Black City (The Lark Case Files)

by Christian Read

  Everett, working his way up to secretary to the Librarian General, behind the big desk, shakes his head.

  'The answer is no, Lark. No.'

  I hand them the resignation letter that I'd written up a few days before and leave the audience room without remark.

  Scarlet drives me to a bar.

  'We have to talk about this. This is your life. And this is mine. I believe in the work you do, Lark. I know things are bad between us right now, but let's make this about the job. I've been working with the Library nearly as long as you have. I am utterly committed to its policies. And perhaps I see a big picture you don't. So I'm telling you, please don't go. You're needed. We can maybe help Jon one day, but not yet. The Library isn't ready without you and Jon. We can't lose you both.'

  I frown over whiskey. 'Ready for what?'

  She frowns back. 'There's things I can't talk about, Lark. For good reasons. Reasons I believe in. Don't you think I want to trust you? But I'm committed to something bigger than both of us.'

  And that's when I realise that she has loyalties to more than me. That I'm not sure I trust her. But she's biting her lip the way she does when she's serious and turning strange-coloured eyes upon me, giving me her total attention. The ways she does it, it pumps your blood.

  'Jon screamed when he put on the mask. He's in hell.'

  'I know. I feel disgusted in myself I'm not helping a friend. But. We. Just can't.' Truth. That's the truth. She's hurting about Jon but it won't stop her doing her duty.

  Neither can I. 'I'm not coming back, Scarlet. I don't want to be a head kicker.'

  'We need a head kicker more than ever.'

  'Scarlet. Me. Lark. I don't want to be a head kicker.'

  'Sometimes you just have to do what needs doing.'

  'No.'

  I think she's a scary fascist, she thinks I'm an ungrateful shirker. I just give up on myself. Ratty beard. Put on beer weight like a motherfucker. I'm not entirely surprised when I scry her and Everett's first kiss. Her refusal to go any further with him until she gives me one more chance. I'm so angry from her betrayal and so raw with Jon's loss I laugh at her attempts to be fair.

  'Look at us, Lark' she says behind a mask of tears and makeup. 'Look at you.' Sweat pants and a beer belly. Unshaved and quivering with anger.

  'Yes, I kissed him. I was sad and I ... Just wanted something nice in my life. You think you're the only person who sees bad things, but you're not. Now here I am trying to fix things. So tell me, can they be fixed?'

  'No.' Quietly.

  Because there's only one way. If I knuckle down. Say goodbye to Jon. Do what I'm told.

  'No.'

  She dries her eyes. Wipes them. Packs her clothes. Stays at a friend's. I get out of town for a few days. Three weeks after that, she writes me a letter. Tells me she's seeing someone and she's sorry.

  Enough. I'm free for the first time in years. Besides, the house is bare without her. Time to move on. Get out of the city for a while. Go somewhere warm.

  Tell Scarlet I'm leaving as she comes by a few weeks later for the albums I can't even be bothered fighting her for. I give her whatever she wants. Thorns around each of us.

  Three days later, Everett summons me to a meeting.

  Magnesium emotions. I turn up but he's protected from me by a dozen wards they must have spent hours on. He's afraid, and that fills me up with such acid happiness my heart bursts.

  'Lark. You can't leave the city. You know too much. You're too valuable.'

  I don't say anything. We're down by the docks and the summer breeze moves everything but me.

  'We're activating the Geas.' Something I agreed to years ago in case of possession or madness. A way to isolate me.

  I go to just hit him, but he's got guys. Later that night I try the Geas and end up in real trouble. I can never leave the island limits of the city, a curse I volunteered for when I became a Retriever.

  Scarlet. Telling her man about me. Throwing my plans into hell if it keeps an asset close.

  And I don't see her or Everett for a long, long time.

  Every night I miss her. I just can't figure out why sometimes.

  Fifty-Two

  'What did you tell them?' Fierceness in Scarlet's voice.

  'It's three-thirty in the morning. Aren't you up past your bed time?'

  'I have standing orders to be woken up if those government dick- er, agents, get involved with my people.'

  Stopped herself swearing. Someone listening in?

  'Your people. Am I one of your people?'

  'For now you are. We've got an eregore in their building. It's slow and it took a while to rescue you. It set the bells ringing. Now what did they tell you?'

  Rescue?

  'Who are they, baby?' Listen in to that.

  I get up, put together a coffee. Voice tight and angry, she says it again. 'What did you tell them?' She's not playing. This is stressing her and she wants to lash out, but she knows that's not the percentage move. Don't call her baby.

  'Scarlet. Relax. They didn't get anything from me. They had no game, no skills. They had the most rudimentary protections ever. I just kept telling them I didn't know anything, that I'd been out of the game for years and they had the wrong guy.'

  How did they know who I was? Puzzle that out later.

  'Are you... are you alright?'

  'I'm fine.'

  'You ran out of there.'

  'How much time do you spend watching me?'

  'I get reports on that place.'

  'Why?'

  She sighs. She knows that I get answers or I don't play at all. But she's biting impatient.

  'About eighteen months ago, there was some government task force on cult activities. Now, we know that usually means they arrest a guy who starts a website saying he's like Jesus but sexier. Fair enough?'

  'Sure.'

  'Not the woman. She's sensed blood in the water. She's looking at people with real knowledge.'

  'People like you?'

  'No. Not yet. But she's seen some things.'

  'Agent Valier. That's her name.'

  'Yes. But I don't need spooks running around muddying things up. Not now. Not with everything going on.'

  I cut to it. 'Listen, go downtown to the closed-up depot. Send whoever you trust. This job is wild.'

  'The depot. Done.' I hear her writing something down.

  She's so worried she doesn't even care she's as good as told me she's having me traced. I finish my coffee, move into the bedroom, looking to change socks.

  Oh fuck.

  'Scarlet. I have to go.'

  'No, I need to- ' She's furious, but I've got bigger problems. I switch off the phone. Jesus. Jesus.

  An Ultrascorpion. Dead. Flensed. Laying on the floor.

  I call up my most dangerous spells, but I'm tired. I've been in and out of meditation all day. It wears you out. But something deadly is in my house.

  'Hello Lark.'

  A silky voice. A hand pats me down, looking for weapons. I'm not breathing, fear-static in my head. I turn. Everything goes very still. Somewhere, a clock ticks a death.

  'Hello Jon.'

  The Hollow.

  Fifty-Three

  You need to understand, I was a mess. Jon was gone, lost to a void I couldn't understand. Scarlet left me for another man. I was out of the Library and had no money, no path ahead. Endless hours on a bed, smoking, throwing playing cards up at the roof and smoking dope.

  Curiosity. Lured me out. I went into the study and separated out the books I wanted. Burned up favours with Lin, looking for more. Hat in hand to cults I knew I'd done right by. Spending times in their sanctums and temples and club-houses.

  Masks, murder-magic, cross-referencing. It took weeks and kept me focussed. I was at it for thirty hours straight one shift.

  Finally, a lead in the stacks of the city reading room, in grey cement under flickering lights, while the workers I didn't bribe or glamour gave me dirty looks. That led me to a book
written in the thirties by a particularly racist African explorer. All that was left was an old paperback that stunk of mould.

  'Amongst the tribesmen I found an adoration for a mask of dark wood, lacquered by a dozen generations with something not unlike a sweet-scented linseed oil. The mask itself was considered something like a God, and the men of the tribe treated it was a superstitious awe. Only the witch doctors were allowed to gaze upon it, and then only briefly and under the light of a midday sun. My guide, a very proper fellow educated by French missionaries, begged us to leave this place, as the mask they venerated was considered a devil by their neighbours. Our guide, a strict Catholic, seemed scandalised by the entire affair. However, I managed to recruit him as dragoman while I spoke to the headman.

  It seems the mask is actually a kind bastion, a last line of defence, for the tribe. Should they be threatened by supernatural forces, one of their young warriors is chosen. He then goes into a hut and comes out, having donned the mask. This takes away the divine spirit all living things have and leaves him a shell, easily filled up by hostile spirits. A quaint superstition, although the headman seemed as serious as one of his race could. I asked to see the mask, but they rudely refused me. It was being worn currently. I asked to see the warrior. The headman terminated our interview, for the first time speaking. 'Il est creuses.'

  - Kinglsey, Scott, The Darkest Trails, London. 2nd Ed, Flamingo Publishing, 1931

  'He is hollow.'

  From there, I had a clue and could focus on African traditions. Weirdly, this lead me to pre-Imperial China and the Hollow, because magic and mythology is like that. Some traditions linked the mask to Chi You, metal-faced enemy of the Yellow Emperor. Some say it was a weapon of the Dark Martiality. But no. Some human made the fucking thing. Some human. It took weeks to find this out.

  I can find anything in weeks and I found this.

  The Hollow prepares people. It harvests them. It empties them out of their bodies, leaving only a receptacle, an empty vessel. Not a parasite, not a wasp. Like a disease that bleeds you of you and rebuilds you as...

  As what?

  Something with a killer's tastes. Jon already enjoyed those appetites in his own way. And here he is, in my room.

  He wears a slaughterman's apron, and the tools of that trade are strapped to his waist. Not looking at that.

  Looking at the mask.

  Bronze. Black. Not metal, not wood. The eyes burn with some sub-red, burning down in the bands and spectra humans aren't supposed to see. The sight of it, the underlight, provokes warnings in the head, confuses the eyes. Adrenaline and cortisol flood the body.

  Want to run. He flensed an Ultrascorpion. Behind him, the others rustle, waiting, prepared to die rushing him.

  Want to run, but know that will provoke him, a cat lured into its sadist play.

  Butcher's knives. A meat hook at his belt.

  'Been a while,' I say.

  His face tilts. He looks me up and down.

  'I wasn't sure it was you. Or if you were Lark. You are Lark, though.'

  'For God's sake, Jon. You've been here a hundred times.' Hear the stress and fear in my voice. Shut my mouth. Try again. Can barely pitch it above a whisper. I want to remind him. Jesus Jon, I left the Library when they wouldn't let me help you! It was my last straw! I begged them. Pointless. It would be like asking an angel to thank it for stealing its halo.

  'Of course I'm Lark. I'm your best friend, Jon.'

  Use my real name. Use his.

  'I'm not sure I'm Jon anymore. Is that a name I was? All that time seems like it happened to someone else. Someone smaller.' His voiced is modified as it comes through the mask. It seems to echo before I hear it.

  'Can I sit?'

  Long time before he answers. 'Of course. Just don't be foolish.'

  I sit on the bed. My corridor is a black mouth. Garbage bags line it. Oh fuck.

  Light up. 'Want one?' No reply. Carefully, like an unfolding army knife, he sits on the floor. Back of the hands on his thighs.

  'It's good to see you, Jon.'

  'Is it?'

  'Well, bad circumstances. But it's good to see you. You.'

  'That's nice. I don't hear that often. Especially considering what I do when I meet people like this. Mostly.'

  Smoke. Concentrate on it. Let the smoke work it's alchemy in my lungs, taking peaceful blood into my skull. Forget the shakes.

  When Jon moves, his apron creaks.

  'Can I turn on a light, Jon?'

  'No. I don't think so.'

  Ever see Jon fight? I'd like to say he was all grace and fluid motion, but only people who never saw a fight say things like that. He was clockwork. Never missed a punch, and, when he hit you, you could see the force in it. He bit. He gouged. He took shots on his forearms to keep them from his gut, to throw knuckles into eyes. Hard to soft. He never punched the face, he elbowed it. Stomped foreheads on the concrete. Gouged. Cheated. But always quick and always winning.

  Now his motions are jerky. Spastic. Too quick, like as if they were here, then there, without moving between. His special effects budget has no limit.

  'Well, might as well get started.'

  The Ultrascorpions lift their tails, silent imaginary chitins rasping. I raise a hand at them and Jon's head turns, purposeful, to regard them.

  'Jon. For pity's sake,' I raise a hand to stop them. 'Just give me a moment. I'm not going anywhere and I won't fight.'

  Now he looks at me and his humming eyes are intent. 'You could fight me, couldn't you? I think I might like that.'

  Fear moves through me. Slow lightning. Impaled on it, but I reach for a no-mind state and finally, finally it eases from me, hovering though, eager to return to its host. I can fight him. I can hurt him. Not win, especially after the last few nights. I'll lose, but I know I have some strength here. It's meagre comfort, but I'll take it.

  'We're friends. No need to fight. We've sat here before, us two. Let's take a minute.'

  'I came here, yes. We talked. I believed in magic in those days. There was a girl with red hair.'

  'She's gone. But she was here.'

  'I'm glad she's gone. Killing you will be hard enough.'

  'Can we talk a moment?'

  'As Jon once did. Me. Yes. We can talk. But dismiss your eregores. They won't help you and I won't have my back threatened.' He's right. I do.

  All alone.

  'What shall we talk about?'

  'Business or pleasure? Do you want a drink?'

  Jon laughs. Clockwork horror. 'I have no mouth, Lark. How could I drink?'

  'Take off the mask.' I've said this before. Over and over. He makes no response.

  'Business, Lark. Let's talk business. The Teaching Silence tells me the other is not germane.'

  'The Old Man sent you?'

  'I don't know. I was contacted by a man called Ludo. He was here recently. He offered you up as a sacrifice.' Jon's not bound by professional ethics.

  'I'm not his to offer.'

  'Everyone is everyone's as far as the Teaching Silence is concerned.'

  The Old Man sent the most dangerous individual in the city after me. A man whose work is superlative and lethal. On short notice. He's desperate.

  'You're better off out of this world, Lark. It's a fallen place and everything tastes like dust. Better to be dead and, if not dead, hollow like me.' He gestures to himself, his wrist rolling wildly.

  'Hollow?'

  'Just waiting. Getting filled up. Filled in. All the weak parts of you washed away, sluiced away, ground away, sanded away, worn away, blasted away, hosed away, chiselled away, bevelled away, picked away, torn away, eaten away, ripped away, eased away, prised away...'

  He goes on.

  The eyes go dark.

  I switch meditation until my mind goes pixelated. I think four things.

  I leave a thought here for Mully, leaving my thanks and letting him I know how much I respected him. If he wants to, he'll find it. I prepare the Ultrascorpions, thanking
them for service and demanding kamikaze moves. I send a pulse of belief to the Omegamantis. In time, some other chancer may find it. Keep it. Understand it so its world of rusted iron and wire webs will live. And I think of Scarlet, imagine her, smiling at me in the sun. Then. Bones. Throw them.

  'Fuck this.'

  He looks up, startled.

  'Jon, I don't care about the mask. You know what I think about it. You know I think you should throw the fucking thing away. You know all that. You know I think that just slicing people into strips is a waste of your talents. But by Christ, I'm not going to listen to you sit here and mutter like a goddamn motherfucking lunatic.'

  He laughs.

  'Provoking me?'

  'Let's do it. Two mates gutting each other while a sick old cunt gets a clear run at whatever the bloody hell he's after. That's a laugh to his sort.'

  He laughs again.

  'I do remember you. You're a pain, and you always think you're right.'

  'Only because I am. Well, nine times from ten.'

  He goes quiet.

  'Teaching Silence says that it likes that. And yes, it understands perhaps it is manipulated. It is uninterested in teaching lessons of spite and fratricide. We'll spare you.'

  'Will you spare me Jon?'

  Then he stabs me but not with a knife.

  'I follow Teaching Silence and it's lessons. If it said you die, you die.'

  '.'

  'Do you understand?'

  'Sure.'

  'But there's a price. You'll pay it in time. You're only alive to learn your own lessons.'

  What's the point in keeping this going? He's just talking.

  'Come on, man. What's it going to be? Are you going to listen to the demon thing wrapped around your head or are you going to talk to your best friend?'

  He waits a minute.

  'There's a contract on your life. I've accepted it.'

  'Well,' and I can't help but show the bitter, 'better uphold your monetary contract.'

  That gets him. He's quiet again for a bit.

  'I'm not a hired killer. Well, I am, I suppose, but not for venal reasons. The Teaching Silence requires certain things to maintain it. These things are purchased with money, and this is the easiest way to obtain such capital.'