The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

  The curved beauty was left behind, folding costumes into a wooden trunk on wheels. She was just the kind of woman that belonged on the stage: bursting with passion but with just enough body to contain it.

  “On to the next town?” I asked. She looked warily over my shoulder, hoping that one of her colleagues was still around. “I don’t mean to startle you. My name is Fetch Phillips. I’m here to ask some questions about a missing girl.”

  She tried to look relaxed, and the color flushed back into her cheeks.

  “What next town? You think this place is doing badly, try the smaller cities on the continent. We roll into somewhere with only two coins to rub together and end up giving one away to those worse off. Sunder’s the only place we can scrape by these days.”

  I picked up one of the masks and gave it a closer look. Nothing but cheap plasterboard and foam. From the back row, it had looked like carved rock.

  “You perform here a lot then?”

  “Twice a week. Plus, we use it for rehearsals when the weather allows.”

  “Seen an old Vamp and a young girl come by?”

  She nodded. Then she remembered the first part of our conversation. Her hand shot up to her mouth in shock. The theatricality didn’t stop at the curtain call apparently.

  “The Siren? She’s not the one you’re looking for?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh no!” Actual tears were forming in her eyes. No wonder she was an actress. Put these emotions into any other profession, and they’d lock her up with psychiatric problems. “She is just the sweetest thing. And what a voice. She was just getting really good.”

  “You heard her sing?”

  “Oh, yes. They’ve been practicing for months now. Always late. Very secretive. I thought it might be something sordid. When I found out she was a Siren it all made sense.”

  “Sordid?”

  “Oh, you know.” She batted her eyes with lashes you could use to paint a barn. “Old man, beautiful young girl.”

  “Rye’s not old, he’s fossilized.”

  “Don’t ever underestimate the mistakes a young girl can make, Mr Phillips. But once I spoke to them it was obvious he was just the sweetest old fella.”

  “Any idea where either of them would be?”

  “Either of them? They’re not both missing?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, that is strange! He was quite frail. But so smart!” Her face fell back to an exaggerated sadness. “Poor man. Poor, poor man. What a waste.”

  I followed up with a few more questions but none of them sprouted any life. All she knew was that a talented young girl and a generous tutor had rehearsed occasionally and that they’d seemed very lovely. So, she knew about as much as I did and she wasn’t even trying.

  I wasn’t any closer to finding Rye, but the girl had gone missing more recently, so maybe her trail was still warm. If you tried to list all the dangers in Sunder City, it would take you a year, and someone would likely stab you in the back and steal your pencil before you were done, but if January Gladesmith grew up here then she also knew how to keep herself safe. Maybe something caused her to slip up. If she was sneaking around at night to practice her singing in secret, it would explain why her mother didn’t know where she went.

  “Is it common in your business?” I asked. “Meeting a Siren who wants to perform?”

  “What does common even mean any more? There ain’t a single thing in this world that doesn’t feel strange these days. Before the Coda, there were some, but not many. I always thought their ultimate goal was to find a man, get married and live a life of comfort. Isn’t that what every girl wants? A little company on a cold night?”

  Days later, I realized she might have been flirting with me. I’d been out of that game so long I had no hope of catching what she was throwing out.

  “There was another Siren,” she continued, once she realized I wasn’t about to sweep her into my arms. “Gabrielle. She was singing and dancing in Sunder a few years back. I don’t think it went too well for her. I heard from one of the guys that she’s started spinning tricks down The Rose Quarter.”

  Of course. Every case and every angel lands in The Rose eventually. I scraped her brain for a few more details and then shook her slender hand.

  “Thanks for your help. I liked the show. What do I owe you?”

  “On the house. You’re doing a hero’s work.”

  I forced a laugh out of my throat.

  “I’ve been a lot of things, lady, but never that. All the real heroes are lying on the heap. Good place for them, too. They don’t need to see what we did to this world.”

  She just smiled.

  “Why do you talk like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Trailing off at the end of every sentence. Like you give up before you’re finished.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t take long for me to get sick of myself these days.”

  She nodded. If she was thinking about flirting with me any further, I hadn’t inspired her to try.

  I let her pack up her pieces while I wandered around the stage. It was beautifully crafted from marble, almost untouched by the corrosion that had painted the rest of the city.

  When I stood in the center, the sound of my footsteps changed. I’d hit the sweet spot. When I hummed, the vibrations reflected back at me from the solid steps. It was a powerful effect. I could almost understand the desire some people had to go out singing for their supper, entertaining strangers every night. Almost.

  I let a few minutes go by to make sure the actress was out of earshot. Then I screamed. The reverberations came back at me and I was enveloped in my own voice. The sound spewed out of me like an overflowing drain, something between a cry and a wail. It felt good to be loud. I spend most of my days talking down into my chest, collecting clichés on my collar.

  It might have been the first time in my life that I’d screamed for a reason other than physical pain. It was out of tune and wouldn’t have held a flame to January Gladesmith but it was wild and it was raw and it certainly reached the back row.

  When the echoes stopped bouncing, I tucked myself back into my skin. I had a lead. It was a weak one, no question about that, but it was something.

  I didn’t know the time and it didn’t matter. The Rose Quarter was as open as the legs that called it home.

  13

  At the bottom end of Stammer, before the alleys were eaten up by breweries and mills, The Rose Quarter blossomed around the banks of the Kirra Canal. The Kirra was a Dwarven-designed channel used to flush the scum from the manufacturing plants out of Sunder City and off to who-the-hell-cares.

  The Rose was once the theater district, specializing in live music and opera. Now, the only performances were intimate engagements with a single audience member (or a couple, if that was your thing and you were willing to pay extra).

  It was still mid-week but there were enough people on the street to call it a crowd. The footpaths were filled with every kind of clientele from the sheepish middle-aged men to hungry-faced boys and girls with bouquets of bills crushed in their fists. Curious couples from out of town giggled in each other’s ears and pointed up at the big mommas who hung their breasts proudly over the banisters like bait for little fish.

  Paper petals fell on the street. They used to be real. They used to be red. Now they were a sick, poison pink and as cheap as five minutes with the hand that threw them.

  When I’d first walked down this way as a teenager, fresh from the walls of Weatherly, the temptation to throw my wages into every window was too much to resist.

  It’s one strange step into madness to know that Elves and Angels exist, but it’s quite another trip to sleep with one. Knowing that my first Sunder pay-check could buy my way into bed with a Banshee or Wendigo, my virgin heart could barely handle it. Each piece of a dream stood bare, in red windows, beckoning me in. Witches, Nymphs and wild Half-Giants. For a fee, you could plunge yourself into the depth
s of an Elemental Faery or risk your sanity lying with a Succubus.

  I wish I could say that it had never sat right with me: paying for the privilege of a night with a strange lady, but you should know by now that I’m not that noble. With whiskey for blood and untested desire, I’d exchanged a week’s worth of bronze for a few sad minutes with a little, blonde Elf who looked better under the window light than on the bed in the back room. Her skin was cold. Her eyes were colder. Before I knew it, I was back out on the street, sad and empty-handed, with nothing to show but a stain on my trousers.

  It was hardly the sexual highlight of my young life, but like all first times, the memory has gained a kind of erotic power over the years. When a woman’s hand touches my body, and her skin feels cold, the embarrassment and excitement of that first encounter creeps back out into the light.

  The actress suggested that I start my search at The Heroine: a business-minded brothel a street away from the crowded courtyards. No buxom harlots hanging from balconies here, just a mean-looking madam and her snarling piece of muscle.

  The muscle was a leather-wrapped Ogre with a sharp ring on every finger and a Dragon-bone through his nose. The madam was a thick-hipped Dwarf with a face like an old pumpkin under make-up.

  Both sets of lazy eyes looked me over as I approached the stoop.

  “I’m here to see Gabrielle.”

  “Two bronze leaf for half an hour.”

  The tiny madam spoke with the over-pronounced dialect of someone trying to climb up a class or two.

  “I just want to talk to her.”

  “That’s the price for talking, sunshine. Anything else is extra.”

  The flexing beast beside her convinced me not to try to haggle. I handed off the bronze and the charming pair parted so I could squeeze inside.

  “Take him to Gabs,” the Dwarf threw over her shoulder to another of her species. The second Dwarf was pinned into pink undergarments that barely covered the things they were supposed to.

  A narrow hallway cut through the house with a series of open doorways on either side. Each room was hidden behind a sheer curtain or set of beads that covered little of the visuals and nothing of the noise. The wallpaper was mustard yellow with little red Gryphons, and the lampshades were stenciled with tiny stars. That’s the secret to these places: keep the light at a simmering level so you never know where you really are, what you’re really touching, and whether it was really worth your money.

  Behind one of the barely there curtains, I heard the sound of gentle splashing. Unable to resist a glance inside, my eyes fell upon an open-mouthed Elf. Her sagging skin hung from her naked torso, half submerged in a heart-shaped pool. A purple Mermaid had the Elf entwined in her arms. Her wheelchair was positioned by the pool, within easy reach for when her work was done. She was wrapped in a strange costume made from thick strips of silky material; obviously employed to cover the sections of her skin where scales had fallen away. The Elf didn’t seem to mind. Her eyes were closed and her head was lolling back between the Mermaid’s naked breasts.

  The three-foot-high hostess led me to a much smaller room with no pool and no real gimmick. It was strikingly similar to the cold, blank walls that had been home to my embarrassing encounter with the Elven girl a decade before. Those awkward flushes were already rearing their heads again.

  There was a short bed, two armchairs, a sink, a stool and a mirrored dresser covered in ointments and oils. On the stool, staring into her reflection, was Gabrielle. A red dress was tied in a bow around her neck and fell past her thin frame to the carpeted floor. The light was even lower in here. Shadows rained down her face like an inky waterfall, but the eyes in the mirror sparkled with curiosity.

  “Thank you, Sandra,” she said.

  The pink-dressed Dwarf grunted and left us alone. I closed the red curtains as best I could and took a seat in the armchair. I wasn’t confident in its cleanliness. Then again, I wasn’t confident in mine.

  “Lay your bills on the arm of the chair. Get the boring stuff out of the way.”

  Her voice slid over her shoulder like a silk scarf. I unfolded two bronze from my wallet and placed them carefully where she could see them.

  “Only here for the minimum?”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “Of course you do. That’s what everyone wants. Modern men don’t want to go through all the effort of getting into bed with a lady, you all just want a therapist who shows you her tits.”

  “Maybe I don’t want either of those things. I’m here on business.”

  She spun her head around and looked at me directly. Then the seat rotated so her body could accompany her face. I didn’t blame it. It was a face you wouldn’t want to let get too far away.

  There were scars, sure, but they were just patterns on a perfect canvas. You could alter the outside, but the underlying structure was exquisite. The shape of her body was imprinted on to the red material and I tried unsuccessfully to keep my eyes above her neckline.

  She met my struggle with a judgmental smirk. There was a nastiness to it. Not just because of the scar-tissue that split her top lip like a lightning bolt. There was a challenge in her eyes that made my tongue go dry.

  “How about a drink then?” she asked.

  “What have you got?”

  She leaned down to open the bottom drawer and her dress fell open in a calculated tease. When she sat up, she was holding a clear bottle of pale liquid.

  “The Dwarves bring it in from out of town. Smells like Centaur piss but it’s free.”

  “Just to my taste.”

  She poured two generous slugs into a couple of jam jars and handed one over. I gave it a quick sniff and tried not to look shocked. You could have used it for lamp-oil if it didn’t burn too fast.

  “Drink up, stranger.” She raised her glass but let me take my medicine first. I threw it back in one hit, a dumb idiot trying to impress her, and my tonsils felt like they caught on fire.

  “Shit! Maybe I should have gone with the tits and therapy.”

  “You still can.” I looked up with watering eyes as her top teeth dug firmly into her bottom lip. “But I thought you were here on business.”

  Look. By now you know I’m not trying to come off as some pillar of decency. Because I’m not. I’m just an idiot with a couple of strange stories and a loose tongue. Sure, the drink had knocked me around, but I’m not trying to make any excuses. I just said –

  “Can’t we do both?”

  Whatever challenge she had laid out, I’d failed it. Any world in which she would have helped me was gone and forgotten. The wild, icy eyes told me that I’d made my choice.

  I’d thought she was provoking me and so I’d raised her. Well, she matched me all right. She untied the little bow on her neck and the top half of the red dress fell into her lap and yeah, her breasts were perfect and I still can’t regret that I got to see them. The sight of them still slips back under my eyelids on lonely nights when I just want to get to sleep.

  There was no enjoyment at the time, though. The tone of the whole meeting had changed. If we were playing a game, then she’d won it before I’d even picked up my cards.

  “So, what’s the business?” she asked, and I had to force the words through my numb lips knowing how bad it was all going to sound.

  “A missing girl.”

  “A missing girl?”

  “Yeah. A Siren.”

  “You wanted to talk to me about a missing girl with my tits out?”

  “No.”

  “Are you fucking sick?”

  “I’m starting to think so. I thought you might know something.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “She wanted to sing, she…” The room was getting hazy. That hooch sure packed a punch. “She was training.”

  “So?”

  “So… I—”

  “So you what, Soldier? A singing Siren goes missing and you tell yourself it’s time to stumble downtown and kick over some stones. Wh
at are you chasing?”

  “She’s missing…”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re chasing, Soldier. You’re a guilt tourist. There’s no girl here, Soldier. No lead. You’re not here for her. You’re here for our pain. You want to get all up close with the lives you destroyed because it makes you feel important. You see the misery in all of us and you think it belongs to you. Let me tell you, Soldier; this isn’t your pain. It’s mine. And I don’t give you permission to come and play with it.” One of her fine fingers flicked a little bell on her desk. The high trill echoed around the room. “If it’s pain you want, Human, you can have your own.”

  I looked at her drink, which she still hadn’t touched, and it all hit me right as the door opened. There was more in that jam jar than Dwarven moonshine.

  “This ain’t the kind of place you come asking questions, Soldier. Next time, just stick with the tits.”

  I couldn’t even turn my head. The sound of someone entering the room came through a mile of salt water, and then I felt a gorilla pick me up and beat me against the wall. Fetch Phillips: Human Drumstick. A whole big band orchestra took turns to tap my skull against their instruments. I kept trying to conduct them but I couldn’t bring them into line. I kept falling out of time. The cymbals crashed around my ears as I fell through the floor.

  I’d been awake for several minutes but didn’t want to admit it to myself. If I admitted that I was awake, I had to think about trying to move. I’d also have to accept the fact that I’d screwed up. I was under a bridge in a bad part of town with a broken nose, no shoes, and nobody to blame but myself.

  First, I moved my legs, and two things were evident. They weren’t broken, but I’d pissed myself. When I looked down, the blood on my shirt gave a pretty good indication of the state of my face. I fought the temptation to touch my lip or my nose or my eye. That could wait. I untucked my shirt to cover the damp stain on my crotch and scrambled up the side of the canal.