.
*I guess . . .*
Xalia drifted over them.
*. . .we should call this a success.*
Laura looked at the bloody bodies strewn across the floor.
“Yes,” she said. “We damned well should.”
Three hours later, every member of the team except Harald was gathered around a table in an interrogation room on the hundredth floor of HQ. Lying on its side atop the table was a stained canary-yellow tandem bicycle.
“What?” said Viktor. “We should threaten the bicycle until it talks?”
Xalia wrapped a near-invisible hand around the frame, the rest of her body drifting like smoke.
*There's no wraith in here.*
“That was a joke,” Viktor growled.
Alexa smirked.
“You said you saw a tandem like this”—Laura was at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, thinking—“at Sally the Claw's place. Before Xalia and I turned up.”
*And rescued you.*
“I was doing all right.”
*You were what?*
Viktor grinned. “What, are you feeling underappreciated, Xalia?”
“Peace,” said Donal. “And we all know the chances of two yellow tandems making an appearance in two different locat
ions last night. This was in the back of the van that the Ugly Twins used to carry Cortindo's body. Sally the Claw is part of the network we're tracking down.”
“The Ugly Twins with steel-trap jaws,” muttered Alexa.
That referred partly to Donal's bandaged forearm, partly to the way the dwarves had clamped their jaws shut and said not a single word since their formal arrest. Nor had they struggled once the cuffs were on: merely went limp and forced the uniformed backup officers to carry them down the many flights of stairs inside the great skull to the waiting police van.
“No surprise.” Laura opened her eyes. “Sal had his fingers—well, claw—in a couple of dozen different pies.”
“Nice if we could backtrack.”
“Yeah. Nice,” said Alexa, “if the OCML get something out of Sal's corpse.”
Donal blew out a breath, and Viktor muttered, “Shit.”
“Right.”
The whole team now knew that Wilhelmina d'Alkarny, the chief forensic Bone Listener, was lying on one of her own steel autopsy tables in the depths of the OCML. Viktor and Harald had known her—well enough to call her Mina—and that was why Harald was at the OCML right now instead of here.
“None of this makes sense,” said Donal. “Why use the dwarves to blow open the place just to get Cortindo's corpse?”
“How else would they do it?” Alexa reached for the tandem as though to push it off the table, then stepped back. “Who'd have thought anyone could mount an attack like that?”
“No.” Laura looked at them. “Donal's right. If the opposition could mount that kind of strike, why do it now? Why reveal themselves because of one dead man?”
“Because Cortindo knew something.” Viktor's voice was like gravel spilling in an iron bucket. “Because if Mina performed an autopsy, she would have learned something about the Black Circle.”
“The name of Cortindo's contact? Maybe,” said Alexa, “his direct superior. Or someone higher still.”
Everyone was silent for a few moments. Then Donal put his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling.
“You know,” he said, “it might be interesting to find out why Cortindo hadn't been autopsied yet. I mean, there's a waiting list, but it can't be that long, right?”
