by John Meaney
“Oh, yes. There's a . . . vehicle . . . in the driveway, and I do believe I spy the lieutenant sitting in the rear. May I get him to call you back?”
“Is he coming or going?”
“I beg your pardon, ma'am?”
“Is Lieutenant Riordan about to enter the house?”
“Well, I believe so.”
“Then I'll hang on the line.”
“Very good, ma'am.”
Two minutes later, Donal came on the line. “Hello?”
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Laura! Hey . . .”
“Everything all right?”
“It is now I'm talking to you. And, yeah, I think it's okay here now.”
Laura noticed the word now and said, “You've had trouble?”
“Minor stuff, little misunderstanding.”
With a glance toward Alexa, Laura said, “That might be because of something Harald said to his contact there. That would be this Don Mentrassore, wouldn't it?”
“That's the man. But Harald...Why would he—”
“He might have thought you were a snitch.”
“But . . .” There was a pause, then that familiar heartbreaking laugh. “If it weren't for snitches, Harald would be sunk. That's what he specializes in.”
“Recruiting them,” said Laura, smiling. “Not being one of them.”
“Yeah, there's a difference. . . . Is everything all right there? How is everyone?”
“The same. Sushana's still recovering. Also Xalia.”
“Xalia? What happened?”
“Tried to penetrate Commissioner Vilnar's office. Looking for corroboration. I know you came across the phone number, but I wanted more.”
There was an oceanic sound of waves sighing down the line.
Then Donal said, “I take it you found nothing.”
Laura shook her head, though Donal was a thousand miles away and could not see.
“Oh, I got enough. You don't think a wounded wraith is evidence? Even if she can't speak yet?”
“Ah.”
Again the liquid washing of random sound took over the line.
“Be careful, will you? I love you.”
“Yeah. And I”—Laura looked up at Alexa and Viktor—“likewise, okay?”
“Okay.”
The line went silent.
“All right.” Laura replaced the phone and looked at Alexa, then Viktor. “You two up for a fight?”
“Not against you, boss,” said Viktor, smiling.
“I was thinking of a police commissioner. It's time he was going down.”
Donal put down the hallway phone, then shifted his position so he could check the pistol inserted inside his belt at the small of his back. Temesin had slipped the weapon back into Donal's hand, just as Donal was climbing out of the squad car.
Remaining inside, Temesin had given Donal a sardonic wave and said, “I kinda hope I don't see you again too soon, Lieutenant.”
“You too,” Donal had told Temesin. “And thanks.”
“Right.” Then Temesin had slapped the back of the driver's seat and said, “Let's go, Reilly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Donal had stepped back as the tires spun fresh gravel in all directions before getting a good grip and hauling the car down to the gates and out onto the sloping zigzag street. Then, when he went inside the house, Hix was waiting, immediately telling Donal he was wanted on the phone.
Now Donal looked Hix straight in the eye.
“Your cousin,” Donal said, “has caused me a great deal of trouble.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, sir.” Hix briefly closed his eyes. “People think he's a charming rogue. I hope he didn't inconvenience you.”
Donal's senses were on full alert. It seemed that Hix was genuine: honest despite his stiff manner, where Rix had been open and friendly and ultimately an enemy.
“I don't suppose,” said Donal, “that the don is in?”
“Oh, absolutely, sir. And insistent that he see you as soon as you came back. Can I take you to his study?”
“Why don't you do that.”
“Who the fuck,” said Donal, standing at the open study door, “do you think you are?”
Beside him, Hix swallowed, looking as wide-eyed as his master. Then the don gestured for Hix to leave.
“Please come in,” said Don Mentrassore. “And I deserve that—except that I acted on false information, as you might have gathered by now. And I did manage to stop Rix in time.”
“Not exactly.” Donal entered the study. “I managed to stop your fuckin' stooge. If he dies that'll be good riddance.”
Don Mentrassore winced, though whether at Donal's tone or the images he conjured up was impossible to tell.
“I apologize. And I've already arranged for what you said, the seats at the theater.”
“What?”
“The performance of the premiere. It's tonight. I've spent a great deal to—well, never mind. But you'll be able to attend the performance every night for the next three weeks, if that's what you want.”
Donal's teeth remained clenched.
“I don't care what arrangements you've got with Hammersen. Cross me again and I'll take you down, Mentrassore. All the way.”
The don swallowed.
“I believe you,” he said.
It was three hours later that Donal took his seat in the plush box in the theater, high above the stalls. He adjusted the winged collar of his shirt and ran his fingers down the lapel. It was the first tuxedo he'd ever worn.
Looking like a waiter had never been an ambition in his life.
Beside him, dressed in a plum velvet version of Donal's tuxedo that would have looked ridiculous on most people, the don sat down and adjusted the lace cuffs of his shirt.
This is stupid.
Donal had no weapons, because he'd known in advance there would be scanwraiths at the theater entrance. Although they were invisible—having been chosen for their ability to be discreet amid the theater's rich patrons—the wraiths had triggered a warning tingle in Donal's amulet.
Finally the lights dimmed, the orchestra in the pit began the overture, and Donal settled back. With his opera glasses, he scanned the rest of the theater once more in the gathering darkness. He caught a glimpse of two late entrants in another box, on the opposite side of the theater.
One of them he didn't recognize—a man dressed in a dark velvet suit similar to Don Mentrassore's—but the other's features were vaguely familiar, and in a second Donal had it.
This was Alderman Kinley Finross from Tristopolis.
Scarcely anyone had mentioned him during the entire investigation, and yet . . . Donal remembered the letter that had set up the meeting with Malfax Cortindo.
Xoram Borough Council
99 Phosphorus Way
Xoram Precinct
Tristopolis TS 66A-298-omega-2
Tristopolis Police Headquarters
1 Avenue of the Basilisks
Tristopolis TS 777–000
Quatrember 42, 6607
Re: Meeting with Malfax Cortindo, Director, City Energy Authority
Dear Commissioner Vilnar,
It has been absolutely my pleasure to arrange a meeting between one of your officers and Director Cortindo of the City Energy Authority. The latter body is, of course, a credit to our city, and the director evinced no hesitation in assuring me that he will be overjoyed to provide any technical assistance that is germane.
I have communicated with Director Cortindo that Lieutenant Donal Riordan will be meeting with him, as per your indicated request of 40th ult., on the evening of Quintember 37 at nineteen o'clock, at the Downtown Core Station. All facilities will be placed at the lieutenant's disposal.
Kindest regards,
K. Finross
Alderman Kinley Finross
P.S. All best to your honored wife. Sally and I hope to return the favor at the Styxian Ball.
Donal—and Laura—had assumed that Commissioner Vilnar had called
in favors, using Alderman Finross as a tool: a dummy so that no one would suspect a direct connection between Vilnar and Cortindo.
But here was Finross turning up right at the venue where the Black Circle was expected to strike next. This on the word of a highly motivated Bone Listener who wanted revenge for her colleague's death.
Since the man with Alderman Finross was dressed similarly to Don Mentrassore, he was probably local. Donal leaned across to the don and whispered, “Do you know who owns that box?”
He gestured. The don leaned back to murmur his answer.
“That's Councillor Gelbthorne. I'll introduce you during the intermission, if you'd like.”
Then the overture died away as the spotlights brightened upon the stage, and the don leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs.
Gelbthorne.
Bingo.
It was the name that Feoragh had given Donal from the Archives, the local councillor who was—what was it?—ninety-seven percent certain to belong to the conspiracy, according to the stochastic predictive processes utilized by Archivist Bone Listeners such as Feoragh Carryn. Whatever that meant.
Whether he had the right night or not, Donal was sure he had the right place, and the right suspects in view.
“So this is what a judge's house looks like,” murmured Alexa as they walked up the drive. Behind them, the Vixen's engine purred softly in agreement.
“I haven't been here since—well, a long time,” said Laura.
It was dark, and the sky was a deep opaque purple, highlighting the incandescence of the external flamewraiths trapped in their brass cages, illuminating the driveway and the statuary on the grounds.
The luxury estate was formed of great houses like this one, no two identical, and the dark land beyond was Thesselae Park. It was hard to imagine that Tristopolis proper ringed the entire area and that they were not so much beyond the city as enclosed by it.
The doorbell chimed automatically at their approach. After a few moments the judge's live-in assistant, gray-haired Mrs. Fogerty, answered the door. Beside her, reflected highlights shifted across the brass plaque that read A. Prior, Judge.
“Can I help you?”
“It's urgent. If you could tell the judge that Commander Steele is here.” Laura held up her badge. “Just say it's Laura.”
“Well, it's quite late, and the judge needs his—”
“I'm Vladil Steele's daughter. The judge will see me.”
“Oh, goodness . . . Yes. Do come in.”
Laura and Alexa climbed the steps and went inside. They stopped in the hallway as the door swung shut and Mrs. Fogerty bustled into the interior somewhere. They could hear her talking, then an old man's voice answered.
Mrs. Fogerty reappeared and beckoned them down the polished hallway. “This way, my dears. This way.”
Judge Prior was sitting in his small library, wrapped in his dressing gown, a small glass of milk on a table by his chair. He smiled at Laura and pushed himself up from the chair.
“Well, I haven't seen you since . . . since . . .”
His smile faded away.
“Since the day I died,” said Laura.
The judge coughed and lowered himself back into the chair. Alexa moved to his side and handed him the glass of milk.
“Thanks.” He sipped. “Thank you.”
His hand shook as he gave the glass back to Alexa, who set it down.
“You're welcome, sir,” Alexa told him. Then she backed away.
This was Laura's show.
“Your Honor, obviously I need your help.” Laura held out a sheet of vellum filled with purple script in the old style. “This is a search-and-arrest warrant.”
“My dear, I—” The judge stopped. “Obviously this is something the night-duty bench can't handle.”
“Or won't,” said Laura.
“So whom,” asked the judge, accepting the document, “do you want to arrest?”
Laura took a deep (if unnecessary) breath.
“Commissioner Vilnar. I want to search his office and his home.”
“The commissioner?” The judge dropped the document into his lap. “Impossible.”
“No,” said Laura. “Anything can be done, if you're willing to sacrifice enough.”
She reached inside her purse.
Halfway through the second act, several entire rows of the audience began to breathe in unison, and the amulet began to burn against Donal's chest.
“Thanatos.”
Someone turned around to shush him.
Shit shit shit.
Donal ripped the amulet away from him, and after that events accelerated. Down onstage, the triplets were singing so impressively that memories of the diva threatened to overwhelm Donal.
Do you feel the bones?
Oh, Death, yes.
The amulet lay on the carpet, its light slowly fading. Its protective hex was dying now that it no longer nestled against Donal. It could no longer shield against dark tidal forces.
Stage spotlights brightened to gold, for in the opera's story, a village festival in the enchanted land of Brismangidor was about to begin. Donal noticed white flickering, like indoor lightning. Overhead spotlights were flashing runes into the audience's eyes, a subliminal induction that for some reason Donal was able to detect.
And now that he was exposed, the Black Circle could use him again.
Thanatos, I've played into their hands.
Because the amulet wasn't to guard Donal from external forces—it was to hide his internal darkness from the world. But now that shield was gone.
Do you feel the bones?
“NO!”
Some of the audience looked up at Donal, startled, but most were spellbound by the flashing runes. The mass parazombie spell would already have fallen, except that the Black Circle had not realized that Donal Riordan would be in the audience. Not here, not tonight.
But if they had, the audience would already have been ensorcelled, exactly as they had been in the Théâtre du Loup Mort. Because it was not the diva who had been the focus of that mass binding spell. She had been the target, but someone else had focused the thaumaturgical waves transmitted to the theater, acting as a kind of lens for the Black Circle mages.
Do you taste the music?
“Yes! Yes, I do.”
For Donal was the focus.
Donal was the lens.
He was the weapon that had caused the diva's death.
Donal stood rigid, every muscle tensing into catatonia. All the rehab, all the memory reburning, all the suffering. He had tried so hard to become the old Donal, the man he had been before the bones' influence took him.
Strange harmonics swirled all around: moans and wails that had nothing to do with the orchestra below.
Can you hear the bones?
Always.
Do—
Every damned moment.
Across the theater, in a guest box as plush as the one Donal shared with Don Mentrassore, two men were intent on the audience. No—Alderman Finross was dividing his attention between the increasingly entranced audience and the triplets onstage.
It was Councillor Gelbthorne whose eyes glittered as he channeled thaumaturgical energies down into the theater.
Gelbthorne.
Some part of Donal's mind perceived wave upon wave of blackness beating downward, though this was an illusion, a kind of metaphor: the energies involved had nothing to do with light. The human retina could not perceive necrons.
Laura.
Do it for Laura.
His old boxing coach, Mal O'Brien, had picked Donal up off the ring floor once. It was supposed to be a sparring match, but his heavier opponent was filled with hate for his own reasons. Donal had gone down, with his forearm snapping from the impact on the floor, his ribs already fractured from an angled punch he'd not seen coming.
Mal had said, “It will heal, boy. And your spirit? That's still whole.”
And Donal had called out to his opponent leaving th
e ring: “Hey, you running away?”
What had happened after that was a moment of dark joy, as Donal ran forward with his one good arm ascending, powering from the hips, and the uppercut he delivered was the best of his life. The heavy bastard fell backward and did not move.
But it was what Mal said later, as they tied the splints on with wormskin bindings, that came back to Donal now.
“Never worry,” he told Donal. “Broken bones heal stronger than before, didn't you know?”
Here in the theater, waves of shadow ebbed and flowed around Donal. Then the secret mage, the real enemy, Councillor Gelbthorne, looked at Donal from across the auditorium. He recognized the kind of person, the kind of device, that Donal was, which a mage could make use of.
Gelbthorne focused.
Can you hear the bones?
Deep inside, Donal fought, holding on to his thoughts, because being human was all it took: to reinforce his real thoughts, not repattern his neural pathways to become a filter for Gelbthorne's transmission.
Broken bones heal stronger than before.
Do you feel the music?
It was an illusion, but from across the auditorium, Gelbthorne's eyes became bright, became huge, like widening spotlights focused now only upon one thing. Upon the vessel that could focus his energies.
Upon Donal.
Broken bones . . .
Do you—
. . . heal . . .
—feel—
. . . stronger . . .
—the—
. . . than before.
—music?
And every moment of hate from his orphanage days, and every second of love he felt in Laura's presence, strengthened Donal now as he fought back, and deep inside him a kind of laughter rose.
No.
I am the music.
The ensorcellment ripped apart.
Donal was free.
The audience remained partly mesmerized. Stage spotlights still beamed subliminal gestalt runes directly into their eyes. Not everyone would be susceptible enough to obey whatever commands Gelbthorne managed to channel, but there would still be plenty.
Donal was on his own against hundreds. Gazes from across the theater turned toward him.
A group of men in medics' uniforms stood in the shadows near one of the ground-level fire exits. Their attention was fixed on the triplets. When the moment was right, they would seize the dying (or already dead) triplets and take them away, fleeing through the emergency exits.
