by John Meaney
I'll say nothing about Alexa.
If anyone on the team realized what had happened to her, they might try to jolt her out of it, and in the process induce a Basilisk Trance or similar disastrous breakdown. Perhaps the Old Man had everything under control.
“We hear,” said Harald, “that you and the commissioner are new best friends.”
“Excuse me?”
Perhaps Donal had underestimated Harald's suspicions.
“Aren't you both going to City Hall tomorrow? A little award maybe? Some kind of commendation?”
“Um. Yeah. I'd almost forgotten.”
“Forgotten.”
“Yeah,” said Donal. “I'm a poor schlub from the orphanage, you know? How can I belong in City Hall?”
“You'll probably shake hands with the mayor his own self,” said Kresham. “That makes you a VIP, Lieutenant.” His stone eyes dilated, then contracted. “Shit. I don't know whether to salute or curtsy.”
“How about fucking off?”
“I could do that. Can I have your autograph first?”
“No.”
Harald smiled.
“I knew you two would get on fine.”
The early workers were already walking the corridors off City Hall, heading for their offices in the long wings on either side of the main, central skull. Inside the atrium, and in the cranial corridors, the cleaners were finishing up, the carpets already swept, the glass cases polished, ready for the day's visitors.
Soon, the first party of schoolchildren arrived. It was still too early for normal opening, but these children were from Zurinam, flying back later today, and an administrator had arranged a special booking. Three teachers accompanied the twenty-seven kids, keeping watch, commenting on the weapon displays and other antiquities, talking about systems of government in terms that ten-year-olds might understand.
Eventually they reached Ninth Corridor, where the regimental flags and battered-then-renewed weapons of the Battling 303s were arranged in artful curves and blossom patterns on the walls. There were several glass-fronted display cases, less interesting to the children—at least to the boys—than the wall-mounted lances and guns. But one young girl of quiet demeanor stopped before a case and stood, fascinated.
Had she lived in Tristopolis and attended a normal school, an inspector would have picked out her potential as a matter of routine. As it was, her nascent witch sensibilities reacted to something in the display case, but she was too young—and overwhelmed by the sensations of visiting a new continent—to understand what she nearly perceived.
Then one of the teachers, a stern man whose own undeveloped mage potential tended more toward the giving of commands than sensitivity, uttered a gruff imperative sentence in Zurinese. The girl flinched, then rushed to rejoin her group, all doubts forgotten.
Perhaps that was a good thing.
Inside the case, lying still beneath his chameleon shroud, the assassin's eyes were open in the darkness. His fingertips, sensitive through thin gloves, touched his black-on-black watch. Designed for blind people, it allowed him to check the time by feel.
He had come out of trance early, but there was no need to come fully awake into action, not yet. Nothing was due to happen until lunchtime tomorrow, nearly thirty hours away.
For a while, he kept his perceptions open, in case the youngster—he could tell it had been a child—returned. But nothing happened, and the feeling of being observed receded into nothingness. It was time to reenter trance.
The assassin closed his eyes, and slowed his breathing.
The grounds of St.-Jarl-the-Healer lay within Tristopolitan territory, but that was a legal technicality. Surrounding the hospital buildings and vast gardens and fortified walls, silver-gray woods stretched for hundreds of miles in most directions. Only by driving directly north could someone heading for the city proper—a returning visitor, or a patient on day release—pass through a mere twenty miles of sylvan environment, unchanged for three millennia.
In the center of the hospital area, above the jagged towers and crenellated walls, floated iron creatures that looked too heavy to fly. In the ornate garden shrubbery, particularly in the tall fractal maze whose configuration tended to change when no one was looking, half-corporeal shapes drifted and watched, and moaned. On occasion, they laughed in an eerie, unnerving way that only the longest-serving nurses and doctors could ignore.
From the central mass of towers, a long extension formed of pter-abone and black glass acted as a covered walkway, allowing access to a nine-sided, dark-gray windowless building that looked like the discarded battle helmet of some massive, brutish troll. It was a secure area, which meant that anyone approaching from outside the walkway would experience a blurring of vision, a disorientation that invariably resulted in their walking off into the grounds somewhere, however hard they tried to keep to a straight line. The closer one approached, the more unfocused and twisted reality became.
As parts of the hospital brightened and the establishment woke up, the Acute Ensorcellment Ward remained in semidarkness. Low sensory input and extended sleep were part of the treatment. Seven teen of the twenty-one beds were occupied, and two of those beds had been pushed together to hold what looked like three teenagers huddled close, but were in fact one ternary being. Above each occupied bed, tiny monitor sprites hovered.
At the far end of the ward was a watch-station, where two nurses, both of them Night Sisters, were sitting at the long desk, drinking helebore tea and munching scarab cookies.
“Callie?” said one of them, keeping her voice low. “You ever had a crush on a patient?”
“No. It was bad enough,” answered Sister Calico, “falling for doctors in med school. Don't you remember?”
“I never did that.”
“Felice, you are such a liar.”
“Well.” Sister Felice's smile was elegant. “Perhaps one. Or two.”
“And now you've fallen for a patient?” Sister Calico gestured to the rows of beds. “Not one of them, I hope.”
“I was asking hypothetically.”
“Oh. Hypothetically.”
“Look, all I—”
“Bed seventeen. It's Mrs. Jamieson.”
A monitor sprite had just flared yellow.
“Come on.”
The nurses moved with a fast-flowing motion, their eyes wide in the shadowed environment, and in a second they were at the bed. Translucent tentacles were rising from the woman's body, as she moaned in her sleep without waking.
“We could wake her up.”
“Best if we solve the problem now.”
“All right.”
Phantom limb syndrome was easier to control when the patient was conscious. But if they could get Mrs. Jamieson to a stage where even in her dreams the limbs failed to manifest, then she would be cured.
Her eyelids flickered.
“She's in REM sleep.”
“Fair enough.”
The two Night Sisters swung flexible metal arms into place, part of the equipment set beside the bed. Sister Calico worked the console, while Sister Felice directed the flexible extensions as they pulsed with light and invisible necromagnetic radiation. The Night Sisters’ pupils narrowed into vertical slits against the brightness.
Soon, the sleeping woman quieted, and the spurious limbs retracted into her body.
“Nice work.”
“We're pretty good, don't you think?”
“Unbeatable.”
They put the equipment back in place, then walked together back to the watch-station.
“Kyushen Jyu,” said Sister Felice, “has really optimized the gear, don't you think?”
“Oh-ho.” Sister Calico sat down, and picked up her tea. “So it's not a patient you were thinking of hypothetically?”
“Actually it was.” Sister Felice's claws extended, then retracted. “I was thinking of Lieutenant Riordan.”
“Oh, him. Sister Lynkse told me you had a soft spot for that one.”
�
�That Lynnie has a big mouth.”
“She said your police lieutenant had a big—Now, what was it again?”
“He isn't my lieutenant.”
“No?”
“No.” Sister Felice's claws were extending again, and her ears flattened.
“My mistake, then,” said Sister Calico. “Hypothetically.”
“Shit.”
Sister Felice shook her head, retracting her claws once more. Then she picked up a cookie from the plate, as Sister Calico took a sip of helebore tea.
“Anyway,” she added, “Lynnie never even saw his dick.”
Sister Calico sputtered, spraying drops of tea.
“You are such a bad person, Sister Felice.”
“I am that.”
But Sister Felice's expression grew harder, and she turned away.
“What is it?” asked Sister Calico.
“Two hundred yards in that direction”—Sister Felice pointed at the wall—“there's a woman called Marnie Finross, in something like a Basilisk Trance, but not quite. Even Kyushen can't bring her out of it.”
“You mean in the Sucker Wing?”
“Yeah. And if it hadn't been for her, my police lieutenant wouldn't be a zombie now. At least, that's what I gather from gossip and the Gazette.”
“Oh. That one.” Sister Calico put down her cup. “I hadn't put the stories together. The shootout in Fortinium. That was the same guy, the one who died.”
“And got resurrected. Yeah, that was Donal.”
Sister Calico laid her hand on top of Sister Felice's.
“That changes things a bit.”
“It changes everything.”
At lunchtime, Donal left the building, and hailed a taxi on Avenue of the Basilisks. It took twenty minutes to reach the foot of Darksan Tower, where he paid the driver, adding a decent tip, mostly for remaining silent during the drive.
The doormen bowed to him as usual. When he took the elevator to 227, he was the only person inside. Once in the apartment, he stripped off his clothes, and pulled out his old black running suit from a drawer.
I could afford something better now.
Once he'd changed into his running gear, he picked up his wallet, which included his detective's shield, but decided to leave the Magnus behind. This time, when he entered the elevator to descend, he saw the faintest hint of spikes beginning to extrude from the walls, before they sank back inside, quieting. That was a strange reaction. On his first night here, Laura had made it clear that he was a friend.
He would never stop missing Laura.
Out on the street, a battered purple cab pulled over suddenly. Donal dropped his bodyweight, ready to run. But the driver was a man called Bilwin, whose daughter Donal had pulled out of some teenage scrapes. Bilwin had been grateful ever since.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” he called. “You want a lift anywhere?”
“No, I'm just going out for a …” Then Donal had a sudden impulse, generated by Harald's mentioning of Lower Halls earlier. “Were you headed back to the old neighborhood, by any chance?”
“That's exactly where I was going. Hop in, Lieutenant.”
“Can I ride up front beside you?”
“Yeah, 'course you can.”
Bilwin moved a sandwich box off the seat—Donal thought of the Westside Complex, the three phone engineers eating lunch while birds stripped Finross's body. He got in.
“You're looking pretty good,” said Bilwin, pulling away from the curb.
“Maybe a bit pale?”
“Shoot, Lieutenant. I know what happened to you. Me'n'some of the boys, we been drinking rounds to your health, down in the Nine-Sided Die.”
“Um, thanks. Nice of you.” As he spoke, Donal watched the people on the sidewalk outside. Well dressed, serious, thinking about business, or perhaps the first martini of the day. “Your missus won't be pleased.”
“I don't spend that much time in the bar. Not nowadays.”
Donal turned to Bilwin. “Nowadays?”
“Weird times in Lower Halls and the Nether Boroughs. Power brownouts. More … street crime, y'know?”
“What kind of street crime?”
“Attacks and the like.”
Working in Police HQ, Donal should have picked up on this.
“You're looking a bit tired, Bilwin. Working long hours?”
“Yeah, and keeping away from the Boroughs, mostly. It's not as bad for me as some of the others, though. I'll grant you that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Er …”
“Come on, Bilwin. How long have we known each other?”
“Hang on.” They were entering the thirteen-way intersection called Spasm Circus. Bilwin concentrated on shifting to the correct lane, then: “I mean, what you might call nonstandard humans. They're the victims, ain't they?”
“Are they?”
“Yeah. Drivers like Oxborn Spike—old Cactus, remember him?—they're having a hard time of it.”
Donal recalled Oxborn, his thorn-studded lilac skin. He looked fierce until he spoke in his hesitant, gulping voice.
“So you've gotta be making lots of money,” said Donal. “Long hours, less competition.”
“Not really. People ain't traveling so much, see?”
Donal nodded. For a time, they followed the busy route of Helsink Freeway in silence.
“Anyway,” Bilwin said eventually, “I gave a ride once, to one of those scary, brainy folk from the dark hospital, know what I mean?”
“You mean St. Jarl's?” Donal thought about Kyushen Jyu.
“Nah, the real scary place. Mordanto. Creepier than Jarl's. Ever been there?”
“Never.”
“Well, they say that—Never mind. Anyway, this guy told me mathematically, like, what I should be doing. He said I should work long hours on busy days, get as much money as I could. On quiet days, give up and go home early.”
“Okay …” Donal wasn't sure how that constituted math.
“No, see, what most of us do is, we work longer on the quiet days, drumming up enough for our daily quota, and knock off early on the busy ones, when we've made enough dough. But in the long run, this guy said, that's more hours.”
“Oh. Sounds sensible.”
“Yeah.” Bilwin took a freeway exit, and turned onto a quiet, dilapidated street. “Only he never said what to do if every day is a quiet day.”
There was a clunk. Donal realized that Bilwin had flicked on the central locking, so no one could pull open a door if the taxi halted, say at a red light.
“Look at those poor guys, Lieutenant.”
Donal saw a shambling group on the sidewalk. Five adults and three children with shabby clothes and pale skin …
Like me.
It was a family of zombies. Whether they'd been related in life, Donal could not tell. Resurrected children were something he'd not wanted to think about in the past.
Resonance washed through Donal's dark blood, and all eight zombies turned to look at him as the taxi passed. Then they were behind him, and Bilwin was taking a left turn. After they'd been out of sight for a few seconds, the feeling in Donal's arteries ebbed away.
“Probably homeless,” said Bilwin. “There's been a lot of evictions.”
“What about the Anti-Discrimination statutes?”
“Landlords don't care these days. Word is, them statutes are gonna get revoked—is that what they call it?”
“I guess.”
Isolated in Darksan Tower, working in the task force, disoriented by Laura's death and his own resurrection … it seemed Donal had fallen out of touch with the streets. Surely things couldn't change this quickly?
“That mage type,” said Bilwin, as if following Donal's reasoning. “Him that told me what hours to work. He reckoned, in complicated systems like a city, stuff can become completely different overnight. That's what he said.”
Bilwin was cruising now, and Donal realized he'd specified no exact destination.
“I just w
anted to check out the old neighborhood.” Donal looked out. “Maybe run the … Uh, go for a run here.”
“Hey, it's all right, Lieutenant.” Bilwin grinned as he made another turn. “We know you go jogging down in the catacombs.”
“Not so much recently.”
“Guess it's quieter down there. Wouldn't fancy it myself.”
Donal doubted that Bilwin had run a step since his days in the schoolyard, but that wasn't what the cabbie meant, of course.
“I know, can we take a drive past Peat's Place?”
“ ’Course. You looking to buy some books?”
“You never know.”
The last thing Donal had bought from Peat had been Human: The Revenge, whose sequel he'd finished the night before last. Being suddenly rich didn't prevent him from shopping at a secondhand bookstore, did it? And Peat, though short on conversation, was an observant being with deep philosophical views and knowledge of literature and verse.
“Oh, shit.” Bilwin slowed the taxi. “Lieutenant… This ain't good.”
“Hades.”
The front window of Peat's consisted of two jagged fragments that looked like teeth. The store's interior was blackened. The door had been smashed, then set alight. Charcoal and blistered paint were all that remained. The damage might have happened yesterday, or a month ago.
“Drop me off here.” Donal opened his wallet, and pulled out florins. “Here you go.”
“There's no need for—”
“Yeah, there is. Besides, whatever went on here, it's not happening now. I'm going to poke around.”
“Hades, Lieutenant. Maybe you should just call it in.”
“Uh-huh. And you've been telling me about street crime rising. How quick have our guys been to respond?”
Bilwin shook his head.
“So I'll investigate,” Donal continued, “which happens to be my job. Go on, Bilwin. Get on home, or wherever you're headed.”
“Downtown to get more fares, I reckon.” Bilwin stared at the ruined bookstore. “Don't think I'll hang around here.”
“Probably best not to.” Donal opened the door, and slid out. “Take it easy.”
“You, too, Lieutenant.”
Bilwin put the taxi in gear, and moved off. For a hundred yards he drove slowly, as though hoping Donal would call him back, then finally he sped up, and took the first left. Donal listened to the diminishing sound of the taxi's motor, then turned his attention to the remains of Peat's Place.
