The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

  So it was true. January Gladesmith. Siren. Student. Aspiring singer. Sacrificed to a monster so he could have one more shot at immortality.

  “I needed to know,” he said. “How could I not? I tried to accept death. I did. But I was so tired and so sore and…”

  He stood up and the top of his head scraped the stone roof. The strange new form of sustenance had worked wonders on him. His paper bag of skin was being forced apart as muscles grew with the strength of the marrow.

  My lighter flickered with fear in his stony eyes.

  “Edmund, listen. We all have our moments of weakness. But you can still turn it around. You can still be better.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re right about one thing. I was weak. But look at me now. Look how my weakness made me strong again.”

  He pounced without warning. He was fast. Faster than anyone I’d encountered since the Coda. I barely had hold of my knife before he knocked me on to the floor and it fell from my hand.

  I scurried away, searching for the knife, and saw it just outside my reach. I made a move in its direction and instantly felt Rye’s sharp nails cut into my neck. He grabbed hold of my collar and pulled me back with a tidal wave of strength, letting me fly across the room.

  I hit the wall, knocking the lamp to the ground. The glass shattered but it stayed lit. When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t alone.

  A woman’s face was staring back at me. There was no body connected to it.

  “Eileen!” I shouted in shock, and Rye stopped moving.

  But it wasn’t her. The frozen face of January Gladesmith stared back. The whites of her eyes were a clotted, curdled red. Even in the darkness, it was impossible to miss the bite marks where Rye had chewed through the young Siren’s neck. I focused on regaining my footing but by the time I stood up, he was on me.

  I swung a right hook and he let it hit him to prove a point. His skull was a cannonball and my knuckles ached from the impact. He reached out his steel-trap of a hand and clamped it around my throat. I couldn’t catch a breath before my windpipe closed up.

  He leaned his nose into mine. His wide nostrils sniffed me like a hungry dog. My body shook, panicking from lack of air. I managed, as the spectrum of my vision lost a few colors, to get my busted right hand into my jacket pocket.

  He opened his mouth to reveal the shattered palace of broken bone. Pus oozed from the gaps in his gums where young flesh had been left to rot.

  I swung my left arm out at him; I never was much good with it. I telegraphed it so bad that he’d heard rumors of it three weeks earlier. He caught it easily in his bony fist, twisted it around and jammed his other hand against my elbow – snapping my arm in two.

  The scream felt like it broke my throat. My legs buckled and I dropped to my knees. He let me. Luckily. It was all that I’d wanted.

  With the brass knuckles firmly over my right fist, I sprung up from the floor with everything I had. I got him square in his half-open jaw and felt the shift of bone as I connected with those chunks of broken pavement he called teeth. He let go of my injured arm and I ran towards the pale patch of light that told me where I’d find the ladder. When I reached the bottom rung, he was still howling far behind me. I climbed with one arm, the other dangling helplessly at my side like chum for a shark. I was three-quarters up when I heard a voice from above.

  “Give me your hand!”

  I couldn’t do it without letting go of the ladder altogether, but fearing what was beneath me, I decided to take a chance.

  I took my last painful breath and leaned back, free-falling off the rungs. My outstretched hand found that of my rescuer. Just.

  “Hey, Cowboy.”

  Eileen Tide raised me out of the hellhole and into the dim light of the library.

  The sun was rising outside but the ground floor was protected against its rays. We had to get out of the building or Rye would have our bones for breakfast.

  Eileen’s eyes were red and puffy. It looked like she’d been crying. Someone must have filled her in on what she was going to find here.

  “Help me with the hatch!” she said, and we both bent down to close the trapdoor. I wasn’t much use with one broken arm and a hand that had lost all feeling, so we were struggling to even lift it off the floor.

  “You know what’s happened?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Jeremy filled me in.”

  The door slipped from our fingers. The screaming below us got louder.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Yeah. He’s a Human who works with the League.”

  Flyboy. That’s where he’d gone; off to Eileen, to pick her brain about any underground chambers that Rye might have crawled into.

  And there he was. Jeremy. Racing towards us from the front door, holding some kind of lantern.

  “Give us a hand,” I said to him, terrified that Rye would rise out of the depths at any second. Eileen and I had the door up to shoulder height and it was just about to tip forward when Flyboy raised a boot and kicked us back.

  Eileen and I hit the deck beside the hatch. More pain shot through my body. More panic.

  The lantern that Flyboy was holding looked like a glass ball. It wasn’t made for illumination. There was too much liquid swilling around inside.

  “No!” screamed Eileen. Whatever he had told her was going to happen once they got here, it wasn’t this. Before either of us could get to our feet, Flyboy raised the burning ball over his head and threw it down into the basement.

  The smash of broken glass. The whoosh of flames hitting fuel. The glow of orange light shooting up from the hole.

  Jeremy stepped back as the fire lit up the grim determination on his face.

  “Get it closed!” I screamed, reaching down again for the trapdoor. There was moaning below. Smoke bellowed up around us. Eileen had a good hold of the door but I was next to useless.

  Then, I saw another flame in Flyboy’s hands. He was holding a lighter out to the stack of books by the door. Even without orders from the League, he’d decided to dispose of all the evidence.

  I left Eileen with the hatch and ran forward. The pain grew with every step but I did my best to block it out.

  I led with my shoulder, ready to charge, then WHACK! Flyboy spun around, maneuvering out of the way while sending a roundhouse kick into the side of my head.

  I crashed into a bookcase and it toppled over. There were stars in my eyes. And sparks. More fire.

  I found my feet again. I got ready to lunge but he was far too fast for me. Too agile. One punch under my ribs. One across my face. I tumbled back, twisting my ankle.

  SLAM! The trapdoor closed, trapping the monster.

  Good news.

  SLAM! The front door closed, trapping us.

  Bad, bad news.

  Flyboy was gone and there was fire all around me, too close to the door and burning too fast. The old books were passing flames to each other with wild generosity so I stumbled to my feet and backed up into the center of the room. I searched for something heavy to put over the trapdoor but everything was catching fire or too far away. There was no time.

  “We have to go up!” I called, but Eileen was way ahead of me, already off towards the back wall. This time, she went up the ladder first and when she got to the top, I was only halfway there. There was another bang below us and the trapdoor was flung open.

  I didn’t look back. It was enough to see the horror on Eileen’s face. But it did give me the impetus I needed to use both feet, despite the pain, to push myself up.

  Roars of fire and beast joined together in a terrifying symphony. When I rolled on to the landing and looked back, Rye was flailing in the center of the room, trying to put out the fire that covered his body. A lot of his skin was gone. His flesh was bubbling and black. The downside to having a body strengthened by magic is that it can push past pain that would kill a mortal ten times over.

  The heat was becoming too much to bear, especially since we were right above the fire. Eileen went
into Rye’s old room and I crawled behind. It was overcast, but a hint of morning sun came in the windows. Hot air and embers were rising up through the floorboards. Soon, the barrier between the library and the bedroom would be gone.

  I didn’t need to tell Eileen. She already had a chair over her head and was running at the window.

  CRASH!

  She got it in one, sending shards of glass out into the air. Oxygen rushed in and the floor seemed to swell as it fed the fire beneath us.

  I couldn’t stand, but I had enough energy to kick out the sharp pieces around the broken window, clearing the way for Eileen to descend.

  Out on the other side, there was nothing to climb down but a smooth, high wooden wall. Not easy to scale. The cracks between the beams and a ridge around a stained-glass window were the only crevices to hold on to.

  Eileen dropped her body out over the edge and started feeling for some purchase with her feet. It took her a while to trust it, but she found a way to start her descent.

  Rye’s screams echoed louder and louder. The floor was hot beneath my hands as I swung my leg out over the side, feeling the cool air across my back.

  SNAP! A huge part of the floor in front of me disappeared, dropping down into the library that was fully engulfed in flames.

  Rye was on the ground. His new, magic-filled muscles were exposed under burned skin. His horror only magnified when he looked up and felt the sunlight hit his face. He screamed, and his body sizzled and popped and –

  – my fingers slipped. I tumbled back. The last thing I remember was the sound of the landing, like someone stepping on an egg full of snails.

  Everything went black.

  34

  Thick smoke tunneled through my nose like an escaping prisoner and I coughed myself back to life. I was lying on my back, staring up at Sir William’s statue and the open sky above. An orange glow flickered across his joyous face. The blinding pain of my left arm almost paralyzed me but I forced myself to roll over and stare back at the library, where flames were dancing like showgirls in the wind. You could still smell the books. Centuries of thought and wonder were shooting out into the atmosphere in tiny sparks that glowed for a moment before dissolving into dust.

  Eileen was beside me, staring into the flames with such longing that I wondered whether she was about to run back inside to see what she could save.

  All was lost, and she knew it. The tears were cooked on her cheeks before they had a chance to fall.

  “We can’t tell them what happened,” I said. “Jeremy wanted us dead. If we don’t say anything about Rye or the League, he might not feel pressured to come back and finish the job.” She nodded with bitter acceptance. “Maybe you should go. Let me handle it from here.”

  She nodded again. Empty, but smart enough to understand that there was no good way to wrap this all up for the authorities. Or for anyone. She walked down the side of the hill, leaving me alone.

  The ash fell like snow and I watched the library burn till the fire department arrived. The police too. I didn’t say anything for a while, just took the kicks when they came and wondered what I could have done to make any of this better in any way.

  Back at the station, they really laid into me. Even Richie slapped me around a bit. He had to. I’d gone past their deadline, hadn’t told them anything, turned up at a burning building with the charred remains of a sixteen-year-old Siren, and wanted to stay silent about the whole thing.

  They’d been hoping January would turn out to be a runaway; stroll through her mum’s front door when she ran out of food. No one likes a story where a beautiful young girl turns up dead. I told them that I’d found the body but didn’t see the killer. Someone else started the fire, probably trying to get rid of evidence, but I’d managed to crawl out of the basement on my own just before everyone arrived.

  I mustn’t have been too convincing because they wailed on me into the night trying to find out who had hired me and why I wasn’t telling them. I took the punches. Not as well as I would have liked to. I wasn’t tough, just tired. Eventually, someone got too caught up in the moment and knocked me out of consciousness.

  A couple of days went by before I returned to Ridgerock with my arm in a sling and a lip like a blistered sausage. It was morning-tea and the kids were all out in the yard chasing each other in circles and screaming like a madhouse.

  The security guard didn’t want to let me in: no name on her papers.

  “Darling. Is this because I didn’t call?”

  She threw me a look that would scramble an egg.

  “Let him in, Doris.”

  Burbage was wearing the most boring brown suit ever made. He even wore a tie; dressed to impress in case the cops came knocking.

  Doris buzzed me in with the excitement of an undertaker and Burbage dragged out that same old smile he’d used every time I’d seen him. It was starting to wear a little thin.

  “I was getting worried,” he said. “I hadn’t heard from you in days.”

  “Yeah. The job was more complicated than I’d first imagined. A few more expenses, too.”

  Burbage had come prepared. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it over. I didn’t count it this time. I followed him up the path in silence and we sat ourselves down on a wooden bench. We had the mural behind us, playground in front of us and, I later found out, some strawberry jam under my left leg.

  I reached into my jacket and fingered the inside pocket but found nothing. I still hadn’t restocked my Clayfields and the cravings were kicking in hard.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea what Edmund had become.”

  “Shut it,” I snarled. “You’re a smart guy, Burbage. You were working me right from the start. You’re even doing it now by sitting me out here rather than in your office. You want to get me all sentimental so I won’t bury this school along with your bony old ass.”

  He shifted on the seat. For the first time since I’d met him, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was nervous. I wasn’t yet ready to enjoy much of anything, but it was still kind of nice to watch him squirm.

  “You should have come clean at the start and told me about January.”

  Burbage didn’t move, just stared ahead with a stony expression of contentment.

  “I didn’t know. I had fears for Edmund’s safety, and—”

  “Come off it. This was a cover-up. That’s why you didn’t go to the police and why you kept dragging me through your little show and tell. You needed me to know that if I linked that monster to the school then this whole place would go up in smoke just like the library.”

  He took out his pipe, still not looking at me. I wasn’t ready to let up.

  “Mrs Gladesmith knows everything.” I spat the words into his lap. “I sat down with her yesterday and took her through the whole stinking story. She slapped me around and cried on my shoulder and cursed your name till her voice broke.” His pipe stopped halfway to his lips. I let him suffer for a few satisfying moments. “But she wants to keep hush. For the school. If she didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. The cops would. And the gates and the playground and that goddamn ugly mural would all come crashing down.”

  The bell rang. Kids gathered their things and made their way back inside. All of them: Elf, Dwarf, Lycum, Ogre, Gnome, Goblin, Satyr and Siren. I understood why he’d been so careful to protect this place. The future of Sunder City looked darker than a blackbird’s shadow at midnight, but there was brightness here. If you had to protect something, this wasn’t the worst choice.

  “I’ll keep quiet,” I said. “I won’t mention Rye again.” I stood up and watched the last child pass back through those big red doors. “But if you ever endanger another one of these kids, I’ll cut off the rest of your fucking fingers.”

  He looked up and nodded. Somewhere in that brain was a glorious speech about how important the school was and how he had to do what he did for the good of the children. I was glad I didn’t have to hear it.

  The securit
y guard opened the gate when I approached but I didn’t go through. I turned around and looked back at the school, hoping I’d never have to enter the grounds again.

  “You think they get it?” I asked.

  The guard raised her head like a rusty drawbridge.

  “What?”

  “The kids. Do you think they know they missed out on the good stuff?”

  She screwed up her nose and thought about it. I mean, she really seemed to think it over, tapping her pen against her notepad and sucking on her teeth. Eventually, she said, “I don’t know how they can. This is all new to them, isn’t it? For them, this broken world will be the good stuff. I can’t imagine it’s not going to get worse by the time they’re as old as we are. Maybe by then we’ll all look back on today and wish we’d known how good we had it.”

  She went back to reading her paper. I took one last look at the empty playground and hoped like hell she wasn’t right.

  The day was too hot, too bright, too long and too loud and too full of life and death and me. I needed my painkillers. Sitting on a bicycle, outside the pharmacy, was a little Werewolf-kid who asked me for change.

  “Get in school,” I told him, and he laughed and pedaled away.

  I got my Clayfields, split open the pack and doubled-down. I wanted to visit Eileen but it was still too soon, and I couldn’t get over that look in her eye as the library went up in smoke.

  Before I left the pharmacy, I asked the woman behind the counter whether she knew of any bookstores. She didn’t.

  I asked the traffic cop on the corner and the drug dealer in the alley. They didn’t know anything so I went into the laundromat, the butcher, the blacksmith and none of them could think of where one might be.

  I stopped asking and just started walking through the streets, hoping to spot one between the ruined buildings, closed shopfronts and street vendors.

  The whores didn’t pay me any attention. I spotted a guy who was sizing me up for a mugging, but I just raised my broken arm and told him he was too late. A woman pushed her boyfriend out on to the street, screaming and throwing punches; you knew just by looking at him that he deserved it.