by John Meaney
The man bowed to Kyushen, smiled, then turned his attention back to the briefing.
“McReady, Fleming, N'Gorbi.” Viktor wrote their names on one board. “You're team one.”
“Can't we be team Alpha?”
“Or Charlie. I'd rather be Charlie.”
Kyushen found himself blinking rapidly. He'd known it wasn't going to be a party, not really. But this was even more confusing than he—
“More like team Dick.”
“Uh-huh.” Viktor pointed to the black-haired woman. “Zarenski. You lead two. Take Obsidian and Walker.”
“All right.”
“Team three will be—”
The division of personnel continued. Viktor gave each team a primary objective, with no details yet, not until Donal had gone through more background. Then he called Lexar Pinderwin up to the Westside Complex plan, and asked him to point out the salient locations.
“The children's bodies”—Lexar pointed—“I expect to be here, here, and here.”
All around the room, expressions tightened. With all the jokes earlier, Kyushen had thought them flippant, although he knew medics who were as bad. Now every cop looked serious, and Kyushen swallowed. He wouldn't want them for enemies.
“Is that clear?” asked Lexar.
“No,” said the black-haired woman. “Ruth Zarenski. Could you be more specific about the route from the examination chamber?”
“Sure. The rooms off this corridor are used by osteoanalysts, whose primary job is to scan bones for … Well, each room might be empty, or might have a dozen analysts working inside. The most likely possibility is—”
And so on, as several cops asked for clarifying detail. To each question, Lexar either gave a steady, logical answer or admitted that he didn't know.
“Good,” said Viktor finally. “Thank you, Lexar. Donal, you want to go through the main insertion sequence?”
“Yeah. No smart remarks”—Donal nodded to the scar-faced man—“about insertion, all right, Jacques?”
“We're all dicks here. I'll behave.”
“Good. So, the easy route from the Twistabout is going to be blocked. That leaves two—”
“How have you arranged that?”
“Sewage mains, bursting open right here. Team five, you get to be sewage workers, then pull in to enter the Complex from the tertiary insertion point.”
“Got it.”
“So the two routes will be the roads from Netherstands and West Screams. If they're bringing in fresh bodies—I'm talking about tied-up or anesthetized children—they'll have to use one of these roads. Kyushen, can we scan trucks as they pass by? For children inside?”
“I don't, er, see how. Not without a mage to help us.”
The shaven-headed man gave a tiny grin.
“All right. Let's come back to that. I'm going to ask each team to brainstorm your own plan, then we'll pool our thoughts. Any general questions first?”
“Yeah.” A young-looking cop with a square face raised his hand. “Who is the enemy? Have all the workers been ensorcelled?”
“Good question, Adam. Lexar, you've been inside and worked out what the bastards are up to. What do you think?”
“Impossible to tell, but I think most of the workers are quite legitimate, and unaware of what's going on. Some of the analysts are definitely complicit, or else under deep compulsion.”
“Okay,” said Donal. “I poked around a few days back, and I agree. Any other questions?”
“What Bone Listener Pinderwin—Lexar, is it?—said about mages.” This was Ruth Zarenski. “If we're up against a dark mage—”
“Then,” said the shaven-headed man, “I'll do my best to hold him, while you do your thing.”
“And you are?”
“Everyone,” said Donal. “Meet Mage Kelvin.”
“At your service.” Kelvin started to bow, then winked instead. “It's going to be fun.”
“Fun,” muttered a hatchet-faced man at the rear.
“Any more questions”—Donal looked around at the seated cops—“before we separate into teams?”
“Just one. Where's Harald?”
“Harald who?” asked Viktor.
“Ha, ha.”
“Sergeant Hammersen,” said Donal, “is playing politics. Because when this is over, we've our new commissioner and maybe City Hall to take down.”
“You're being, like, metaphorical?”
“Probably, if I knew what that meant. All right, everyone into your groups, refresh your coffee, and let's get brainstorming.”
Beside Kyushen, Sister Felice sighed. In the bright light of the room, the pupils of her eyes had tightened into vertical slits.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Sister Felice rubbed the back of her hand along her face. “He knows what he's doing, doesn't he?”
Even Kyushen had worked out that Lieutenant Donal Riordan was the one person in the room that Sister Felice couldn't look away from.
Harald stared around the pool room. The nine-sided, dark-gray tables stood in a circle, the balls arranged in neat triangles ready for play. No one was in the place besides himself and Captain Andrei Sandarov. The saloon below was busy, but tonight this room was unavailable to players.
“I'm a big believer”—Sandarov stroked his gray moustache—“in the chain of command. It's how we keep order. It's discipline that keeps us straight, while criminal punks fail because they do not know how to coordinate and direct their efforts. Thank Fate.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now that we've got the official shit out of the way, you're going to hand me a way to stuff Craigsen, preferably before he's sworn in as commissioner. Or did I read your subtle hints incorrectly?”
“That's about what I was getting at.”
“So tell me how.”
“What if Captain Craigsen is getting support from Mayor Van Linder and his Unity Party cronies?”
“That's hardly news, Sergeant Hammersen.”
“And what if the UP politicos have already achieved similar rearrangements of personnel in the Energy Authority? For example”—Harald held up a folder, and extracted a sheet of paper covered with dense purple typescript—“Director Braune, maneuvered out of his job because he opposed links with their Illurian counterparts.”
“Energy Authority?”
“And the further link to the Illurian telephone company that's been running trial projects here in Tristopolis.” Harald produced two more typed sheets. “Phones that can potentially ensorcell everyone who uses them.”
“Really?” Sandarov took the pages and ran his gaze down them. “If I didn't know which task force you'd been assigned to for the past year, I'd think you were nuts.”
“Probably. Do you know how telephone switchboard circuits are made?”
“No, but I know what the main circuit lines have to be made from. That's why our Energy Authority has links to our phone company. I hope you're not trying to make this out as some kind of foreign conspiracy.”
“Not exactly.” Harald pulled out more pages. “You'll know that we arrested Alderman Finross in Illurium, in Silvex City, on a cross-border warrant. Also, Lieutenant Riordan and I attempted to take in Blanz, Cortindo, and Gelbthorne at the same time, but the three of them managed to translocate themselves, or whatever it is that mages do.”
“Riordan got Blanz in the end.”
“Not before Blanz killed Laura Steele.”
“Yes. I'm sorry about that. I mean, really sorry.”
Harald's voice went quiet as he said: “I think you mean that, sir.”
Sandarov's face hardened.
“What are you implying?”
“Nothing more than that.”
“If you try to pressure me—”
“Sir, I know about your mother and father. If you don't feel comfortable helping us, we'll still keep their, ah, status to ourselves.”
For several seconds, Sandarov stared straight at Harald, saying nothing.
Then he looked around the deserted pool room as if checking for eavesdroppers, before releasing a long breath.
“They've been inside my house for months, afraid to go out. We picked up the signs early, and they sold their own place. Told their old neighbors that they were moving to the countryside, where resurrected folk are still welcome.”
That had been in one of the files. Sandarov's parents were zombies, resurrected together after a traffic accident three years ago.
“So here's the thing,” said Harald. “The new phones require certain trunk lines to be made from what I guess you'd call high-grade nerves.”
“What does that mean?”
“The engineers take them from children.”
“That's—”
“When they're still alive.”
“Shit.” The last of Sandarov's defensiveness fell away. “You mean that?”
“And it's happening here in Tristopolis.”
Sandarov scratched his face, almost tearing at the skin.
“Have you got any possible way to prove this?”
“We're working on that right now. Tomorrow, we're going to blow the thing wide open.”
“And if I can publicize the links to Craigsen …”
“Maybe you'll be the new commissioner, not him.”
“Perhaps.” Sandarov walked to the nearest table, picked up the cue ball, then put it down. “You said ‘publicize.’ Did you mean that?”
“Uh-huh. You know Jo Serranto at the Gazette?”
“We've had our run-ins.”
“And if she gets hold of this story? Maybe with photographs?”
“In that case”—Sandarov smiled—“it'll make the front page across the Federation.”
“Then we'll have won.”
“Perhaps.” Sandarov's expression grew solemn once more. “But Van Linder's going to be a hard man to beat. The Gazette might call him ‘the Accidental Mayor,’ but he's got a steel grip on the city councillors.”
“Not entirely accidental.”
“Yes, but it's not as if he planned Mayor Dancy's—He didn't, did he?”
“We think he did. We have reason to believe that if you ordered a forensic search of Möbius Park, you'll find traces of a professional assassin, not a resurrected person.”
“You mean the guys our officers killed—”
“Were set up. Ensorcelled. They had guns but they weren't the ones to take out the mayor or the commissioner.”
“Hades.”
“Proving a link to Van Linder, that I don't know about. But there has to be one. Otherwise it's a coincidence of the kind that never happens.”
“That kind.”
“Exactly.”
“Then I'm with you,” said Sandarov. “Mayor Dancy was the best thing that had happened to this city in a long time, and if those bastards did him in, then I aim to return the favor. Deal?”
He held out his hand.
“Deal, sir.”
They shook, and Harald smiled.
At a quiet moment during the proceedings, Donal drew Mage Kelvin to one side. He intended to ask Kelvin what use a ripped-out eyeball might be.
“I'm uneasy,” Kelvin said.
“What about?”
“You think they'll be bringing in more children, but it seems like too much guesswork.”
“If we catch them with live captives, we blow the whole thing open. Analyzing dead bodies with the nerves removed, that takes expert witnesses. Bone Listeners.”
“Ah. I understand. Nonhumans are losing their jobs, and we expect a jury to take a Bone Listener's word that the nerves were removed premortem.”
“Yeah.” Donal's gaze drifted to the locked drawer containing Commissioner Vilnar's eyeball. “Can you tell me exactly what you'd use an—?”
He stopped.
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing. Just a little logic puzzle I wanted some advice on.”
Kelvin said: “I'm good with puzzles.”
“I know.” Donal laughed, in a tone that caused several cops to look in his direction, frowning. “But I think I've figured this one out.”
From the far corner, a voice said: “And then we shoot the fuckers up. Hoo-ah.”
“Shit,” muttered a slight woman, not Ruth Zarenski.
“What's up, Nikola? Ovaries tightening up?”
“How'd you guess, peanut-balls?”
Close to Donal and Kelvin, Sister Felice blinked several times, and asked: “Are they always like this?”
“Only when they're being friendly,” growled Viktor.
Kelvin smiled.
“Lieutenant Riordan, I don't suppose you're planning on going to HQ. Not before this … operation anyhow.”
“I'm on suspension, like every zombie.”
“Quite. Should you find yourself inside HQ, there's a certain vault, in the deepest levels, that Alexa Ceerling knows about. She accompanied …”
“The commissioner.”
“Right. There's a password: Per Vera veritas. I don't know what it means.”
“Arrhennius Vilnar's wife—widow—is called Vera.”
“Another innocent victim.” For a moment, a strange amber light seemed to circulate in Kelvin's eyes. Then they were normal again. “It's as if injustice is filling the world.”
“Maybe it always has.”
“Not everywhere, not all the time. Or humanity would never have survived.”
“Yes. You're all right, Mage Kelvin.”
“For a mage, you mean? You're okay, too, Lieutenant.”
Donal laughed again, and this time the glances that angled his way were accompanied with smiles, not frowns.
“For a black-hearted zombie? Thank you so much.”
“You're very welcome.”
They looked across the room, just as Adam Obsidian aimed a sniper rifle out the window and dry-fired it, snapping the action on an empty chamber. He handed the rifle back to the scar-faced man, whose name was Jacques McReady.
“Nice weapon.”
“Ain't she got the sweetest balance?”
Sister Felice walked over to Donal and Kelvin.
“You have the strangest friends, Donal Riordan.”
“Including yourself?” asked Kelvin.
“Quite possibly, Mage. Donal, we're wondering—Kyushen, Lexar, and me—what use we can be tomorrow.”
“You're not coming into the Complex with us.”
Sister Felice's ears moved as her eyes narrowed. “We know we're not combat-trained.”
“If you want to park nearby in a car or truck, and come in immediately afterward to help, that would be great. In fact, I've got a woman I need to ring now, to see if she'll come along. You could take her.”
“What's her name?”
Donal noticed the slight extrusion of her claws.
“Serranto. She's a journalist, and I'm hoping she'll write it up, is all.”
“So. The authorities will try to bury the story.”
“The newspaper publishers aren't totally corrupt or scared. I hope.”
Sister Felice slowly blinked.
“What happens afterward, Donal?”
“Step one: do what we have to do.” Donal extended his fingers, counting. “Step two: find out if there is an afterward. Step three: decide what to do next, if we're still around.”
“We?”
“All of us.” Donal gestured around the room. “Everyone's risking something.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I think I should go back and rescue Kyushen from your cop buddies.”
“Probably.”
He watched her walk back across the room.
“I think you missed something there,” said Kelvin.
Donal shook his head.
“I'm not the person she thinks I am.”
But Kelvin's attention had shifted to the closed drawer that Donal had looked at earlier.
“You're certainly an intriguing individual, Lieutenant, with an interesting line in collectibles. Was that the puzzle y
ou were going to ask me about?”
“Maybe.”
“Then I guess that's your step three. If we survive tomorrow.”
“I'm glad you're with us, Mage.”
Around the room, the groups were growing quiet, and more and more cops were turning to look at Donal. The teams had finished their brainstorming, and every blueboard was covered in chalked lists and diagrams. It was time for the next stage.
Donal pitched his voice so it would carry, and called the group together.
Harald was in the parked truck, sitting up front, staring out at the spike-studded interior wall of the West Screams Tunnel. In the body of the truck waited two cops, Fleming and Roberson, plus the impassive Mage Kelvin, currently sitting cross-legged on a black mat. At the rear of the truck floated a kind of apparition: twisted lines of light, a distorted framework, rotating and slipping through geometric transformations that hurt to look at.
When Kelvin opened his eyes, he said to Harald: “There's something approaching.”
“Another possible?”
“Exactly.”
There had been six previous “possibles,” each a false alarm, since taking up station here. Now Kelvin slipped past Roberson—who was swallowing with nervousness despite the pump-action slivergun he held—and climbed into the passenger seat beside Harald.
“There's still not much traffic, Harald.”
“It's early.”
“I can't tell which vehicle—That one.”
Kelvin pointed at a small black milk float, its necrotonic motor whining as it passed, bearing its crates of yellow milk.
“Too small, isn't it?” Behind him, Roberson was looking out. “If they've live prisoners aboard.”
“They're children,” said Kelvin. “Stacked into a small place.”
“Children.”
“You knew that.”
“Yeah, but…children.”
Roberson's face tightened as he pumped the slivergun's action.
“You've thirty seconds, Mage”—Harald was starting up the engine—“and then I'm taking the truck in.”
“All right.” Kelvin was already climbing back into the rear, where the shining illusion twisted and now began to moan. “Just a moment.”
From his position in the truck's center, Detective-Two Fleming said: “I don't know how you've kept that thing manifested all this time, Mage. And kept a lookout as well.”
