by John Meaney
“Is there anything you need?” asked the nearest.
“Just checking. Everything's all right?”
“We're cool,” said a female zombie.
“Actually, we're cold,” another said.
The one who'd spoken first removed a shoe and pulled at its toe, so the sole began to part.
“Hey, what's this got in common with a zombie?”
“I give up,” said her colleague.
“They're both cold and soulless.”
All of them turned to look at Donal. He stared back.
Zombie humor.
“Thanks for the warm welcome,” he said.
Several of the zombies mimed applause as he left via a side exit. Here, the floor was carpeted, and it came out into a polished corridor that led to the great atrium. Donal followed it, nodding to cops he knew, avoiding journalists, and reached a staircase, which he began to climb.
From three floors up, a plainclothes female officer was watching him.
At least someone's alert.
He reached for his badge, but she called down: “It's all right, Lieutenant Riordan. I know who you are.”
“Thanks.”
Half running up the steps, he reached the woman.
“I'm Gilarney,” she said. “D-Two.”
“Good to meet you, Detective. You in charge of the setup?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need to walk around, get away from the politicians. I'm just curious, not checking up on you.”
“Of course.” Her facial muscles tightened, obviously disbelieving. “I understand.”
If Donal had remembered to inhale after speaking, he would have sighed. He breathed in now, and said: “Honestly, I'm just heading for a men's room.”
Beyond Gilarney, two uniformed cops looked at each other. One leaned close to whisper, assuming Donal wouldn't be able to hear: “I didn't know zombies gotta piss.”
“Shit, no one knows what they do.”
“Dunno if they do that either.”
“Do what?”
“Take a—”
“Hey, guys.” Donal strode toward them. “You keep things buttoned tight, okay?”
“Sure, Lieutenant.”
“Do that, and I'll keep my mouth shut about what you've been up to.”
“Er…”
Both cops flushed slightly.
“Stay alert.”
As Donal continued past them, he wondered what exactly they had been up to. But they seemed competent enough in a gross sense—able to follow clear orders—and Gilarney appeared to have organized a decent setup. Each choke point had observers, so that when the crowd grew heavier just before the luncheon's start, and when the main hall was packed during the proceedings, no obvious outsider could make progress.
He walked along a gallery, half taking in the weapons displayed on the walls, the banners that formed a visual code for the values that soldiers had fought for, and so often died for. It was an interesting contrast to the self-serving maneuvering taking place in the main hall, where the goals were self-interest and the weapons were false smiles and misused finances.
Past the gallery, to the right, there was a right-angled turn to a long corridor, its walls and carpets red. At intervals, there were dark drapes along the right-hand wall. They were the equivalent of a theater's guest boxes, set high up on the side wall of the main hall, looking down on the auditorium.
“Lieutenant Riordan here. I'm holding out my badge.”
He pulled back the first curtain.
“Hey, Lieutenant.” A uniformed sergeant looked up, binoculars in hand. He was sitting on a hard-backed chair. “You're up for a commendation, right?”
“That's me.”
A rifle leaned against the balcony wall. The sniper-scope was polished.
“Looks like you're nicely set up here.”
“Me and the boys.” The sergeant—his name-badge read D. Parnex—gestured to the next two boxes. In each one, a young-looking cop with buzz-cut hair and a sharpshooter rifle was seated.
“Any particular threat you've been warned against?”
“Nah, just the usual. Elections coming, weird shit on the streets. Nothing that you might call specific.”
“Still.” Donal looked down at the glittering banquet tables, the small figures of the politicos and bureaucrats. “Makes me feel better, you being here.”
“Uh-huh. I tell you what, Lieutenant, I'd rather be up here than down with that lot.”
Donal winked at him. “That's why I'm taking a walk around. Security's not my problem. Not this time.”
“Yeah. That D-Two, Gilarney, she seems to know what she's doing.”
“Pretty much what I was thinking.” Donal took another look down at the polished silverware, flamesprites dancing in candelabras, the gleaming dishes that waiters and waitresses were setting in place. “Hades. I guess I need to get back down to the frenzy.”
“It's tough at the top.”
“Yeah.” He saw Commissioner Vilnar talking to Mayor Dancy, surrounded by well-dressed men who seemed to have a penchant for nodding in time whenever the mayor made an elaborate point. “I'm so glad I'm nowhere near the top of the shit-pile.”
“Buried in the middle is better than underneath, I think.”
“Maybe. Take it easy, Parnex.”
“You too, sir.”
Donal glanced at the other two boxes before he left, but the sharpshooters were staring down at the increasing activity below, which was exactly what they were supposed to do.
Good enough.
He retraced his way to the end of the corridor, stopped, and frowned, then carried on back to the main atrium. The uniformed cops made no attempt to talk to him as he descended the steps to the next level, where Detective Gilarney was checking the next floor down. He joined her.
“Good setup,” he told her. “I might have put a man in the gallery, next floor up, but you work with what you have.”
Gilarney's face tightened.
“Thank you, sir.”
She seemed to have heard criticism rather than praise in Donal's words. He wondered at that, then decided to leave her to it, as she obviously preferred.
“Take it easy.”
He headed down to the ground level. On the atrium floor, he watched the civilians crushing their way into the main hall, then realized he could avoid it no longer. He was going to have to go back inside.
It could be worse. If he hadn't joined the cops, he might have ended up working with these people all the time. Hades, he might have become one of them.
A bullet dodged, then.
He was almost smiling when he entered the viscous flow of people, made his way into the main hall, and heard Commissioner Vilnar's voice boom out: “Ah, Lieutenant. Come and meet these good people.”
“My pleasure,” said Donal.
It was a lie worthy of a politician.
On the twenty-third floor of Police HQ, in the medical reception area, the door to Room 10 opened. A female doctor poked her head out.
“Detective Dalk?” she said. “I'm ready to—”
The detective was sprawled back across several seats, a torn book clenched in his unmoving hand. The eyes that stared upward were opaque, the transverse split across his throat took in both carotid arteries, and the blood spray had spattered the ceiling as well as the walls and furniture.
“Oh …”
The doctor's gaze tracked the blood, a trail of crimson footprints leading toward the dead man, coming from Room 17. It took her logical mind a moment to process the implications; then she walked slowly to the half-open door, and pushed it inward.
“Dr. Gamarlov? Troy? Are … ?”
There was no point in continuing with the question.
“Oh, sweet Thanatos.”
Geometric brass frameworks dripped with red. Gore was scattered across the room—the clearest expression she had ever seen of a medical school dictum, that the human body is mostly warm liquid. It was not a lesson she
needed to learn.
And Dr. Troy Gamarlov's head stood atop a groaning graph machine, now drenched in red, its needles struggling to scratch through viscous blood, recording information that no one, least of all Gamarlov, would ever read.
In City Hall, Detective Orla Gilarney stalked the third-floor gallery.
“Where the fuck are you?”
Lieutenant Riordan, damn him, had oh-so-casually mentioned that he'd have placed a man in the gallery. But she had placed two men here, and if this turned out to be deliberate insubordination—being a woman in the Department could be tough—she was going to see Prigolin and Letharque before a disciplinary board.
“Shit. Shit.” Taking a right turn, she walked down the corridor, and called out: “Gilarney here.”
When she pulled open the first curtain, only Sergeant Parnex was in the booth, exactly where he was supposed to be.
“Everything okay here?”
“Absolutely.”
“You seen Prigolin or Letharque?”
“No.”
“My problem. You carry on here.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
She went back to the gallery to look for the men's room. If she found them taking a piss at the same time, forget the disciplinary board. She was going to kick them so hard in the balls they'd be pissing through catheters for weeks, maybe forever.
“Thanatos damn it.”
The man who held out his hand was pale for a living human. His chin was tilted up, as if he was sniffing the air and didn't like the results.
“—Assistant Mayor Van Linder,” the commissioner was saying.
“I'm honored.” Donal shook the man's hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Always a pleasure to meet a heroic officer.” Van Linder's eyes were as hard and shining as polished ore. “Of any description, in these trying times.”
Behind Van Linder, two of his aides gave the tiniest of smirks.
“Very trying,” said Donal. “I've heard of illegal evictions, even, that we're failing to resolve. So far.”
“It must be a constant struggle,” answered Van Linder, “to ensure that people's rights remain inviolate.”
“The law is clear on everyone having rights.”
“Of course, dear fellow, just as legislation is subject to change. It's a human artifact, after all, not a force of nature.”
Donal started to reply, but Van Linder turned away then, as several businessmen approached. He'd definitely lost that one.
“Good,” murmured Commissioner Vilnar, leading Donal away. “Well done, Riordan.”
“I didn't exactly convince him.”
“But you didn't punch him out. I'll live with that much victory for now.”
Donal walked with him for a bit, then noticed another press of people up ahead.
“Hades. Now who do I have to talk to?”
“Mayor Dancy. Don't worry. He approves of you.”
So Donal had a politician's approval.
Wonderful.
At least he could despise Van Linder with a clear conscience. What was he supposed to make of a slimeball who was on his side?
“Mr. Mayor,” said the commissioner. “Let me present—”
Back on the gallery, Detective Gilarney looked again at the places where Prigolin and Letharque should be standing. The men's room had been empty, which left her to wonder where in Hades they had—
“What's this?”
There was a glass display case, something she'd walked past a couple of dozen times today, but the interior was different. Artifacts were arranged on top of a velvet cloth that rose up behind to form a backdrop—but a lumpy, misshapen one. She tried the knob that opened the glass door, but it was locked.
For a second, she stared at the velvet.
“If I'm wrong …” Slowly, she pulled her handgun from her hip holster. “Fuck it.”
Reversing the grip, she smashed the glass apart. Careful of the shards, she reached in and pushed aside a heavy silver plate, then grabbed hold of the velvet and pulled.
“No …”
Still holding the velvet cloth, she took four paces backward, and yanked hard.
“Fuck.”
The gun was the right way round in her hand, although she could not recall changing her grip. She stared for another second, and then another. Then she yelled: “Officers down!”
Broken and splayed, the two corpses were a tangle, impossibly contorted to fit into the space inside the display.
“Officers down!”
She sprinted to the atrium.
“Officers down!”
All around the building, silver and blue glinted as cops whipped out their guns.
A flashbulb popped as Donal shook hands with Mayor Dancy. They were standing next to the banquet table on the stage, and the mayor pulled out a chair.
“Please, Lieutenant. I'd like you to sit next to me.”
“Is that what the seating plan says?”
“Balls to the seating plan.” Mayor Dancy grinned, then winked at the commissioner. “I learned a long time ago when to break the rules.”
“All right,” said Donal.
“Don't worry about your appetite, or lack of it. Everyone's so busy maneuvering”—the mayor nodded toward the swirling crowds as they congregated around the tables—“they'll get indigestion anyway.”
Mayor Dancy had what the orphanage nuns used to call a silver tongue.
Still, perhaps he's not all—
Donal dropped to a crouch and swiveled, staring toward the rear
of the hall.
“Lieutenant? Is there a reason for—?”
But Donal could hear a distant: “Officers down!”
Without thought, his hand was inside his jacket, going for his Magnus.
The assassin hung in a horizontal cruciform position, only inches beneath the main hall's ceiling, his feet pointed toward the marksmen in the boxes, his left hand pointing toward the stage. He tilted, so that his arm was at a descending angle. Then he made a subtle movement with his shoulders, and there was the softest of clicks.
His arms were now firmly in line, as the rifle components laid across the backs of his arms and shoulder blades snapped into place, creating one solid weapon. The barrel ran the length of his left arm, the firing chamber across his back, the balancing rods that acted in lieu of a stock across the back of his right arm.
The gekkopads that held his supporting harness in place had a breaking strain approximately that of twenty heavy men. And the assassin was light.
He steadied himself.
Swirling panic was spreading below, but that was all right. His instructors had taught him that order is a fault line between areas of chaos; adaptation is the ability to flow along the cracks.
Steady.
The assassin looked down the length of his arm, using his left forefinger to aim. He'd intended to do this during the speeches and medal-giving, during the shaking of hands, when the impact would be greatest; but this would do very well.
He exhaled.
Steady.
And curled the middle finger of his right hand.
The sound was a crack, triggering Donal's sprint toward Mayor Dancy, knowing that it meant—
No!
—the bullet had already struck; arterial blood fountained from the mayor even as Donal's shoulder knocked him back, pushing him out of the—
Shit.
—way as two more impacts smashed blood from the mayor's ribs, then took away half the man's jaw as—
Shit. Shit. Shit.
—Donal brought his Magnus up, desperate to acquire the target, wondering where the Hades the shots were—
Vilnar!
—coming from, as the commissioner's temple exploded into pink mist.
The sharpshooters were swinging their rifles wildly, trying to find the incoming fire's origin, arcing left to right, sweeping from low elevation to high, looking for the outline of a rifleman.
One of them accidentally pulled his trigg
er, and a champagne bottle erupted on a table below. Men and women screamed, falling back, staggering as they tried to get away.
Donal was likewise swiveling back and forth, Magnus in a two-handed grip, looking for the killer, seeing nothing.
Two more shots ripped into the fallen commissioner.
It was appalling. There was no place a killer could be, not from the geometry of the shooting, unless—
Just as Donal started to look up toward the high ceiling, a hand grasped his ankle.
“Do…nal.”
Commissioner Vilnar, his skull torn apart on both sides, was staring up at him.
“Oh, Hades.” Donal dropped to one knee. “I can't—”
“Take … this.”
The commissioner released Donal's ankle, moved his trembling hand toward his own face. Bullets did strange things when they bounced around inside living skulls, but this was a necrotonic sniper round that had gone straight through. How could the man still be moving?
The commissioner's fingers curved like claws.
Don't—
Claws that hooked around his own right eyeball.
Don't do—
Fingertips that pressed into the socket, and clenched.
That.
And ripped out his eye. His own eye.
“Take … ”
The commissioner's hand fell to one side as a hissing breath left his mouth, the final exhalation of a corpse.
On the ceiling, the assassin writhed through a series of twists that disassembled the weapon into disconnected segments across his back and arms, and turned him faceup to the ceiling with the harness looped around wrists and ankles, tight against the four gekkopads.
Then, one hand and foot at a time, he rotated the gekkopads free, slid an arm's length along the ceiling, and repeated in fluid iterations, moving at a surprising speed.
Donal's right hand held his Magnus; his left, Commissioner Vilnar's eyeball. He jumped down from the stage and moved toward the hall's center, in the midst of a growing space as the crowd seeped away, forming knots of panic at the exits. The other cops maintained their positions, searching for the shooter, except for half a dozen men now shielding Mayor Dancy's corpse, far too late.
