by Gwynn White
“Did he now?” Cato asked, tweaking a brow. He started to search his pockets for a cigarette before remembering he had promised his niece he would quit. He had a feeling he was going to regret that decision long before all was said and done with this case.
Hank suppressed a smirk as he watched his partner pat himself down, then abruptly stop. “Yeah, yeah. All right, I’ll head down to the Reave, but I don’t know what you think he’s going to tell me that he hasn’t already.”
Cato turned on his heel, pointing back as he stalked off. “You’ll figure something out. The vamps respond well to you. Always have.”
“Even if I do, where the hell are you going?”
“To talk with Gragos Cairn and give him back Hezekiel’s ring. Hopefully forestall any retaliation until we know what’s really going on here,” he said over his shoulder. “Get down to Tanglereave and let Erastes know we don’t need any more bodies today.”
“That we don’t,” Hank said, staring over the mess of bodies before him. “That we don’t.”
2
There was a popular saying among those born and bred in Meridia: Today is just tomorrow’s understudy. Boy, was that ever the truth. Waking up that morning, Cato’s biggest concern had been how to smooth things over with his half-human, half-demon girlfriend. Now it was how to mollify two communities who had long been at odds, one of which was more than likely already gearing up for some sort of retaliation. Not that Cato could blame them; the hit had all the hallmarks of a Steelskin job, and no one would ever accuse him of being a fan of the vamps. On the other hand, part of his duty was to safeguard all the citizens of Meridia, even the ones he didn’t like so much. Whatever else could be said of him—and Ann had laid a solid foundation back at the crime scene—he held nothing more sacred than the chain of command and his place within it. Mayor Zobbles wanted him and Hank to take point on this, and take point they would until they were told otherwise.
Still, if this was the shit that today was intent on serving up, he could only imagine the size of the pile that would be waiting for him tomorrow. All the more reason to lock this case down and close it out, fast.
Cato’s parade of idle thoughts came to a halt along with his roadster as he approached Silverbreak Keep. The ancestral home of Meridia’s elite gargoyle families spanned dozens of city blocks and was walled off to all but the most important outsiders. Today, Cato was an expected guest, though none that anyone was eager to welcome. With no other choice he pulled alongside the call box so he could announce his presence before the massive and unnerving wall surrounding Silverbreak Keep.
After cranking down the window, Cato pushed the call button. The box trilled; Cato waited. Finally, the line was picked up.
“Spector Cato. Kovar Cairn awaits your arrival.”
“Well, here I am. I’ve arrived,” he said, then waited a beat before adding, “So, you gonna buzz me in, or what?”
A hard, clacking buzz sounded through the call box. A moment later, the heavy portcullis cutting off Cato’s approach began to lift.
Slowly, he drove the roadster forward. The courtyard expanded before him, flanked on one side by the customs and interrogation building, and the Gjunta’s stockade on the other. A single main artery accessible to visitors bisected them both, carrying him inevitably toward the keep overshadowing it all.
Not surprisingly, news of Stone’s assassination had made the rounds quickly. Clutches of uniformed gargoyles had gathered along both sides of the street, eyeing his approach anxiously as they milled about. This was only the beginning, he knew. Shock and despair ruled the morning, but it was only a matter of time until that gave way to uproar and rage. The question now was, how long did they have? Short of catching a lucky break and rolling up the hitters quickly, Cato put the odds firmly on sooner rather than later.
The gargoyles didn’t give a crap about his timetable, of course. Cato felt the glare of their golden eyes boring through the bulletproof windows of his ride as he made his way along the narrow artery and into the lot fronting the keep itself. More than a mere fortified structure, Silverbreak Keep was a towering tribute to the gargoyle elite’s strength of will. Centuries later the keep still stood defiantly, rising into the air as if their ancestors had been trying to scale the sky itself back to the portal from whence they had come.
No such luck, Cato thought. They were all prisoners of the moment when it came to Meridia, all beholden to her trickster, bitch goddess ways.
Cato was met at the gate by one of a number of nameless attendants. From there he was passed from servant to servant, each bringing him one layer closer to his ultimate destination. Finally, he was delivered to Sinnestra Cairn, daughter of Gragos Cairn, Kovar of the Gargoyle Gjunta. She also happened to be his majordomo. Like her father, she cut a solemn, stern figure. Whether it was the responsibilities of her job or simply the force of the day’s tragedy weighing upon her, Cato had no way of knowing. Probably a heaping helping of both, if he had to guess.
“Ms. Cairn,” Cato said as he was handed off to her. “My condolences for your community’s loss. This is truly a terrible day for Meridia.”
“My thanks.” She regarded him for a moment, jaw fixed tightly, before asking, “Are the rumors true?”
“Rumors, ma’am?”
“They say Hezekiel and his entourage were—” Here, she stopped to gather herself, as if she was unable to form the words. “They say the munitions involved were phosphorous-based,” she finally said.
Cato nodded, deflating as he sighed and said, “For once, I’m afraid the rumor mill has it right.”
Cato couldn’t help wincing as Sinnestra swore in her native tongue, the sound akin to gravel crunching in a blender. He had heard it countless times in his life, yet could never grow accustomed to it.
Sinnestra shook her head, composing herself. “Apologies. It has been a difficult morning, as you might expect.”
“None required, please,” he said of her apology. “Phosphorous rounds are as barbaric as they come. There’s not a punishment harsh enough for those who use them.”
Sinnestra pursed her coal-black lips, eyeing him appraisingly. Without warning, she budged in close, her voice dropping almost a full octave as she spoke. “Promise me you’ll do your best to find one, Spector. Promise me you’ll make those sons of bitches pay for what they did to my people.”
There was a warmth to her presence, a kind of muskiness that Cato found strangely appealing. Distracting, almost. He recovered quickly, though, promising that he would indeed do his best.
“Gratitude.” With that, she swept away from him to open the heavy double doors separating the lobby from her father’s office. “Kovar Cairn will see you now.”
Cato offered a tip of his head in response. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought they’d shared a moment there. But he did know better, and even if he didn’t, she certainly did. She was her father’s daughter, after all.
Then again, maybe that was the point.
“Spector Cato,” Gragos said as Cato stepped through the doors. Cato had barely crossed the threshold before Sinnestra drew the doors closed behind him, sealing him inside the office. Cairn was standing before the expansive window that took up the majority of the opposite wall. It was one of the highest vantage points in the city, so much so that Cato found it to be disorienting. He remained firmly planted across the office even as Cairn continued.
“I’ve been expecting you. For several hours, it should be said. Nice to know the concerns of my community finally made your radar today.”
“That was the last impression I wanted to give you, Kovar Cairn. My partner and I have just come from securing the scene.”
At that, Cairn turned to face Cato directly. Like most of his kind, he was a living statue in more ways than one, towering over Cato by nearly a meter. “Oh? And where is Spector Smiley, then?”
“Tanglereave,” Cato said, though he was certain Cairn already knew the answer. “Speaking with Erastes Ensang
uine. He has good relations with the strigs.”
“Ah, I see. Divide and conquer, is it?”
“You know that’s not what this is, Kovar. We’re only trying to make the most of our resources to get ahead of this thing.”
“Interesting. And what does your investigation reveal this… ‘thing’ to be?”
“Other than what appears to be a targeted assassination? It’s possible there might have been some Steelskin involvement. That’s what Hank is trying to run down. Otherwise, it’s too early to say.” Fishing into his pocket, Cato produced Hezekiel’s bloodstone ring. “I was able to retrieve this, though. PWD obviously didn’t understand the significance, since they didn’t bag it, and I thought you would want it for his memorial.” Cato stepped forward and placed the ring upon the desk Cairn was standing behind.
His focus going to the ring, Cairn’s demeanor didn’t so much change as disintegrate. “Gods Beyond,” he said, his voice a devastatingly coarse whisper. “So, it is true, after all.” He plucked it from the desk top delicately, lifting it before him as it to confirm its provenance.
“I’m afraid so. My condolences, on behalf of Mayor Dolan Zobbles and a grateful city. Hezekiel Stone was a valued—”
“Do not speak to me of a grateful city,” Cairn said darkly, leaning forward over the top of his expansive desk. “Would the human journalists of a city so grateful name my friend a war criminal and cheer his death? Would its mayor deign to send one of his lackeys rather than reach out personally? The answer in both cases is no, and so I say again, do not speak to me of gratitude!”
Cato held his ground even in the face of Cairn’s intimidating snarl, flinching only when Sinnestra burst unexpectedly into the office.
“Father,” she exclaimed as she swept through the doors. A moment later she entered their peripheral vision, positioning herself beside the desk between them. “That is enough. Cato is a friend to our people, one who has brought you Hezekiel’s ring even though he had no obligation to do so. And you would raise your voice to him? Threaten him?” She reached for her father’s cheek and drew his face toward hers until at last he was meeting her gaze. “They are not all the same. Do you recall who taught me that lesson?”
Cairn groaned, rubbing at his forehead as he claimed the seat of prominence behind his desk. “Very well. Your platitudes have moved me.” To Cato, he said, “I should not have referred to you as the mayor’s lackey. It was a remark made out of character.”
The absence of an actual apology notwithstanding, Cato shrugged. “No harm, no foul. I’ve been called worse.” Thinking back to his earlier confrontation with Ann, he added, “This morning, in fact.”
Cairn made a noise in his throat, somewhere between clucking and chuckling. With the tension defused, he gestured across the desk. “Well, then. Join me, and let us drink in memory of our mutual friend.”
“Never too early for me. I’d be honored.”
“Most good,” Sinnestra said. “I shall leave you both to it.”
“No. Join us, daughter.”
From within his desk, Cairn produced a bottle of cloudy liquor. Next came three tumblers. Cato exchanged glances with Sinnestra as they sat—clearly, her inclusion was outside the usual protocol—and accepted the tumblers as they were passed to them. In her hand, the crystal vessel rested comfortably; in Cato’s, it handled more like a small carafe.
“To Hezekiel Stone,” Cairn said. “Let his memory be etched upon our hearts for as long as they are of this flesh.”
“For as long as they are of this flesh,” Cato and Sinnestra said.
The three of them lifted their glasses, and drank together.
With a rough sigh, Cairn exchanged his tumbler for the ring Cato had taken off Hezekiel’s person. “Perhaps it is the liquor, or my daughter’s counsel—perhaps both—but a thought occurs as I look upon this ring.”
“What’s that, Kovar?”
“That I have it to hold in the first place. Strange that Hezekiel’s killer would not claim this ring for a trophy, don’t you think, Cato?”
Cato furrowed his brow as he mulled it over. “Hadn’t thought about it, honestly. Could be they didn’t know he was wearing it, or they were too concerned with getting away to take trophies.”
“Perhaps they were unaware of its significance,” Sinnestra said, rolling the tumbler thoughtfully between her fingers.
“Oh, they would have known. If they were Steelskins,” Cairn said.
Cato frowned. “You saying you think it was a ruse?”
“Only that a true Steelskin Slayer looking to climb the ladder could have named his promotion with this ring.”
Cato considered the statement, pulling at the inside of his cheek. “Point taken. That’s some valuable insight. Thank you.”
“Anything to see justice done, of course. Now, a parting toast.”
Cato placed his hand over the tumbler. “No disrespect intended, but I’ll have a better chance of unraveling this thing if I’m not cross-eyed the rest of the day. Otherwise, I’d be happy to indulge. That’s some fine hooch, there.”
“Of course, Spector. There will be two bottles waiting for you once those responsible have been brought to justice. One for you, one for your partner.”
“Most gracious of you, sir, but—”
“But your mayor will not allow you to take gifts on the job. Of course. I understand. As you said earlier, ‘no harm, no foul’.”
This time it was Cato’s turn to chuckle, his lips pulling off to the side in an almost schoolboy grin. “Actually, sir, I was about to say that Hank isn’t much of a drinker, but I’d be more than happy to accept that second bottle on his behalf.”
“Done,” Cairn said humorlessly, though Cato was cheered to see that Sinnestra seemed amused. Perhaps humor skipped a generation in gargoyle culture? Something to look into when the stakes weren’t so high.
“Again, most gracious of you,” Cato said. “I’ll be sure to keep you apprised of the investigation’s status as often as I can.”
“You have my gratitude, Spector. My daughter will see you out.”
And so she did, directly to the elevator that would take him back down to the ground floor. Cato aimed a farewell nod in her direction and stepped in, then thumbed the button for the lobby.
“Spector Cato? One last thing.”
“What’s that, Ms. Cairn?”
“Remember what we discussed. Find a punishment fit for these animals, and you will be generously compensated. And, no, I’m not speaking of my father’s liquor.”
Before he could so much as process her statement, let alone answer it, the elevator doors closed in his face. The intrusion gave him several uninterrupted moments to consider her statement. Chief among those thoughts? That perhaps he had been wrong about Sinnestra.
Perhaps they had shared a moment, after all.
3
Hank Smiley had a complicated relationship with Tanglereave. It was a strange and distorted district, one the strigs were all too happy to maintain if it meant discouraging wights from making their presence felt. All the dimensions were off-kilter, a weird and unnerving, almost vertigo-inducing alignment for the uninitiated. Rather than streets, Tanglereave was serviced by a labyrinthine network of alleys and passages that were far too narrow for all but the slimmest of vehicles and foot traffic. That meant no roadsters or cruisers, and certainly none of the heavier vehicles used by PWD’s Special Weapons and Tactics division. Worse, many of the passages dead-ended or double-backed on themselves, making it virtually impossible for the uninitiated to navigate. Hank was one of the few wights who knew his way around by feel alone. Still, even at the best of times he found the whole aesthetic strange and unnerving.
Despite all that, Hank couldn’t help but sympathize with the vamps and their predicament. Tanglereave had begun as a kind of refugee camp for displaced vamps after they had been disgorged from the portal. The strigoi shantytown soon became a permanent fixture. Permanent fixtures needed patrols, order, auth
ority. Hank was a young PWD officer at the time, low on the totem pole. Who better to stick with a detail no one else wanted?
Hank took the post. Not that he had much say in the matter. He soon found it wasn’t as bad as it was cracked up to be, though. The vamps were just trying to get by, the majority of them, anyway. To hear them tell it, many of their ancestors had been conscripted and forced to go through the portal. Sure, that could have just as likely been the ultimate case of revisionist history, but Hank figured that, either way, there was no going back now. For any of them.
Hank only worked the beat for a few years, but it was the beginning of a long entanglement with the Reave. He struck up a friendship with a young vamp aristocrat who wanted only peace for his people. Peace, and a place at the table.
No surprise, then, that when Erastes Ensanguine ascended to his people’s throne, Hank was one of the few wights to reach out and congratulate him. Now, he could only hope their long-standing relationship was enough to mean something for Meridia when it mattered most.
At the center of that coiled, confusing nest known as Tanglereave stood his destination: a preposterously tall and angled tower, its improbable rise seemingly in defiance of all known physics. The tower had a crooked, gnarled quality, standing like a crudely accusing finger aimed at the inert portal above.
A heavy morning mist was forming over the city by the time Hank pulled to a stop in the underground parking garage beneath the tower. They had a tendency to roll in quickly, those mists. By the time Hank reached the top of the tower, he could barely see the outline of Silverbreak Keep in the distance. Cato was in there somewhere, hashing it out with Gragos Cairn and the rest of the Gargoyle Gjunta.
Yeah, Hank would take the strigs and their eccentricities any day of the week.
As if to prove his point entirely, Hank arrived to find Erastes Ensanguine in the middle of composing his own original opera. His wings—a rare gift even among the vampire royalty—were at their full midget span, shuddering like leaves in the breeze with each and every screeching note he squeezed out of the strangely proportioned collapsible box between his hands. Erastes had given Hank to understand that it was a relic, a long forgotten human instrument. An ‘accordion,’ he had called it, but Hank couldn’t imagine humans, any humans, producing an instrument capable of such an ear-violating sound absent some compelling, perhaps otherworldly force.
