Black Blood

by John Meaney

  “—progress?” Pavel was saying.

  “I'm sorry? I missed that.”

  “Have you got something on your mind? I was just wondering whether you had any further thoughts on the trainees’ progress.”

  “Um, sorry. Nothing beyond what I said before. They're all good.”

  “They liked the training you gave. They've been talking about it.”

  “Well, good. That's nice to hear.”

  They stopped in the stone chamber that opened onto the great pit, where the open-sided stone-and-bone coach was waiting.

  “Come back soon,” said Pavel.

  They shook hands.

  “As soon as I can.”

  And then Lexar was inside the coach, Pavel waving farewell as the vehicle jolted and lurched upward, beginning its ascent of the pit wall. It took thirty seconds to reach the first change in direction, from zig to zag, and for a moment Lexar wondered whether Security could deliberately cause the coach to disengage from the track and plunge downward.

  The coach groaned and continued its ascent.

  Lexar thought there was a chance that Security somehow had him under observation right now. Even so, as the coach rose, he could not help opening his jacket and peering inside, at the small pale fingers that poked from his inside pocket. He stared for a moment, then pulled his jacket closed, and buttoned it up.

  With a final jolt, the coach reached ground level and stopped.

  A purple taxi drew up before the tall, forbidding black gates. Above them, and above the great walls stretching to either side, a dark-gray shimmering manifested itself. Whether it rose and faded out higher up, or curved back to form a protective roof across the expanse of the grounds within the walls, it was impossible to tell from ground level.

  Viktor and Harald alighted from the taxi. As soon as they closed the doors, the driver gunned the engine, and shot back into the road without checking for traffic. Neither Viktor nor Harald paid any attention. They were looking up at the bronze lettering that arced across the twin gates.

  MORDANTO HOSPITAL

  &

  THAUMATURGICAL COLLEGE

  chrd. 6397

  Archaic runes glowed black on the steel shields set on each gate, held in place by dragon claws that some people said were the real thing. Yet few talked about Mordanto, and even now, the handful of pedestrians passing by looked anywhere but at the gates or the forbidding towers that rose beyond.

  “Gentlemen.”

  Viktor and Harald spun around. A white-haired woman was standing on the sidewalk only four feet away, leaning on her cane, looking as if she had been there for a long time.

  “Shit,” said Viktor. “I mean, hi, Professor.”

  “Good to see you, ma'am.” Harald was more controlled. “It's been some time.”

  “Is that a diplomatic chastisement,” she asked, “for my not attending the funeral?”

  “Perhaps a sign of my puzzlement.”

  “Can we just take it as read that if I could have been there, I would have?”

  “Ma'am.”

  “And as for you, Viktor”—she waved her cane at him—“I'm hoping you've realized that I can help you. It's all I want to do.”

  “Er, sure. The thing is, maybe scanbat analysis will—”

  “Well, gentlemen.” Her voice cut into Viktor's explanation. “I see it's your colleague Alexa that you're most concerned for. I expected you to ask for help against what you call the Black Circle.”

  “Maybe they're to blame,” said Harald. “But in our world, you have to work with what immediately presents itself.”

  “Especially during an official investigation … which this isn't, is it?”

  “Um … ”

  Viktor shrugged inside his leather coat.

  “Can you help us, Professor?”

  “I want to see Lieutenant Riordan.”

  “But at any time, you could have—”

  “Ring him, get him to come here.” She closed her eyes for a moment, her mouth tightening. “All right, I can see the urgency. Let's go inside, and you, Sergeant Hammersen, will promise to do everything you can to get Lieutenant Riordan here immediately.”

  “But he's a different person. He's not your—”

  “Irrelevant. Those are my terms.”

  “We agree,” said Viktor.

  Harald shook his head, then blew out a breath.

  “Yes. We agree.”

  “Good. Walk with me, gentlemen. Lend me support.”

  Viktor stood on her left, Harald on her right, and she took hold of their arms as they walked toward the gates. For a second, Harald wondered where her cane had gone, then they were almost touching the ironwork, but she wasn't slowing down before they—

  “Hey.”

  —were walking on flagstones that formed a path between black lawns, leading to the main towers of Mordanto Hospital. Harald and Viktor glanced back at the gates that stood behind them, still closed.

  “It's kind of you two gentlemen to help an old lady like myself.”

  “Our, er, honor, ma'am.”

  “Yeah. Our honor.”

  “So kind.”

  Her face might have been lined, but there was something girlish about the old lady's smile as they reached the foot of the nearest tower.

  Donal, dressed only in shorts, crouched on the roof of Darksan Tower, surrounded by cats. He thought deeply about Laura's death, about the Black Circle mages that he knew: Malfax Cortindo, now a revenant, and Gelbthorne. Blanz figured in the mental images, too, but Donal made it clear that he was incarcerated in Fortinium, and therefore not a current danger.

  The cats’ eyes glowed.

  One of them, scarcely more than a kitten, came forward and bumped his head against Donal's hand, purring.

  “Hey, Spike,” said Donal.

  Then he closed his eyes, forming clear mental pictures of Gelbthorne and Cortindo once more. He remained that way as the cats began to slip away across the cables and connecting struts, back to other towers and buildings. Finally, only Spike was left. He buzzed, then walked away with tail held high, across a cable that hung over two hundred stories above street level, safely reaching the far side.

  Here and there on the highest ledges of the buildings, gargoyles blinked and stirred their stone wings, sensing the feline activity, then settled down once more.

  Finally Donal opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He looked at the disappearing cats, then at the ornate spire that rose behind him, pointing into the dark-purple sky.

  “Spike,” he said to the wind. “How did I know his name?”

  Then he went inside, and descended the ladder to his apartment, returning to his bedroom, where Commissioner Vilnar's eye still rested on the bedside cabinet. This was something he could turn to his advantage, just as he had asked the cats to search for Cortindo and Gelbthorne in the city, although they might not even be in the country. But how to use the eyeball, that was a mystery.

  He picked it up, held it in the palm of his hand, and stared at it, half expecting it to animate somehow. It remained dead. The only unnatural aspect was that it remained clear when it should have been cloudy, opaque with death.

  “You knew something,” he said to the eye. “I was in Illurium, and so was Harald, thank Death, or the bastards would've done for me. Laura and the rest of the team tried to arrest you, didn't they?”

  All the signs had pointed to Commissioner Vilnar being in collusion with the Black Circle. But it had been Marnie Finross, his secretary, who had been the problem—as the commissioner had already suspected.

  “But something happened. Somehow you found out where Blanz was, so we could take him down.”

  Whether Commissioner Vilnar had guessed at Blanz's membership in the Black Circle, Donal could not tell. But when Donal and Harald—reinforced by the Illurian cop Inspector Temesin and a squad of his toughest officers—had faced down Cortindo, Gelbthorne, and Blanz, the three mages had rotated hypergeometrically out of existence, to reappear some
where else.

  “How did you find out where Blanz would be?”

  There was no answer from the eyeball.

  What was I expecting?

  Donal sat down on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to re-create the scene in his imagination. Laura, Viktor, and Alexa, along with officers from Robbery-Haunting, walked into the commissioner's office, and attempted the arrest, during which the office slammed shut, trapping them, while Marnie Finross escaped the building.

  The team broke free, along with the furniture, who evacuated the office before it was sealed off from the normal human dimensions of geometry. That was why the commissioner had a new office now.

  What happened next?

  Laura and the Vixen had been the ones to spot Marnie Finross and give chase, although it was the cats who had dealt with her. And the commissioner—

  “You stayed behind,” he said to the eyeball. “You stayed … with Alexa.”

  Alexa was—had been—so promising an officer. She'd already come to the commissioner's attention as someone who was capable. In his mind's eye, Donal imagined himself in the Vixen, looking back, seeing Alexa and the commissioner standing on the sidewalk, watching as the rest of the team took off after Marnie Finross … and then turning to reenter Police HQ.

  Yes. That was what happened.

  Donal inhaled for the first time in several minutes, held it, then breathed out.

  “Alexa was with you, wasn't she? When you tracked down Blanz.”

  But they hadn't left HQ to do it. Donal was almost sure of that.

  “So sacrificing Alexa wasn't your smartest move ever, I guess.”

  None of this was helping. If the commissioner had ripped out his own eyeball for a logical reason, it didn't involve conversation in a zombie cop's bedroom.

  The phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Donal, you're there.”

  “Either that, or you're hallucinating me, Harald.”

  “I'm glad I caught you.”

  “It was sheer chance. I was about to return to HQ.”

  “I've been trying this number over and over, along with every other place you might be.”

  “Ah.”

  He considered explaining that he'd been on the roof, either communing with cats or deceiving himself that he could. Not to mention talking to a dead eyeball.

  “We've got someone helping us track Alexa.”

  “Good. She's important.”

  “Of course. But the thing is, Donal, we need you here.”

  “Then I'm coming. Where are you?”

  It couldn't be urgent physical danger, not if Harald had been making phone calls for ages.

  “You know the Mordanto?”

  “I've heard of it.”

  “That's where we are.”

  “See you in twenty.”

  He put the phone down.

  “You,” he said to the eyeball, “are a problem. Do I take you with me, or leave you here?”

  Gertie had sensed the eye in Donal's pocket, and almost dropped him to his death.

  “You're staying here.”

  He looked at his stained, discarded suit, considered wearing the other new one—since he'd bought two at the Janaval—then decided against it. This wasn't a time for dressing up. Minutes later, in his old familiar suit and shirt, the Magnus in his shoulder holster, he was out of the apartment and inside the elevator.

  “Lobby, please. Um … no. Make that the parking garage.”

  The elevator walls flexed inward, in a gesture that Donal interpreted as something like a nod. When they reached the subterranean garage level, he thanked the elevator, and exited.

  He'd half expected the parking slot to be empty, but the Vixen was there, gleaming and silent.

  “I'm going to Mordanto. They can help us search for Alexa Ceerling, who's missing, also ensorcelled.”

  There was no reaction from the car.

  “I believe that Alexa might know how Commissioner Vilnar tracked down Blanz. If she does, and we can retrieve that information, maybe we can get the other fuckers too.”

  Donal touched the Vixen's front wing.

  “Without you, Laura wouldn't have gotten Marnie Finross. It didn't matter that you weren't able to climb the wall. She knew you had a problem with … ”

  He let his voice trail off.

  What am I talking about?

  There was no reaction from the Vixen.

  “All right, I'm going. Look after yourself.”

  He went back to the elevator, which was still waiting, and entered it.

  “Guess I should've just asked for the lobby after all.”

  The doors slid shut.

  As the elevator began its ascent, Donal thought he heard an engine starting up in the garage, but whether it was the Vixen or another car—or his imagination—he had no idea.

  Alexa Ceerling.

  At least he had an objective now.

  Darksan Tower was quite a place to live. Among other features, it had a minimum of three doormen on duty, twenty-five hours a day. One of them flagged down a purple taxi for Donal.

  “Thanks, Kurt.”

  “Take it easy, Donal.”

  It was pretty certain that Donal was the only adult resident that the doormen addressed by first name. Even the children tended to be Master Albert or Mistress Lydia.

  “Where to, sir?”

  The driver had turned around in his seat to ask the question. If he was disappointed to notice Donal's pale skin and cheap suit, he hid his reaction.

  “You know the Mordanto Hospital?”

  “Um … not really.”

  “Sure you do. Drive to Heptagon Pacifica, and I'll direct you from there.”

  “Oh.” The driver rubbed his face. “All right. You got it.”

  “Good man.”

  The driver took the Hoardway route, but the traffic was getting heavier, and after a time he took a shortcut, away from the main road and into the Iron Emporium. He slowed down, driving along an alley normally used only by trucks, loading and unloading at the bays. On either side were black pavilions, tangled and ornate. There were warehouses filled with produce, the perishable foodstuffs that helped feed the city: vegetables, live lizards, and catches from the West Sea—some cold and unmoving on ice, some squirming in crowded salt water tanks.

  “Good move,” Donal told the driver. “Not many people come this—”

  But as they passed a turn into another wide alley, he spotted a parked patrol car, and two uniformed officers—one unstrapping his long baton—walking toward a trio of suspects, who were standing by a warehouse loading bay.

  The suspects had pale skin.

  “Shit,” said Donal. “Stop.”

  The driver blinked.

  “You sure?”

  “Reverse back, and drive down that alley.”

  “I don't—”

  “Yes, you do.” Donal held up his detective's shield. “Now.”

  The driver reversed so that they passed the turn, then drove forward. As he turned, he did something that surprised Donal: he put the engine into neutral and disengaged the clutch, coasting until pulling up behind the squad car.

  “Thanks.”

  Donal rolled out of the car, and strode forward, badge held high.

  “Officer!”

  The bigger officer, the one with the baton, had his arm cocked, ready for a circular strike with plenty of follow-through. He whipped it toward the nearest zombie—

  “I'm Lieutenant Riordan. Stop.”

  —and pulled it downward, unable to hold back the strike, directing it instead to the zombie's calf. There was a crack and the zombie fell.

  The other officer said, “They're only icicles, s-sir.”

  Hefting the baton, the big officer scowled.

  “They was acting suspicious. On these here commercial premises.”

  Donal looked at the zombies. The fallen man was sitting now, holding his leg. The other two zombies stared at Donal.

  “We
did nothing,” said the woman.

  Their clothes looked shabby, but had once been of good quality.

  “Help him stand up,” said Donal.

  They did so.

  “You can walk?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Then do it. Quickly.”

  The three zombies looked at one another. Then they got moving.

  “And you two,” continued Donal, “can get back in your car and do your jobs.”

  Both men's faces tightened.

  “The suspects were—”

  “I don't want to hear it.”

  At the far end of the warehouse, the zombies turned right. One of the cops glanced at them, then stared at the waiting taxi.

  “Beat it.” Donal climbed into the backseat. “Go on.”

  The driver reversed out of the alley, drove for twenty yards, then stopped. He watched in the mirror. Behind them, the patrol car pulled out of the alley and headed away from them, in the opposite direction, toward Hoardway.

  “They ought to be okay,” the driver said.

  Donal knew he meant the zombie trio.

  “I hope so.”

  “A year ago, you'd never have seen anything like that happening. Hades, not even a few months back.”

  “Things change.”

  “Not for the better. We'll probably be at war next.”

  “Huh.” Donal looked out at the passersby, as the taxi turned onto Umbral Prospect. “Bad thought.”

  “I know.”

  They drove in silence to the twenty-one-way three-tiered intersection of Heptagon Pacifica, where Donal said: “Third exit, then down one level, and take the second ramp.”

  “Got it.”

  The directions came naturally to Donal, although he had never been here before.

  Ten minutes later, the driver stopped.

  “Here.” Donal handed over a three-hundred florin note. “Take it easy.”

  “Oh, man. I can't possibly change—”

  “You don't need to.”

  Donal got out.

  After a moment, the driver put his taxi in gear and rolled away from the dark gates. Donal raised a hand, and saw the driver do likewise. When the taxi was just part of the distant traffic flow, Donal turned back to his destination.