Black Blood

by John Meaney

  “Because you could cope. Look,”—Harald wiped his face—“if we take one of the Customer Relations guys off into a quiet corner and work him over … maybe he'll react the way Alexa did.”

  “Go nuts, just because someone's asking questions?”

  “It's not a matter of going crazy—”

  “You're right,” said Donal. “Alexa didn't just turn violent. She went to ground.”

  “Maybe,” said Harald, “to somewhere specific. Somewhere programmed.”

  Marines were trance-trained. If this was his best guess, then Donal would trust it.

  “So you get someone worked up,” muttered Viktor, “then I can follow him. Try not to let him kill you first, buddy.”

  “Good.” Harald was staring at Donal. “But that's not everything, is it?”

  “Not unless the phone company put out a hit on Mayor Dancy. Something else is happening.” Donal leaned on the stone credenza, then took his weight off it. “Sorry. So, Viktor, you've been working the phone gig as well?”

  “Alexa's out there,” said Viktor. “Have we got time for this?”

  “We need to talk to one another.” Harald folded his arms. “You know, like a team.”

  Good man.

  Donal was feeling better about this.

  “What were you working on, Viktor?”

  “Death-damned white wolves. Sightings from the public. I haven't caught a glimpse myself.”

  “What? I just missed one,” said Donal, “last night. Near a TTA.”

  “You did? Me and Xalia and Bowman have—”

  “I sensed traces of Xalia last night. I was out for a run, and I felt something. Maybe it was the wolf, maybe the traffic accident, I don't know. But when I was in the Janaval, I knew she'd been there.”

  Viktor's face hardened.

  “You were in the area when Xalia was injured? You were there?”

  “Something happened to Xalia?” Donal stared at him. “Everything was over when I—shit. I thought I saw the Vixen.”

  “It was Laura's Vixen,” said Harald, “that brought her here. Injured.”

  “Where is Xalia?”

  “In a deep level, with Gertie. Sealed off, since yesterday.”

  “That doesn't sound good. All right”—Donal modulated his voice carefully—“we need to do something. I'm going to ask one question before we make a move.”

  “A fast question, I hope.”

  “When Laura and I arrested Blanz in Fortinium, who told us he'd be there, and in disguise?”

  “Hades, it was your job,” said Viktor. “You were the one who got the briefing.”

  “The commissioner.” Harald's tone was soft. “I was there when he told you.”

  “So how did he know?”

  “Laura captured Eyes, Marnie Finross … but she went catatonic, didn't she? So he didn't get the info from her.”

  “That's a good question, Donal,” said Harald. “Do you know the answer?”

  “No.” Donal nodded to Kyushen. “But we're going to work on it, while you two take on Customer Relations. If whatshisname in Surveillance, Helborne, tracks down the Phantasm, I'll let you know.”

  There was a pause.

  No one put me in charge.

  For that matter, the task force probably no longer existed. That was something to—

  “Yes,” said Harald.

  “We're right on it,” said Viktor.

  Their voices had gained strength.

  Now we are a team.

  Donal touched their shoulders.

  “For Laura,” he said. “And the Old Man.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a new sign. Everyone called the place Customer Relations (or Whining Complaints, though not in writing), but the floating sign, held in place by necromagnetic induction, read:

  ~CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP BUREAU~

  And the receptionist's smile was very wide, as if her facial muscles could not help bunching up when she saw a stranger walk into her lobby.

  “I'm Sergeant Hammersen.” Harald held up his shield. “But call me Harald.”

  “Of course … Harald. I hope we can help you.”

  “I think I need to see a supervisor. It's about arranging some training.”

  “The supervisor on shift right now is Jack Capers. Isn't that a great name?”

  “Uh, sure. So Mr. Capers …”

  “I'll call him now.” She picked up the indigo handset. “Jack? Can Sergeant Harald Hammersen come in to talk to you? I've got him right here with me.” There was a pause, then: “That's right.”

  Harald noticed how her smile remained even while she was talking.

  “Here.” She held out the indigo phone. “You want a word with Jack now?”

  Letting out a breath to calm himself, Harald tried not to spend too long staring at the handset.

  “If he's free, I'll pop in now and chat in person. Seems friendlier, you know?”

  “Of course.” And, into the phone: “Can he come right in? He can? Wonderful.”

  She put it down.

  “You're very kind,” said Harald. “Thank you so much.”

  “You are so welcome.”

  Her smile looked wider than ever. It made Harald feel as if he should give her a tip. Then he nodded, and went past her desk, through the partition, and into the call center.

  “Sergeant Hammersen?”

  The man's grin was framed by a reddish goatee.

  “Call me Harald.”

  “Delighted. I'm Jack. Jack Capers.”

  They shook hands.

  “And what can I do for you, Harald?”

  “It's about your phone manner.” Looking around at the smiling officers, Harald felt cold. “I hear good things about the way you guys work.”

  “You want to listen in on a few calls? Even try answering some yourself?”

  “I'd love to,” said Harald. “But later. Right now, I've got a meeting. My team's about to start a major inquiry. Blackmail and fraud, involving a chain of stores. They're going to be phoning the stores’ customers—we're talking hundreds of people and long calls—and I'd like my guys to get additional training. Is that possible? They've had the usual Academy stuff, but—”

  “Oh, we can do better than that, Harald, I'm absolutely sure.”

  “Yeah.” Harald looked around at the call handlers. “Good atmosphere. You can see they're motivated.”

  “I'm proud of them. If you need motivation strategies for your guys,” said Capers, “we can provide that.”

  “I'll bet. Um, they're the proof.” Harald continued to stare at the call center. “You know what? I have friends who are a bit more senior than me, just a group who hang out together, who are really interested in motivating their people.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “What time do you finish the shift?”

  “Another twenty minutes. I started work early.”

  “Hmm. Could you make it to Two Fifty-first Street later tonight, around nineteen o'clock?”

  “Tonight? Sure.”

  “There's a bar called Monazen Iona—”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Capers. “I've walked past the place. Looks a bit upmarket.”

  It was very upmarket, as Harald knew, and therefore exactly the last place someone would expect trouble.

  “I'll meet you in the main bar at the front,” he told Capers, “and we'll have a drink, then see what we can see. They're a friendly bunch, the guys.”

  “It sounds great. Thanks, Harald.”

  “You're welcome.”

  They shook hands.

  “Later.”

  “Yeah. Later.”

  Shortly after that, Viktor broke into Alexa's apartment, using the hex keys he always carried. It was small, tidy, and had a lot of books. A set of dumbbells stood in one corner.

  He knew immediately that the place was empty. Still, he went from room to room, looked inside the shower stall and under the iron bed. No one was hiding there.

&
nbsp; Then he went back to the tiny lounge, and began a structured search. Perhaps he would find a note where she'd written down the contents of her dreams, of the mesmeric command buried inside her mind. Or perhaps this was wasting time, until he and Harald sorted out some other poor bastard from Customer Relations tonight, someone as screwed-up in the head as Alexa. But he had to do something, anything, keeping hope or maybe just momentum.

  Fluid leaked from the Phantasm's cracked carapace. It lay on its side, atop sharp-edged rubble, at the bottom of a shadowed pit. Perhaps fifty feet above were the jagged edges of the hole that the motorcycle had plunged through: splintered beams framing a patch of purple sky. The pale, blind lizards crept closer.

  Neither of the motorcycle's wheels had retained its shape. No sound emanated from its engine. No light shone from its headlamp.

  Closer, the lizards moved, until one of them extruded a forked tongue to taste the spilled fluid. At that moment, the Phantasm's motor spasmed and coughed, and the lizards scuttled away in retreat.

  The headlight glimmered a soft, eerie, steady green.

  Donal tapped the commissioner's desk. Kyushen looked up from the manual, then checked the page number—memorizing it, Donal supposed—then slowly closed the volume.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not sure I can be much help.” “You already were,” Donal told him, “when you made Harald realize that the phones had no effect on me.” “Oh. Good.”

  “So can you figure out what else the phones are doing to people's minds?”

  “Besides making them feel good?” “And homicidal if someone tries to analyze them.” “No, er, I can't figure that out.” Kyushen laid a hand on the manual. “The resonant potentiation is effected by subharmonic signals that—”

  “Feel free to translate that,” said Donal, “into real words.” “The manual tells me how the hidden commands are carried down the phone line. It doesn't specify the semantics—um, the signal contents—because it can be anything.”

  “So you can't tell without analyzing an actual call.” “I guess. The good feelings that—um, what was the white-haired guy's name?” “Harald.”

  “The behavior that Harald described, the happy customers, that's linked to some other goal in their mind, some deep association.”

  “All right.” Donal rubbed his face. “Aside from a tendency to go off the deep end, how is this a bad thing?”

  “Over time, it might lead to some behavior that could be triggered.” Kyushen stared at the closed manual. “I'm not sure. Some of this, I could try to duplicate in the hospital lab, and use my own diagnostics to analyze.”

  “All right.” Donal looked at the stone credenza, the brassy orrery, the black iron chair. “Do any of you”—he touched the desk—“want to remain here, with Commissioner Vilnar gone? His replacement may well support the Unity Party.”

  The chair shook one arm and stepped back.

  “I'm guessing that's a no.” Donal thought for a second. “I'll have to talk to Eduardo, find out what paperwork is needed for you to leave the building. Kyushen, could you store this stuff at St. Jarl's?”

  “Um … maybe.”

  “I've plenty of room at home, but if things are about to change,” said Donal, “I may not be a legal person for much longer. Maybe the commissioner's widow would look after you.”

  The chair flexed and bowed, as if nodding.

  “All right, but let's not bother her immediately. Also, any documents that are official police information must remain here, inside inanimate furniture. I'll get some secure filing cabinets brought up.” Donal turned to Kyushen. “Why don't you take that manual back to St. Jarl's, and for Death's sake look after it.”

  “You got it, Lieutenant.”

  “Call me Donal.”

  “Um—right.”

  “Good man.”

  After Kyushen had left, the various cabinets and drawers began to disgorge piles of papers. Many bore additional security seals that Donal had no way of bypassing. But as he scanned through memos, he found nothing startling, apart perhaps from the budget figures. Donal had never realized how much it cost to run a police force.

  So now what?

  The gun range. He could go down and loose off a few, either before or after finding out whether Brian could keep the contents of Commissioner Vilnar's office in one of his storage rooms. If anyone knew how to smuggle fittings out of the building, it was Brian.

  “Good. I'll be back later.” He walked to the exit, noting how listlessly the ciliaserpents drew back. “I'm sorry.”

  The Surveillance room was quiet. Spotting him, Rob stood up from behind a monitor, and shook his head. Obviously, he'd failed to find the Phantasm or Alexa.

  Donal gave a fingertip salute, then headed to the elevator shafts, where he was glad to notice that number 7 was in use once more. He waited, then stepped into the shaft.

  *Hey, Donal.*

  There was something different. Gertie's tone was tired, her form scarcely visible, while above her hung another wraith-shape.

  “Xalia?” Donal thought there might be a translucent ribbon or cord joining them. “Is that really—?”

  *No!*

  This was Gertie, holding Donal in place.

  *What have you done? YOU'VE KILLED ARRHENNIUS!*

  Donal remembered the eyeball in his pocket, and the way that the commissioner's office had opened without prompting as he approached.

  “I didn't—”

  And then he dropped.

  *Not Arrhennius …*

  Donal fell.

  *No, Gertie. Donal would never—*

  He grabbed at the sill of a door opening, putting everything into the hooking of his fingers, reaching—got it—and swinging with massive impact against the wall—hang on—but the impact bounced him off and he was falling again, dropping down inside the vertical shaft, no longer able to reach the sides, understanding that finally he was going to die for real.

  Laura. I'm sorry.

  Don't be.

  He twisted as he fell, tears in his eyes, and whether it was from slipstream or fear no longer mattered to anyone, because this was the end of—

  Impact?

  Light shining all around him, translucent blue, billowing and fluo -rescing …

  *I've … got… you.*

  … and then hard darkness, hammering him from the world.

  Brian looked up from the counter, where he had been examining a box of chitin-piercing rounds. His blue skin grew paler as he tried to process the strange sight in front of him.

  It was a large wraith, pulled into a strange configuration, dragging an unconscious pale-skinned man across the floor. The wraith—or was it two wraiths?—faded in and out of visibility.

  “That's Lieutenant Riordan. Shit!” Brian pushed up a section of counter, and bent down to grab Donal's head as the wraith—or wraiths—let go. “What's going on?”

  *Look … after… him.*

  “What? Are you injured?”

  *Yes … Care for… Donal.*

  “I will. He's been decent to me, though he probably doesn't—Hades! Come back.”

  But the wraith had already sunk into the floor.

  “Oh, Death. This isn't good.” Brian felt for a pulse in Donal's cold neck, and got it. “Shit. Shit.”

  Then he hooked his hands under Donal's armpits and dragged him through the counter opening. Brian's lower back was flaring with pain, but he grunted and pulled until Donal was at the entrance to the storerooms.

  “Not good.”

  Brian opened a door to a small room with a mattress, a flame-sprite candle, and some stacked cartons of food, none of which were supposed to be here. Then he dragged Donal inside and tipped him onto the mattress.

  Donal's left hand flopped, revealing the watch worn inside his wrist, and the tiny sliver of black on silver. Whatever massive trauma had just struck, Donal was close to death.

  “Shit. Oh, shit.”

  Trembling, Brian rushed to another room, and came back more
slowly, struggling with the weight of the industrial black battery in his hands. His back was in agony as he lowered it to the floor, limped out, and returned with a length of black power cord.

  With shaking hands, he pulled open Donal's shirt—a button popped off, was lost—and dug his fingertips into Donal's chest, failed to hit the spot, then tried again. This time the triangular skin flap came open, and the pectoral muscle pulled back.

  The black heart was beating. Slick reflected highlights slid across its surface.

  “Hades, Lieutenant. How did you get in this—? There.” The connector clicked home, inside Donal's chest cavity. “All right. Almost done.”

  With the other end fastened to the battery, Brian sank back, sitting on the stone floor, wiping his face. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

  Donal lay unmoving, save for the rhythmic pulsing of his zombie heart.

  Outside Monazen Iona, crimson flamewraiths, the exact hue of burning strontium, danced and blazed. Bronze sculptures, fanged, surrounded the doors. They were capable of sudden violent movement in case of trouble, but rarely stirred. This was downtown and the clientele were businesspeople, for the most part.

  Harald was wearing his best suit, along with a dark-green tie that probably didn't match. He didn't look too much out of place, and that was good, because he didn't want anyone here to remember him.

  Viktor, nearly seven feet tall, in his usual leather coat, stood outside. He would stay there unless something catastrophic happened.

  “Coldfire brandy, sir.” The bartender put down the drink Harald had ordered. “Enjoy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Harald watched the flames play across the brandy's surface, then took a sip. As promised, while the brandy was hot, the coldfire was cool against his lips. He put the glass down and nodded.

  “Hey.” A woman, three stools down, looked at him. Silver-and-black butterfly wings were painted masklike around her eyes. “Are you on your own?”

  The bartender moved discreetly away. Harald looked at the woman, his intuition at maximum sensitivity, seeing someone battered by life, out of control in a turbulence of self-doubt and alcoholic destruction, however richly she was dressed. Her gender was irrelevant. She was a victim, and in Harald's heightened state of mind, any intervention he made would be like tapping a gun barrel to one side: a tiny directed effort to produce a massive shift in result.