The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

  Grunts and cheers of approval spewed out from the boys around me.

  Boys. Shit.

  No men were coming to the meet. I was expecting battle-scarred mercenaries with bloody knuckles and eye-patches. Not only expected it, I wanted it. I could convince myself that there was justice in ridding the world of a few heartless murderers. That story would be nice, wouldn’t it? We could all go home happy, our bellies full of the sweet satisfaction of putting bad men in their place. But these weren’t villains. They were kids. Sure, they were dumb as hell and had faces even a mother would punch, but they were just too young. Misguided and scared and confused about what it would take to make them men. I’d been the same at their age. Worse, I was even like that later. I don’t know if that made me hate them more or less but it certainly gave the devil pause. My grip on the steel lifted.

  “In the old days, Dog-men lived well,” the redhead continued, “Humans who merged with animals and thought that somehow it made them special. It made them sick. They dirtied their blood with magic and now they’ve paid the price.”

  He was talking about a Werewolf.

  Long before Sunder City, the village of Perimoor was built atop the cliffs of Kar. On the eastern coast of Archetellos, a sacred peak stretched out towards the horizon, pointing to where the moon would often rise.

  There, they learned the secret of how to bring the spirits of humanoids and animals together. For reasons that have never been explained to me, when a Human and an animal stood atop that mountain on a particular night and performed a particular spell, they would be joined as one. The warriors who discovered this became the first family of Werewolves. Already a rich and influential city, their new powers only increased their strength.

  “There is a Dog-man living on these streets and it’s up to us to put him down,” rallied the redhead. Before the crowd could cheer with approval, I coughed loudly and shushed them.

  “We’re not going to do that.”

  I didn’t move when I spoke. They all did, though. Every little punchbag face turned in the candlelight.

  “Oh?” asked a long-haired kid with a milky complexion. “Why not?”

  He thought he looked tough in his black leather suit, but the long knife in his fingers had only ever cut crusts.

  “Because you were babies when the Magum had their power. They didn’t oppress you. That was just your mommies and daddies filling your heads with stories of mistreatment and the great inter-species war. That war never existed. It was just jealousy and bruised egos. If you want to grow up old enough to make the same mistakes, then you better find some smarter role models.”

  “Like you?”

  The pasty, leather-clad kid was wasted. It gave him the liquid courage he needed to step forward and raise the kitchen knife in my direction.

  The steel slid down my forearm and I caught the end in my fist. I waited till he raised his arm in a nice, big, threatening move that exposed his fingers. He didn’t see the flick of my wrist till the metal rod cracked him across the knuckles.

  He screamed like a monkey on fire. Blood spattered across the marble floor as he tumbled back into the other nervous hoodlums. From the look in the eyes of half the kids, you’d think they’d never seen anybody bleed before. Maybe they hadn’t. Some of them were still attempting to look threatening, but not a single one stepped forward.

  “What did you do to the Vampires?” I asked.

  Silence. Nervous little eyes bounced in acne-covered heads.

  “What Vampires?” asked a tall blond kid with his hands in the air.

  “In the teahouse. Which one of you wants to take credit?”

  The bloody-fingered thug with dribble on his chin yelled up at me. “You crazy asshole!”

  I raised my metal bar and the boy backed away.

  “You want me to break the other one?” I asked him. “I’m not sure a teenage boy can survive without one good hand.”

  “We didn’t touch any stinking Vamps!” he screamed, and his spit caught the torchlight as it flew through the air.

  I looked around at the timid faces as their bravado dropped like an executioner’s ax. There was no guile or secrecy in the cowering kids, just an open-faced desire to get out of there and back to bed.

  “He’s telling the truth,” said a voice from my left. It was a girl with a shaved head. “We haven’t hurt anyone yet. It’s just talk.”

  Embarrassed grunts and nervous nods came from the candlelit faces around the room. I sighed to myself. The devil would have to wait.

  “Okay, little ones. You happy to walk yourselves home or do I need to call your parents?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Here we go. Little redhead’s balls finally dropped.

  “Something to say, Curly?” I asked. “Ready to defend your noble cause? Of course, you look like you’ve done this dance a few times. That’s where all those nasty holes in your clothes came from, right? Taking hits from shivs and shrapnel while fighting off Magum on the mean streets of Sunder City? Looks to me like they were cut with kitchen scissors.”

  He pulled back his jacket to reveal a long knife. He unsheathed it slowly, making a big fat moment of it, like we were all supposed to gasp. At least he held it the right way around.

  He might have practiced a few pretend fights in the mirror but his lunge was sloppy. I dropped my steel, grabbed his attacking hand and twisted him around. When I was done, I’d taken his spot in the circle, with my back to the wall, just in case his leadership had inspired a last-minute assault.

  I didn’t need to worry. The kids flanking him cowered back on instinct. I held his knife-hand away from me and a twist of his arm locked him in position. Then I raised my other hand and whipped him across the face.

  It wasn’t a big hit. It wasn’t an angry hit. It was the shittiest little slap I could manage. It made us both look stupid. So I did it again. And again.

  It didn’t feel good and it didn’t feed the devil but it proved my point: he was no leader, I was no great adversary, and no boy in that room was tough enough to say anything about it. Even the pale-faced blubberer with the broken knuckles was crawling towards the door. After a dozen little slaps, each less exciting than the last, I put my boot into his backside and kicked him across the floor. He tripped over his feet and landed on his knees.

  “Everybody out,” I said, as casually as possible.

  They shuffled quickly to the exit. Redhead looked up at me with nervous little eyes and I pointed a finger at his half-pink face.

  “You. Stay.”

  10

  It didn’t take much to get the kid to talk. I asked him where this Dog-man was and he told me: Stammer Row. A filth-filled alley behind the buildings that fronted Main Street. Backdoors and dumpsters and plenty of walls to hold back the wind. In my desperate days without a bed, I’d always sought out lonely places to sleep: abandoned buildings or subway cars. I preferred solitude when I fell on misfortune, but my time out in the elements had never been for long. After a few weeks on the street I might have sought out some kind of society too.

  I was a stranger on Stammer but I didn’t look out of place. Uptown, among the elites of the city, I might worry about fitting in. With my patched-up clothes and alcoholic stare I blended into Stammer like a local.

  The street was full of lean-tos and curled-up figures under sheets of old cloth. The floor was lined with palettes and crates to drain the water from beneath them. During the winter, they would be huddled in groups, all pressed together or wrapped around their neighbors. I suppose it wasn’t only the cold but the companionship. I was almost jealous. I couldn’t recall the last time someone fell into my arms for the night. I guess I could always go down to Stammer if I felt like a cuddle.

  The faces paid me no notice as I passed them. Despite the range of species, every resident looked remarkably similar. Each visage was covered with the same creases, the same sadness and the same gray shade of city dirt.

  Beneath a brown blanket that had once been w
hite, a balding stump of a tail rested on the cold cement. I coughed and the bundle shifted, revealing a somewhat familiar face.

  “Oh no.” The words slid out my mouth without thought of sensitivity. “Pete.”

  All Lycum went through a change when the Coda hit, causing the half-Human–half-animal combination to became unstable. One of Pete’s eyes was blue, the other topaz yellow. His nose was mostly Human but one nostril was stretched wide and painted black like burnt leather. His face, head and body were covered in scrappy patches of mottled fur. He had one Human hand and one that was a twisted mixture of fingers and claw. Amongst this melange of man and animal, it was his jaw that caused the most concern. In fact, it was a thing of pure horror. The left side of his face was yawning open with the deformed gums and scattered fangs of a piece of roadkill brought to life. The heavy canine pieces pulled down on his otherwise humanoid skin, drawing his expression into the eternal sorrow of a mother in mourning. The jaw became even more fearsome when it laughed.

  “Well, look what we have here. Fetch Phillips stumbling down to Stammer. You always did love a freak show, didn’t you, delivery boy?”

  The Werewolves of Perimoor had been a well-respected, powerful species and Peteris Merland was once their Ambassador to Sunder City. I’d only ever seen him in a tailored linen suit with an expertly combed, foppish fringe. Now he was wrapped in sailcloth and his hair was as overgrown as a bachelor’s bathroom mold. Time hung open between us like both our gaping mouths. He finally snapped the silence with a voice-box full of scabs and broken glass.

  “How about you buy an old friend a drink?”

  We went back to The Roost. It was safe to say that the run-down, old-world warriors now outweighed the blooming youth, in presence if not in number. We’d tried to get into some other bars closer to Stammer but no one was going to let in a sweaty mercenary and his half-dog companion. The best thing about Eileen’s bar was that it stuck out on to the street. That helped to blow away the damp, pissy smell that wafted out of Pete’s fur.

  “So, tell me about these bastards,” he said, after I filled him in on my night so far.

  “Just kids. They hang around that saloon in Swestum. Not a real fighter among them but I thought I should give you a heads-up in case I inspired them to get their big brothers.”

  He lapped at his beer with a spotted tongue. His asymmetrical lips didn’t hold the liquid too well, but it seemed to give him some satisfaction nonetheless.

  “It was laughable really. The leader was a ginger kid with bad acne. Remember how army grunts used to stitch up their hand-me-down recruit jackets rather than buy new ones? He’d done that with a new damn jacket! Not a scratch on it except for the holes he’d poked himself. I know we’ve seen some crazy stuff in our time, but that was the most ridiculous damn thing I’ve seen in years.”

  His laughter rattled like a sandpaper saxophone.

  “Look at you, Fetch. The world is upside down but you’re exactly the same. Running from one job to another, following whoever rings the bell. I believe there might be more dog in you than me.”

  He’d left his blanket with a buddy on the Row. Now, only a ragged T-shirt covered his balding back. It looked like he was shivering, but that could have been the fleas. Suddenly, a jacket landed on the table in front of him. He looked up at Eileen’s ever-relaxed expression.

  “Here. Lost property from weeks ago. Should be about your size.” Pride and shame battled in his mismatched eyes. “Take it.”

  He slipped his thin arms through the sleeves and mumbled a simple, “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  She dropped a straw into his beer. That made him smile. She didn’t seem to mind him smiling either. I guess when you spend your days beneath the bedroom of a decaying Vampire you get used to looking death in the face without blinking.

  The other customers cleared out, so Eileen was free to pull up a stool on her side of the bar. We were both glad to have a third member in the band. There wasn’t much for Pete and me to talk about. The old days brought pain and the present wasn’t much better. Eileen filled the gaps perfectly. She spun off a list of her worst customers (perhaps to make Pete feel more comfortable). Self-righteous royalty from long-fallen kingdoms or strung-out junkies who’d come into a windfall by robbing their best friends’ back-pocket.

  It wasn’t all disappointment. Pete was clean – of drugs, at least – and he was still as sharp as an Elf’s ear. Once Eileen politely asked us to hit the road, I told him he could sleep at mine if he wanted to. He swiftly refused.

  “The neighbors will get worried if I don’t make it home before sunrise. They may not be pretty, but the boys on the Row have my back. This was lovely, Fetch. A real treat. Thanks.”

  I gave him one of my cards and told him to call if he ever needed anything. The silver case I kept them in looked extravagant beside Pete’s honest poverty. He found a pocket on his new jacket and tucked the card inside.

  We didn’t shake hands or hug. We just did the awkward nod of grown men who still don’t know what the game is or how they’re meant to play it. He strolled away with his naked tail hanging behind him. In the old days, it might have been wagging. Hell, in the old days it would be seated on a high seat in a great room of a better place than this. Considering the circumstances, I just hoped he’d had some fun.

  When I got back to my office there was a telegram under the door from Richie. I opened a fresh bottle, poured a generous glass, took a seat and dialed without thinking of the time. It was late enough to be early again and I’d woken him up but if he took the time to complain about every shitty thing I did we’d never get anything done.

  “You go first,” he said.

  “Sorry?”

  He grumbled. “The Vamp you’re looking for. Give me the name and I’ll tell you if we’ve got him or not.”

  “Not sure I want to do that, Kites.”

  “Yeah, I bet you don’t. But you don’t have a choice.”

  He was right. I had nothing to bargain with, but I knew from experience that you should never show your whole hand to the cops. Even when they’re on your team, they’ll bet on the enemy to balance their odds.

  “I found the stiffs and I played ball. I could have discovered who they were if I’d ransacked the place and kept hush for a few days but I brought you in. The way I see it, I came to you in the spirit of friendship and the least you can do is let me know whose body I found.”

  I heard Richie mumble to himself down the line. I think he gave in just so he could go back to sleep.

  “Sydney Grimes and Samuel Dante. Grimes owned the place, Dante was his friend from out of town. Haven’t identified the third body but it’s some species of ex-magic humanoid. Cause of death is tough on the two Vamps because of the disintegration but the third body shows signs of violence. That’s all you’re getting.”

  “Thanks. That’s a lot of help.”

  “So, was it your guy?”

  “I appreciate the info, Rich. I’ll see you around.” I hung up.

  So, there it was. No Rye and not even a clear connection to him. The case was as wide open as it had always been but now the bugs were getting in. I was tired, but my brain wasn’t ready to quit.

  In the bottom drawer of my desk were the files I’d taken from Edmund Rye’s room. I flipped through the pages till the sun came up. Rye was tutoring seven different students and their contact details were scribbled in his diary. Once it was late enough to make an unsolicited call, I dragged the phone to my weary face.

  The first student was the teenage Werewolf interested in biology. The operator connected me but the phone rang out. Next was the young Siren, January Gladesmith. This time, the phone buzzed twice before a nervous woman picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs Gladesmith, my name is Fetch Phillips. I’m sorry to call you so early, but I wanted to ask you some questions about your daughter.”

  There was a strained pause before she managed to respond.

&
nbsp; “Have you found her?”

  11

  I called the remaining households and was relieved to find every other child home and unharmed. I got a few questions through to some of them – when did they last see Rye? Where were they studying? – Nobody knew squat. I accepted the fact that I was giving the game away. It didn’t take a genius to work out that Edmund was off the map, and gossip goes through parents like piss down a drain, but I wasn’t worried about protecting Rye’s reputation anymore. A little girl was gone. That meant discretion had to take some time off.

  I tried in vain to make myself presentable. The Gladesmiths lived in the only part of Sunder that you could describe as beautiful while keeping a straight face. Primrose Avenue ran along the edge of the city limits, sectioning off a suburban area at the base of Amber Hill. In this neighborhood, things looked like they were holding themselves together. It wasn’t that the people in the area were rich, they just still seemed to care.

  Modest and homely, the Gladesmith house presented the most valiant attempt at a garden I’d seen in years. One scientist had suggested that all soil contained a magical element, fearing that after the Coda we would lose all vegetation within a decade. The Gladesmith garden was the first evidence I’d seen to the contrary. It was mainly shrubs and grasses but it was alive, and that was something.

  I knocked and waited for Mrs Gladesmith to answer. There was no Mr Gladesmith, but that wasn’t a surprise. January was a Siren and that meant her mother would be a Siren and her father mortal. The first Sirens were created when a ship full of female warriors crashed into a rocky island during a thunderstorm somewhere out on the Harmon Sea. In magic-rich waters, the crew drowned but didn’t die. They became something else. Their lungs filled with water and something far more potent. They crawled out of the ocean, onto the island that had dashed them, wailing with voices of pain and wonder.